back home

at three am, we arrived back in jinja after 10 days in kenya. we didn't intend to take the overnight bus, as we are overly cautious travelers, but nothing more than fate and luck control african busses.

the quality and luxury of our transport decreased dramatically from the beginning to the end of the trip. from our house, we hired a private car to entebbe. we flew from entebbe to nairobi to mombasa. even with delays, our trip from the house all the way to hotel room took less than half of the time it takes for the first leg of the equivalent bus journey. from mombasa back to nairobi we took the Modern Coast "first class" bus. it was air-conditioned. as if that isn't enough, you get a juice box and nuts. there are only a few people traveling on each journey, so you can own your own row and lay down completely.

the bus from nairobi to kisumu was a Kampala Coach. we sat on the bus waiting. i thought to myself "this is where the grenade went off." i generally don't put myself in any proximity to grenade attacks, so i was happy to take the daytime trip until we hit traffic after the tea estates. there are many steep escarpments and sandy cliffs along the way.

the bus from kisumu to jinja was supposed to arrive at 4:30pm. we rushed away from our lunch because we thought we'd be late, but we ended up sitting in front of the kampala coach office for six hours before the bus came. it was very crowded, luggage piled up in the aisles so the only way to pass was to step on the seats or, if they were occupied, to push with your arms and swing your legs as you vault your lower body forward to the spaces between boxes and bags. i sat in the back row. we were 6, then 7 bodies across. the drunkest ugandan in kenya argued cyclically with his lady-friend, a tall, sturdy woman wearing a long caramel-colored wig cut in the jennifer aniston face fringe frame style. he mumbled aggressively and she swatted at him with the paperback john grisham novel she carried. he accepted a few blows than stood up to his full 5' drunkiness and raised his hand as if to slap her. she screamed and our seat mates grumbled and laughed. this continued for the two-hour journey to the border.

i prayed he wouldn't make it across to uganda, but east africans (maybe africans in general) have a more sympathetic attitude toward drunkenness than westerners. at each checkpoint "Drunky" passed everyone in line queue, staggered his way up to the windows, shoved his passport through the window and mumbled something to the officer. each one laughed at him and helped him along. Drunky got on the bus while the police were still inside opening bags. they twice laughed and brought him outside. when it was time to get on the bus, Drunky was carried, pushed, and pulled up the stairs and down the treacherous aisle to his rearmost seat. he was carried by a seven foot tall sudanese man. a large woman pulled herself out of her window seat to lift and push Drunky. At 1 am in Busia, Uganda at the border-post with kenya on a bus that was 6 hours late, these Ugandans were having a blast mocking and tossing a short, drunk man.

thankfully, by the time he arrived at the backseat he was pretty well passed out and unconscious for the remainder of the trip.

a hot date on a friday night

from a friend...

I got a message today:

Hello Friend,

I was just thinking of you as I have been reading news about the upcoming elections in Uganda. I imagine that there is a slight feeling of ease in the area with the seemingly smooth passage of the Sudanese Referendum, but i also know that there are still concerns about potential election violence. How things are feeling around there these days? Are you staying around for the elections or are you taking off as previously planned? Whatever it is you do, may it be safe. I'll be thinking of you and your current homeland as these next few weeks pass.

Good Evening,

I hope this message finds you and your family well. Uganda looks optimistic this morning. As I am writing this, I can hear a brass band coming down the street toward my house. Everyone is going out to look. I'll be right back... The band is from the "Inter-religious Organization of Busoga District." There are priests holding signs that say "Elections will end, but people will stay." and "Avoid election violence." Ugandan brass bands are funny. They have uniforms that were made in the the same style and color, but some are old and some are new. Their current color and condition range from clean and crisp to tattered and elderly. The drummers are very energetic - pounding and swinging their arms. They walk first, even before the drum major - the various horns and tubas follow at a high step shuffle. I'm reassured that there is visible evidence of people who are actively promoting peace after elections.

We know that Mr. Museveni has control of the Electoral Council and will make sure that they certify his victory. There are 5 opposition candidates. The strongest, Kizza Besigye, was imprisoned during the last election and is under threat of going to jail again because of his criticism of Museveni. Over the past few days Besigye has said that he knows the election will not turn out in his favor because of voter intimidation, poll rigging, and general fraud. He's starting to push rhetoric like "We will not win in the court of law, we will win in the court of public opinion." and "The electoral commission will not decide the outcome of this election. The citizens of Uganda will decide the outcome of this election." Yesterday, in a national newspaper: "I am not going back to court. I rely on you people. People have all the powers. Look at what is happening in North Africa-Tunisia, Egypt. People are saying no to dictators and leaders who are imposing themselves on the people and they have gone."

