Sunday 3/21/10  Gulu, Uganda

Meet Alice.  For three years, Alice, 28, made bracelets for Invisible Children.  During that time, she managed to save 800,000 shillings [$400 US] to pay for the construction of a new house for her and her husband.  In this picture, the couple proudly shows off the fruit of Alice’s labor.  Now, Alice is a member of our Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA) initiative, a micro-finance project that helps 400 northern Ugandans save and loan money.

One of the things I love most about my job with IC is that it so often allows me to meet people like Alice, people with inspirational stories that put me in my place and keep me focused.

This is absolutely spectacular.

Above:  S4S trip winners on their last day in Uganda

Above:  Students watch as villagers come together to save and loan money at a weekly savings group meeting

**This is a piece I just wrote for work.  It’s about the student trip I chaperoned for two weeks in Uganda at the end of June, and it appears on Invisible Children’s blog.  The trip was incredible!  I’m still feeding off the inspiration these kids passed on to me.  Thank you for a spectacular trip, guys!**

Now I know what type of student collects 30,000 books.  I understand what sort of teenager is able to mobilize a community to donate $25,000 toward a cause.  The profile of such a student looks something like this:   mature beyond one’s age, impressively personable, intelligent, able to problem-solve with a certain type of hyperactive creativity, driven, and—this one is almost more important than the other traits combined—a belief in one’s potential to change the world.

When 20 students from the top fundraising schools in IC’s Schools for Schools (S4S) program arrived at our house in Gulu at the end of June, we sat everyone down for a chat.  After reminding everyone to wear bug spray at dusk, and once we had explained how the pit latrine can save you if the water’s out, we talked about something a bit more meaty—the point of the trip.

Zach, Jed, and I, this year’s trip chaperones, reminded the students that they were in Uganda to learn.  They weren’t here to change the poverty that envelops vast swaths of the country.  No, they focus on that enough with their S4S clubs back home.  This trip was about something different.  They, we explained, could best continue to serve their Ugandan peers by absorbing every smell, every conversation, and the warmth of every of handshake they experienced while in-country.  Becoming saturated with Uganda in this way would let students act as portals for their friends and families back home, lenses through which northern Uganda could be viewed.  Because the students would be ambassadors for Uganda, we set out to flood them with experiences, with conflicting thoughts and new emotions.  With the help of elephants, rafts, students, villagers, cramped market alleys, airy classrooms, waving children, and hundreds of miles of hut-dotted countryside rolling by our bus windows like a silent movie, we did just that.

Above:  A few of the many animals we spotted in Murchison National Park

Each night, as we debriefed about the day’s events, students opened up to one another about how the trip was affecting them.  When we had a BBQ at an old fort outside of Gulu, an event that drew small groups of kids asking for food, issues like inequality, hunger, and American consumerism hit close to home for many students.  Some students watched as kids scampered for discarded watermelon peels and food scraps when we left our lunch site.  We talked about how, in such situations, giving a child the food he asks for isn’t a healthy way to help him.  What does it mean to help someone?  If you satiate a child’s hunger for an hour with a piece of meat, and then you leave, what are the repercussions of that act?  What stereotypes are reinforced (and shattered) when you give someone something and ask for nothing in return?  Night after night, students talked about the way the trip was spinning fresh thoughts for them and putting their lives back home into context.

After we visited all of IC’s Schools for Schools partner schools to see new IC-built (and student-funded) structures like classrooms and latrines, after students shadowed a Ugandan student for a day, after they watched as women in a village savings group pulled small, crumpled bills from their bras to contribute to the weekly savings fund, after they sat in cool, dark huts with IC mentors and talked to parents about their child’s academic struggles, after they spotted giraffes—more than a dozen in one group—dotting the horizon like a stand of yellow trees, and after they ate dinner at a camp site spread out under a thick splattering of stars set in an impossibly black sky above, I was able to witness something incredible:   I listened as students described how their views of the world were changing.

