Tenant Meeting

I attended my first tenants’ meeting on Saturday.  Our landlady called a meeting, requesting a representative from each of the 13 units in my compound.  I was looking forward to this chance to not only meet some more of my neighbors but also to meet my landlady for the first time.  I’m the only North American in my compound, but there is one Indian family and what I think is an Italian father and son, and I believe that several African countries are represented.  It was quite an interesting snapshot of local culture, particularly the time aspect:

The meeting was set for 9am.  Being Uganda, I knew it wouldn’t start on time, so I casually started to head out of my apartment at 9:05.  (Ha!)  Fortunately, I was smart enough to first look out my windows to see if anyone else had gathered.  There was the house manager standing by a stack of chairs.  No one else was around and the chairs hadn’t even been unstacked yet, so I figured I should wait longer.  Around 9:20, I started feeling guilty for purposefully being late, so I decided to head down in case my appearance would magically initiate the gathering.  Or I thought I could at least help to unstack the chairs.  Just as I headed down, the house manager set out the chairs in a semi-circle in the shade, so I just chatted with her for a few minutes.  It was pretty obvious that no one else would be there for a while, and she went off to talk to someone, so I decided to go back to my apartment to kill some more time.

I completed random chores around my apartment until about 9:45, by which time 2 other women had gathered.  I figured it was a good opportunity to get to know my neighbors a little better, so I headed down.  It was funny how people kept telling me “You know, Ugandans don’t know how to keep time” in an apologetic way.  But it was nice to get to know a couple of my neighbors a little better.  It turns out that the single woman across the hall from me is actually an electrical engineer, so I told her about EMI and that we’re always looking for volunteers for our design projects.  Another lady told me about how she had been cheated out of more than $100 by some respectable-looking people who had offered her a ride!  After chatting for quite a while, and having no one else show up, I finally decided to go back to my apartment to do my dishes, in the hopes that at least the landlady herself might show up by the time I was done.

The landlady finally arrived to her 9am meeting around 10:15, and by the time I got downstairs, almost everyone had arrived.  We started the meeting a little before 10:30, but it was nice and succinct and so was over by 11:15.  It was a good chance to voice our concerns about the apartment (particularly the night guards who often sleep while on duty).  I also got to recommend the plumber that EMI uses since the plumbers the landlady had been using didn’t seem to be doing a very good job.  It’s always nice to be able to refer dependable people to more work opportunities.  There were also various concerns voiced about no lightening rod on the 3-story building, too many flies and cockroaches (fortunately they don’t make it up to my 3^rd floor much), noisy neighbors, security gates that don’t close/open well, and the need for more laundry clothes lines (as well as the reminder/appeal to return any clothes that you take off the communal line and later realize are not yours).  It was pretty fun to realize that I’m part of such a community.  I haven’t gotten to know my neighbors as quickly as I had hoped, but I do feel like it’s coming “slowly by slowly,” as they say here.

The rest of my Saturday was spent having a relaxed, scenic lunch with a few friends, getting pedicures together, a mad dash through the on-coming afternoon downpour, banana bread baking, dinner, and watching a Batman DVD.

In other news, I found out Friday that my work permit had been approved!  I am so thankful.  For those who didn’t know, I applied back in January, it was denied in July, I appealed in September, and 9 months later it has finally come through!  It’ll be another 2 weeks or so until I actually get it in my passport, but at least I know that it’s been approved! 

On Tuesday, the EMI women took Paula out for her birthday, since her husband was out of the country on a project trip (note the beautiful background scenery):