At this point, no one really has any idea how it will turn out. I'm going to Kenya and my employees are a little nervous. They reassure me by saying "Museveni will stay in power and knock down anyone who tries to stop him." "There won't be violence. Ugandans are not political, they are too lazy." They're worried that if there are problems here, I won't come back and they won't have jobs anymore. I'm worried that they are right. 92% of me says it will be all good, I'll spend 10 days in Kenya, check out the solar cookers, and head back to Jinja to resume my regular boring life. But the 8% remaining is a little bit nervous.

Its good to chat with you. I really enjoy any interaction with the motherland. I think I'm going to copy and paste this on my blog because I've been a little negligent in that area. Thanks for the prompt.

Amber

three weeks

i returned to uganda on 2 jan. spent the first week planning and counting and organizing buying schedules and necklaces and big, serious talks with employees.

i started strong the second week. Sunday at Owino Market: buy paper and bracelet wire, entebbe: pick up jesse. I bought myself new sunglasses. Strategizing and asking questions. We'll interview everyone. What is your favorite color and why? Can you tell me about a happy childhood memory? Buying snacks for them and lunch for us and a generator for the lights. Had the serious conversation about bonuses and salaries - the kind that make me sweaty. Calculated and distributed paper and beads. Yelled about dyed seeds, but they came out ok in the end. Went rafting and got caught in a whirlpool - my first time, so i was scared. Bloody toe.

I repeated all of the questions again the third week. And distributed more paper. And negotiated rent per month prices and scrap per kilo prices. Picked up the aunties, more seed and bracelet wire purchases. Distributed paper again. Answered questions for myself. More sweaty discussions. Adding accounting: double buying, rent here, rent there, half month salaries, extra work, shipping, car rental. Happy Birthday baby of Lillian! We actually found the gold paper! That's right, watch out, its coming! Making samples. Broken beads again. More questions, more pick ups and drop offs. Goodbye Jesse! Make us look good. Aunt Sue? Where are you? Can you hear me? Another 24 hours in Kampala. Ate a great piece of meat. Ate some brownies. Stared at the pool.

solstice

Two people were killed and 41 injured in an explosion next to a Kampala-bound bus in downtown Nairobi on Monday night. The blast occurred at 7.40pm as passengers were boarding a Kampala Coach bus in the River Road area.

Most of the people on the bus were Ugandans on their way home for Christmas. Earlier in the day, warnings were issued by Ugandan Police about terrorist attacks during the holiday season. This is the second grenade attack in Nairobi in December. Two grenades were detonated in suburbs near the city earlier this month. Police think today's explosion was from the same type of Russian made grenade.

Today I feel nervous. When I hear about this type of violence in a place where I have been (and will soon return to) my stomach tightens and my heart beats a little too fast.

My plan is to return to Uganda in January and then leave in mid-February during the election. I will take a bus from Jinja to Nairobi and then on to Mombasa. I will relax at the beach until the election results are confirmed and life returns to normal.

Today's news puts a dent in my confidence. And then there's Ivory Coast. I should probably also mention the January 9th referendum in South Sudan.

I can't control what will happen. For now I'll go with my motto: "plan for nothing, prepare for everything" but frankly, I'm a little frightened. I want to overcome this fear. I don't want to live in fear. I don't even want to live with fear. I want to feel confident and secure.

weather: you like it or not

raining in nyc today. doing a little uganda research...

---from WikiLeaks via The Guardian: Yet the President's autocratic tendencies, as well as Uganda's pervasive corruption, sharpening ethnic divisions, and explosive population growth have eroding Uganda's status as an African success story. Holding a credible and peaceful presidential election in February 2011 could restore Uganda's image, while failing in that task could lead to domestic political violence and regional instability. read the rest here

This cable continues on to outline major issues facing Uganda in the near future: human rights and corruption, the LRA and ethnic tensions, HIV/AIDS, oil and the economy. The attitude presented here is one of Uganda as a "fading democracy" faced with numerous domestic challenges and foreign pressure to stand up and re-establish its role as "a confident and outspoken regional leader."

