Retrospective

When I read back over my initial impressions, I’d probably express some of my ideas differently – distance has a big impact on how you view things after all. I did a lot of preparatory work for the project and had a lot of meetings with people, but the project has ended up becoming something different to what I’d envisioned – though I think the result is still well-rounded. One thing I couldn’t have prepared myself for is the impact the country’s poverty has had on me, and what it was like to experience this in person. Talking about poverty and seeing it in real life are two totally different things. That’s why so many opinions seem a bit “unprofessional” from the point of view of people who know a lot about Africa, and I know that there are countries which are far poorer and where people are much worse off than here. All the same, I think that if you accept many of the conditions in Uganda or have seen worse, then you can become hardened to a degree, and I don’t know if that’s how I want to be with regard to this issue.

I wrote somewhere that there are development and aid organisations that send their employees to stay in a developing country every two years. It has become very clear to me how my stay has changed my view of aid work and the needs it addresses, though I had spent a lot of time considering this issue beforehand. But there’s no way you can get to know the harshness of the conditions for people living in Uganda and the country itself, with all of its challenges, if you’re only here as a tourist or on business and only stay in good hotels in the capital. Or if you stay in your home country and talk about things you haven’t experienced. Maybe it’s true to say that only someone who has personally experienced something really has knowledge of that situation. If you want to participate in a serious manner in this discussion, you should spend several weeks seeing things close up. You have to go to where the deprivation is. My impression is that communication has to improve between the people who work on the ground in the developing countries and the people who make the decisions about strategic projects from their desks in Germany or some other well-off location. I think that one of the reasons is that the projects’ decision-makers simply can’t envision what the day-to-day conditions are like for people living in developing countries because they themselves have never experienced them.

I remember the time I spent in the war zone in Croatia at the start of the 1990s. There was a plan for building a refugees’ village with barracks-style housing. Everything was planned down to the last detail in a typical German way – streets meeting at right angles, tarred roads, the location of street signs signalling “yield to traffic coming from the right”. To this day, I’m not sure if the right of way laws in Germany are the same as in Croatia. When the builders left, the housing units stood there and the scores of people were there too – but the plan contained no information about what was to be done for them next. When nothing happened, I asked around if someone could drive a lorry. My first, impulsive decision was to get several thousand litres of drinking water for the people in the village – they were thirsty. I’ll never forget the image of people on their knees with gratitude for what I’d done. At the time, I was only 20 years old and I thought I was naïve. Now I think that if more decision-makers had personal experience of what people’s needs and challenges were like, they could channel investments more efficiently to the people who are meant to receive aid. 

What will I be leaving behind here (apart from five kilos which have simply melted off me), and what will I be taking with me? I didn’t always find it easy to do without things which I consider essential, e.g. hot water. Compared with most people in the country, I no doubt had it good, but my living conditions were often very basic and I can’t pretend that I’m not looking forward to a clean bathroom, a good mattress (and my own choice of “bedmates”, i.e. none of those representatives of Uganda’s fauna who occasionally made their way into my room), using aftershave instead of nobite mosquito spray, and to a bit more predictability – I found that life here was dominated by extremes, and they dominated my impressions too.

This blog only recounts some of my experiences here. My stay in Uganda also included other things, such as my contribution to building a three-ton 5 kilowatt solar unit for a school – I was involved in that in a private capacity and it took almost all of the strength I could muster, but it wasn’t an issue that fell within the scope of the blog. I’ve learned so much, and I’ve met incredibly friendly people who were so ready to help. I’ve explored the country’s fantastic landscape and its animal world at the weekend. I wrote about how relaxed the people are – this in particular was sometimes hard for me to accept, for example when I noticed that so many people here see themselves more as objects instead of subjects. How they wait for something to happen instead taking charge of things themselves. I haven’t fully understood if this is in part due to the deeply religious attitudes in the country (84% of Ugandans are Christian, a very high percentage) and to the notion that “God will take care of things”, or if it is a deep-rooted lethargy that arises from the country’s educational infrastructure, which is in part very backward. I often had to pull myself together so I could cope with it.

I am particularly grateful to Silvia, who managed this project and Deutsche Bank’s contacts with the Mountains of the Moon University. She made countless preparations, organised and managed so much, so that I had backup upon arrival and during the further course of my work in Uganda. None of this would have been possible otherwise. THANK YOU!

I am also very, very grateful to Oliver and Felix from GIZ, who helped create such a good environment for my work at Fort Portal – your achievements are absolutely fantastic! Felix above all was ready to help me with advice and action whenever I needed it, to help me master the big and small hurdles I encountered in everyday life, and he was a great housemate and discussion partner. I’d like to thank above all my friends for their support, great discussions and e-mails; my colleagues in Frankfurt who took on my work while I was away; my boss, who lent her express support to the plan; and Deutsche Bank’s corporate social responsibility division, which made the project possible. So many colleagues at the bank have expressed interest and support, and so many wished me all the best before I left for Africa – I would also like to thank them from the bottom of my heart!

