Cell Phones and Missed Potential

First off this trip has been amazing. First time to Africa and being immersed in the culture has proven both promising and frustrating. The first thing I want to highlight is the cell phone etiquette. There is none here. If a phone rings its gets picked up whether its in a meeting with the president of a major university or whomever else. They need the calls here. The funny thing is though which is totally different from us is that when the cell rings while driving 99% of the time the person will pull to the shoulder to talk and not keep driving. The second thing I would like to express my opinion on is the idea of missed potential. Today we had an interesting day. We first drove one hour north to an Internally Displaced Persons camp ( a refugee camp) from the recently ended war. Was pretty eye opening. The ride out and back was really tough as we were cramped into a car with four to a bench seat and the roads were the quality of a dirt path. This experience put us in a hot and bumpy car but there was perspective to be had. A bumpy car ride is much less challenging than living in a hut that’s floor is made of cow dung. After returning to Gulu we visited the Rotaract club of Gulu University. Rotoract is students age 18-30. This was a highpoint of the day. Young motivated students willing to learn more about us and embrace a new culture. One young woman mentioned how she liked how we all had just one one woman or man in our lives (Uganda can tend to be a more polygamous culture with men taking on a “sidedish” as they say). This expression of a young woman getting university educated and wanting to get ahead made be feel that Africa has a bright future. However the meeting then went on to be a respectfest for the elders and men of the club. This really took away from the opportunity for the youth to share their stories and ideas with us. While I respect Rotary with the utmost there really was a missed opportunity here for the youth of the great country to share their story. Africa really has some amazing people and cultures, but as I get even more insight on the culture I feel that ( like many other places in this big world of ours) we have to balance progress and innovation in harmony with traditional culture in order to ensure future success. Too much one way or another seems to hurt us.