Uganda Perspective

Why is Food in Uganda So Bloody Expensive?

Uganda is an agriculturally blessed nation with millions of farmers.  Why then is the skyrocketing price of food one of the major factors in the country’s current 21% inflation?  The answer, in one word, is: supply.

There are currently serious famines in Somalia and Northern Kenya due to drought.  Millions of people are starving and the world’s aid agencies are responding as fast as they can.  But it is simply not possible to ship in enough food to sustain these people through the drought.  The shortfall in staples – rice, beans, bananas, potatoes – is purchased from Uganda.  Less supply for the Ugandans results in higher prices.

To the north, the new nation of South Sudan which has enough arable land to feed itself but no infrastructure to do so is flush with cash from the world’s aid agencies.  They are buying everything they can get their hands on from Uganda, their  neighbor to the south.  These are boom times for Ugandans in the north.  The price of a goat has tripled in the last two years.  Potatoes, bananas, rice, beans, tea and building materials – lumber, poles, cement and animal stock – beef and chickens – are all going for premium prices.  This is good news for the economy of Uganda but it also cuts down the supply of these things to Ugandans.   

Throw in the high cost of fuel which has tripled over the last five years and it is easy to realize that simply bringing food products to market must contribute to high prices.

Yet demand in country remains high.  More and more people are moving to urban centers which means they are not feeding themselves from the family plots and they must buy food.

There is opportunity here.  If the millions of subsistence farmers could set aside just ten percent of their harvest for sale and then work together through co-ops to sell those foodstuffs on the open market, the food shortage could be less and the farmers could share in the boom times of high prices.  Because farmers time their planting so there is always something ready for harvest, the cash flow could be constant year round.  This is money that could be used to send more kids to school.

So here’s the challenge: with every crisis there is opportunity.  Where are the people or the indigenous organizations that are willing and able put together a regional co-op plan?  Where are the visionaries that can be the food saviors of the nation?  I know you are there.  We need you now.    

Living To 100 – No Big Deal Up Country

Want to live a long life? 

Work hard, walk barefoot everywhere trudging up and down steep hills, carry your loads on your head,  eat organic vegetables, go to bed at sundown and rise at dawn, and laugh a lot.  That, at least would be the advice of people in Kishanje Village, Southeast Uganda where it is not unusual for people to live well into their nineties and often over 100 years of age.   

Modern westerners would think that living in a faraway, remote village in Africa would be detrimental to one’s health, but in fact, it is exactly the natural lifestyle that seems to be the secret to good health and long life.  Where we in the west are obsessed with health care – the latest drugs, regular visits to the doctor, vitamins and food supplements all designed to keep people feeling good and living long – the population in Kishanje, known here as "up country," does not think about health care.  Here, if you get sick, you’ll either get better or you don’t.  With a life of rigorous exercise – slinging a hoe in the garden for 12 hours a day – bodies are strong and in tone.  Working the earth to grow food is tonic for the soul.  Eating only fresh vegetables just taken from the earth and seldom accompanied by meat is the natural diet.   Thanking God for His blessings each and every day yields serenity.  Living in a village swirling with children keeps a vision of life around all day; the elders sharing village lore, history and life lessons with the young keeps the senior citizens vital.

This lesson from Uganda seems to be: simple life = long life; complex life = ???

Emergency Sex

No doubt about it, being a white NGO or embassy worker or expat in a third world country can be stressful.  I’ve seen the Mzungus with tense faces riding through Kampala on Vespas or trying mightily to navigate the eddys of traffic roundabouts. I’ve watched them wander the halls of bureaucracy or deal with endless requests at the embassy.  And I’ve always wondered how they cope. 

It turns out there’s a bar, an Irish Pub over by Embassy Row in Kampala that is the unofficial watering hole for frustrated (mostly youngish) white Westerners.  It is a good place to ask people how they cope. 

“I clear my mind by blogging,” says a girl code-named JackFruity.  “There is just so much crazy about this place, I have to write it down.  There are quite a few bloggers here; we all read each other’s stuff.  It’s like cyber-therapy and it doesn’t make any difference if anybody on the outside reads it.  They wouldn’t understand anyway.”

“I find it helpful to numb my mind with alcohol,” says a young man in a white shirt, a tie and a Long Island Iced Tea in his hand.  “Most Ugandans don’t drink which makes me wonder how they cope but after a day of shoveling against the tide of paperwork, only the fruit of the vine seems to make the day worthwhile.”

