Day 8:

I realize that I have not yet fully explained what it is that IVN is doing here in Seguku village. James’ projects typically involve building or renovating schools, staffing health clinics, setting up water pumps, planting trees, etc. and, of course, providing volunteer teachers. He and his family have been in Seguku for about a year and a half now after completing a two-year project outside of the city of Masaka. The Seguku project is focused mainly on renovating the primary school that I volunteer at, but he also helps staff the health clinic next door and put together health & hygiene talks for AIDS widows in other outlying villages. The great thing, as I have mentioned before, is that James is a Ugandan helping Ugandans, which is how it should be. Sure, he uses volunteers from abroad, but his own family does a lot of the work and he employs a local bookkeeper. He needs capital investment to accomplish his goals of which 95% comes from us, the volunteers; this is one of the ways aid should work. The volunteer knows exactly where every dime of money is going and IVN spends every dime locally, boosting the economy while allowing the community to help itself. The less he relies on foreign or domestic aid with strings attached and little or no oversight, the better off IVN and the community will be. What I think is most refreshing about IVN is that it is one of the few organizations that claims no religious affiliations. James is a religious man, but he realized many years back that strict church practices and beliefs were limiting him from helping all people no matter what religion they practiced, if any. James may be part of the same religion as the Pope, but he would never, ever tell Africans to not use condoms, because he is a rational, reasonable person who deals with the reality on the ground rather than ideology. And reality in Africa is typically a far cry from what the “think tanks” in the developed world are espousing.
For instance, in 1997 Hillary Clinton apparently showed up in Seguku village, at our very school, with a huge entourage of well wishers promising that the US was a good friend of Uganda and that we would help the country develop beginning with rebuilding this school. I have a feeling the speech sounded a lot like this to the Ugandan officials. “Hi, I’m Hillary Clinton blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah so here’s a million dollars and remember to make sure you stay a friendly democracy and continue to buy lots of crap from us. Thank you, bye.” Well, the reality is that 13 years later, it is volunteers from IVN who are renovating the school, and since 1997 tens of millions of dollars have poured into this country from the US and others, yet very little if any seems to have ended up in Seguku village.