I’ve been nominated for a Best of Blogs sponsored by Deutsche Welle. According to the site, 8,500 blogs were nominated and have been filtered to 176 blogs in categories like Blogwurst Award, Best Weblog Persian, and others, including my category – Best Weblog English.

I guess it’s hard to categorize my blog. Obviously, I write in English. About Africa. But I’m not African.

They describe me as: A reporter, writer and photojournalist describes life in Uganda, through touching stories and amazing photos.

On a similar but slightly different note, Afrigator also recently created a list of 45 top female bloggers in Africa. Well, the original email I got informing me that I’m #10 of said top female bloggers in Africa. The Afrigator page said Top 45 Female African Bloggers.

In her review on Pambazuka, Sokari of Black Looks says:

Unfortunately the term “African women bloggers” is somewhat misleading as many of the blogs, particularly the non-South African ones are actually written by non-Africans. This is a real shame as there are so many excellent blogs written by African women from across the continent and in the Diaspora none of which are listen in the top 45. A more efficient way of finding out who is writing a blog is simply to include a box for gender and country of origin.

I understand the frustration. I think that a better poll would have included lots of great blogs that somehow aren’t on Afrigator, but I didn’t make the poll so they didn’t consult me about parameters. And I do think it would be silly for Afrigator to create one list of female expat bloggers in Africa and one list of female African bloggers in Africa. I don’t think Sokari is suggesting this, but maybe the best solution right now is to encourage other female bloggers in Africa who are actually African to register for Afrigator.

Anyway, if you want to vote for me for a German Best of Blogs where I’m nominated in the English category, since there isn’t a category for Best Weblog by an American about Africa and Appreciated by Germans, please do so here.

You’ll also notice that this slight blogging identity crisis has prompted a new succinct blog description under the lion’s photo.

Thanks for voting!

Last Friday when I went to the Jinja taxi park to get back to Kampala, I boarded a taxi with only a few passengers already seated. (For those of you outside Uganda or who aren’t familiar with the system, a taxi, matatu, like a big mini-van, has four rows of seats, and then two people sit in the very front, and every seat must be filled before the taxi departs.)

I like the second to last row, usually. In the front front, you have too good of a view of the impending doom traveling 120 kilometers an hour in the opposite direction. In the back, if you sit by the window, the tire takes up some of your leg room. Which makes the second to last row the ideal place to sit, and if you’re lucky, you’ll even get a window seat.

In the front row (not the front front, but behind the driver and the first row of seats) there was an older mzungu lady sitting in the seat by the window. I thought it odd that she sat there, since because the “conductor” also sits in the front row, along with three passengers, meaning there are usually four people sitting in that row, while there are three people in all the other rows.

(Side notes: 1. The conductor is the person who collects the taxi fare and tells the driver when to stop so someone can get out. 2. Often there are four people in the second row as well, to squeeze out the extra fare should another passenger wish to board the taxi, further supporting my preference of the second to last row as the most comfortable. 3. In Rwanda, they sit four people in every row, all the time, in taxis of identical size, and the conductor kind of stands up and bends over the front row of seats.)

The past middle-age lady wore a tie-dyed dress, a head scarf, and sunglasses. You don’t often see ladies of this age travel by themselves for a weekend in Jinja, so I thought that she might be someone who has lived here or worked here for awhile.

Her choice of seat should have tipped me off though. And sure enough, as the taxi slowly filled, another person, and then another person, sat down in the row next to her, as did the conductor.

“Hey! I paid for this seat!” she bellowed in a very American accent, causing quite the stir.

Of course, no one seemed to do or say anything about her discomfort or agitation.

“This is illegal!” she yelled, trying to displace one of the unwelcome passengers in her row. Of course, once again, no one did anything, other than the people in the back of the taxi snickering a bit.

The lady refused to move over to accommodate the extra person, and made three people crowd into two seats rather than four people into three seats. The last passenger practically had the conductor on her lap.

I thought about the debates ragging on my blog and about this lady: the longer you are in Uganda, the more likely you are to know how things work, like taxi seating. The fact that she chose the wrong row points to her lack of familiarity with the seating system, and the fact that she complained that it was illegal showed she had absolutely no knowledge of how anything in Uganda works. (Maybe the Attorney General has a personal hotline for complaints about all illegal happenings in Uganda, and the extra passenger in the front row may be high on his priority list. But maybe, just maybe, he also might be busy dealing with all of that damn torture that takes place in this country, or the rampant corruption which his office is supposed to stop.)