On logs around the campfire, in a cramped bus during half-day drives, and around the dinner table the final night of the trip, I heard snippets of powerful conversation.  One student realized that she had no choice but to come back to Uganda to work and live—her heart was here.  Another couldn’t fathom how so many materially-poor people could be so rich in attitude and outlook on life.  Someone else said the way she viewed the act of giving had changed.  Many confessed to harboring wanderlust unknown to them before.  “I’m going to look at maps differently now,” said one student.  For some, for the students who had never left the US before (let alone seen people living in extreme poverty), the trip opened up a new realm of human existence to them.  Throughout the trip, they articulated the way in which this new realm demanded space in their minds.

Listening to the fast, energized conversation I heard students spill to one another on this trip was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever experienced as an educator.  In 12 short days, I wallowed in hours of student conversation steeped in curiosity.  I listened as students mined their impressions and interactions, and then watched in awe as they struck gold:  arriving at the realization that both American and Ugandan students hope for and need the same things in life, that people are the same at their cores.

To those 20 of you who came out:  Thank you!  You taught me just as much as Uganda taught you.

Below:  (top to bottom)  Jed and I with students in Murchison, all of us on the bus during the game drive, Jed (under a self-imposed quarantine of some sort?!) with students on the last night of the trip

Innocent

19-years-old

Busoga College, Jinja

The younger kids were too small to jump across the ravine.  Afternoon rains had turned it into a turbulent moat separating them from their destination:  a large building that would provide shelter to hundreds of children for the night.  Innocent, barely 12-years-old at the time, said he did what anyone would do-he leant his hand.

One by one, children crossed the stream with his help.  When time came to distribute blankets and organize kids for the night, he and some of the other older boys helped orchestrate things.  Months rolled by, and night after night Innocent helped tired kids get settled in for sleep.  The one adult overseeing the place eventually decided that electing a head boy from the scores of night commuting kids would help things run more smoothly.  One night, he ordered seven or eight boys to stand in front of the rest; Innocent was called forward.

“The man told all of the children to stand behind the boy they wanted to represent them as head boy,” Innocent recounted.

In small groups, kids stood and slowly made their way over to Innocent.  Seconds later, a long line of children snaked away from him, raising the hair on the back of his neck in disbelief.  This single event, this response from hundreds of kids Innocent barely knew, pushed him down a new life path, one lined with opportunity.

*****

When the filmmakers showed up at the night commuting site, they couldn’t speak to everyone–there were simply too many kids.  The head boy was called forward.  Innocent welcomed them and told them about his experiences night commuting.  His composure–a type of calm that fuses easy smiles with an intense gaze–made an impression on the filmmakers.  After IC formed and became an organization, when it was looking for its first scholarship beneficiaries, Innocent was called in for an interview.  He found out he’d been awarded a full-tuition scholarship just as his family, broke and unable to pay his school fees, was contemplating pulling him from school.

Now, years later, Innocent is poised to start a Civil Engineering degree at university.  Running his own engineering business, he tells me, will allow him to pursue a parallel career in politics.

To understand how Innocent transitioned from a life exhausted by years of night commuting (he used to walk hours a day just so he could sleep safely at night) to one energized by the prospect of dual careers, one need not look further than the way Innocent spent his most recent school vacation:

In a single month, he molded and baked 13,000 bricks.  Yes, 13,000.  At a selling price of 80 shillings each, the bricks earned him hundreds of thousands of shillings.  Innocent used this money to buy five piglets at a price of 30,000 shillings each.  In a year’s time, he’ll be able to sell the males for 120,000 shillings and the females for 100,000 shillings.  Selling a few of his mature pigs will allow him to buy a dairy cow.  And on it goes.

Innocent did well with his recent final exams.  He’s eager to start university, though, and told me that the August start date for classes couldn’t come soon enough.  Although being home in Gulu allows him to see his friends, Innocent has had little time to relax because he needs to help his mother tend the family’s maize and cassava crops.  The oldest of five children, he juggles his studies with his responsibilities at home.  Much of what he made selling bricks went to his mother to help pay for things for their house.  This role–both full-time son and acting father–is not one Innocent takes lightly; when he stays up late studying, he does it because he knows his success is not just his own, not without effects on others.  So, then, it was rewarding when Innocent first heard his mother cite his work ethic when advising her children.

