201 days Uganda…

I am back in my hometown and slowly trying to settle back into my “old” life. Even if it has only been six days, Uganda feels like a lifetime ago. The realities in these two worlds are so different that it is somehow difficult to imagine that just a few days ago, I was riding on a bodaboda through crazy Kampala or holding a workshop for teachers in a rural school.

As if I spent 201 days in a different world, a different life…

These months had so many interesting aspects in store for me - things I kind of expected but also a lot that I did not expect.

Today, I wanted to share some of my struggles during my deployment because, during a meeting with other volunteers, I realised that we all struggled with some (smaller or bigger) issues in our volunteer lives, but we don't address them enough to make each other heard and seen during our deployments. I am lucky because I had amazing housemates with whom I could discuss literally anything, but maybe not all of us are this lucky. 
In the training, you will talk about mental health and how to navigate unforeseen situations during your deployment, but being in the field might present you with issues you did not expect. 

With this post, my goal is to share some insights into my deployment so...

... if you are another volunteer, I want to let you know you are not alone with whatever difficulties you may face. Reach out to others and talk about it!

... if you are considering volunteering, I want to tell you that maybe not every day will be a “happy day”, but every day will offer you an opportunity to learn and grow.

I want to write down a few issues I encountered during my deployment because I want to keep it real. I want to show that everything you encounter will present you with a choice—am I going to be upset about it or even quit, or do I want to learn something from this?

Throughout these months, I organised various activities, some focused on children and others on adults. Overall, I believe I contributed something valuable to both projects I was placed; however, my time with one of them presented me with several frustrating situations.

My experiences with the staff at this one project taught me that sometimes you can do your best, but if your counterpart is not motivated to do their part, the project can only go so far. In the end, the successful outcome of a project cannot depend on just one person.

I want to give you some examples from my work experiences, but I know that if you read them, they might sound trivial to you, but for me, at the time, they were not.  

I was tasked with computer training, literacy projects, and creating a new library space. The first two tasks could not be implemented due to a lack of funding, so we decided that creating a new library space would be the main activity initially. Later, I could use this new space for workshops. Little did I know that fixing two broken iron sheets and one window would take over three months and moving into the library would take another month.

While waiting for the building to be fixed - because moving books in a room with a leaking roof during the rainy season wouldn’t be too smart - I sorted through piles of mouldy books. I spent days reviewing over 200 English Textbooks (from the US and Canada) to figure out how these could be useful in combination with the Ugandan curriculum. All this work wouldn’t have been too frustrating; sure, it's not what I came to do, but it was work that I thought would be helpful for teachers in the end.

What frustrated me was how my work was treated. One day, while I was working on the other project, two workers chaotically pulled out all the English textbooks I had spent days categorising and threw them in disorganised piles on the floor.
When I saw this pile of books, all I could do was take a deep breath and leave that room. There was no point in being upset since everything was already done, and they couldn’t fix it.

Another situation was a conversation between my boss and my hosting organisation. From the start, my boss told me there was little funding (they, like many other NGOs in Uganda, lost funding during the COVID-19 pandemic).
I was told that they could fix everything in mid-November, so we planned on opening the library on December 1st when the long school holidays commence. But at the beginning of December, the roof and window were not fixed, and rainwater damaged the newly painted ceiling and walls. Therefore, my hosting organisation offered to contribute to the repair costs. And to my surprise and shock instead of accepting these funds, my boss said, “Money has never been an issue here.”
I had spent weeks hearing my boss say, “We don’t have money.” … And yet, apparently, there was, because the library roof was fixed within one week and the window installed. I don’t know how I can explain my disappointment in this situation. I trusted that the process was delayed because of a lack of funding, but in the end, I wondered the real reason for the repair work delay.

Ultimately, I am happy I could set up the new library location, but I “lost” around four months of my six-month deployment because my counterparts were not equally engaged in making this project a success.

Different situations made me question why I was even volunteering there and wonder if my time was really spent well in Uganda. At some point, I chose to reevaluate these situations. I decided to take the experience and see what I could learn. And I know now that all these little moments trained my resilience for the work environment. I became more adaptable and resourceful; I learned how to deal with setbacks and frustration caused by other people's actions and how to make the most of any situation to successfully do my part in a project.

My volunteering experience was not what I thought it would be, but in the end, I had 201 interesting, exciting, and educational days in Uganda - 201 days I wouldn’t want to miss.