-- one of the first issues facing the region in 2011 is the South Sudan referendum on 9 January. From The Independent magazine in Uganda: "Uganda should pay close attention to the 2011 South Sudan elections." The TIME Magazine issue for this week asks the question, “South Sudan: Can this be the World’s Newest Nation?” The question is very pertinent for the world, but it is an extremely important question for Uganda and Africa. As a country, Uganda should be paying particularly close attention to the political situation in South Sudan. The result of the 2011 referendum could hurt or benefit Uganda. the rest here

This blog post draws out the impact of the referendum down to two possibilities: A) The referendum in southern Sudan does not go smoothly and Sudan descends into civil war. Uganda has a history of supporting the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA - representing the southern part of Sudan) while the government in Khartoum has supported Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. (LRA - infamous rebel group from Northern Uganda) A civil war could mean increased tension between Uganda and Sudan as each country supports the enemy of the other. Option B) The referendum does go smoothly and South Sudan is gtanted independence. Uganda already has strong economic ties to South Sudan. The region is "blessed" with oil and South Sudan's independence could result in major investment from oil companies.

-- And a hopeful note for the day...Project Justice

Imagine being brutally attacked by your husband. You are rushed to the hospital, on the verge of death. At the hospital, you are cared for, and when you are slightly stronger, you are sent back home to the perpetrator of the crime because the hospital workers are ignorant of the law and the police require a bribe to file a police report.

Or, imagine you are a 13-year-old girl, raped and impregnated by your assailant. Your family is so poor and ignorant of the law that they accept a cow from the family of the man as settlement for the deed. Case closed.

Incidents like these are what inspired Just Like My Child Foundation’s “Project Justice” – a comprehensive human rights education program conducted in partnership with FIDA, a Federation of Women Attorneys that is Promoting the Dignity & Human Rights of Women & Children Using Law as a Tool of Social Justice.

SIGNING OFF TO SELL,SELL,SELL!

C O L D

chilly in the booth today. eating pretzels to stay warm.

the booth, the whole booth, and nothing bu the booth

day three. still excited. coffee helps. so does money in my hand. today i learned that most dogs in central park wear clothes. i saw a beagle wearing a green t-shirt, a blue down vest and a yellow scarf.

i went to the big library on 42nd st. i love the reading room at the top floor. the ceiling is painted with blue skies and clouds. there are two levels of books around the perimeter. above the books are tall arched windows. its like grand central station for books. there are long tables with wide, sturdy seats. each place - the seat and the table - are numbered. you could say, meet me at the big library, in the reading room on the top floor, i'll be at seat 662. i like that a lot. i'm not sure why. maybe because its so concrete. it exists. it has existed for a long time and will continue to exist. i think that's what they call legacy. maybe not.

tomorrow is saturday. usually saturday means lounging by the pool or baking brownies. tomorrow i want to work hard. i want to sell necklaces and bags and make my pitch 500 times.

market madness

made some sales today. yay.

cool and dry. my opening line is "good morning/afternoon/evening. our beads are made from recycled paper by 93 women in uganda.

staying at 62&lex (thankyou dora) a magical place. can order food on the internet and pay for with credit card. and it just shows up, right at your door all warm and juicy and mexican/thai/italian/chinese/burger.

need to find some music/cultural activity soon.

holy social media batman! i've never been more entertained by the internets. i'm warming my hands by the tweety glow. but its not enough. i turned on the space heater. i feel like a wimp, but its day one.

day one at columbus circle holiday market. rainy. really rainy. not too many people around. our necklaces look pretty. our online credit checkout is ready to go. the euro scarf/necklace girls across the cobblestone have a customer. she's looking at wallets. i'm intensely jealous.

more later...

Sciurus carolinensis

america.

i ate pretzels and apple pie. it was store bought, but so what. i'm prepping my palate for the home made version next week. tonight its my job to make lasagna. should i consult a cookbook or just go freestyle?

sending away for a 6 month multi-entry visa. maybe i won't have to play up the tourist card so much. a tourist visa only lasts 90 days and then you have to get a new one. ugandan visas are only single entry, so when you have to get a new one if you leave the country. this means that the best times for me to leave uganda are each time my visa expires.

this is me at border 4 times per year. its usually the middle of the night after 6 hours of bumpy road on a bus or a few transfers on small planes. i've got my crisp $50 bill and yellow fever card in hand:

immigration officer: i see you've been in uganda for some time.

me: i love uganda so much!

io: what are you doing in uganda?

me: rafting, traveling around. meeting people. ugandans are so friendly!

io: where do you stay in uganda?

me: oh here and there. i really like jinja. the river is awesome!

io: you've got $50? ok. (stamp, stamp)

i'm in.

counting necklaces. so many necklaces. they're hung airing in the garage. they're on the futon in the basement. they like to fall out of their velcro groupings, so i'll be counting them all again. we count them when we buy them at the meeting. twice, actually. first what we receive from each suubi lady. then, again into bundles of 10 or 25. at epoh, they're washed and counted again before being put into fedex boxes or fiber bags to be taken back to magwa. the ones that come to magwa are counted again when they're packed into suitcases to come to america. if we're lucky, the bags only have to be packed once. if things get confusing, we'll take the necklaces out and do it all over again. now i have the bags in america. i took them out to air. i'll count them again and pack them again to take to the Holiday Booth in NYC.

