In summer 2016 I spent 3 weeks in Northern Uganda as a student researching, listening, and interviewing. There was an engineering team, an education team, and an entrepreneurship team. I was in the last of these and our goal was to learn about different cultural contexts of business. We were based in Gulu and also visited Moyo, Adjumani, and Atiak. My team analyzed the business model and marketing strategy for a restaurant, proceeds from which helped fund a girls' school. It was run by the manager and girls from the school in the "Catering Management" track. We spent 3 months preparing for our 3 weeks on-the-ground. Our team interviewed 21 people.
It is hard to summarize any experience abroad. I find it particularly hard to describe the impact of twenty-one days in Uganda where each day felt like a week of new information. My time in Uganda changed how I want to live my life. It made me consider the intersection of social business and international partnerships. Through interviews, interactions, and research I have been able to consider the cultural context of location and how important it is to business in Uganda as well as the role of outsiders and how/if they can listen to local communities.
My personal belief is that you should try to have a true understanding of your own background, perceptions, and biases before you interact with any other person. Ironically, it is hard to discover these things until you have interacted with others at home and abroad. To me, learning means expanding limits physically, mentally, and emotionally so you can better contribute to the world. When I say learning experience, I do not do so lightly. I mean that you may actually be physically uncomfortable using heavy jerrycans to flush toilets or ongoing diarrhea. You don’t hear about that in the “Process” section of official reports. You may be mentally uncomfortable when almost everyone looks at you as you walk down the street, when you hear gunshots outside your window, or when you try to reconcile access to a book you have in your backpack with a huge lack of reading materials in cities and villages you visit. You may be emotionally wrecked thinking of the disparities in education, health, security, and life expectancy between your home and another person’s home, as you ponder why you were born to your parents and to your country. But you may also be overwhelmed by the beauty of a fresh mango or by the joy of a conversation where a true connection has taken place.
To build solutions with a community, we must be willing to be students. That means not assuming we have any answers. It means listening deeply. And then listening some more. And it means taking in everything we can - joy, discomfort, and ambiguity - with open arms. Some ask: how was my time in Uganda? The only answer I can give is that it was probably more impactful on the trajectory of my life than I’ll ever consciously know.