The past few weeks have made so many things much clearer to me personally. They have revealed limits, but they have also shown me how much more grateful we should be for things that we simply take for granted. I can only recommend that everybody undertake such a challenge at some point in their lives.

Day 26

My last day in Fort Portal. I really can’t believe that I am about to leave. In just under four weeks here, I’ve gotten to know so many people, I’ve conducted talks, and now I have the feeling that some of the vague ideas and notions I had when I arrived have become clearer. The project has become more of a feasibility study, finding out what routes Deutsche Bank could take if it pursued another joint project, where we can create connections, where we can make a contribution with our knowledge. Now, the department has a definite plan for the next few months and local banks have pledged their support. The school of business can use its new brochures as effective, targeted advertisements and raise its profile within the market. I think these form a good foundation to build on.

In the afternoon, a visiting Dutch professor gives a lecture at the university. He’s one of the world’s leading economic historians. He was one of Felix’s professors, and it was Felix who invited him to Uganda. His lecture focuses on the historical development of states, why some countries became well-off about 300 years ago and why others became poor. The professor provides us with an overview of different economic developments over the last few centuries. He lists factors that can help countries become prosperous; one of the issues he mentions is the effect exerted by the number of children people have and how much is invested in their education. The lecture covered far too much for me to repeat here. It’s clear how, alongside a host of other factors, investment in education – including general financial education – is connected to economic development. The Mountains of the Moon University has put several projects in place to address this issue, including training courses for the people working for microfinance institutes and SACCOs, the BCom in banking and research degrees. These are small steps in a country with big problems. But they still represent further progress in the right direction. 

Maybe we can continue to support the university. That’s a result I’d like to see.



Day 25

Felix and I go to visit a tea plantation. I wanted to have a look at a cooperative before I leave: the tea-pickers know what their work is and what they earn. The cooperative also has a savings and credit cooperation (SACCO). Felix has good contacts because the university worked with the tea plantation to conduct a microfinance study looking at income, savings behaviour etc. To repay the favour, I promise to make my photos available.

We stop by the field to talk to the tea-pickers. They earn 70 Ugandan shillings per kilogram of tea picked – that’s less than EUR 0.20. The so-called poverty line for everyday needs is set at USD 1.25 per day. That meand these people need to pick more than 6kg of tea a day to be able to satisfy their subsistence needs. You can only really imagine how much that is if you’ve ever weighed out fresh plant shoots. The workers have enormous baskets strapped to their backs and move across the field bent double; the plants are almost one metre tall.

I spend the afternoon reviewing this week’s meetings, and the evening conferring with Oliver and Felix from the German development organisation GIZ; alongside Geoffrey from the Banking Department is another attendee, Brenda, who has been taken on part-time to boost the chair’s staffing levels. I’m pleased, because it means the department is finally growing. It’s high time - Geoffrey can’t manage all the work alone.

We discuss the next steps: Several banks have agreed to cooperate with the university, offer internships, would possibly like to send employees to give lectures, and are prepared to take part in a review workshop. Now the department has to set a date for the workshop, invite the banks and prepare topics for an expert lecture series. On top of this, there is a further position to be filled in the department, and the basics of banking need to be taught in the students’ first semester.

Day 24

After some more meetings with banks and the CEO of an international microdeposit institution, our talks for the day end at noon. I get into the car with the driver I’ve hired and we head off to Fort Portal. My impressions of the city are repeated.

Once in Fort Portal, I’m really glad to be back. It’s a bit like home to me after the hectic city. Now that we’ve covered over 300 km of rough, bumpy road, I’m looking forward to having a hot shower – there was none in the hotel this morning. No sooner have I set foot in our little lodge then it begins to pour from the heavens. I head to the bathroom and want to turn on the boiler for the shower – nothing. The electricity’s out. I have to laugh out loud. Home again.

Unexpectedly, Steffi is standing in the doorway. She’s got a huge box with 7,500 condoms with her. I look at her questioningly. Steffi’s a nurse from Germany and travels around Uganda to meet all of the aid workers so she can advertise HIV prevention with all of the organisations she supervises. MMU also undertakes programmes within this field, above all HIV testing.

Officially, the number of people in Uganda with HIV is put at about 6%, and the country has taken an active approach to addressing the problem of Aids. All the same, you can hear reports that the infection rate has jumped significantly once more, and you can see posters everywhere that advertise monogamy and partnerships. A attractive African woman lies on a sandy beach with a man who has his arm around her, and there are children in the background. Interestingly, the man isn’t looking at the woman, or at the children – he’s staring off into nothing. The writing says “Spend more time together to avoid a sexual network”. Uganda doesn’t have any sandy beaches.

In addition, you can’t help but notice that there was a recent attempt to put a law through Uganda’s parliament that would have made homosexuality and HIV infections punishable with the death penalty. The international media reported this turn of events. The law has since then been stopped.

Day 23

Geoffrey and I have spent the day in meetings with various banks and describing the university, the advantages we see for the banking market, and our clear vision for the shape that cooperation could take. The non-stop traffic jams, the stench of the car fumes, the lack of forward motion – they all get to me. Every so often there’s a downpour and torrents of water come flowing down the streets.