FICTION

A day in the life of three Suubi women…

With a single shot from a single drop on the tin roof, Christine wakes up. It’s still dark. She sits up on the foam mat she shares with the baby. A strong gust rattles the windows’ wooden shutters. The rain sounds like war on her roof. She reaches for the matchbox and lights the paraffin lamp on the floor. The baby moves behind her. She turns around. His mouth is open and she can see his small sharp teeth. The combat on the roof increases and noise fills the room around her. Its so loud she can’t hear him cry.

Florence tightens the kitenge around her waist and feels for the coins and notes tied in the corner of the top skirt. She hopes she has left for the market early enough to make it back with time to cook for and feed her children lunch at mid-day. She waves and calls out Good Morning to the neighbor unlocking the door of the shop. She reminds herself to stop here on the way home to buy an onion, three tomatoes, and two peppers to mix with the beans that are already on the charcoal stove. She hurries and turns the corner onto the main road. She steps off the curb to avoid the grass flung by the slasher cutting the grass in the drainage ditch. She steps back up as a boda carrying two men and a driver swerves toward her around a pothole. The motorcycle follows the same path worn smooth by every two-wheeled vehicle that has come before. At the market she buys three packets of gold seed beads and one bundle of lightweight fishing line. If she hurries she’ll make it back home in time.

Elizabeth sits on a fiber mat under the jackfruit tree. She can hear her grandchildren playing on the other side of the house. She picks up a string of varnished beads and cuts them with a razor. She pushes the beads from the line into a plastic container. She calls to her youngest daughter to bring the rest of her supplies from inside the house. The oldest child runs toward her with a knob of sugar cane in each hand. The next born runs close behind and shoves the older child. She calls both of their names and scolds them for fighting. She picks up another string of beads, cuts the line, and pushes them into the container. She calls for her daughter again to bring her supplies.

Bakunzi, Anneti Group A Number 1

Anneti is tall and thin. Her hands are soft when she offers you a gentle handshake. She is older with a quiet, dignified presence. Anneti usually has a serious expression on her face, but is quick to smile when greeted. She cares for three of her children and one grandchild.

Anneti in her own words:

"When I was in P5 (fifth grade) my mother passed away, that’s when my problems began. When I reached P7 (seventh grade) my father told me to drop out of school to give chance for the others to study. I got married when I was 22. We stayed together for some time until my husband impregnated a girl who was under my care and whose family was friends with my husband. We became two wives but we were not getting enough love. We stayed until 2005 and then I moved to JInja. I moved to Jinja because I needed medical treatment (I have some complications with my head) and my husband was not taking enough care of me, so I decided to come to my sister who was supporting me well. Since I joined Suubi I can afford my medication, send some money to my child in Secondary school and even try to save some. Suubi has encouraged us to save in the bank which is very helpful to us."

andrea's birthday

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-OV16ZOkOg

watch the video here

it happens

looking at the last date of my blog and feeling a little ashamed. i'm immediately filled with excuses...the internet is so slow, i don't know what to say, no one reads this anyway. but that's not right.

i'm looking for a good metaphor of how i feel about blogging. i feel the same way about mediating disagreements between workers, about standing on line at the bank for an hour and my music player dies 5 minutes into it and the man behind me is touching me and i inch forward and the bag that the lady is holding is touching my leg and the man behind me moves forward again and now i'm touching both of them. i feel the same way about picking the nasties out of the drain on sunday because they haven't been picked since friday and they're full of fruit flies and ants. i feel the same way when i'm sleeping and wake up hearing someone outside the neighbor's gate calling someone's name for hours and hours.

what can i say about life in africa now?