“She told them, ‘You need to be like Innocent.  Look how he studies.’  It was so great to hear her say this,” Innocent said, bashful.

I asked him about his interest in civil engineering.  Innocent told me about another lucky break he caught:  Patrick Munduga, IC Uganda’s Program Manager for Schools for Schools, met and befriended Innocent and, after some time, began mentoring him. [Innocent, like all of IC's scholarship beneficiaries, receives official mentoring from a trained IC mentor.  Patrick is supplementing this official mentoring with his own advice and guidance.]  This relationship has bloomed and fueled Innocent’s interest in engineering; Patrick has shown Innocent how engineering can be used to help people in need.  But Patrick’s engineering work isn’t the only thing Innocent admires about the man:  Patrick, ever positive, is respected by his peers and carries himself with confidence both in and outside of IC’s office.  In short, Innocent sees in Patrick the type of man he wants to be.

*****

Money is easier to squeeze from a city than a village.  Innocent, if he chose to, could stay in Kampala after graduation and make heaps of money at a large engineering firm.  I wasn’t surprised when he explained that this option wasn’t a feasible one for him.

“My services aren’t needed in Kampala,” Innocent said frankly.  “In the north we need renovations.  The people here need my help.  I want to do a lot for my community, because I have the opportunity to help.  Honestly, seeing how the filmmakers have helped us, it makes me think, If foreigners can travel so far to help the Acholi, why can’t I help, too?“

Listening to Innocent, I couldn’t help but be awed by him.  Overcoming incredible odds to shed adversity, to push on, and then emerge into a new chapter of life with an unyielding optimism takes a strong, unique individual.  I asked Innocent why he was so confident everything will work out for him.  He grinned and, with total sincerity, dropped a nugget of wisdom.

“Determination,” he explained, “makes your future.”

Gulu, in a few short years, is going to be a better place because Innocent has proven this truth to himself.

Above: Three scans from Gauger’s Saint Lucia journal. Taken from the ‘Roam’ section of NotesfromtheRoad.com

Friday 1/30/09 Lincoln, Argentina

Eric Gauger, the creator of the fantastic travel website Notes from the Road, recently posted some scans of his Moleskine journals. The scans, found here, are fascinating. He uses his journals much as DaVinci did: to document and give voice to his curiosity. They are filled with bright drawings of the birds and plants he spots on his trip, maps, watercolor sketches of vistas he sees, and notes from interviews he conducts. Scribbled and painted into the pages of his journals is the essence of why many of us travel–the intoxicating vibrancy of felt experience.

Check them out if you have a moment and are looking for some inspiration.

Above:  Pius and Stefan after a dip in the mud volcano!  Colombia.

Monday 1/26/09 Realico, Argentina

Pius and Stefan, my riding partners in Colombia and Bolivia, have just finished their 20 month, 20,000 mile ride from Alaska to Argentina. Despite fierce winds that made urinating (among a million other things) difficult, Stefan’s broken front fork 120 miles from the finish, and long remote stretches of road in southern Patagonia, the boys pushed through the last few weeks to bring a successful finish to their ride: not only did they finish on-schedule, but they did so safely and in good spirits.

Congrats guys!

If you want to read about the big finish or see pictures and text posts from their ride, go here.

I stumbled across this awesome blog on the Crazyguyonabike database last night. A newlywed couple from the U.S. is in the middle of a long bike-tour-honeymoon. Bike-tour-honeymoons are cooler than lots of other types of honeymoons–see for yourself. Filled with lots of amazing pictures, the Mongolian posts are particularly fascinating.

If you, like me, check out the blog above and are left craving all things related to Mongolian bike trips, check out this blog as well. Its author is the cyclist I met in Japan who inspired me to get into bike touring, Graydon Hazenberg. Graydon, an eccentric guy with a mop of blond frizzy hair atop his head, dropped out of Harvard, putting a Master’s in astronomy on hold, to travel the world. He’s articulate and his various travel blogs on the net are interesting reads. In 1994, when $17,000 US could buy you a multi-year dream trip and then some, he won $17,000 on Jeopardy. So he went traveling. His name, when googled, can lead you down all sorts of interesting cyber rabbit holes.