Day 22

My fourth week starts today. The first time I heard about the project here, I sent my neighbour a text message straight away asking “Where is Uganda exactly?” She studied geography and I can really imagine her burying her face in her hands. Her answer shot back at me: it was a screenshot of a map with an arrow pointing to the country. Plus a clever quip. True, I had a rough idea of the country’s location, but I could never have listed what countries it borders, even though I’m a member of the generation that had to learn the names of rivers in the heart of the African continent off by heart instead of the capitals of Germany’s federal states. Wikipedia had to do as my first source of more in-depth information about Uganda. Now I have the impression that I’ve added so many things I’ve experienced and learned myself in such a short time that the country has become very close to me. I was recently on the phone to a colleague and said “If something happens, just give me a call. I don’t disappear.” He retorted, “From here, it actually looks like you’re at the edge of the Republic of Congo, somewhere in tropical Uganda, you occasionally don’t have any electricity – you’re that close to disappearing…” That’s not what it seems like to me.

My first meeting with a bank is at 9 am, and it unfortunately gets cancelled at 8.30. This gives me the chance to make a few calls before heading off to my next meeting at noon. It takes ages to get there. We’re stuck in traffic, dust and dirt get blown into the car, the fumes, cars everywhere, and then there are the only six traffic lights in all of Uganda – they’re in Kampala. People keep going even if the lights are red, because the police will direct traffic how they see fit anyhow. They can’t do much directing as it is, because people drive as they please and use up every inch of space they can, so cars are all over the place. This chaos is joined today by a huge police contingent: the trial has begun of the people behind the terrorist attack in July 2010, when extremists detonated a bomb at a football World Cup game in Kampala and killed over 80 people.
The man I’m scheduled to meet is not at his desk: I’m told he’s just gone to eat. A colleague says that a number of things have been postponed this afternoon. It seems that it’s no big deal at all to disappear only to turn up, maybe, an hour later… We – Geoffrey, head of the banking department at the Mountains of the Moon University, and I – don’t have to wait long however. Our meeting partner’s superior comes to meet us immediately. I tell him about the new BCom degree in banking, the students’ qualifications and about what this new degree can offer the local banking sector. The man is very interested, his bank will open a new branch in Fort Portal next week. The impression he gives is that he has a positive opinion: he reads what the university has to offer and sees the advantages hiring a graduate brings: until now, there were no training standards in Uganda’s banking sector. There might be further education and courses for people when they get hired, but the banks take on people without any prior banking knowledge.

When, over a year ago, a former colleague from Deutsche Bank came to Uganda for the first time, the bachelor of banking project and rural microfinance courses were in their earliest days. Both courses were brand new. The work that needed to be done included establishing the department, getting banks involved so that a real timetable could be drawn up, advertising training courses and possibly getting financial or material support for a “banking lab” as a space where students could practise on banking programs on PCs.

Unfortunately, the university alone was not in a position to continue these negotiations over the last year and a half. The contacts are now by and large no longer active. Our hope of integrating local partners has three aims. One the one hand, the meetings serve as advertising for the university: this time, colleagues from the banks’ HR departments are at the meetings too so that they know who the graduates are when they apply for jobs.

I am less interested in obtaining direct help to structure and expand the course: I am focusing my energy on advertising cooperative ties to the university as an equal partner. The university can deliver something that is a direct advantage for the local banks. The meetings therefore cover three points: internships as practical support for what students learn in their classes, a lecture series which sees all Ugandan banks send experts to Fort Portal to hold lectures twice a year and tell students what work is like within banks, and a one-off review workshop that functions like round-table talks between the university department, the banks’ representatives, and possibly the student. During the review workshop, the course’s contents can be revised or, if necessary, adapted to suit the requirements of the local market.  

Day 21

Today is wonderfully unspectacular. The trip from Jinja back to Kampala is a non-stop bone-shaking experience, but that’s nothing new, is it? The traffic in Kampala is, as usual, a mess – no surprises there either. And even the women with the banana stalks on their heads don’t really impress me anymore. The man with the plastic paddling pool I saw on my first day in Kampala is back, and I wonder briefly if I should make a present of the thing for the other people on the team on my last day…

I collect the new brochures later on: they describe the business and departments in greater detail. I had one particular requirement for my meetings with the local banks: I wanted to have something that I could give potential project partners so that they had a quick overview of the immediate advantages of the university course and the graduates’ qualifications. What’s in it for local partners if they support the course?

One aid worker said to me, “You can’t force people to want something: they have to want it by themselves.” I agree with him – if someone doesn’t see a need to get involved in something, they won’t get involved. I have to think of an interview I took part in years ago, it was about motivating people. The interviewee said, “If you want people to build a raft, you have to make them long for the sea.” It sounds maybe a bit poetic, but this is essentially exactly what you have to do.  

Oliver and I worked on the flyer for describing the fields of microfinance and banking, we supplied some points regarding content, and scores of photos I’ve taken have made their way into the brochure. A graphic designer did the layout of the texts and photos, the results are good. The flyer provides a clear overview of the university, its business school, the department. Again I think we’ve taken a big step forward. What will it inspire in the readers?