Retrospective

When I read back over my initial impressions, I’d probably express some of my ideas differently – distance has a big impact on how you view things after all. I did a lot of preparatory work for the project and had a lot of meetings with people, but the project has ended up becoming something different to what I’d envisioned – though I think the result is still well-rounded. One thing I couldn’t have prepared myself for is the impact the country’s poverty has had on me, and what it was like to experience this in person. Talking about poverty and seeing it in real life are two totally different things. That’s why so many opinions seem a bit “unprofessional” from the point of view of people who know a lot about Africa, and I know that there are countries which are far poorer and where people are much worse off than here. All the same, I think that if you accept many of the conditions in Uganda or have seen worse, then you can become hardened to a degree, and I don’t know if that’s how I want to be with regard to this issue.

I wrote somewhere that there are development and aid organisations that send their employees to stay in a developing country every two years. It has become very clear to me how my stay has changed my view of aid work and the needs it addresses, though I had spent a lot of time considering this issue beforehand. But there’s no way you can get to know the harshness of the conditions for people living in Uganda and the country itself, with all of its challenges, if you’re only here as a tourist or on business and only stay in good hotels in the capital. Or if you stay in your home country and talk about things you haven’t experienced. Maybe it’s true to say that only someone who has personally experienced something really has knowledge of that situation. If you want to participate in a serious manner in this discussion, you should spend several weeks seeing things close up. You have to go to where the deprivation is. My impression is that communication has to improve between the people who work on the ground in the developing countries and the people who make the decisions about strategic projects from their desks in Germany or some other well-off location. I think that one of the reasons is that the projects’ decision-makers simply can’t envision what the day-to-day conditions are like for people living in developing countries because they themselves have never experienced them.

I remember the time I spent in the war zone in Croatia at the start of the 1990s. There was a plan for building a refugees’ village with barracks-style housing. Everything was planned down to the last detail in a typical German way – streets meeting at right angles, tarred roads, the location of street signs signalling “yield to traffic coming from the right”. To this day, I’m not sure if the right of way laws in Germany are the same as in Croatia. When the builders left, the housing units stood there and the scores of people were there too – but the plan contained no information about what was to be done for them next. When nothing happened, I asked around if someone could drive a lorry. My first, impulsive decision was to get several thousand litres of drinking water for the people in the village – they were thirsty. I’ll never forget the image of people on their knees with gratitude for what I’d done. At the time, I was only 20 years old and I thought I was naïve. Now I think that if more decision-makers had personal experience of what people’s needs and challenges were like, they could channel investments more efficiently to the people who are meant to receive aid. 

What will I be leaving behind here (apart from five kilos which have simply melted off me), and what will I be taking with me? I didn’t always find it easy to do without things which I consider essential, e.g. hot water. Compared with most people in the country, I no doubt had it good, but my living conditions were often very basic and I can’t pretend that I’m not looking forward to a clean bathroom, a good mattress (and my own choice of “bedmates”, i.e. none of those representatives of Uganda’s fauna who occasionally made their way into my room), using aftershave instead of nobite mosquito spray, and to a bit more predictability – I found that life here was dominated by extremes, and they dominated my impressions too.

This blog only recounts some of my experiences here. My stay in Uganda also included other things, such as my contribution to building a three-ton 5 kilowatt solar unit for a school – I was involved in that in a private capacity and it took almost all of the strength I could muster, but it wasn’t an issue that fell within the scope of the blog. I’ve learned so much, and I’ve met incredibly friendly people who were so ready to help. I’ve explored the country’s fantastic landscape and its animal world at the weekend. I wrote about how relaxed the people are – this in particular was sometimes hard for me to accept, for example when I noticed that so many people here see themselves more as objects instead of subjects. How they wait for something to happen instead taking charge of things themselves. I haven’t fully understood if this is in part due to the deeply religious attitudes in the country (84% of Ugandans are Christian, a very high percentage) and to the notion that “God will take care of things”, or if it is a deep-rooted lethargy that arises from the country’s educational infrastructure, which is in part very backward. I often had to pull myself together so I could cope with it.

I am particularly grateful to Silvia, who managed this project and Deutsche Bank’s contacts with the Mountains of the Moon University. She made countless preparations, organised and managed so much, so that I had backup upon arrival and during the further course of my work in Uganda. None of this would have been possible otherwise. THANK YOU!

I am also very, very grateful to Oliver and Felix from GIZ, who helped create such a good environment for my work at Fort Portal – your achievements are absolutely fantastic! Felix above all was ready to help me with advice and action whenever I needed it, to help me master the big and small hurdles I encountered in everyday life, and he was a great housemate and discussion partner. I’d like to thank above all my friends for their support, great discussions and e-mails; my colleagues in Frankfurt who took on my work while I was away; my boss, who lent her express support to the plan; and Deutsche Bank’s corporate social responsibility division, which made the project possible. So many colleagues at the bank have expressed interest and support, and so many wished me all the best before I left for Africa – I would also like to thank them from the bottom of my heart!

The past few weeks have made so many things much clearer to me personally. They have revealed limits, but they have also shown me how much more grateful we should be for things that we simply take for granted. I can only recommend that everybody undertake such a challenge at some point in their lives.

Day 26

My last day in Fort Portal. I really can’t believe that I am about to leave. In just under four weeks here, I’ve gotten to know so many people, I’ve conducted talks, and now I have the feeling that some of the vague ideas and notions I had when I arrived have become clearer. The project has become more of a feasibility study, finding out what routes Deutsche Bank could take if it pursued another joint project, where we can create connections, where we can make a contribution with our knowledge. Now, the department has a definite plan for the next few months and local banks have pledged their support. The school of business can use its new brochures as effective, targeted advertisements and raise its profile within the market. I think these form a good foundation to build on.

