
My trip to Uganda and Kenya was amazing! When I first arrived in Uganda – being from the Land of 10,000 Lakes – I had to check out Lake Victoria. I had a great conversation with my guide at the Botanical Gardens about Lake Victoria vs. Lake Superior while he showed me several medicinal and other interesting plants. I even saw a monkey that had no hind feet, so he walked handstand-like on his front paws.

I spent my first weekend with a group of engineers and architects who do non-profit projects throughout east Africa. They work for an organization called eMi whose mission it is to “help children and families around the world step out of poverty and into a world of hope.” I can’t say enough about how wonderful and interesting they all were! For more information on their Colorado Springs-based organization check out http://emiworld.org/.

Our actual program started on Monday with a visit to the American Embassy and a chat with their Economics and Commerce Officer. He had some very interesting things to say about Uganda’s economic future. For now corruption is so high that he tends to advise American companies not to invest in Uganda without serious contingency planning. He also suggested that Uganda needs to develop their own marketing strategy, particularly for their coffee and fruit juice. I fully agree with him, because that was some of the strongest and best coffee and sweetest most refreshing fruit I have ever had!

Over the next few days we had meetings with BRAC Uganda, both at headquarters and one of their branch offices. At their headquarters we grilled our host on their future plans, financial situation, and general structure for several hours.

We also met with their Executive Director who provided some amazingly interesting information on how BRAC plans to make itself sustainable in all of its endeavors – not just microfinance. Their livestock research division helps Ugandan farmers develop best practices and in the future BRAC hopes to start their own vaccination center (currently all livestock vaccinations must be imported). Their agricultural research division, which also helps develop best practices, hopes to develop their own seed distribution shop (again, most seeds are currently imported). He also outlined plans to start an agroforestry division and a plan to aid displaced Pygmies from the DRC.

However, the agricultural tariffs enthusiast in me was especially excited to talk shop with author Ian Smillie. He was visiting BRAC Uganda for just one day and he was able to make time to meet with us. Mr. Smillie has just written a book called Freedom from Want, which outlines the history of BRAC and microfinance. We ended up talking about how the reduction in milk subsidies in the UK allowed a dairy industry to develop in Bangladesh. With the subsidies farmers in Bangladesh could not produce milk at a competitive price to that of dumped English powdered milk; yet after the subsidies were removed, farmers could suddenly produce dairy products at competitive prices. BRAC capitalized on this by offering loans to farmers and providing chilling stations at their branches for farmers to bring their milk. Again, I really hope I’m not the only person who finds this stuff fascinating!

Our visit to the branch office was truly inspiring! We got up bright and early to attend a repayment meeting at 7:30. At this meeting a group of about 25 women were making their weekly payment on each of their loans. BRAC only lends to groups of at least 20 women with a repayment period of 1 year. This particular group of women was on about their third loan, having received progressively larger loans each year. The women were kind enough to introduce themselves, tell us the amount of their loan ($100-$500) and what they are using it for. All of them were incredibly positive, happy they chose BRAC over other institutions, and everyone was able to pay back their installment and interest that week. Perhaps the most moving introduction came from a woman who got a loan to buy a sewing machine. She told us that she had previously worked for someone else, but could not earn enough to send her children to school. With her loan, she now owns her own growing business, all of her children are in school, and she is a much happier person. That story alone made me feel like the work we were doing was truly making a difference.

After these meetings with our bank it was time to relax – it was Spring Break after all! So our group flew to Nairobi and spent 2 days on Safari in Lake Nakuru National Park. We got to go on a lake in canoes to see hippos; walk around in a field filled with wildebeest, zebra and impala; and take open-roof trucks around the lake to see rhino, leopard, baboon and so much more! It was such a beautiful place! We even had some extra time to head out to the beaches in Mombasa. There were very few tourists there at this time of year, so we practically had the white sand beaches and turquoise water to ourselves! It was so relaxing after such a stressful quarter!



