Dancing

A new Cuban Restaurant and Bar recently opened in Kampala and already I’ve been there several times, but the opening night was by far the most interesting night. The Ugandan DJs took a while to get warmed up and actually playing Latin music but once they did, many of us converged on the dance floor. Along with my friends whom I had come with there were many people hailing from Spanish-speaking countries, and a host of characters including a sleazy older British man who owns a popular bar in town, a Ugandan break dancer/break dance instructor and a marine.

I had previously met the break dance instructor and he had invited me to his class but we hadn’t actually talked shop – not that I make a living from dancing but we had some things to share. He saw some of my swalsa moves (ok, I just made up that word for the combination of swing and salsa that a person like myself does when she’s actually trying to do salsa but her muscle memory requires swivels) on the dance floor and asked about them. We exchanged some moves and learned that the basic step – top dropping, I think - for break dance actually looks a lot like Charleston. We talked a little more and he asked if I could teach a class here. I thought about it and told him that if he’d teach with me I’d be fine with it. Plans are in the works.

Next, onto the sleaze. He walked up to me and started talking to me, I obliged in the typical conversation of “where do you come from?” “how long have you been here?” and “what do you do?” until in mid-sentence he walked away from me to light the cigarette of a pretty, young girl who happened to be part of the group I arrived with. More in awe of the sheer comedy of the situation than insulted, I shrugged it off.

Next, I met the marine. We started chatting and I have to admit, I went into the conversation kind of closed-minded and thinking I really wouldn’t have much in common with this guy and sure enough as the conversation turned to the war in Iraq and politics and we walked away shortly after, agreeing to disagree may have been too friendly a statement. It wasn’t a surprise; I was Peace Corps, he is Marine Corps, and that seemed to be only the beginning of the differences.

Later on in the evening, he asked me to dance. He’s pretty good at salsa and I love to dance so of course I accepted. All of our differences and the heated discussion we had earlier floated away on the dance floor and we had a great time. Still a klutz even after a few years of dance classes, I managed to stumble over my own feet when the music got a little fast. I was in a free-fall toward the floor in the middle of a crowded bar when my strong and able dance partner saved me from certain embarrassment and injury and caught me. I make sure to save him at least a couple dances now.

Ambassador Becca

A couple weeks ago I noticed a little yellow flag on the couchsurfing.com profile of my friend Allison, meaning that she had been chosen as a couchsurfing ambassador. I also recently met another couchsurfing ambassador who has moved to Kampala so I figured maybe I’d apply. After all, if you’ve talked to me in the past 9 months you’ve probably heard me raving about couchsurfing.com and how it’s really great (and maybe I’ve convinced you to join or partake somehow) so by my estimates, I’ve been acting as a couchsurfing ambassador for a while anyway, without the title.

So now I have the title – I’m an official Couchsurfing.com Nomadic Ambassador! Woohoo! I actually remember how excited I felt to meet the CS ambassador for Tunisia when we were there (there are three kinds of Ambassador – country, city and nomadic). Now it seems a little silly but I was new to couchsurfing and I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, and actually I still do. It has such a great philosophy – open your home to someone, show them your town or city, show them your culture, show them hospitality and friendship – not the inherent distrust that so many people *cough*Americans*cough* have for their fellow man – and little by little, the world will become a friendlier, nicer place to be and travel. That plus the idea of paying it forward – you host and show someone a good time and then you go travel and are hosted and have a great time. Really, it’s quite simple.

Who knows, maybe this is just the first step in my career as a diplomat… or in my career as a mooching bum ;) … maybe both. If you haven’t already, you should check out the website – www.couchsurfing.com – my profile can be found under the name Mounass. Just be aware, once you travel using couchsurfing you may never want to stay in a hotel again.

Here are some photos from a get-together we had this weekend:

Trainings

The first two days of training were a couple weeks ago. One was in Masaka and the other was in Kampala and they were pretty different but both went well. There were actually no major problems with either training, just a case of not having electricity at the training venue in Masaka, we needed to do some printing so we improvised and did it at the restaurant we went to for lunch. In Kampala we had to call in backups for lunch as the arrangements fell through, but, like I said, nothing major.

The trainees, 14 in total, were a promising bunch of 11 men and 3 women from various backgrounds from working in community development to having their own businesses. They all converged on Kampala for a continuation of their training last week. This is where things started happening like I had expected them to before. I ended up being short-staffed and had to call in some favors from friends (who I am extremely grateful to), then the night before the training was to start – before we had printed most of the handouts and materials necessary for the training, the printer, that has actually been giving us problems since its purchase, stopped functioning again. This magnified the issue of being short staffed and meant someone was going to have to spend some quality time in a printing/copy shop – the Ugandan Kinko’s.

Aside from the preparations, the training again went pretty well. Many of the trainees surprised me with the number of orders they were able to get – many more than we were able fill immediately. Also the group was able to raise a total of 2,240,000 USh - nearly $1400, pretty impressive since group members' monthly income averages less $125 (even though that is much higher than the average Ugandan’s income).

There were several highlights to the training. On the first day of training in Kampala, the trainees went out onto the street to practice their promotional speeches to people walking by. I expected them to come back somewhat discouraged, like the folks in Masaka did, because the first reaction to the product for many is that it is too expensive (this is usually before they realize all the benefits of the Firefly). However when the whole group returned and we started talking about how it went, I soon found that they had actually pitched it so well that three people were prepared to come back and buy the next day. That exercise convinced any doubting trainees that this would indeed lead to increased income generation for them.

Then there was the bookkeeping section of the training. I didn’t expect it to be easy to teach but after I had explained the simple system we had to offer them and gone through several examples, I was still getting blank stares from more than half of the class. That’s when a couple of the trainees who did understand (they both happened to be business owners) and took turns explaining in Luganda (the Ugandan language used in Kampala and Masaka) to the rest of the group. After about 10 minutes most of the group was caught up and understanding the importance and the method for what they would need to do.

Finally, as is common here, the power at our training venue went out a couple times. It happened to be during a rain storm so it got quite dark in the training room. When the lights went out, without hesitation, each of the trainees reached for their sample Firefly lamp and turned it on so we could continue with the training. It seemed to be a very proud moment for Harry who had joined us for the final day of training.

So Barefoot/BASE Technologies now has our first batch of mobile entrepreneurs circulating communities and selling our principal product – the Firefly Solar Lamp.