its cool here and cloudy. its hot in the morning and the clouds build in the afternoon. it thunders and thunders and BOOM it rains. the wind blows and dust flies before it gets down to mud. then its over and its cool and the clouds are splattery (dotty? smeared?) like clouds in autumn in new jersey. like the clouds in pennsylvania when we camped out in the mountains in a small tent. it rained that night and we were cold. in the morning we were damp and our tent was covered in heavy red, yellow, orange, brown wet leaves. the car was warm. we drove back to jersey. the clouds were streaked, some dark and heavy, others light, feathered, airy. the air was cold and the wet leaves sparkled in the low-angled sunlight.

it looked just like that the other day. i was on a boda from here to there. it was cool. the breeze was even cool. the clouds were light and dark; fluffy and streaky and spotty. i looked up and went back to that weekend in pennsylvania. driving in a volkswagen. drinking coffee out of a wax-coated paper cup with a plastic lid. listening to cds around sharp curves and talking about the future, what we would do after and after and after.

then i looked down. we were behind a truck filled with sugar cane spewing diesel fumes and dust. we swerved around it, passed the posho factory, the bread factory, the muslim school. in the afternoon men walk with baskets on their heads filled with small plastic bags of nuts and seeds. they're selling afterschool snacks. every afternoon, i'm driving in, they're walking out. we pass, each on our way to work. we pass goats and chickens, small children holding machetes cut chunks of sugar cane. the boda men cleaning their motorcycles in the pools of water that collect next to the road between gardens. up over bumps and humps. slowing just enough to make it over then gun the engine to make it up the hill. children in school uniforms with only one or two functional buttons. all ugandans wear black sensible shoes to work. men dismount heavy black bicycles and walk the rest of the way up the hill. the pavement ends, the dirt road is marked by a smooth boda path.

when i arrive in danida at the suubi building i'm disoriented. what a long ride from pennsylvania. dust and diesel on my face. i've taken to listening to music while on the boda. drawn back to other places and times. do you remember when we sang that song in the fire pit dug out of the snow? we made snow benches that got softer and wetter as the fire grew. we sang that song and we were drumming on buckets. i was beating a metal shovel because it sounded like a steel drum. we sat in the snow. wet asses, dreaming of tropical places.

i pay the boda man. carry the bag of bananas and popcorn into the building. children call my name. it sounds like ambo or lambo. i sit on an orange bench. another orange bench is broken. at this rate we'll all be sitting on the floor by christmas. i greet them all.

"how are you?"

"how is the day?"

"irimaber?"

"ber"

"gang?"

"ber"

i sit again and think of what to do and think of what to say.

"it is cold."

"yes, we are cold"

"it is rainy season"

"yes it will rain"

"kot obicwe is how you say it, right?"

"aya, kot obicwe, it will rain."

yesterday i officially made water boil using the sun. i built a solar oven out of cardboard and aluminum foil. i put a dark wine bottle full of water in a clear plastic bag (that originally held 36 rolls of toilet paper) and set it on the solar cooker. Within an hour, the water boiled! So today I'm going to try rice. I want to build solar cookers with all of the suubi ladies and tailors so they can save money (and time and the atmosphere and their health) by sterilizing their water and cooking food without using charcoal or wood. there are a million reasons why solar cookers are great, but this is my number one. hopefully, we can get these going soon. I'm going to acquire some WAPIs so we know when the water has reached a high enough temperature to kill most of the bacteria and viruses.

We've had a bunch of visitors recently, more are coming today. I find it challenging to take people out for a day and give them the right amount of information. In a day, people want to hear what we do, details about the past, present and future regarding: who we work with, what products we make, how we sell them in america, what we hope to actually accomplish. I am working on summarizing and figuring out how to tailor my spiel to the audience. Its hard to not just start spewing about every detail of everything. I want to be intentional about telling the truth in a way that people can get a realistic picture of who we are, not just get stuck in the details of what we're doing right now. I guess I need to take my own advice and focus more on the big picture and not just get stuck in the details of right now.

Well, off to solar cooking, tours, breakfast club, english class, and fun!

i'm reading an article at cnn about "voluntourism," the idea that people want to do good works in a foreign place in addition to traditional holiday activities. they say that women take volunteer holidays more than men because they want cultural immersion in a safe place, camaraderie with fellow travelers, and want to reduce the "guilt" of vacationing. mom and dad and family are visiting in October for a little bit of voluntouring. mom and the aunties are going to do some sort of "clinic." (or at least look all the suubi ladies in the eye while they take their blood pressure and heart rate) We're going to install dad in the Suubi building with beading and macrame and tie-dye.

