SAP Social Sabbatical trip to Uganda — The Experience of a lifetime — How the first week already changed my life forever
After two long 10-hour plane rides, I finally arrived in Kampala, the capital of Uganda around midnight (most of the others already arrived earlier in the day). The next day I got to meet everyone over breakfast and we all jumped into minibuses and drove to the town of Hoima (about 4–5 hours away from Kampala) where we would spend the next 4 weeks. The trip from Kampala to Hoima was a very unique experience — our first insight into life in Uganda. Of course, we all had our preconceived notions about what it would be like in Africa in general from seeing photos/ videos/ movies, still the actual experience seeing things in real life was so much more impactful and I got to appreciate it at a whole different level. We are here during the dry season (meaning it hasn’t rained in months) so it’s extremely dusty, dry and hot. Most of the roads we travelled on were dirt roads that are in varying conditions and the city was buzzing with people walking, riding their bicycles, millions of motorbikes (the motorbike taxis here are called boda bodas) and lots of cars. One thing was evident right away: you do not want to be in the way of a boda boda, they would not stop for anything and would not hesitate for a second to run pedestrians over.
In Hoima, we are staying in the Trisek hotel and each of us has a mini-apartment with a bedroom, bathroom, living room and a small kitchenette. It was very interesting to see the initial anxiety from the first night slowly go away the longer we are staying here. Setting up the mosquito net on that first night, thinking of mosquitos as these deadly enemies (which to a certain extent they are but I think we are all becoming a lot more relaxed about them as long as we do the right precautions), checking the apartment for all kinds of creepy crawly creatures that I was deadly afraid of (not knowing if they can be harmful or not), I don’t think I got much sleep on that first night. I have to admit, during that first night in my room, the question occurred to me: “ what have I gotten myself into” as the reality of the new environment was suddenly very real and somewhat scary. But I have seen this kind of self-doubt and fear many times before as I was pushing my limits in the pursuit of challenges and new experiences and in those hard moments, what gets me through is thinking of the why — why did I apply for the program in the first place and why I feel so strongly about making a difference in this world.
The team
Our international, diverse team of 12 from SAP was assembled brilliantly — kudos to our CSR team for that. We have great gender, generational and cultural diversity — the 12 people cover more than 12 cultures (as many of us are originally from somewhere else) including cultures from Japan, Turkey, India, US, Germany, Ireland, Dubai, Brazil, UK, Canada and Hungary. There is a very intense and purposeful energy when you put 12 very smart, driven, high performing and very ambitious people together who are all rowing in the same direction. But beyond all these great qualities, every single person on the team is kind, curious, courageous and everyone cares deeply. I feel honored to call them my friends and they inspire me tremendously. One recent example of this inspiration was when one of our team members, Ricky Virdi, suggested that on Saturday evening, we cook a big appreciation dinner for all the VSO volunteers, the hotel staff and our team — about 30–35 people. We would do all the shopping and prepare everything from scratch (including making cottage cheese from milk to make palak paneer). First of all, I would have never thought of this idea. Secondly, I was a bit wary of how we are going to pull it off in the relatively small kitchen we had. And how wrong I was for doubting anything, because under Ricky’s leadership, we pulled it off beautifully. At the end of the evening, we were all sitting around the table as friends (not as hotel staff versus guest), we ate, we laughed, we danced and I got to meet so many wonderful people that I otherwise would not have a chance to have an in-depth conversations with. So glad that Ricky had the vision to make something magical happen that I would not have even thought of.
Our assignment
We have partnered with an international development NGO called VSO to assist them with a project called SCOPE (Skills and Capacity for Organizational, Vocational Training Institute, Productivity and Employment) The goal of this project is to help improve access to employment for the local population in the Albertine Region of Uganda. There is a relatively new Oil and Gas sector in Uganda that has a big need for skilled employees but our project looks beyond oil and gas as well. We have been partnering with 3 vocational training institutes in the region to help them turn into sustainable and scalable businesses, while maintaining their key goal of providing vocational training. Our team of 12 were divided into 3 teams: one team working on a Marketing/ communication project with each of the institutes, one team working on developing an MIS for them and my team has been tasked with looking at the current business models for each of the institutes and help them design a future business model that allows them to generate revenue on their own (instead of always relying on getting funds from donor organizations). During the first week, after the initial kick-off meetings, we had a chance to spend a full day with each of the 3 institutes. One of the schools is based in the town we are at but the other two are quite far away in remote areas near much smaller villages (about 45 min-1 hour away from the main town). While there are many differences among the 3 schools when it comes to facilities, focus areas for their courses and current revenue streams, there are some common things that really stood out, namely that everyone we met from all the institutes were grateful that we were here to help them and they were fully engaged with us from day 1 (at a time when they are very busy already as school has just been starting up after the summer break). Another common factor is that the leaders of each one of the institutes have great vision and dreams for their school and despite the resource constraints and many obstacles they face, they are not wavering from their dreams because they have a bigger goal in mind to educate people in Uganda and help them find meaningful employment opportunities.