In the afternoon, a visiting Dutch professor gives a lecture at the university. He’s one of the world’s leading economic historians. He was one of Felix’s professors, and it was Felix who invited him to Uganda. His lecture focuses on the historical development of states, why some countries became well-off about 300 years ago and why others became poor. The professor provides us with an overview of different economic developments over the last few centuries. He lists factors that can help countries become prosperous; one of the issues he mentions is the effect exerted by the number of children people have and how much is invested in their education. The lecture covered far too much for me to repeat here. It’s clear how, alongside a host of other factors, investment in education – including general financial education – is connected to economic development. The Mountains of the Moon University has put several projects in place to address this issue, including training courses for the people working for microfinance institutes and SACCOs, the BCom in banking and research degrees. These are small steps in a country with big problems. But they still represent further progress in the right direction. 

Maybe we can continue to support the university. That’s a result I’d like to see.



Day 25

Felix and I go to visit a tea plantation. I wanted to have a look at a cooperative before I leave: the tea-pickers know what their work is and what they earn. The cooperative also has a savings and credit cooperation (SACCO). Felix has good contacts because the university worked with the tea plantation to conduct a microfinance study looking at income, savings behaviour etc. To repay the favour, I promise to make my photos available.

We stop by the field to talk to the tea-pickers. They earn 70 Ugandan shillings per kilogram of tea picked – that’s less than EUR 0.20. The so-called poverty line for everyday needs is set at USD 1.25 per day. That meand these people need to pick more than 6kg of tea a day to be able to satisfy their subsistence needs. You can only really imagine how much that is if you’ve ever weighed out fresh plant shoots. The workers have enormous baskets strapped to their backs and move across the field bent double; the plants are almost one metre tall.

I spend the afternoon reviewing this week’s meetings, and the evening conferring with Oliver and Felix from the German development organisation GIZ; alongside Geoffrey from the Banking Department is another attendee, Brenda, who has been taken on part-time to boost the chair’s staffing levels. I’m pleased, because it means the department is finally growing. It’s high time - Geoffrey can’t manage all the work alone.

We discuss the next steps: Several banks have agreed to cooperate with the university, offer internships, would possibly like to send employees to give lectures, and are prepared to take part in a review workshop. Now the department has to set a date for the workshop, invite the banks and prepare topics for an expert lecture series. On top of this, there is a further position to be filled in the department, and the basics of banking need to be taught in the students’ first semester.

Day 24

After some more meetings with banks and the CEO of an international microdeposit institution, our talks for the day end at noon. I get into the car with the driver I’ve hired and we head off to Fort Portal. My impressions of the city are repeated.

Once in Fort Portal, I’m really glad to be back. It’s a bit like home to me after the hectic city. Now that we’ve covered over 300 km of rough, bumpy road, I’m looking forward to having a hot shower – there was none in the hotel this morning. No sooner have I set foot in our little lodge then it begins to pour from the heavens. I head to the bathroom and want to turn on the boiler for the shower – nothing. The electricity’s out. I have to laugh out loud. Home again.

Unexpectedly, Steffi is standing in the doorway. She’s got a huge box with 7,500 condoms with her. I look at her questioningly. Steffi’s a nurse from Germany and travels around Uganda to meet all of the aid workers so she can advertise HIV prevention with all of the organisations she supervises. MMU also undertakes programmes within this field, above all HIV testing.

Officially, the number of people in Uganda with HIV is put at about 6%, and the country has taken an active approach to addressing the problem of Aids. All the same, you can hear reports that the infection rate has jumped significantly once more, and you can see posters everywhere that advertise monogamy and partnerships. A attractive African woman lies on a sandy beach with a man who has his arm around her, and there are children in the background. Interestingly, the man isn’t looking at the woman, or at the children – he’s staring off into nothing. The writing says “Spend more time together to avoid a sexual network”. Uganda doesn’t have any sandy beaches.

In addition, you can’t help but notice that there was a recent attempt to put a law through Uganda’s parliament that would have made homosexuality and HIV infections punishable with the death penalty. The international media reported this turn of events. The law has since then been stopped.

Day 23

Geoffrey and I have spent the day in meetings with various banks and describing the university, the advantages we see for the banking market, and our clear vision for the shape that cooperation could take. The non-stop traffic jams, the stench of the car fumes, the lack of forward motion – they all get to me. Every so often there’s a downpour and torrents of water come flowing down the streets.

Day 22

My fourth week starts today. The first time I heard about the project here, I sent my neighbour a text message straight away asking “Where is Uganda exactly?” She studied geography and I can really imagine her burying her face in her hands. Her answer shot back at me: it was a screenshot of a map with an arrow pointing to the country. Plus a clever quip. True, I had a rough idea of the country’s location, but I could never have listed what countries it borders, even though I’m a member of the generation that had to learn the names of rivers in the heart of the African continent off by heart instead of the capitals of Germany’s federal states. Wikipedia had to do as my first source of more in-depth information about Uganda. Now I have the impression that I’ve added so many things I’ve experienced and learned myself in such a short time that the country has become very close to me. I was recently on the phone to a colleague and said “If something happens, just give me a call. I don’t disappear.” He retorted, “From here, it actually looks like you’re at the edge of the Republic of Congo, somewhere in tropical Uganda, you occasionally don’t have any electricity – you’re that close to disappearing…” That’s not what it seems like to me.

My first meeting with a bank is at 9 am, and it unfortunately gets cancelled at 8.30. This gives me the chance to make a few calls before heading off to my next meeting at noon. It takes ages to get there. We’re stuck in traffic, dust and dirt get blown into the car, the fumes, cars everywhere, and then there are the only six traffic lights in all of Uganda – they’re in Kampala. People keep going even if the lights are red, because the police will direct traffic how they see fit anyhow. They can’t do much directing as it is, because people drive as they please and use up every inch of space they can, so cars are all over the place. This chaos is joined today by a huge police contingent: the trial has begun of the people behind the terrorist attack in July 2010, when extremists detonated a bomb at a football World Cup game in Kampala and killed over 80 people.
The man I’m scheduled to meet is not at his desk: I’m told he’s just gone to eat. A colleague says that a number of things have been postponed this afternoon. It seems that it’s no big deal at all to disappear only to turn up, maybe, an hour later… We – Geoffrey, head of the banking department at the Mountains of the Moon University, and I – don’t have to wait long however. Our meeting partner’s superior comes to meet us immediately. I tell him about the new BCom degree in banking, the students’ qualifications and about what this new degree can offer the local banking sector. The man is very interested, his bank will open a new branch in Fort Portal next week. The impression he gives is that he has a positive opinion: he reads what the university has to offer and sees the advantages hiring a graduate brings: until now, there were no training standards in Uganda’s banking sector. There might be further education and courses for people when they get hired, but the banks take on people without any prior banking knowledge.