right now i'm drinking ugandan wine. its made here in jinja from hibiscus flowers and sold commercially from the winery where it is made across the river in njeru. the bottle says it has an "elegant taste" which my untrained palate finds as intensely sweet at the first followed by astringent then ending on something like old, leather boat shoes. i've almost finished my first glass.

its 7:30 pm and its officially dark. i have to get up and turn ... never mind, the power is out. Good night.

mama rachel

a beautiful day

another week. another suubi meeting. another 5 million paid.

yesterday i completed our first "direct deposit." within the past month, we have doubled the suubi ladies' salaries. this is a very, very good thing that can lead to very, very bad choices. you know what i'm talking about if you've ever had your salary doubled. suddenly, things that you struggled for are accessible. anyway... i want to promote banking among the suubi ladies. i found my suubi lady banking obsession when i first began to visit the suubi ladies and noticed that when they wanted to buy me a soda they reached under their couch cushion and grabbed some coins. money management is not high on the priority list when you don't have that much money. but now we're giving our ladies some money and its my priority to make sure they don't lose it under the chair.

now, more than one year later, more than 45 of our 93 ladies have bank accounts. during the last two weeks of April, we paid each of the 93 women 50,000 each. we told them that they could choose the amount of "direct deposit" in 10,000 increments. so the ladies brought us their bank account numbers and i made a neat excel table. during the suubi buying meetings we asked each lady how much she wanted to deposit. some ladies chose 10,000 or 20,000. some chose more. some even put all 50,000 in the bank.

on friday afternoon i went to the PRIDE bank. i stood on line for a long time. i brought a bag of 20,000 notes and printed out my neat list. i gave it to the teller and he nearly fainted. for the next three hours he alternated between doing a suubi lady deposit and taking a customer from the line. it wasn't fun, but it was worth it. i deposited a total of 1.8 million shillings into 45 bank accounts.

maybe it will rain, maybe it will just thunder

some random updates.

- Afrigadget is freaking awesome. its all about ingenious africans making something out of nothing. inspiring stories about creativity, entrepreneurship, and general boot-strap lifting.

- we're voting for teachers this week. the suubi group is already divided into three ordering sub-groups (A, B, C) now we're subdividing again to make three sections in each group (A1, A2, A3, B1...etc) and assigning a teacher to each section of 10-ish women. this week, we're having group meetings for each woman to nominate three teachers for her group. here's my criteria:

How to select teachers:

Good Character: HONESTY AND RESPECT. Someone who is a role-model. Someone who can both talk and listen. Someone who can solve problems and reduce conflict.

Good Commitment: HAS ENOUGH TIME TO ATTEND MEETINGS. Someone who has the time to organize the members in their section. Someone who can move around to meet the members one-on-one if needed. Someone who can follow through and complete tasks and paperwork.

Good Necklaces: KNOWS THE DESIGN. Someone who makes necklaces correctly. Someone who understands how necklaces are made and can learn new designs easily. Someone who can teach others.

Each person will nominate three people who they believe will be good teachers. They will write three names on a piece of paper and turn them in.

Light Gives Heat staff will count the nominations and interview those people with the most votes.

two of the three groups have voted on monday and tuesday. the third will vote on thursday. we've identified 4-5 people from each group to interview. i'm working on a rubric that will take into account the number of votes, a rating from each staff member from the interview, and a review of their necklace balance over the past few months.

the next step is to find some interview questions. i think i'll just adjust the ones i've been using for tailor interviews.

- the tailor interviews are fascinating. first you have to determine which language the applicant feels most comfortable speaking in: english, luganda, lusoga, luo. the applicants are very nervous and tend to clam up when you get them at the table. there is a fine balance in creating a warm, conversational environment where they'll actually give you some information and spoon feeding them questions that don't really tell you anything.

- collecting 10 random necklaces from 93 women is hard. they piled up on my lap and i clasped them and put bundles on my knees and shoulders and the back of the chair. eventually, i couldn't keep up with closing them and paying the women and having them sign and give us their bank account information. we've made this process a lot more complex. they are getting paper, we are subtracting that cost from their payment. they are selling us black plastic bags for 100/= each. (the bags are for the next epoh design) we add that to their payment. they're bringing in the "balance" of necklaces that were rejected for the previous week. they're bringing in their random necklaces plus those of friends. i am very thankful some observant suubi women saw me drowning in necklaces and assisted us in closing them and wrapping them before the end of the meeting.

- went to the unfortunately named, fabio office here in jinja. they are working on a map and directory of bicycle tracks in the area. still looking for a bike. i'm still waffling between a single-speed giant, heavy african bicycle and a mzungu mountain bike.