The four of us on the team are all from different backgrounds (Development, Finance, Business Development/ Sales and HR) and our skill sets and personal characteristics vary wildly among the team. But we managed to find a way build on everyone’s strengths and we don’t always agree on everything but there is very productive creative tension on the team that in the end leads to great outcomes. On a personal level, there had been a huge amount of learning for me along the way already . For example, we are going to teach the institutes the business model canvas concept, which is a brilliant and simple methodology to use when designing business models. It is not a concept I have been familiar with but will be very useful for the rest of my career.
The biggest challenge is not that we don’t have enough good ideas and suggestions to help them be successful in the future, the biggest challenge is coming up with suggestions that build on their ideas (they know best what are the best options for them — not us) and perhaps just help them refine their plan or maybe help them uncover new possibilities. We do have to work though in their reality — which is very resource constrained ( I don’t think I ever worked on a project where there were so many resource constraints and other complexities). At the end of our assignment we cannot suggest something that looks great on paper but they will never revisit it again. It needs to be simple, viable and desirable — and we can only have this if we listen to them and build everything with them. I have a new-found appreciation of listening attentively and not talking and suggesting ideas (which is my default position) - it’s incredible that after a long day of listening, observing and asking lots of questions, how draining that feels (in the past I thought speaking all day was draining….). But it has been teaching me the power of listening and never assuming that I know better just because I come from a developed country.
Why the first week already changed my life forever
I have heard from many others that had participated in the social sabbatical program how it has changed their life and of course, I expected that the same thing would happen to me. What I did not expect is how quickly it would happen.
First of all, I will never ever complain about anything in the future. We truly don’t realize how fortunate we are until we see those that have a lot less and they are still so happy and kind and not bitter and disillusioned about the world. When you realize that basic necessities like electricity, paved roads and running water (not even drinking water) are not a given to everyone in this world and you experience it yourself, it really puts things into perspective. I really wish everyone in the world would have a chance to experience it.
I got reminded how lucky I am to see and hug my children every day when I met a lovely young lady working in the hotel here who lives a day’s bus ride away from her child (that her mother — the grandma — is raising). She only gets to see her son a few times a year since she needs to earn money for them and there is not enough employment where they live. And she is determined to put her son through school. I felt like the Grinch whose heart just grew 5 times larger because my desire to help the beautiful people of Hoima just got so much stronger, now that I connected with so many and they all became a part of my life. I always thought of myself as a person with quite a bit of empathy but I didn’t realize how much more depth there is to empathy and how we can always take it to the next level.
Another big lesson this week was the practice of patience and presence. I am generally a very impatient person and that is not a great quality when in Uganda, where the concept of time has a very different meaning. We first realized this when our first lunch arrived 3 hours after we ordered it. But I had to accept that life has a very different pace here and it makes me realize how the pace of life we have back home is insane and not sustainable. I am determined to go home and slow down so that I don’t miss the important small details in my life — like someone smiling back at you when you smile and say hi to them.
As for presence, at home we are constantly plagued by the use of our phones and being on social media and I didn’t realize how addicted I had been to my phone until I got to a place where there is barely any WIFI and internet and you can hardly rely on technology. After the first few difficult days of desperately trying to connect whenever possible to the extremely slow internet (and cursing when every click would take several minutes) , it was deliberating not checking my phone every few minutes, just put it away and being fully present to what I was actually doing. I can’t say the addiction is gone but it has gotten a lot better :)
Overall, the social sabbatical experience already surpassed my expectations after week 1 and we still have 3 weeks to go. There is still a lot of work ahead us to accomplish our goals by the end of the assignment but I can’t wait to see what new learnings and experiences next week will bring and how we can continue contributing. As Archimedes once said: “ Give me a lever and a place to stand and I will move the world”