When, over a year ago, a former colleague from Deutsche Bank came to Uganda for the first time, the bachelor of banking project and rural microfinance courses were in their earliest days. Both courses were brand new. The work that needed to be done included establishing the department, getting banks involved so that a real timetable could be drawn up, advertising training courses and possibly getting financial or material support for a “banking lab” as a space where students could practise on banking programs on PCs.

Unfortunately, the university alone was not in a position to continue these negotiations over the last year and a half. The contacts are now by and large no longer active. Our hope of integrating local partners has three aims. One the one hand, the meetings serve as advertising for the university: this time, colleagues from the banks’ HR departments are at the meetings too so that they know who the graduates are when they apply for jobs.

I am less interested in obtaining direct help to structure and expand the course: I am focusing my energy on advertising cooperative ties to the university as an equal partner. The university can deliver something that is a direct advantage for the local banks. The meetings therefore cover three points: internships as practical support for what students learn in their classes, a lecture series which sees all Ugandan banks send experts to Fort Portal to hold lectures twice a year and tell students what work is like within banks, and a one-off review workshop that functions like round-table talks between the university department, the banks’ representatives, and possibly the student. During the review workshop, the course’s contents can be revised or, if necessary, adapted to suit the requirements of the local market.  

Day 21

Today is wonderfully unspectacular. The trip from Jinja back to Kampala is a non-stop bone-shaking experience, but that’s nothing new, is it? The traffic in Kampala is, as usual, a mess – no surprises there either. And even the women with the banana stalks on their heads don’t really impress me anymore. The man with the plastic paddling pool I saw on my first day in Kampala is back, and I wonder briefly if I should make a present of the thing for the other people on the team on my last day…

I collect the new brochures later on: they describe the business and departments in greater detail. I had one particular requirement for my meetings with the local banks: I wanted to have something that I could give potential project partners so that they had a quick overview of the immediate advantages of the university course and the graduates’ qualifications. What’s in it for local partners if they support the course?

One aid worker said to me, “You can’t force people to want something: they have to want it by themselves.” I agree with him – if someone doesn’t see a need to get involved in something, they won’t get involved. I have to think of an interview I took part in years ago, it was about motivating people. The interviewee said, “If you want people to build a raft, you have to make them long for the sea.” It sounds maybe a bit poetic, but this is essentially exactly what you have to do.  

Oliver and I worked on the flyer for describing the fields of microfinance and banking, we supplied some points regarding content, and scores of photos I’ve taken have made their way into the brochure. A graphic designer did the layout of the texts and photos, the results are good. The flyer provides a clear overview of the university, its business school, the department. Again I think we’ve taken a big step forward. What will it inspire in the readers?

Day 20

The weekend. My alarm went off at 6. During the night, there was such a terrifying thunderstorm for six hours that I sat bolt upright in bed and was scared that the hotel would collapse. The bus goes out to Jinja, where the Nile leaves Lake Victoria. I could do with a bit of unwinding… I find the capital chaotic and stressful.

Day 19

I’m sitting on the veranda having breakfast: I’ve ordered coffee, fruit and toast. After 10 minutes, the waiter comes and explains that there’s no more bread. This would be unthinkable at any other hotel I’ve ever stayed in. Here, it’s normal that something’s always missing. I notice that I don’t let things spoil my mood so quickly – if something’s missing, if things take longer or if I have to run around with a headlamp because there’s no electricity, well then that’s just the way things are. What can you do about it… I make phone calls for my final meetings in Kampala, I’ve got my update calls with the bank telling them I’m still alive and talk about the direction the project’s development will take.

In the afternoon, I meet a GIZ project coordinator: his portfolio includes a public-private partnership programme run by Germany’s ministry for economic cooperation and development in Uganda. At Deutsche Bank, we want to sign up for several years: because of this, my meeting is first an informal talk to see how this could work with GIZ. I find the talk very well structured and highly constructive.

Financial education can only be established in Uganda if we get local banks to join in. I’m curious to see how the local banking sector responds to our suggestions in the meetings we have lined up.

Day 18

We leave for Kampala at 11 am in the pick-up. Three people from GIZ and me. We have 290 km ahead of us… According to friends in Frankfurt, the weather has turned autumnal in Germany, and while the first Santas of the season have turned up to underscore the summer-has-gone feeling, here in Uganda, I’m virtually doing somersaults. Not that I’m jumping for joy: no, the street is covered in speed-killing bumps that feel like they must be 40 cm high. Every few kilometres, wherever there’s a group of huts and houses, these humps are in the road to convince people to go slower. The road we’re on is one of the main roads through Uganda – my beloved A7 motorway, you’re so far away from me…

For the last 30 km before we reach Kampala, the road surface turns back to earth again, but then we finally manage to reach the capital. If I wasn’t just an avid sailor, I’d have got seasick by now. Once again we pass by stalls by the side of the dusty roads – you can buy anything you want from them, including children’s coffins. Fifty metres further on, you can buy the headstones to go with them. One experience gives way to the next…

According to the statistics, the average Ugandan woman has 6-7 children. In 21 years, the country’s population of 33 million will have doubled. However, the median age in Uganda is only 15 years of age, which I think speaks on the one hand for the breakneck speed of the population’s growth, but it also demonstrates that life expectancy is low, at least in recent decades. I don’t know the figures for child mortality, but children’s coffins are on sale only if there’s a need for them. The average life expectancy in Uganda is 43 years of age.

