Juliana Koury Gaioso and Kasirye Oliver Namirembe
Gendig has promoted cross-cultural experiences, positively affecting exchange students’ lives and enriching the perspectives of other students and lectures.
Namirembe Oliver Kasirye, a master’s student at Makerere University, Uganda, has been on exchange at the University of Agder, Norway, during the autumn semester of 2022. She received a scholarship as part of the GENDIG project and reported how the experience provided enriched her life and future career. On the other side, she impacted the lives of people she met with her knowledge and new perspectives, such as mine, a mother, master’s student and immigrant settled in Kristiansand. In the last month, Kasirye and I have been exchanging messages on Whatsapp and emails. I have learned a lot from her story and experience.
Education as a priority
A great lesson from Kasirye was to break with gender stereotypes about the global South, especially the empowerment of women in her context, as she says, “most women are the breadwinners because, sometimes, after producing children, some men decide to dissert home. This means one must struggle to make ends meet but with much pain.” Based on her experience, besides being the breadwinner for her children, she also adopted her sister’s children, who passed away from a snake bite.
To manage a life with eight children, Kasirye worked nights as a vendor on the side of her studies. Besides that, she manages to educate her children with loans. Her firstborn just completed a degree in Population Studies and now applied for a Master of Arts in Gender Studies, another one is just starting electrical engineering, and the fifth born is studying Biotechnology Laboratory.
The exchange
This exchange became feasible since the GENDIG project provided living allowance and housing funding. In the middle of the challenges, she had the opportunity to see things from another perspective, “I learned and appreciated myself as an African woman from Uganda who grew up in a typical village setting. Traveling to Norway was my first time leaving and traveling to a dominantly white people country.” The learning experience helped her improve her Academic Writing and her perspective on life: “I learned to associate and how students understood and perceived education and career. I acquired more knowledge in the use of computers and various academic platforms. At first, it challenged me, but I later embraced the technology.”
Lessons for life, “One of the biggest was multicultural diversity. It was a program that brought together students from all walks of life and cultures”. In a developed and expensive country like Norway, Kasirye also reported her challenges: “The four months I was away taught me a lot, more responsibility and economic management.” Besides the obstacles of facing the cold November and the darkness at four o’clock in the afternoon.
Challenging the understanding of wealthy
Among the adaptations during the period she was in Kristiansand, one of the most difficult was related to food, “as an African coming from a country with a variety of food items, in Kristiansand, Norway, I had to eat rice and Irish potatoes on a daily basis, it was really hard for me, but I managed.” Coming from a tropical country, as well, I can agree with her. In Brazil, the variety of food in each meal is incomparable. Besides, having a varied diet with three warm meals is usually not affordable in Norway. Fertile and tropical lands have much more to offer, and still, there is this paradox that we are the countries depending on others that can offer less than our lands.
