Getting what you asked for...

When I thought about going to Peace Corps, I wanted the opportunity to do “my work” in a more organic way.    Using my skills in creative context driven ways is one way to look at it.  A longtime believer and trainer in the process of “creating our own reality,” I am struck by how my work in PC is manifesting and just how close a match it is to what I did in the past.  And: it.is.very.organic!  Be careful what you wish for ;-)

I admit to wondering/fantasizing about what my placement would be like – conjuring long days of sitting in a hut somewhere far from the civilized world, time to meditate, time and empty space to conjure new metaphysical adventures  - maybe even a UFO or two out there on the African plains.  I thought I would be riding a bike long distances. tucking my skirts around me so as not to expose any thigh god forbid.   And actually, I’m not alone in that conjuring, though few of us have it to that extent.

As you know by now, I’m here in Gulu – the second largest city in Uganda (which does NOT mean large by US. standards).  But it is definitely a town, with roads, garbage, dust, noise, crowds and some utilities some of the time.  I have not thrown my leg over a bike once -  it’s too risky in the presence of Bodas and SUVs who consider an inch clearance giving wide berth.  So I walk everywhere – because I can.  I’ve not meditated more than a few minutes here and there, but I do – on a daily basis - use the spiritual tools I came with.  Nope – no UFO’s either. I don’t think Museveni’s fighter jets based a few kilometers away qualify. Plenty of ghosts I suspect, but they are not visiting and I don’t seek them out.  I’m glad of that. 

In the presence of so many nods to development, one can be tricked into thinking other things are available too, but the things that are lacking are interesting in what they say at a deeper level.   (For instance, I can buy a mobile modem and almost always get internet for my computer but I can’t get a file folder.  I can get a mobile phone that takes two sim-cards and will do everything but make toast, but I can’t buy a pot that won't burn rice.)

So what’s not surprising (in terms of my stated goal) is that I have been plunked down in an organization that well – needs a lot of organization.  They are not alone in this and it does not negate in anyway the work they do.  It is good work, useful work and contributive, but once again infrastructure is lacking: it goes all the way to the basics and impacts everything.

I’m in the process of going through literally thousands of pieces of paper and publications, many tossed willy-nilly into file cabinets stuffed  to over-flowing.  I’ve been provided with file cabinets, have ordered hanging files, white boards and markers and most, if not all, are forthcoming.  But it’s the little things that make document storage doable, time tables work and accountability possible and those are hard to come by if  available at all.  Most have not even been heard of – even at Uchumi, the Munu store.

File folders, abundant in the states, do not exist in areas outside of Kampala.  Ask for a file folder, and you get a flimsy folder with clasps. In the best of worlds, there might be one cut from construction paper and folded.  Files are stored in File Boxes, whether you have one piece of paper of 1000.  You can imagine the space this wastes and when there IS no space, it’s maddening.  And like all governments the government of Uganda prides itself in generating unending reports, many of which land in the offices of NGOs.  (Don't be confused by the fact "Non Governmental Organizations," there are plenty of gov't documents to go around.) They are hard to store and end up in slippery piles that slide like goo, in non-defined categories that no one can find when they are needed to justify a grant proposal, etc.

So why not just go down to the local Container Store or Walmart or even the super market and buy some metal bookends or even those cardboard periodical boxes that come in packages of 10?  Not only are they not available, no one here has every heard of such a thing and they are truly excited by the concept that such things exists.

Why is this?  Because people here do not typically have enough to justify things to store things in.  Metal bookends would imply that one has enough books to be organized and this is not a reading culture.    No books – no libraries - no bookends.  And it follows: no magazines, no magazine boxes. 

Therefore,  I will go search the stores for thrown away cardboard boxes and somehow cut them to size to create these storage boxes and will probably go to the metal work shop and ask if they can make me such a thing as a book end.  Why?  Because if they are not better organized, they cannot get reports in on time.  If reports aren’t filed on time, the money doesn’t get released on time.  If the money is not there, kids don’t learn to read and write.  It gets very fundamental.

Back to bookends, it’ll be interesting to see if I can actually get the things made.  The other day I needed a curtain rod so went to the local metal shop and they cut re-bar to length.  I’m sure these things don’t sound critical, when one thinks of Peace Corps as supplying basic needs, but the ability to organize things, set priorities, consolidate, etc. is at the core of creating the infra-structure needed to keep offices that provide services moving forward.  While technology is here to begin to keep records on-line, those records must first be thought of, mentally organized, and maintained somewhere in a findable way.

It’s a world grasping at floatsome in the sea tossing between IT and the world one hundred years ago.  It makes for some interesting contradictions and curious challenges.  There are odd holes in the fabric of development and a lot of what we do here is patching, when what is needed is the weaving of whole, new cloth.