The capital stresses me out even when we’re driving into it. The crowds of bodas, the beeping, the fact that you’ve always got ancient lorries spewing out fumes when you’re stuck in the traffic, cars coming from every direction on the roundabouts – and there seems to be no real progress.

After another hour in the city’s traffic, I unfold myself out of the pick-up. Unfortunately, there’s no electricity when I get to the hotel, the shower is cold and the internet has probably got stuck in Fort Portal – I feel totally at home straight away.

Day 17

We set off for a weekly market at 7.30am. I know I’ve written that I find it hard to get used to these markets in Uganda. The freshly slaughtered cattle, the dirt, the primitiveness, the old pots used to cook the banana pulp called matooke, all of this cheek by jowl with live cattle  – it’s not for me. Don’t get me wrong: I admire the people, how they cope with all of this and how relaxed they are with everything. All the same, it’s incredibly unhygienic.

Two hours later, I’m back at my desk, processing photos for the blog, writing my evaluations and accounts, summaries of meetings. I spend the rest of the day making other plans, and tomorrow I’m going to Kampala.

Day 16

“Everything is possible in Uganda!” beams Felix, talking English in an African accent. I have come to like this opinion by now – things might a bit longer than at home, but they get there in the end. We have electricity, water and gas in the morning, plus it’s not raining. And I’ve just identified the boda driver of the week. The week might still young, but some things are just so superlative that you can simply put them at the top of your list without further ado.

It poured from the heavens again yesterday evening. The roads are more like wet clay pits, and I can’t help thinking that you should stop in front of every single pothole – after all, children could be playing in it. Then one of those boda drivers suddenly appears, his back seat transporting a bed which I make out to be 2 x 1.20 metres in size. Mounted crossways. My first reaction is “What if two of them meet each other on the road? What will they do?” My second reaction is “How on earth did he strap it into place so it stays there and the boda doesn’t topple over?” The boda should win a record for all the things it’s made to transport. Recently, a man sitting on the back seat was carrying a pole some 5 metres long – he was holding it vertically. At the edge of the Queen Elisabeth National Park, I saw five people travelling on one of these bodas. In Germany, once a couple has their first child, they think they have to get an estate car – fast – because their Golf is now far too small…

I spend the rest of the day arranging meetings with banks in Kampala, which turns out to be a difficult task because it is raining so heavily again that I can’t hear myself speak. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it already, but this is made even worse because mobile phone reception here can be a bit temperamental at times. Making phone calls from the house is also only occasionally successful. I think about the German singer and cabaret performer Rainald Grebe and his song Landleben (Country Life), when he sang that having reception out on the fields early in the morning. That’s what it’s like here too…

Once again I notice what kind of banal, everyday problems make work take so much longer. My ten phone calls could have formed a single event that lasted all of the afternoon…

Day 15

It didn’t rain yesterday and now the roads are actually usable again – somewhat. This is a good thing, because this afternoon I have to go to the university at Lake Saaka and hold another three-hour lecture about electronic banking, which I finished writing in the morning. Dinner is planned for the evening with Oliver from the GIZ international cooperation society, and Andrew, who heads the university’s business department. We want to exchange ideas about where we stand, what I believe the banking department’s strengths and weaknesses are, and how we want to shape our further cooperation. I plan talks with local banks for next week. I think it would make sense for Deutsche Bank to provide an impetus for two to three years, maybe send an employee as a lecturer once or twice a year. But in the long run, the project has to be something that has to function between the university and Ugandan banks.

My course starts at 2 pm and everyone’s on time. I ask what we’d covered the last time and see that they’ve all gone over their notes again and taken the information on board. Great!

We work hard this time again. The students still lack a lot of basic knowledge, but then again if everything was perfect, there would be no need for us to be involved here.

Since it was founded in 2005, the university has grown from 14 to 1,250 students. The banking BCom started out with just seven students and the first group will finish next year. There are 40 students studying banking now – no less than 80 had applied for the new course. This rapid growth demonstrates how great the need is for this kind of education. In addition, I’ve heard repeatedly from the banking sector and development agencies that the fast-growing Ugandan market urgently needs qualified staff so it can cope with the demand. This goes for big banks and for the small credit and microfinance institutes alike. There is still too little education about financial issues, and knowledge about how to handle money is also scarce. This is why GIZ is supporting this business sector (along with its support for scores of others), thereby providing support for the project at the university.

Day 14

The day begins early, at 6 because I want to join a small group of people and go to see a “chimp trek” in a gorge. Unfortunately, the chimps are doing exactly what I would do at this time of day too – they’re just lying about. This really makes them really appeal to me, but unfortunately we walked non-stop for over three hours through the African jungle to see small furry black dots about 30 metres above us. From a distance, they look like they could be chimps, and the zoom lens confirms that they are indeed chimpanzees. Not for one second do they consider even coming one metre closer. I can’t hold that against them. 

I get back to Fort Portal late in the afternoon. My head full of impressions, I’m tired after countless miles on rough tracks which wouldn’t even be considered a path across a field in Germany. I’m looking forward to the motorway at home. The bumpy A45 with all of its non-stop roadworks and 80kmph zones – a dream. Being stuck on the A7 between Hamburg and Bremen – wonderful. Rush-hour traffic in Frankfurt or Berlin – no problem at all. You really learn to take things less to heart here.

My third week starts tomorrow and I’m looking forward to it. This is my here and now – Germany seems so incredibly far away.

Day 13

It’s the weekend. In the past 10 days, I’ve often sat at my desk until late at night and have seen precious little of my surroundings apart from on may to and from my meetings. But now I’m treating myself to two days off and I’m going to the Queen Elizabeth National Park, about 140 km from Fort Portal. If there’s an opportunity nearby to see elephants, lions, crocodiles, buffalo and one or other species at home in the African wild, then I’d like to call round and greet the animals in person. I cross the equator on my journey there – it is signalled by a sign at the side of the road displaying a symbolic line. Then, hey presto, in the national park, an elephant appears instantly out of the thicket behind my jeep. However, my greeting doesn’t make it past my lips: I’m so dumbstruck by this gigantic creature that I can’t even make a single sound.

