A Clean Sweep

This being Sunday, it is a quiet day. The hotel is sleepy as well as the surrounding streets. I am pretty much finished in preparation for our trip to the program impact area tomorrow, so I will get a start on my assessment report, which I will deliver verbally and in paper form to the Country Office Director at the end of the week. Already, I can see the report recommendations emerging in my mind - all I have to do is to write it.

I have observed that after newly arriving in a country, I am struck by peculiar disconnected images. There is much to see here, just in Kampala. But, I seemed ot have taken particular notice of the street sweepers. These are likely paid municipal workers who patrol the streets. I have seen these sweepers in other countries as well. Here, they are all women. I saw a mother and adult daughter (I suppose) arrive to the area directly across from my breakfast table this morning. The mother first emerged from up the street dragging on a rope what looks like a large plastic 5 gallon vegetable oil container cut in half vertically. In her hand was the typical straw broom. Its bristles are similar to those in our long-handled straw brooms in North America, yet without the handle. Instead the 3 foot long bristles are fasted and the hand end. This lady was carrying an older, well worn broom barely a couple of feet long. This necessitates bending over at a back-breaking angle all day long. But, behind here came here daughter with a new 3 foot long broom. After sitting their parcels down, the mother picked up the new broom and began sweeping leaves, paper bits and dust from the broad sidewalk to the street gutter. I have watched these sweepers before, executing long broad sweeps for maximum effort. She had not swept long, for as soon as her daughter changed into a smock, she unceremoniously threw down the longer broom and walked a short distance away. Her daughter then picked up the new broom and began sweeping, all the while her mother shaking a finger at her less-than-elegant sweeps and speaking to her.

What a job. Again, I am struck oddly for even noticing this,even though it unfolded below me. I know that I would of looked at this scene rather than possibly more interesting scenes. But I think that I have left that paradigm that I used ot have before I traveled so much when I used to mentally criticize, "why do they not use a gasoline-powered blower? Where are the municipal street sweeper trucks?" Labor is cheap in developing countries. A gasoline blower would be beyond income reach of a street sweeper, not to mention the gasoline cost. A street sweeping truck would employ ONE worker. Employment is preferable than efficiency....

Another observance difficult to avoid is the security guards walking through town. I have always seen the guards with shotguns standing at the entrance ot banks, ATM's, and in Central America even at the McDonald's fast food restaurants and most all middle class dwellings. But here in Kampala the preferred weapon seems to the AK-47 automatic machine gun. When passing them on the street, they are simply gonig to and from work. Still, it is unnerving....they definitely have the advantage for I carry but a folding Swiss Army style Leatherman knife. I feel that it is much more useful in the long run, perhaps even for survival in a non-human threatening situation.