I thought next about all the Ugandans in the taxi, snickering at the old mzungu lady. Though surely they have had other interactions with bazungu, this one will contribute to their composite understanding of Americans. They will think of Americans as the people who complain about being crowded on the taxi, who say it’s illegal to do something that they think of as customary.

Every expat in Africa makes stupid mistakes when they first arrive. (I made too many to list that are all too embarrassing to mention.) But the thing is, the longer you’re here, the fewer of such surface level snafus you make, the less likely you are to offend your Ugandan hosts.

A lot of people have pointed to problems in my thinking about development tourists, and I’m glad for their comments because I now have a more nuanced view. But, I still think, in principle, the longer you’re here, the more likely you are to do something worth doing, and the less likely you are to do something that will only make Ugandans laugh at you.

Ndesanjo from Global Voices put up a post about Pernille’s several-day-long hiatus from blogging, along with her subsequent return. It also quotes my blog post on the topic.

I’m just wondering, why is one of the tags on the post gender? And not maybe something like cyber-activism, or freedom of speech? These seem to be salient issues related to this topic. There also isn’t a discussion of the hate speech that’s been going on surrounding these blog posts.

I’d like to start this post with Chris Blattman’s comment on my previous post, about development tourism:

I think what gets some people’s goats is the tendency to advertise short visits and contributions as a way to give back, or (worse still) to ’save’ someone else. Making a difference takes months, years, and perhaps a lifetime.

This difference is not simply semantic. It is the difference between going somewhere with the intention to learn and understand, and going somewhere to act and save . A different attitude leads to a very different set of experiences, actions, and consequences.

Last night, as I was making my nightly commute home from a den-of-internet to my flat, I thought, maybe I’m being too hard on “development tourists.” After all, Crystal Renuad made the very salient point that when a person visits a country, he or she knows much more about that place and is going to be more committed in the future.

But then, my thoughts traveled back to my original ideas about the subject: if you try to learn a language for only a week, you aren’t going to be able to say much. If you try and feed someone for a week, you aren’t going to feed him much.

It’s just that simple.

What is less simple is the breakdown of opinions on the matter. Here’s how it looks from my point of view:

1. Christians and others who go on such tours are arguing in support of them, discussing all the good they’ve done.

2. Academics, aid workers, and other expats in Africa question the commitment and ability of such people to really make a change.

3. The Africans – the primary group affected – are not happy about these “development tourists.”

To support #3, I’d like to quote Otim Michael’s comment:

I ask every NGO and “slum tourist” three questions:
1. What are you doing to empower the local community?
2. What are you doing to advocate sustainable development?
3. What are you doing to create jobs?

The ability to immediately answer two of those three questions tells a lot about the usefulness or uselessness of that organization to Africa.

I guess I can add one more question:
4. Who was the African that invited you to Africa?

As a fully devoted follower of Christ, I can still recognize the failed strategies of fellow believers when it comes to Africa.

It’s pretty obvious to me that all the programs, plans, and strategies of large institutions, charities, and NGOs aren’t working.

Or, de Tamble’s less verbose explanation:

Kill me now.

Mainly, I’d like to point out to prospective development tourists the fact that most Africans not only don’t want such tours, they despise them and the fact that their projects are unsustainable and often take away from the local economy they purport to support.

At the end of the day, the way I feel is actually less hard-line that I sound here. But, I think I have to go back to Chris’s point about expectations. If a development tourist comes to these ends with expectations of helping or saving, he or she will walk away with much less than if there were merely the intention of understanding or absorbing.

Given my last post on Pernille, and the current discussion on expats in Africa, I thought I would quote a Kigali-based blogger named Maurice (whose blog I found through another very good blog, that of my friend Jina Moore, also currently in Kigali):

Development tourist (n.) – An intern or short-term employee on a contract of up to 1 year, who wants to “experience the developing world” and “help out”, and who will afterwards leave the country, leave Africa and/or even leave development aid work altogether. By some estimates, development tourists make up over one third of the white population of Rwanda.

I think the one year contracts pale in comparison to groups that offer things like “short-term mission adventures”!!

Here’s some text off a website with the word “safari” in its URL:

Short term outreach Church Mission trips to Uganda, Kenya, Restore a building, Paint an orphanage, Build a footbridge, Build a children’s playground, run Christian holiday camps

You may be on the verge of an exciting outreach mission adventure to East Africa that will change your life.

This is your chance to see Africa from a new perspective. Get to know people from a different culture. Experience missionary life in Africa.

You will interact with the people of the host country, while making a meaningful contribution through short-term mission projects or community-related activities.
While you are engaged in helping in practical ways, those who are still waiting to know God will captivate your heart.