It leaves an impression on you to see just how much variety there is in this country – how much of it is poor, how much deprivation, particularly in the northern parts of the country when you head towards South Sudan, but then on the other hand, you see how bountiful nature is in the country’s central and southern regions. The landscape is simply beyond description, and the wildlife is incredible. I know lots of people who have been to one country or other in Africa on holiday. They went to look at animals in well-protected tourist groups and went back to their lodges in the evening. “Africa is so beautiful,” they say. But working here in the middle of it all, in a small town at the edge of the Congo, travelling on dirt roads alongside boda drivers and bikes that are weighed down with 150kg of bananas, walking through the mud, settling for half measures and provisional arrangements – there are the things I’m experiencing, and they’re intense. And the phrase “Africa is so beautiful” isn’t a good enough description for me.

The continent’s animals are on my side at least: today, I got to greet not just elephants, but also buffalo, kobs, crocodiles, baboons and all kinds of other wildlife and wish them a pleasant journey, and now I’m enjoying a quiet evening in a small GeoLodge where there are no other tourists. Admittedly, the electricity suddenly cuts out too, but my headlamp has by now become a fixed feature in my luggage.

Day 12

Everyone in Uganda, men and women alike, have what is known as an empaako, a pet name that is meant to say something about a person’s character. Interestingly, you get your empaako based the very first impression you make the moment you meet someone, and there are only 12 of these names in total. It’s as if you were at Ikea and an announcement was made via the PA system, "Little Akiiki is at the kids’ playground and wants to be collected", and then 200 parents set off to see if this one child was theirs. On the other hand it’s the same as when little Finn or little Laura doesn’t want to play your ball game anymore. Plus, there’s no Ikea here…

The name I get is "Amoti".

I start planning my meetings with the banks and the day passes in negotiations and meetings with Oliver. Together, we create a flyer for the banking department. I want to be able to present something during my talks with the local banks: something that has a definite structure or plan and at the same time emphasises the advantages of the university course so that the local banks can identify what advantages it can bring them. It takes me the whole day to create the flyer, but by the evening, it’s ready and I send it to a graphic designer who’ll work on my proposals. I’m glad that we have a concrete result and that we’re making progress.

Day 11

An aside: observations about the rain in Uganda – a free adaptation of Irish Journal by Heinrich Böll.

It has just started to rain. Or, more precisely, it’s like someone forgot to turn off a tap again after having turned the water on fully. When it rains here, it really, really rains: it’s absolute, it swallows everything up, it overwhelms everything. It’s uncompromising. The rainy season has begun. Even if I only go onto the veranda for a few seconds to put a few things out there, that’s still long enough to get so wet that it’s like I’ve swum a few lengths of a swimming pool. While wearing all my clothes. By the way, I swim like a stone, and if the rain keeps up like this, I could have some serious problems.

The rain outside only has one volume setting – as loud as possible. Indoors, you can’t even hear yourself speak. It transpires that this keeps up for hours, though it only took a few minutes for ponds to form in the garden. Swimmers would have no trouble doing the seahorse stroke in them. The first of these pools of water reaches the door and the inside of the house.

The next question is obvious – whatever happened to the divine promise to never send another flood? Heinrich Böll eases my worried mind: God made a promise to never inflict another flood on humankind. I’ve never been so happy to trust someone who wasn’t able to provide a good source to back up their statement…

While this intense rain strikes me as being almost funny when it starts, it is a catastrophe for the region. In the rainy season, downpours during the day are normal, but it has been raining non-stop for months, which isn’t normal here. And people tell me that this rain now is even worse than what they’ve seen in the past few weeks. If it keeps up, it will cause disastrous flooding. The roads will be impassable, they’re only made of hard-packed sandy earth. The water runs off the roads in little torrents.

The rain lasts for hours. There is no question of leaving the house. I have to simply accept this and spend the day working from home. The internet puts in an occasional appearance at the lodge and I manage to send my report off to the bank. Here, nature dictates people’s actions. Us Germans don’t like being told what to do – nature is great, but only if it’s under control. As proven by Bruno, that bear that ran amok in Bavaria a few years ago – if a bear simply does what it pleases, i.e. kill sheep, we call it a bad bear… Here in Uganda, people accept the things that happen to them. Which is impressive, in a way.

Day 10

Wednesday morning: to mark the occasion, we have electricity, gas and water, and I discover what a luxury this is. There are so many things that we take for granted in Germany or that I’d complain about at home, for example a shower that only produces cold water because a plumber is downstairs messing about with the boiler. Here, I see all these things in a different light. My guess is that we’re one of the few houses here on the outskirts of town that has running water and electricity. Then we also have the solar panels on the roof. Unfortunately, the rainy season is starting, which means there won’t be much sunlight to generate electricity. And that in Africa! That’s what it’s like in the tropics, though. We’re almost at the equator, not in the desert.

I head off to the campus early, i.e. for the university at Lake Saaka. The road surface is soft after the night’s rain, and the university’s taxi service has real trouble making progress – and it’s a jeep, no less. I can see herds of cattle everywhere and farmers carrying green banana stalks on their rickety bikes.  They must be really heavy, and the mud doesn’t make it any easier. Bananas grow in fields to the left and right of me, the road leads past the prison at Fort Portal, where the inmates – mostly young people and children, as far as I can make out – wear bright yellow uniforms. They have to work in the fields while guards keep watch over them. I think about how my route to work is so different to Frankfurt, where I get annoyed if the train is three minutes late and I can’t find a seat.

My lecture about electronic banking starts at 9am. I want to do more than just communicate knowledge – I also want to find out what level the students are at so I can then take a closer look at their timetables and talk to Andrew, the business school’s dean.