Above: Aldous Huxley, photo from his wife’s website, www.laurahuxley.com

Monday 12/8/08 Santiago, Chile

“To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” Aldous Huxley

and, on a totally different note, another author’s thoughts in regards to light pollution…

“In the end, humans are no less trapped by light pollution than the frogs in a pond near a brightly lit highway. Living in a glare of our own making, we have cut ourselves off from our evolutionary and cultural patrimony–the light of the stars and the rhythms of day and night. In a very real sense, light pollution causes us to lose sight of our true place in the universe, to forget the scale of our being, which is best measured against the dimensions of a deep night with the Milky Way–the edge of our galaxy–arching overhead.” Verlyn Klinkenborg, National Geographic, November 2008, pg. 109

Tuesday 11/4/08 La Serena, Chile

I found out about this inspiring, informative website, The Story of Stuff, from a friend. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many big ideas explained in such a clear, concise way.

The video on this site explains why your flat screen TV is never quite big enough, why the global environment is being destroyed with reckless abandon, why stuff in the U.S. is cheap, and why shopping makes lots of people feel good.

If you have ever wondered where all your stuff comes from, click here.

*****

With the arrival of election day, lots of folks are thinking about bringing about societal change via a new president. Of course, change can be birthed by the work of a new president. But big change can also be created by individual citizens whenever they choose to initiate it, as well. If we change the way we think about our stuff, ourselves in relation to our stuff, and our responsibilities as guests on Planet Earth, we can break the destructive, numbing cycle of consumerism that chains us.

Through shopping (and not shopping), we make powerful, planet-altering choices.

Think before you buy.

*****

Checked out the Story of Stuff video and trying to figure out how you yourself can change some of the consumption-based problems choking this planet?

Below are 10 tips from the Story of Stuff website:

10 Little and Big Things You Can Do

1. Power down! A great deal of the resources we use and the waste we create is in the energy we consume. Look for opportunities in your life to significantly reduce energy use: drive less, fly less, turn off lights, buy local seasonal food (food takes energy to grow, package, store and transport), wear a sweater instead of turning up the heat, use a clothesline instead of a dryer, vacation closer to home, buy used or borrow things before buying new, recycle. All these things save energy and save you money. And, if you can switch to alternative energy by supporting a company that sells green energy to the grid or by installing solar panels on your home, bravo!

2. Waste less. Per capita waste production in the U.S. just keeps growing. There are hundreds of opportunities each day to nurture a Zero Waste culture in your home, school, workplace, church, community. This takes developing new habits which soon become second nature. Use both sides of the paper, carry your own mugs and shopping bags, get printer cartridges refilled instead of replaced, compost food scraps, avoid bottled water and other over packaged products, upgrade computers rather than buying new ones, repair and mend rather than replace….the list is endless! The more we visibly engage in re-use over wasting, the more we cultivate a new cultural norm, or actually, reclaim an old one!

3. Talk to everyone about these issues. At school, your neighbors, in line at the supermarket, on the bus…A student once asked Cesar Chavez how he organized. He said, “First, I talk to one person. Then I talk to another person.” “No,” said the student, “how do you organize?” Chavez answered, “First I talk to one person. Then I talk to another person.” You get the point. Talking about these issues raises awareness, builds community and can inspire others to action.

4. Make Your Voice Heard. Write letters to the editor and submit articles to local press. In the last two years, and especially with Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize, the media has been forced to write about Climate Change. As individuals, we can influence the media to better represent other important issues as well. Letters to the editor are a great way to help newspaper readers make connections they might not make without your help. Also local papers are often willing to print book and film reviews, interviews and articles by community members. Let’s get the issues we care about in the news.

