After
working together for some weeks now we know each other and the other “side’s”
culture pretty well.
Our
team consists of Louis, Isaac, Liza and Christina.
Louis
and Isaac both study their Master in Accounting and Finance at MUBS, and Liza
and Christina come from CBS, where they study Business and Development Studies.
It took
us quite some time to settle on a research question but after some days of
contacting people we finally settled for women entrepreneurs in the handicraft
sector and the role of the associations they are members of. Little did we know
that this might drive Liza and Christina into personal bankruptcy and that they
might have to plead for reimbursement for research expenses from CBS later… The
amount of basketry acquired is quite astonishing and there is not missing much
for them to order a container to ship the goods back to Denmark!
Thanks
to Isaac’s widespread contacts – he apparently knows everyone in this country
and is very important, judging from his constant phone calls ;-) – three team
members could make an excursion to Fort Portal to visit rural handicraft groups
there, and on the upside see some more of this beautiful country. On this trip
Liza and Christina also learned Ugandan time elasticity the hard way: We were
supposed to meet at 5:45am at the bus to Fort Portal and of course the northern
Europeans were there 5:42 sharp, sitting in the bus, ready to go – Isaac
nowhere to be found.
15 “I’m
on my way”-Ugandan-minutes later (translated that means he probably woke up
with the first call he got at 5:45am and was on the Boda Boda, the motorbike
taxis, when he got the third phone call 45 minutes later) at 6:45am he finally
reached the bus and of course the bus, that was scheduled to leave at 6am did
not move until 7am. The Danish-German Alliance also learned and punctuality is
not one of their best traits anymore – we definitely came closer in terms of
time interpretation.
Unfortunately
Louis had to stay home so she missed all the fun of being lost in translation
among a group of women producers trying to talk to you in their local language,
as well as food misunderstandings for dinner. The concept of having only salad
for dinner and not something very extensive like Matooke and/or a huge pile of
meat is somewhat strange to the locals, therefore Liza and Christina’s question
for “just some salad” was commented with some serious eyebrow action that was
hardly interpretable, since a single lift of the eyebrows is commonly
understood as a “yes” in Uganda.
Meanwhile
the research went pretty well and we gained some interesting insights, paired
with serious continuous expenses on basketry and interesting Matatu and Boda
Boda rides. At some point one Boda driver explained to us that Boda Boda
loading is a little like playing Tetris – and we believed every word he said,
especially after seeing a Boda being transported on a Boda, thus resulting in a
Boda Boda Boda? Additionally, taking the right Matatu taxi is a challenge for
Liza and Christina, because they just cannot understand how Louis and Isaac can
make out “Bugolobi” as a destination when it sounds to the rest of us more like
“slap slap slap”…
We are
all very sad that our time together is almost over but we will never forget how
much fun it was to learn from each other and work together on this awesome
project!