I start at the very beginning, and I take things slowly so that the students can follow me clearly. If anything’s lacking, it’s good teaching staff and certainly not the attentiveness of the students. And I notice that, for a lot of them, banking in their minds is limited to saving money and withdrawing cash from accounts. 

When we come to the topic of electronic communication systems, I notice that I’m being a bit too ambitious, maybe. None of them has ever seen a fax, for example. Only some of them get – and even then it’s still difficult to comprehend – that it’s like a copy and that you can’t be sure if the original document has actually been signed. But the students are incredibly keen to learn – and this is something that makes me happy.

Afterwards, I head for my meeting with Adolf straight away. A friendly Ugandan awaits me, he’s branch manager at a bank in Fort Portal and is familiar with Deutsche Bank due to joint projects and other work. I ask him for his opinion about whether the students from the B.Com course will even be needed on the Ugandan market – can things improve? Our involvement has to bring long-term benefits, the university should be able to stand on its own two feet at some point. To do that, the courses have to really achieve something. However, Adolf reassures me that there is no qualified training programme in the Ugandan banking sector and that people see a lot of sense in the two courses at the university that benefit the banks, as well as the large and small microfinance institutes. He also sees it as a good step towards improving the basic level of financial education in the country, and the idea of involving local banks is something he views in a positive light as well. He can see himself holding guest talks. It’s good to get his feedback, I’m happy about it.

Day 9

Yippee! When I wake up, we have electricity! Unfortunately, the gas bottle is empty instead, so I can put away any hopes I had of making coffee. Oh well, these things happen. Whoops – was that a moment of c’est-la-vie acceptance?

Then I realise that, tomorrow, I’ll only have been in Uganda for a week. I’ve already experienced so much, absorbed so many impressions that it seems like I’ve been here for months, everything seems incredibly compressed. Uganda leaves its mark.

During the morning, I fine-tune tomorrow’s lecture again because I’ve wonder if it might be better to talk more about basic things. Around noon, I meet the two GIZ people and we talk about a possible project between the university and Deutsche Bank. I present my findings. They agree with my ideas. That afternoon, I finish writing up my due diligence report for our CSR (corporate social responsibility) department and want to send it off, but unfortunately the feeble internet connection we have has packed it in. I can send it one day later – the internet is taking a break, can’t do anything about that.

Later that evening, Felix organises for Oliver to pick us up and gets a 12-litre bottle of gas. Brilliant – but how in God’s name do you hook the thing up without blowing yourself to smithereens? Google knows how to make Molotov cocktails, and I suppose you can probably even find instructions for enriching weapons-grade plutonium online, but the search engine knows nothing at all about Uganda’s 12-litre gas bottles. Great. On top of that, our internet is working at snail’s pace today: we’re not surfing the net, we’re doing the breast stroke against the breakers… After an hour of fiddling about (and a lot of airing), we’ve finally managed it, and warm food is our reward…

Day 8

When I wake up in the morning, the electricity is out. Which is a pity, because without electricity, the monster of a boiler we have in our bathroom won’t produce any hot water. This doesn’t really matter though, because we soon discover that we don’t have running water. Because of my cold, my voice still sounds like someone had forgotten to let the tummy of a stuffed teddy go.

After electricity and running water return to us as if by magic, I have a shower and the world then seems like a very different place.

We set off for university at Lake Saaka. I pore over mountains of GIZ paperwork from about microfinance institute, statements about why GIZ (Gesellschaft fuer internationale Zusammenarbeit, Germany’s society for international cooperation) is supporting the university and its two courses, Banking and Development Finance, and Rural Microfinance, and I compose my first summary for the bank. I completed the script for my lecture about electronic banking at the weekend, and I talk with Geoffrey, the head of the banking department, about when we should hold the lecture.

Evaluating the GIZ papers has a sobering effect on me. In my opinion, it is difficult to encourage people to save money with an interest rate of over 14% this year, but this is the objective of the GIZ programmes for small SACCOs (savings and credit cooperatives). On the other hand, the people working at these very small microfinance companies have such threadbare training that I don’t really know where to begin.

SACCOs are savings and loans cooperatives created by people with meagre income, e.g. small tea and coffee growers. Credit and money from deposits can only be issued to the cooperatives’ members. Unlike commercial banks and bigger microfinance institutes, tier 1 and tier 3 banks, SACCOs’ activities are not regulated by the Bank of Uganda, the country’s central bank. As a result, certain things are scarce on the ground, such as correct bookkeeping. Cashflows in and out are simply jotted down in a “day book” and people just don’t think ahead – if, for example, these bundles of paper went missing, it would no longer be possible to ascertain how much money different people have or who has taken out a loan. SACCOs have also had other problems: farmers have asked for their savings to be paid out, but this wasn’t possible because the money had been issued as a loan, and managers have been known plunder the institutes’ savings.  All of this has resulted in a severe loss of trust among the members – this doesn’t really surprise me. I think that before anybody starts advertising SACCOs as a place to save money, you have to ask if their levels of professionalism need to be improved or if regulations should be applied. However, saving money with a well-managed SACCO is maybe still better than putting money under your mattress, lending it to family members and friends or treating cattle only as a form of “investment”: there is, of course, always the risk that the animals could simply die or fall sick, or that someone’s cache of money could get stolen. SACCO members often have no access to banks: only the bigger towns have big banks, there are none in the countryside.

Unfortunately, the university’s banking department is understaffed. GIZ employees Oliver and Felix, both of them academic advisors, support the university’s efforts by offering advice and consulting. They also provide help with lectures though that’s strictly speaking not part of their brief, because they’re only meant to provide assistance so people can learn to help themselves. But there’s such a shortage of so many things that you have to help out everywhere. Geoffrey, the department’s head, has to fight on his own and isn’t from a banking background. Regarding microfinancing, the important thing would be to ensure the students have a basic understanding of the simplest things, starting with proper bookkeeping and then issues like creditworthiness checks, or things like risk management and seeing if loans can be repaid.

