When I came to Uganda I had already been here already 4 times, all on work trips. I thought I knew quite a bit about the place and about the business here. I thought I was prepared... but, obviously not prepared enough. It has been 9 months full of learnings, surprises, positive overwhelming, "shocks", and not surprisingly... quite some frustration.
When I summarize the personal qualities I have improved and developed the most during my stay here, I get a list looking like this:
1. PATIENCE (not so surprised by that)
2. SELF-ESTEEM
3. POLITENESS
4. PERSISTENCE
5. RESPECT
6. SELF MOTIVATION
I think the list will get even longer, but these are the ones that until now has been coming to my head. Because I have a lot to say about each of them, I will cover only 1, 2 and 3 in this post, and save the others for later.
1. PATIENCE
I knew this was going to be a hard one. We all know the expression "African time". Things just move slower here: people walk slower, the internet is slower, meetings start when the people have arrived and people generally "arrive slower".... To try to prepare for this, I bought myself an ipad. I though it could be good for me: I could work and write some emails while waiting for people coming to meetings.
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| I thought an ipad would help my patience. |
The good thing is I dont have many meetings, but I must say, I have waited a lot anyway. As some of you might have noticed, I have waited for mangoes since I came here... 9 months for mangoes. That is the length of a pregnancy! I have also waited for meetings. Actually, for days, not for hours. Getting the right people together here in the company I work can take days... even weeks. They are out of the office, travelling, at the factory 400 km away. Difficult to get them together. A lot of waiting. And a lot of delay in the project. And my ipad hasn't really helped for that.
But, patience is a good thing. It makes you more calm. Stress level goes down (long term effect, on short term it can make you really stressed). But all in all, your expectations to how much you can accomplish in so much time goes down. This is a very important learning for us from the "developed world". Are we not beating ourselves up with expectations all the time? We might accomplish a lot in short time, but how healthy is it in the long run? We suffer from stress, burnout, exhaustion, low self-esteem, heart attacks... We don't see so much of that here. Wich brings me right over to the next quality:
2. SELF-ESTEEM
Actually, my self esteem has gotten a lot of training and development here. In the beginning I was so dissatisfied with my self every time I didn't achieve what I had planned to do that day or that week, my to-do list was just getting longer, the project got more delayed or the work I had done didn't have the quality I wanted it to.
Lowering your expectations to yourself can be seen as a "bad thing" in the "developed world". We are supposed to have very high goals for ourselves, and we are supposed to achieve them, no matter the price. And we really pay the price. We go around being disappointed with ourselves no matter how much we achieve.
I have been forced to lower my expectations here. And it has been good for me. I can only achieve so much, actually. And I have to celebrate every small achievements. Tap myself on the shoulder and say: "well done". Here, you realize that it is often not possible to achieve all you want. It is not possible to do it as fast and efficient as you want. Because thats just the way it is (related to no 1. PATIENCE).
When I realized that, I could relax more. I could just take a break when things was not moving the way I wanted, instead of getting frustrated, disappointed and sad. I still fall back in the old pattern once in a while, down to that low self-esteem and beating of myself. But, I think I have made great improvements. I celebrate, and give myself treats when I achieve even the smalles things. It feels good. Much better than the whip. Let me say it out loud, again and again: Well done, Marianne!
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| Celebrating even small achievements: relaxing and giving myself a treat with good friends at Mihingo Lodge in Lake Mburo. |
3. POLITENESS
And "Well done" brings me over to the 3rd learning: politeness. "Jevale koo!" - means "well done" in Luganda, the most used local language in Uganda, and it is the most common greeting in luganda. I really love that expression! Can you imagine the positivity and the effect it has for people's self esteem when you are told "well done" several times in a day? If there was a way I could take this expression with me and implement it in the Norwegian language, I would. We really don't recognize and acknowledge others efforts and achievements enough in our country.
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| Jevale koo, sebo! Well done, mister! |
And politeness is everywhere in the Ugandan culture. You are raised up with being polite to people from you are born. Children greet you with "how are you muzungu (white lady)"? Strangers passing you on the street greet you. In the morning when I come to the office, all my colleagues greet me with "How are you?", "how was your weekend?", "how is home?". And I really feel like they listen. They really are interested to know how I am doing. I know some might disagree with me here: that it is a habit, a must, an expectation and just the same as saying "hi" as we do in my culture. But, I really feel that Ugandans are more polite, more interested in how other people are doing, and generally spend more time recognizing the people around them. I appreciate that, and I am learning from it.
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| How are you, muzungu? Happy and polite kids greet me everywhere. |
This was a long blog post. But, I hope it was worth reading...
I hope at least the picture of the happy kids made your day just a bit more happy!
