Brain and body 100% exhausted.

This is a choppy cell-phone video of the kinda well-off street in Ntinda where we are living. It is quite near the Grameen Foundation's AppLab. Can you find at least 5 things that are different in this suburb compared the American suburb where you live? Here's one you can't see - scale. This street is just a few kilometers from the center of Uganda's largest city.

With time, an egg will walk. But will it walk into the "Police Nursery School?" Time will tell.

Last week I was in Gulu, Uganda, one of the largest cities in "Acholiland," a part of Northern Uganda. Many of the poorest of the poor farmers in Uganda currently live in this region, which was once described to me as the "breadbasket of Uganda." Just a few years ago, this city was engulfed in the horrific conflict between the Lord's Resistance Army and Ugandan Defense Forces. Both sides committed atrocities during the conflict. Somewhere between one and two million people, which is most of the population of Acholiland, were put into "Internally Displaced People" camps. Since the LRA was raiding rural villages to steal food, kids, and whatever else they wanted, this action was meant to strategically reduce agricultural production, and starve the LRA out of the bush areas were they were hiding.

By now, most people have left the camps and are returning to farmland. Agricultural training is a huge problem in this area, as many young people grew up in the camps, and have never had a job, education, or agricultural experience. However, even more dire is the need for basic agricultural infrastructure, such as decent roads, electricity, irrigation, and access to decent seed. In some ways, Acholiland is in a transitional phase - war has reduced infrastructure building, and many of the small scale projects that the Gates ICT for Ag calls for will likely have little impact until this basic post-war infrastructure can be installed.

There are some lingering challenges in this area that will likely outlast transitional infrastructure building projects. It would take a whole book to describe the complex social and economic issues that have raged in this region, but in short, due to the government's questionable treatment of people in IDP camps during the LRA conflict (many of which were Acholi), there is a great deal of mistrust of government ag agencies, such as NAADS.

Because of the dire circumstances of people in this region, it's difficult to leave some of these problems behind. There are countless challenges that ICT solutions could be used to address. However, the Gates ICT in Ag grant calls for innovative and scalable ideas, and many people in Acholiland likely need more basic things like large scale civil engineering projects. That's not to say that a project involving ag extension might not have an impact, but for farmers to take part in agricultural economics, they first need roads, electricity, and markets.

The only guy making money in this town is the guy who makes all the NGO signposts.

Kampala is a tough place to move around in. The country needs agricultural markets and food processing facilities. It needs a nationwide weather reporting system. Bulk grain buyers that we have met with require minimum limits before they can purchase (3 tons!) that are way more than a single village of small holders can produce. Uganda needs integrated agricultural data management. Farmers need to be exposed to value chains that provide them with pre-harvest price guarantees for agricultural product. USAID is spending way too much money in the North on things that aren't effectively improving the economic conditions of the farmers. NGOs don't share information and provide wildly inconsistent extension training to farmers groups, then provide free inputs without providing business training, and then two years later close down their projects leaving farmers hanging. There are really no irrigation solutions in the North or East. We had a meeting with the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and their hydrology map of the Pader District in Acholiland showed that they know the locations of only half of the available well sites. Anyway, have you seen the murders in Nigeria?

Uganda: "Islands in the Stream" all day everyday in every store in every bar in every car in every hotel in every cafe. In the Matatu on the way home. Because I have heard "Islands in the Stream" several times a day, everyday that I have been in the country, here's a link to MenWhoLookLikeKennyRogers.com. "Islands in the Stream" was written by the Bee Gees. The people of Uganda, both Bugandans and Acholi, and other tribes too, send their love to Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton.

allAfrica.com reports that a State of Emergency has been declared in Gulu municipality due to an outbreak of Malaria. While the second rainy season hasn't arrived yet (will it this year?) it has been sprinkling a little, and this combined with the hot days has created excellent deadly mosquito breeding conditions. I guess I wasn't imagining it when I noticed that the number of mosquitoes in my room were increasing.

From the article:


I can't believe how many people I have met who think that (a) Malaria is not a serious illness, and (b) that there is some kind of vaccine for Malaria. No. Malaria is probably the worst disease in the world, and can be completely debilitating for people in affected areas.