Intro: Getting caught up by David Johnson

It’s 9:00 am and we spent last night in Mbale, staying in Phillip and Laura Shero’s guesthouse. They now have it stocked with everything needed to be pretty self-sufficient--three small bedrooms, kitchen with refrigerator and small gas camp-style cooking burners, bathroom with heated water. The water is more drip than flow, but it’s nice to have a warm shower and, of course, to see the Sheros again.

Since this is my first note, I have to go back to remember the what, who and when of the past week. To do so, I resort to my list of expenditures for the past week. Follow the money, they say, and that’s how I remember the rest. We have been staying in the home of Irene Kimeze, good friend and recently widowed when her husband Moses, along with missionary Adam Langford, was killed in a truck accident in January. Since last Monday, I’ve been driving her car and will use it to go to western Uganda next week. We did at least have the experience of riding in a matatu to town and back a time or two. (A matatu is a mini-van with four rows of seats. On the side of each is stenciled “Licensed to carry 14 passengers,” but I think they should add “but committed to carrying 20.” If you ride matatus very much you will eventually be sitting face-to-face with a chicken—it’s just a matter of time. A matatu ride is an experience in the sights, sounds, and especially the odors of Africa—oh, the humanity! Not many whites use the matatus, for matters of convenience and safety (traffic accidents), so when we ride in them I’m aware that it is one of the rare times that the average rural Ugandan comes into close physical proximity to whites.

We arrived in Entebbe last Thursday, 5/24 and spent the night at Banana Village, a retreat center owned by James and Jemimah Semakadde. They are Christians who lived in Searcy for a few years back in the late 1990s while James worked on a Master’s of Education degree at Harding. We slept too long on Friday, not really waking up until about 3:00 pm. James took us across the road to a small quarry where a group of about 20 men and (mostly) women and children manually dig large rocks, even boulders, out of a hillside and break them into gravel for building construction. The young men beat at the boulders with sledge hammers, even lighting brush fires up against them to soften them. (Does this work?)

We visited with one of the women there, an acquaintance of Semakadde’s, and got some info on her. She gets large stones from the young men and, with a small sledge hammer, all day long pounds them into the gravel. I paid the price of a new hammer to buy from her one of the old ones that had been worn down to a nub, a visual reminder that life is tougher for some than others. Age is hard to measure here by sight. I’d say she’s in her sixties or beyond. Her husband is older, as is the custom here, and unable to work, so her labor supports the two of them plus seven orphans. (The word “orphans” has a nebulous meaning here. It can refer to children who have lost both parents, or who have lost only one, or just children whose parents cannot or will not fully support them.) The woman sells a truckload of gravel for $65, from which she must pay about $30 to the man who provided the stones and the property owner and the men who load the truck. So she nets about $35 per month, just over $1 per day, or around $350-$400 per year, which must support nine people. James knows her and she allowed us to take some photos of her.

(Note: We brought with us a used Canon photo printer and plenty of ink and photo paper so we can provide photo prints for people in the villages, many of whom do not have photos of themselves, and have never seen themselves except in a mirror. It is a nice gift to them and something to open doors and to remember us by. It also sometimes gives us photo opportunities that we wouldn’t otherwise have, since people are much more willing to allow their pictures to be made if you can provide a print. That night, I made the prints and everything worked just fine, despite the apparent fluctuation in the power flow to the laptop, which is probably not a good thing.)

Most rural Ugandans raise food and get water from bore holes or other public wells, and they live in mud and grass huts. Their basic needs for food, clothing and shelter are not hard to satisfy. Still, the water must be boiled, changes of clothes are few, the diet is poor in nutrients, and grass roofs don’t keep out heavy rains. The biggest recurring out-of-pocket expenses for them are for school fees and medical costs. Technically, public primary schools are free; practically, even primary students are asked to contribute for the materials, teachers’ salaries, maintenance, etc., and may be neglected by the teacher if they don’t pony up. In many schools in the U.S., parents of elementary school students go to Wal-Mart or Office Depot at the start of a school year to buy a list of items they are expected to bring, such as Kleenex, crayons, snacks, other items. I don’t know the actual amounts, but I think the total cost is less than $20-$30. Suppose they went to purchase the items and the cost was about $1,000? In relative terms, that’s something like the situation the typical rural Ugandan parent of young children faces.

Fees really skyrocket in secondary school, especially if the distance to a decent local school is too great and the family has to send the child to boarding school. This is fairly common, and due to low incomes and high fees, a lot of kids don’t go to school, and a number go only sporadically. They are sent home when the fees go unpaid, returning to school when money is available and the fees are paid up. When they do attend, the public school classrooms are often overcrowded—I’ve heard reports of as many as 150 students in a class with one teacher, and I think 50 or more per class is not uncommon. As dismal as this seems, there are bright and encouraging spots, some of which I’ll relate in the near future. As for the quarry workers, most of them bring their children to “work” with them. What does the future hold for them?

