Kakira: Mo' money mo' problems

Hey, we actually got stuff done today. We went up to Kagogwa Primary and met with some of the teachers and the committee members. And guess what: the borehole is fixed! So now the school has clean, drinkable water a few steps away. Unfortunately, it cost more than we anticipated—about 700,000 shillings (roughly 318 USD, a little under half of our budget). A lot of the language in the meeting made us uncomfortable, since they kept referring to us as “their saviors” and a couple of times as “the funders”. That’s exactly the opposite of the type of development we’re doing. We aren’t here to give out money, we’re here to show people how they can solve their own problems and chip in a few extra resources that they might not be able to get. We’ve worked really hard to convey that we don’t have that much money and that we aren’t just going to throw funds at people. Mo’ money mo’ problems, I guess. Anyway, it’s better than just sitting in the office all day.

In a completely different vein, I wanted to talk about parenting/family norms here, because they are very different from norms in the US. First of all, parents never tell their children that they love them. When some of the mothers in our house told us this, they explained by saying that “It’s not there.” I guess that means that they don’t see their feeling for their kids as love? I’m not really sure though, so please don’t take my cultural observations as fact. Anyway, in Uganda, you only tell your boyfriend/husband that you love him, and not anybody else. You have certain obligations to your parents, siblings, and children, but you only “love” that one person.

Children are also left alone more once they are about 6 or 7 years old, and the girls have a lot of responsibility as caretakers of the younger children. I’ve seen girls who can’t be older than 4 or 5 carrying babies on their backs while carrying jerry cans full of water, and they walk alone on the roads. This may be because of necessity in a lot of cases, seeing that even in a two-income household most parents can’t afford babysitters and I personally have never seen a day care. As far as I can tell, children are either left alone, with a friend, or with a family member—only in rich families can they be left with a live-in servant, and I’ve never heard of a child being taken care of in an institutional setting outside of regular school. I can’t imagine being in charge of a baby now, let alone when I was 6 years old.

Discipline is pretty harsh here. As I mentioned in an earlier post, caning is still a common practice in schools, but discipline extends to the family. I’ve seen parents slap the hands of their young children away because they said, “His/her hands are dirty.” I saw this happen to one of the most affectionate 3-year-olds I’ve ever met, and she was crestfallen. Even the live-in maids/cooks are harsh with the kids. Our old maid, Farita, would hit Fina’s grandkids and yell at them (she’s gone now—all the members of the house told us was that “She did not do her work very well, so we sent her away”). Now we have Sandra, who is much nicer, but still, I’m pretty sure that that wouldn’t fly in the US.

I’m not trying to critique parenting in Ugandan culture, or say that it’s better/worse than in the US. It’s just different.