5. DeTox your body, DeTox your home, and DeTox the Economy. Many of today’s consumer products – from children’s pajamas to lipstick – contain toxic chemical additives that simply aren’t necessary. Research online (for example, http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/) before you buy to be sure you’re not inadvertently introducing toxics into your home and body. Then tell your friends about toxics in consumer products. Together, ask the businesses why they’re using toxic chemicals without any warning labels. And ask your elected officials why they are permitting this practice. The European Union has adopted strong policies that require toxics to be removed from many products. So, while our electronic gadgets and cosmetics have toxics in them, people in Europe can buy the same things toxics-free. Let’s demand the same thing here. Getting the toxics out of production at the source is the best way to ensure they don’t get into any home and body.

6. Unplug (the TV and internet) and Plug In (the community). The average person in the U.S. watches T.V. over 4 hours a day. Four hours per day filled with messages about stuff we should buy. That is four hours a day that could be spent with family, friends and in our community. On-line activism is a good start, but spending time in face-to-face civic or community activities strengthens the community and many studies show that a stronger community is a source of social and logistical support, greater security and happiness. A strong community is also critical to having a strong, active democracy.

7. Park your car and walk…and when necessary MARCH! Car-centric land use policies and life styles lead to more greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuel extraction, conversion of agricultural and wildlands to roads and parking lots. Driving less and walking more is good for the climate, the planet, your health, and your wallet. But sometimes we don’t have an option to leave the car home because of inadequate bike lanes or public transportation options. Then, we may need to march, to join with others to demand sustainable transportation options. Throughout U.S. history, peaceful non-violent marches have played a powerful role in raising awareness about issues, mobilizing people, and sending messages to decision makers.

8. Change your lightbulbs…and then, change your paradigm. Changing lightbulbs is quick and easy. Energy efficient lightbulbs use 75% less energy and last 10 times longer than conventional ones. That’s a no-brainer. But changing lightbulbs is just tinkering at the margins of a fundamentally flawed system unless we also change our paradigm. A paradigm is a collection of assumptions, concepts, beliefs, and values that together make up a community’s way of viewing reality. Our current paradigm dictates that more stuff is better, that infinite economic growth is desirable and possible, and that pollution is the price of progress. To really turn things around, we need to nurture a different paradigm based on the values of sustainability, justice, health, and community.

9. Recycle your trash…and, recycle your elected officials. Recycling saves energy and reduces both waste and the pressure to harvest and mine new stuff. Unfortunately, many cities still don’t have adequate recycling systems in place. In that case you can usually find some recycling options in the phone book to start recycling while you’re pressuring your local government to support recycling city-wide. Also, many products – for example, most electronics – are designed not to be recycled or contain toxics so recycling is hazardous. In these cases, we need to lobby government to prohibit toxics in consumer products and to enact Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) laws, as is happening in Europe. EPR is a policy which holds producers responsible for the entire lifecycle of their products, so that electronics company who use toxics in their products, have to take them back. That is a great incentive for them to get the toxics out!

10. Buy Green, Buy Fair, Buy Local, Buy Used, and most importantly, Buy Less. Shopping is not the solution to the environmental problems we currently face because the real changes we need just aren’t for sale in even the greenest shop. But, when we do shop, we should ensure our dollars support businesses that protect the environment and worker rights. Look beyond vague claims on packages like “all natural” to find hard facts. Is it organic? Is it free of super-toxic PVC plastic? When you can, buy local products from local stores, which keeps more of our hard earned money in the community. Buying used items keeps them out of the trash and avoids the upstream waste created during extraction and production. But, buying less may be the best option of all. Less pollution. Less Waste. Less time working to pay for the stuff. Sometimes, less really is more.

Whether it is or not, I can’t say.  But it is an absolutely beautiful website with well-written travel writing.   Erik Gauger has been writing and shooting pictures for his website, Notes from the Road, for eight years.  He shoots one picture a day (Because he shoots on a large format camera and each shot costs him $5 U.S., he needs to plan each shot and shoot sparingly.) and writes informative, researched text posts to accompany his pictures.  It’s an amazing website.

Caution, though:  To do his posts the justice they deserve, you need a bit of time and silence to read through them.  If you can spare a few moments, however, you’ll be rewarded with both information and inspiration.

I particularly like this post about Portland, Oregon.