A far away land?

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Moving to Jinja I sometimes feel I have been taken to the world that I heard about in stories from my parents and grandparents as well as the one I left nearly a year ago. Surrounding me are remnants from a Britain of 50, 70 or 100 years ago, and now.

A traditional Britain is in the classroom, where a teacher stands at the front and dictates to children parroting what is said and are caned if they fall out of line; the courtroom, where judiciary have wigs that look just as ridiculous here as they always have done in England; in fashion, with the impeccably pressed trousers and shirts and bowler hats (which I’m sure are worn with more style than pre-war Britain but still evoke that image); society at large, overtly moralistic and deeply religious covering the ‘hidden’ shame of sex where the more white and fat you are the more wealthy it is assumed you are; in the formal handshake and formal greetings; and, particularly now I’m in Jinja, the architecture with the old colonial houses either left to rot and decay or resplendently refurbished and occupied by high-ranking NGO workers or government officials.

It is partly these snippets of a bygone era in a different place that makes me annoyed when people, especially in development, say “but that’s the culture here, you can’t change it.” This phrase is particularly common when talking about gender, ignoring the fact that there was a time not so long ago in Britain when the idea of a man doing the housework would have been met with the same incredulity that it often is here. Similarly, homosexuality, a completely taboo subject here because of ‘culture’ was similarly illegal and not discussed in Britain at the turn of the century. Interestingly, if someone is seen as acting in a ‘homosexual’ way in rural areas here it is explained away by the family as them being lame or retarded, a practice I am told was common in England up to the 1940s or 50s.

This is not to say that Uganda is England of any era just that there are certain elements that appear stuck in a colonial past. Nor is it to say that this works one way either, there are many elements of Ugandan society that I’m sure Thatcher would have loved to replicate for the return to ‘Victorian values’, Blair could have transplanted for his ‘no rights without responsibilities’ and Cameron is probably replicating to mend ‘broken communities’ and build a ‘big society’.

In England there are a seemingly endless supply of people willing to tell you how much better things used to be: where children had respect, where everyone knew their neighbour, communities lived as one happy family as the huge manufacturing and mining industries brought wealth and prosperity to all. Uganda also has its fair share of people (old and young) willing to tell you how much better things used to be. They are not so much longing for the colonial era as a time when outside opportunity seemed to be more abundant. As an interesting contrast to the negative discourse around foreign intervention in Africa many people will talk wistfully about training they received in the UK, Israel, Russia, Korea and in Uganda from foreigners which gave them vocational skills they no longer think are present in Uganda. The breakdown of most of these relationships seems to be blamed on the Amin era where foreign diplomacy was not really a policy focus. In saying that I have heard a couple of people (though I would not say that this a majority view) argue that the Amin era was not too bad as they (probably quite rightly) point out that it is the only time in the history of Uganda when the majority of wealth was owned by Ugandans themselves.

Other aspects of life here remind me of an England that I came from. This is particularly in the area of social welfare. I, as I think many people did, came to Uganda thinking that perhaps working here I would encounter people that were more grateful for ‘help’ that is given to them. Put simply, I thought there would be a greater need for help here and that there was more potential for impact. I guess I was right to an extent (though my experience working here has got me to reconsider the definitions of need and help) but there are a surprising number of similarities in the work I was doing with unemployed teenagers in the UK and many communities here.

I remember early on in my stay, waiting for hours for the community to turn up to a meeting, and thinking how similar it was to waiting for the people on our course to turn up. The difference in the wealth of the industry supporting those in need of ‘help’ and the people being helped themselves; the stated desire to change (often like a carefully worded statement that has been memorised to receive charity; the constant requests for money; and the learning of the criteria for receiving maximum support (from teenage mothers in the UK to orphans or living with HIV/AIDS here).

I despise the term ‘culture of dependency’ but there is certainly something similar in the reaction of people to a concentration of development initiatives, welfare support, charity or whatever else you want to call it. As people do in all walks of life, recipients of charity will root around for the best deal. If there is a programme or charity that will offer participants £35 a week to attend or a free t-shirt then that is most likely what they will choose, even if there is a training course that they would benefit more from in the long-term.

This is frustrating but logical short-term thinking that, in my experience, binds poor people from around the world. In Uganda people bemoan the lack of ‘savings culture’ but what is there to save for? You are unlikely to live beyond 50, you do not have enough money to support your family so you spend it on what you and they need and want. If you keep it too long, it’s likely someone will take it away from you. If possible you will ‘invest’ it in education from someone in the family that can benefit.

Now there may not be the same logic to not saving amongst poor people in the UK, and I don’t feel as many people would invest in education, but the culture is definitely similar. When you do not have as much as those around you, you spend whatever you have to try to attain a similar standard of living.

A girl that had come volunteering here for a while recently said to me that when she came she was constantly comparing things to back home but then she realised that you couldn’t because it’s just so different. I disagree. I will shamelessly continue to compare things to what I know as I think one of the most interesting things about being here is seeing what is different and what is the same. At the moment, the longer I am here the more I find that is similar.

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