Just two days before the election, and all is quiet. Work is quiet as well, no meetings nobody around. Many have traveled home to villages to vote as much of the working population maintains a home where they are from and rent where they work.
The final political campaigning is ongoing, lots of trucks with loudspeakers, just like Brazil, with their candidate posters on them.
There have been many shows of force in the past week…daily military drills of 100 young men in the soccer field, then singing and marching up and down the streets with sticks. A fighter jet circled overhead a few days back, and since planes NEVER pass over Lira, it was an event to have everyone out on the street. Today I passed two separate groups of police in full riot gear with shields, but when they saw me big smiles and good mornings… somewhat less intimidating than I am sure they are meant to be.
Our passports were couriered to us, in case we have to get out of town fast. The security of our compound has been enhanced, yet we still have no guard.
We have been told to stay home and lay low from Thur to Tues, until after the results are announced. Keep an ear to the ground and be alert for developing situations, echoed the emails from various sources (VSOU, Canadian Consulate, British Embassy). Have enough water, fuel, mobile air time and food for 5 days, just in case of a collapse of systems. So I went shopping again today for some final things.
Lets just see how things go.
I plan to clean up the garden and prepare for the rainy growing season during the down time. Best to just keep busy and productive. When I return to work on Tuesday I will begin in earnest working with the Community Development Office to identify and map the locations of youth groups within Lira district. We have a survey to run, and i have a few people now who want to work with me.
I had a meeting with my Shea Butter source - Mike yesterday in the market and we talked about potential markets, and he showed me the soap he makes. His shea butter is wonderful, less firm than that of Western Africa (notably Ghana) and from a different variety of tree that is apparently superior. He admitted the soap needs some work and told me it does not lather so it can't compete with the other soaps available. I told him the secret is to use goats milk not water. He laughed, where would I get goats milk? He said.
Considering you can't walk anywhere in Lira without tripping over a goat or cow I thought this was an odd problem. Apparently, they don't see goats as milk producers.
I recall a similar issue in Brazil, they didn't see chickens as egg producers, just for meat.
I have asked around and no one milks goats. In fact the idea seems to make everyone giggle a little. "Have you seen our goats?" They say,"they are too strong!.... They are too skinny"… It seems to be another one of these things in Uganda where the idea that is normal to me is just ridiculous to them. So I presented this problem to Bob my co worker who is very interested in my project. I figure if he can get the word out we need goat milk we might be able to find someone that can help.
So this has now become Sally and Bob's soap mission. I joked we should start our own youth groups (one for shea butter and one for goat milk) and do it as a case study for the project. I have a number of people who want to learn how to make it. So as in Brazil I have a project that will be a bit of a distraction and sideline. Always need extra projects.
No comments:
Post a Comment