Grasshoppers and Ground Zero
on Thea's Blog (Uganda), 01/Dec/2009 09:32, 34 days ago
The latest animal infestation to hit Fort Portal are the grasshoppers. Apparently every November millions of spindly, gawky, feeble-legged grasshoppers pop out of the ground and start flying around crashing in to things and getting in to all kinds of trouble. Unfortunately for them they are a favoured delicacy: Ugandans go absolutely mad for fried grasshopper. At night, huge lamps are shone above metal sheets (haven’t seen this myself only heard it described) and the luckless grasshoppers charge at them, only to be caught in giant baskets which are then taken to the market. I tried one – not very vegetarian of me I agree – and it tasted like deep fried straw with a delicate hint of cow dung. Apparently they’re a great source of protein if you can get over the taste.So at last I have taken some decisive action with RFPJ. I’ve quit. There is only so much positive spin you can put on a disaster zone. The dimensions of this particular ground zero being that I’m now the only member of staff (Vickie is on maternity leave until Feb); the Board are a sorry joke; the mandate is confused and potentially redundant; we aregathering debts far faster than we are raising funds (the landlord is apparently demanding rent for Nov and Dec which we won’t cover without selling the computers and furniture!); and most critically - if the discussions at yesterday’s miserable AGM are anything to go by – no member is prepared to put in any more than the most cursory effort to rescue RFPJ. Without wanting to overdo the melodrama, I do think RFPJ goes quite far to embody much of what can be wrong with civil society here. An NGO with no real interest in contributing to the communities it is meant to be serving, but ratherinterested in undertaking the bare minimum of work in order to secure an income for a few staff and Board members. If it hadn’t been for VSO’s support, I believe RFPJ would have been weeded out by natural selection a long time ago.Glad to get that off my chest.Anyhoot, I very much hope this is not the end of my Ugandan experience. In theory, I should be taking up a placement with the local community university, Mountains of the Moon, from January. Although this looks like a far more interesting role in an established and apparently viable organisation, I worry a little bit about frying pans and fires. I hope to have more luck than the grasshoppers and not head for the light only to crash and burn in the basket of despair.