The next one perked my interest.  “I come here for emergency sex,” said a UN worker named Pam.  Tell me more, I said… would you like a drink?  “Drink, yes.  Well, you know, the days and nights get long and dealing with this culture, the stress is huge – there’s only one thing that does it for me, a good aerobic romp in the hay.  About once a month I come here looking for an exercise partner.  There is no shortage of candidates; some are repeaters which makes it all easy – a text message and a rendezvous and bam, it’s done,” she added.

“But you’re here at Ground Zero for HIV/AIDS, aren’t you worried?”

“Nah,” she said.  “We take precautions.  It’s just sex.”  She glanced to the back of the pub.  “And nobody blogs about it.”  Then pointed to the bar.  “I’m suddenly feeling like a Long Island Iced Tea.” 

I had a sudden urge to become a professional humanitarian.

AIDS: It’s Still a Behavior Problem

An article in the Wall Street Journal just a few days ago began:

KAMPALA, Uganda—Ninsiima Agatha, a 20-year-old mother of two, showed up at a medical clinic here last month, weak, coughing, and desperate to save herself and her two children. She had just discovered that her husband was infected with HIV—and now she had the virus too. If she didn't get access to life-saving drugs quickly, she could easily pass the disease to the baby she was breast-feeding.

But the staff at the Joint Clinical Research Centre had to tell her the bad news. Even though her  husband, a clothes merchant with a girlfriend on the side, was already receiving the so-called AIDS cocktail of drugs elsewhere, there would be none for her. The clinic had enrolled its full quota of patients under its contract with the U.S. government. Ms. Agatha, sprawled on a hospital bed with a toddler and an infant, could barely move. "I feel desperate," she said.

You can read the full, sad tale HERE.

As previously reported in this blog, the advent of plentiful Anti Retroviral drugs (ARVs) in 2004 has caused a major setback in conquering the AIDS virus in Africa.  Where the sight of people wasting away was a constant reminder of the horrors of the disease – and was a clear indicator of who was infected and who was not, with ARVs, infected people look perfectly normal.  Young musicians sang loudly “Slim-u is Dead.”  And suddenly it wasn’t necessary to change promiscuous behavior because there was no longer an apparent threat of dying from the old ways.  Yet, good-looking sick people are still sick and can pass on the disease.  Moreover, the drugs allow them live longer, which means they can pass the disease on more often.  This makes the AIDS threat covert and is therefore far more deadly.

Museveni had it right in 1986: AIDS is a behavior problem and not a medical problem.  His “AIDS Kills” and “Zero Grazing” campaigns fundamentally changed age-old behaviors and caused dramatic reduction in the spread of the disease.   The George Bush PEPFAR program in support of A-B poured more money into Africa than all of the rest of the world combined – and AIDS rates dropped throughout .  But this is a new generation.  The young university students do not see their friends dying. They do not hear the behavior message.  And Obama is reluctant to substantially fund AIDS prevention programs.

So where does that leave Africans facing a resurgence of the epidemic?  It’s back to basics.  No prophylaxis from the first world whether it be condoms or ARVs will ever be enough to solve the problem; they only meet a tiny percentage of symptoms.  Change must come from within.  Children, be abstinent until you are married.  Once married, be faithful only to your spouse.  No sugar daddies.  Get tested.  Get partners tested before sex.  Stay HIV-negative.  It’s time for a resurgence of Zero Grazing.  It’s time to kill the disease and not the symptoms.

Why Are You Playing With Your Food?

  My friend Denis happened to stop by on his way from the airport.  He had come to the US from Uganda for a month’s training with The Navigators.  It was Halloween and as it happened we were in the middle of carving pumpkins when the doorbell rang.  Denis came in with effusive greetings.  Then he saw the pumpkins.

 “What in the world are you doing?”

 “We are carving pumpkins.  Do you know Halloween?”  Denis shook his head.  He was staring at the pile of pumpkin guts and half-carved faces.  I explained: “This is a tradition in the US where the children dress up in costumes and go door to door begging for candy.”  Denis let his glasses slip down his nose in disbelief. 

He said, “But you are playing with your food.”

“This is the land of plenty," I replied. "We can play with our food.”

 “But I have never seen such a thing.”

 “Oh, there’s more,” I said, carving out a toothy grin on my pumpkin palette.  This is the night we celebrate the dead.  It’s full of ghosts and goblins and ghouls and coffins and spiders and skeletons and people decorate their front yards to look grave yards.  It’s all good fun.”

“Yeah, well, okay,” he said.  “You celebrate the dead by playing with your food.  This place never ceases to amaze me.”

He stuck around long enough to see the pumpkins in the deepening dusk with candles inside, glowing in their goofy-faced glory.  “What do you think?”

“You know,” he said, “I think I am hungry for some fresh squash.”