Participants in our Short Term Missions have returned home with a greater vision of God’s work in the world, a warmer love for His people, and enthusiasm for further involvement with church and the community.

And many of you don’t need to be reminded of how I feel about the likes Ann Jackson…

When I was leaving my compound this morning, the askari motioned for me. He had a letter for me, he said. An airmail envelope (though no postage, obviously hand delivered) was addressed to Steven and his wife.

Since the concept of “boyfriend” here is different from what we might think of in the states, any serious relationship is akin to marriage. So that makes me David’s wife. Not Steven’s. I informed the askari the letter must not be for us, since my husband’s name is David. After some back and forth in which I insisted that the letter must be for the person in the flat on the third floor, it became clear that it had been delivered for the compound’s mzungus.

So, in my official capacity as Steven’s wife, I opened the letter. It was a handwritten request from someone named Nicholas. “Studying in Uganda is a bit cheap,” he says, followed by a breakdown of school fees at a university (no indication of which university). Tuition fees $300, Meals $164, Accommodation $145.

I’m not sure who Nicholas is or why he thinks David’s name is Steven. (I am in no way surprised that he didn’t even try for my name – people in my neighborhood who have known me for ages still call me Grenna, if they call me anything at all – sometimes they just tell David, “Greet her.”)

We already pay three peoples’ school fees, all of whom are known to us. And they’re a lot less than $500. Neither David nor I make enough money to have an extra $500 just waiting for a stranger.

(BREAK: I just showed the letter to a Ugandan friend of mine sitting with me at Café Pap, who replied, “This town is filled with the biggest cons. I’m not even going to read this shit.” Then he launched into a long-winded story about another con artist he knows.)

Just yesterday, I was telling another friend of mine about a recent experience at the Uganda Prisons, where I’ve been going frequently for a story I’m working on. I told him how first, I was asking the prisoners what they knew about AIDS, and then they turned it around and asked me about AIDS. I said I wasn’t an AIDS educator, because though I certainly know the basics about AIDS, I don’t know how best to transmit the information. Then they asked me for soap, blankets, and lawyers.

The friend who I regaled with this story suggested we change the typical “Mzungu” tshirts sold at all sorts of craft fairs and tourist locations to “Mzungu: I am not an NGO.”

On Monday, I spoke to a volunteer group here in Uganda for some two weeks. I had trouble coming up with what to say, since I have such mixed feelings about people who come to Africa to “help” for two weeks, but here’s how I concluded:

You’re all here because you care, because you learn about inequality and poverty and disease and it bothers you.

In the time you’re here, you won’t eradicate any of those things. They will remain unchanged, here when you arrived and still present when you leave. You won’t change things, but instead, let the things change you.

Since there hasn’t been enough controversy on my blog lately, my newest post here and copied below. Leave comments here or on Global Voices.

Since there hasn’t been enough controversy on my blog lately, my newest post here and copied below. Leave comments here or on Global Voices.

Pernilla at I’ve Left Copenhagen for Uganda wrote a post a little, um, angrier than mine about the “Stop Trying to Save Africa” article. I’ll just quote a bit here, but you can see the whole thing here.

But come on! – Iweala’s argumentation is threadbare and his arrogance makes him speak on behalf of all Africans. Categorising them all in one go, as well as he does with the whole group of ex-pats trying to save Africa. No doubt that a change of the Western way of saving Africa is necesssary. No doubt that a lot of ex-pats, whatever reason they are in Africa for, can be a pain in the ass (I know some). But I also know a few Ugandans who would never put their feet in West Nile and Kampala youth who would never date a ‘Northener’ because of tradition and the history – and the image! The stereotypes and lack of information thrive within Uganda, Africa and among Africans. It is only Africans who are well off who can afford rejecting support to Africa. They cannot speak for the rest.

Reproduced in full here, and online here.

Robert Wabomba
Kampala

An elderly white man recently amused onlookers in Nakasero Market when he argued with a hawker over the quantity of beans he had bought. The hawker had convinced the white man that two mugfuls (tumpeco) of beans were equal to one kilogramme.

After paying sh1,000, the white man saw a weighing scale and decided to weigh the beans. To his dismay, the beans weighed only 950 grammes. He went after the hawker and told him to add him 50 grammes.

When the hawker refused, the man demanded for his money back. In broken English, the hawker tried to convince the man to take the beans in vain.

The white man insisted on getting his money back and succeeded. He warned the hawker to stop playing tricks on customers.