The university has created two separate courses: a three-year B.Com in banking and development finance; and rural microfinance, which can be either a one-year course that provides students with a certificate or, if they’re good enough, a two-year diploma course. Both courses are aimed at training SACCO staff. Then there’s also a banking B.Com, but this isn’t connected to the microfinance courses. Though it also teaches some things about microfinance issues, the B.Com is for school-leavers, in other words it is designed for a younger group of students.

Once they’ve finished the course and received their degrees, these students are meant to get placements with tier 1 and tier 2 banks, i.e. bigger banks and credit institutes around the country. The longer I think about it, the more I see this as an issue for us, a bank, to get involved in: when it comes to training people in microfinance, I just can’t see us getting a big bank on board in the long term. I think it only makes sense to support the department as a whole, try to win over local banks which can then work with us on expanding the university course. I’d like to create a situation where Deutsche Bank is pushing the project’s progress forward, but with local banks joining up over time so they can work with the university to continue the project. The know-how has to be created in Uganda and not be flown in only to fly out again. To me, the main priority seems to be providing the department with staff who can teach – this is an urgent issue. There needs to be at least two more lecturers. I also see that there is a huge need for this training course when I take a look at the general level of education that people in the country have: (financial) education is virtually non-existent.

I start writing all of this in a due diligence study that will help define the project and its requirements.

Day 7

Felix and I decide not to stay stuck at our desks today, and instead, we get a driver to take us to Kyaninga Lodge, 20 minutes’ drive away. Though the weather is cold, rainy and windy, the view across the crater lake is indescribably beautiful. Unfortunately, we can’t see as far as the Rwenzoris because the clouds are so low. The lodge is beautiful inside as well. Tasteful wood and bamboo, an open fire, incredibly cosy. It’s owned someone from Britain. It’s another stark contrast to Fort Portal, which has hardly any tarred roads, no spaces to linger – it’s a rudimentary, poverty-stricken place.

We walk back through the banana plantations for a few kilometres until the driver we’d called for comes to collect us. It’s really strange – a week ago, I was still in Frankfurt and all excited, but now it seems completely normal to be here. And though some things get to me, above all the poverty and deprivation, I still have a good feeling here.

I’m looking forward to week two! There’ll be meetings with the university about a possible joint project, my lecture and a lot of talks with aid workers.

Day 6

I’ve come down with such a terrible cold that I have a very, very sore throat when I wake up. In the evening, it gets noticeably cold – after all, we are 1,600 m above sea-level. After I listen to a lecture in the afternoon, we head back from Lake Saaka, the off-site campus about 5 km from Fort Portal. Dilapidated huts line the roads in the banana plantations: people wearing shabby clothes sit in front of them. A small boy, maybe seven years old, comes home covered in dust and dirt after working in the field, he carries a hoe over his shoulder…

Thinking about how much my trip to work has changed in the past week compared to Frankfurt, Germany already seems very far away to me.

Day 5

I start my day with a fruit salad made from fresh mangos, apple and a passionfruit from the garden, and I make the snap decision to never buy another mango back in Germany because they don’t even faintly resemble the way they taste here. I spend the whole day at my writing desk, look out at the banana plantations and mull over a concept for a lecture about electronic banking that I will be holding. I also think about how the training provided by the university could be given more practical, wider foundations. By the evening, I’ve made a start with the first concepts, and I’m satisfied.

Day 4

I simply haven’t slept well. I started out by crawling around on all fours under my bed to look for scorpions, snakes and spiders (only a gecko scurried away), but all of the night-time noises were so unusual. The next morning, I wake up scorpion-, snake- and spider-free and head off to my first meeting at 8am. The Ugandan in charge of the Banking and Microfinancing department at the university turns up an hour late – time is a relative here. But the view is jaw-dropping: you can see the Rwenzori Mountains, with Lake Saaka in front of them. Wow! I’m involved in discussions almost all day long to learn about the different university courses and qualifications and learn what’s necessary in the region. First of all, it’s important for me to get an overview of the university, the teaching, what level the students are at, what the region needs by way of bankers/microfinance experts. What kind of microfinance institutes are there, what is missing? What’s the level of education? What kind of role could Deutsche Bank play? I learn a lot during the course of the day and start analysing the situation to I can develop definite project plans.

Later that evening, Ciaran, the Irish aid worker, cooks and I find out that he used to have a restaurant. Ireland isn’t exactly famous for its culinary specialities, but this man knows what he’s doing. We sit outside and talk, and Felix and Kiaran tell me about their work. I’ll sleep like a log tonight.

Day 3

On my way to Fort Portal

Alice drives me to Fort Portal. It’s 290 km away, and when I look at the state of Kampala’s roads, I get ready for a day’s travelling. Beforehand, I buy a small bottle of whiskey so that I can keep “Montezuma’s revenge” at bay and dispatch all kinds of germs if they insist on coming to get me. There’s a general rule of thumb for foreigners if they want to make it through a stay here – “Boil it, peel it, or leave it”. Friends have also advised me to drink a small shot of strong liquor every evening. I’m not a fan of shots at all, but after my stomach really did calm down on the second evening, I have to concede that their plan was right…

All kinds of mopeds and motorbikes crowd around our car. They’re the main means of transport (“boda-boda”) and they bear staggeringly high heaps of bananas on branches, fish and someone is even carrying a bed on his boda. Someone tries to flog an inflated paddling pool at a junction in Kampala: the man was here yesterday as well, and he’ll probably still be here when I come back. I ask myself who on earth would want to buy an inflated, dayglow-coloured plastic paddling pool at a crossroads in the middle of Kampala’s frantic traffic (you can count the number of traffic lights on one hand). All the same, daily life takes place almost in its entirety on the streets of the city – people cook outdoors, everything is sold by the side of the road. Another man is standing next to the paddling pool peddler. He’s selling trenchcoats. He holds one of them in his hand, and he’s wearing three more. It’s 28° outside, I don’t envy the man…

It takes hours, but we eventually reach Fort Portal. During the trip the landscape has shown itself at its best, contrasting with all the poverty. Everything is green, so lush and green – we’re only some 80 km from the equator – the sun is shining… it’s like a dream. Monkeys dangle from the trees by the side of the road, shortly afterwards we drive through tea plantations stretching for miles. If I could get the other images I’ve seen over the past few days out of my head, it would all seem so idyllic.