On Wednesday, May 30 we went to Musima village, about a 30 minute drive north of Jinja. I’m driving Kimeze’s car and having more fun with that I expected. Moses Kirya, preacher for the Musima church of Christ, arrived at Irene’s house about 9:15 am to direct us there. On the way to his house, we stopped off at the homes of two women in the Musima women’s group who would not be able to come to the larger meeting later that morning. One lady could not leave her three small children and another had been ill—one side of her face was swollen, I asked about her condition but Kirya said she had seen a doctor who said it was getting better. We prayed with her and headed up the dirt road to a newly formed Musima Church of Christ pre-school. The school was started recently by Samuel, a church member at Musima who had been trained by Rebecca Dahlstrom and Erika Pierson, former teaching missionaries in Jinja. He has built a structure on his own property and receives some payments from some of the parents, although I assume the payments are small and irregular. It is truly humbling to see what sincere and dedicated men and women are doing to serve the needs of their families and communities with almost nothing in the way of material or financial resources.

At the school, Lexie started making soap bubbles that floated over their heads and into the pack. The kids chased them and laughed, and it was really hilarious. Finally we went to Kirya’s house, and there we had African tea and chapati—I put sugar on mine. Chapati are greasy, thick tortillas. The other day, I had Irene make one for me without much oil and it was really good, but they tend to use too much oil for my tastes, or to add some oil shortly before taking them off the griddle. Zipporah is Kirya’s wife and the best basket maker in the group. Loy is the widow of Kirya’s brother, who died of AIDS. She has been the leader of the group but is not doing well recently, and Kirya said she was infected by her husband and is now showing the signs.

On last year’s visit, Kirya was building a new house about 50 feet from the old one. The new one is not yet completed but it’s pretty nice by local standards, larger than most, and with a metal roof. It is a good thing he had started the new one, and here’s why: This past spring Kirya’s brother had showed signs of mental instability, claiming that someone or something was trying to kill him. The brother committed suicide by hanging in the old house. When the police came and the neighbors gathered, they said that the old house had to be torn down and the contents burned. They threw the brother’s body in a makeshift grave and somehow converted the house into a pile of rubble that is still there. Kirya says they lost some belongings that were burned.

One of our primary goals of this trip was to make photos and videos and gather personal information about the women we are working with in selling baskets and jewelry. We’ll use this info to develop promotional materials to advertise their crafts, and also to tell their stories. We try to discuss our efforts freely with the women, about our desire to tell people in the U.S. about their work and their lives. Their stories are those of sickness, death, hardship, and continually living on the edge, but they are also stories of courage, faith, and perseverance. When we visit them and hear and see their expressions of thanks, we commit to ourselves and to them to see that this work continues and grows. I want them to know that more and more women in the U.S. are learning about them and enjoying their crafts, and are also being encouraged by their ability to keep plodding along for their families' sakes.

When Marlea and I started this work last fall, we were careful not to use a story of pity to sell baskets and jewelry. Some of the artisans are by now very close personal friends, and our personal commitment to them is continually growing. We have been blessed with many partners in this, including many of you who have bought these items, and especially our families and friends and family at the Vaughn Park church in Montgomery and the Downtown church in Searcy, and of course the support in various forms that I receive at Faulkner. We will use the promotional materials to grow the market for their items, to share their stories, to increase the perceived value of their products, and therefore, hopefully, to see profits grow so we can have more to share with them. Moses Kimeze stated clearly last summer that the people in the U.S. must get a good value as well, and we know that’s the only way to grow the market. Someone who buys a basket and believes she has gotten a good value will buy more items and tell others about it; if she pays more than she thinks it is worth “just to be nice,” she probably won’t do it again, and she probably won’t recommend it to others. That’s my belief.

Our policy in compensating the artisans is simple in concept: When we work directly with the artisans, as with the Musima women’s group, we pay them local price plus 20%, and explain that the premium over local price is to obtain their best quality. We incur costs of shipping, promotion, and administration. Then, when we sell the items in the U.S., we send half the profits on those items back to them as a group to use for purposes they choose. (In one instance, last fall we sent $100 profits back to the Musima women’s group, which they used to pay school fees and buy clothes for seven especially neglected children that they wanted to support.)

We are careful not to pay inflated prices for the baskets (and it’s very easy for Americans to want to “fix” Africa by throwing around money), which distorts local prices and the incentives they face. We believe that overpaying gives them a false picture of what things are worth and induces behavioral changes that are, in the long term, harmful. Of course, we started this ministry to bless their lives through business development, and one way is by helping them access the U.S. market. We want much of the value created by sales of their goods in the U.S. to be used to bless their lives, so we send half the profits back to their community and use the other half to fund our buildup of inventory, pay for website maintenance, and fund other African missions-related expenditures.

We are not trying to shield these women from market forces, but are trying to help them meet the demands of the market. Based on my study and experience, that’s the best way to provide for sustained improvement in their ability to produce income. I must close by saying that our policies have been developed from thought, prayer, study, and experience. I would be happy to explain further or to respond to comments or questions you may have.

Thanks to those of you who have supported our work here. We are blessed to the names and faces of the brothers and sisters in Christ and the others who are blessed by your assistance, even though you have yet to meet them personally.