I get to know the lodge – it’s simple by German standards, but in Uganda it’s pure luxury. We have a solar unit on the roof and are therefore independent of the electricity supply, and I learn that we normally also have running water. My flatmate, Felix is a junior academic advisor. He’s from Germany, finished school in Ireland, then he went to Spain and the Netherlands to study, he has spent some time in Kenya and has been here for four months. He knows a lot about the country, the people and the transportation. Passionfruit vines grow all over the house, and there’s a banana plantation with the plants’ thick stalks just at the end of the lawn.

That evening, we drive to meet Oliver, the GIZ’s academic advisor for the university and Felix’s boss. We want to have our first talk about my work here. To get there, we drive along a road with a surface of compact sand. Not many roads are tarred – instead, loamy, red sand is everywhere.

Day 2

Kampala - first impressions

In the afternoon, I meet the deputy ambassador and the director of the GIZ’s programme at the deputy ambassador’s house, and we discuss about the planned project. Around me, you can hear ibises and all kinds of strange animals, you can see the hills of Kampala.

On my way back: Impoverished huts of corrugated iron and mud walls line the road back. The markets sell everything you could ever imagine: freshly slaughtered meat hangs outside in the dusty air next to spluttering wood stoves, right beside dozens of stalls selling bananas, shoes, all kinds of electronics rubbish, fruit, vegetables. Some people have just 10 onions for sale in front of them. Children play in the dirt with old car tyres which they roll around with sticks. By the side of the road, people sell corn on the cob that they’ve grilled on tiny cookers.

Today’s contrast is oppressive.

In the afternoon, I meet the deputy ambassador and the director of the GIZ’s programme at the deputy ambassador’s house, and we talk a bit about the planned project. Around me, you can hear ibises and all kinds of strange animals, you can see the hills of Kampala. 

Day 1

Frankfurt airport

I’m on the plane now – we’re going to take off soon – my aim is to spend four weeks in Uganda. As usual, things haven’t worked out with regard timing, but at least they worked out in time…

Recently, I read “Find out what you like to do, and then DO IT” printed on one of those advice-on-how-to-live-your-life postcards. I was tempted to buy it, and I succumbed to this temptation.

But it is a very appropriate description of what I feel right now: I can only confirm to myself that I am into this journey heart and soul, and that’s why I feel so good. Even though I am in total awe of the time I am going to spend in Africa. I’m going to spend several weeks as a corporate volunteer for Deutsche Bank at the Mountains of the Moon University (MMU) in Fort Portal in Uganda, and I’m going to take a look at two of the university’s courses: Banking and Development Finance, and Rural Microfinance. They have been on offer for one and two years respectively, and the BA the university offers in Banking and Development Finance is particularly novel within the Ugandan banking sector. Banking in Uganda does not have standardised, unified training standards: staff at small, local microfinance institutes are particularly poorly trained, and general (financial) education gets short shrift in Uganda anyhow. The university wants to change this, and it is supported by Germany’s GIZ institute for international cooperation and the GTZ institute for technical cooperation. As a Deutsche Bank employee, I will be taking a look at the university’s teaching plans, hold some courses and try to give the training provided by MMU a wider, more practical foundation. The aim is to get local Ugandan banks involved as well – I want to engage them in discussions so that they can continue the work independently in the country after Deutsche Bank provides a “boost” for a while.

As I sit waiting for the plane to take off, a lot of ideas are going through my head. I’m very interested to see what my impressions are – but it’s a real ambition of mine to do it now…

Standing on African soil

I arrived at Addis Ababa airport an hour ago – it’s the first time I’ve ever been in Africa. However, the impression was a bit overshadowed by the fact that I couldn’t find my gate. After asking lots of questions of the undeniably polite people here, it turned out that I had to go to the other terminal. But there are no signs for that anywhere – you simply have to know it (or ask) that gates 7-9 means having to go to another terminal. It would have been easier to just put a sign up, but maybe I’m applying German standards too much.

After queuing for ages at the security check, which almost drove me mad, and being terrified of missing my connecting flight, I met Iphanias, a Ugandan I had already met at the airport in Frankfurt. He sees my expression of concern and laughs a ringing laugh, gives me his hand and says, "Welcome to Africa my friend. It will be an adventure for you!" He’s probably right, I’m still working on relaxing deep down inside… But if I’d known that, what should I have said to him at the airport in Frankfurt when he was a bit too close to me in the queue for the passport check – a policeman barked angrily at him, saying “Step back behind the yellow line!” – “Welcome to Germany, my friend”?

After searching for ages, a bumpy bus ride and another security check, I finally find my gate. On time, a small bus takes us to the plane. The first surprise: nope, no jet

With effort, it manages to take off. Earplugs are definitely going into my hand luggage on my next trip.

I read a bit because the lights on the plane make an unannounced change from emergency to full lighting. Unfortunately, it abrupt goes out again for no apparent reason 45 minutes later, which is a shame because at almost the same time, the air conditioning unit over my head comes to life even though it is bloody cold in the plane, even by European standards. Obviously the lights and air conditioning can’t work simultaneously, because the same thing happens again once or twice.

Amazingly, we land safe and sound in Entebbe in Uganda, and if there is a God, he’s earned himself several emergency prayers today.

Entebbe airport/Uganda

Alice, a Ugandan, collects me at the airport. She has been working on joint development projects for years. She greets me so warmly that I have a good feeling straight away. Her husband drives us through the darkness towards Kampala – by now it’s 2.30am. There isn’t a single lamp by the side of the road anywhere – instead, there are rickety bikes and motorbikes with 2 or more people on them all.