KOPE UPDATE: 1

Kope Cafe...wow. what a trip. Just thinking about this name is exciting, although the meaning (no worries) sometimes contradicts the craziness of opening up this coffee and tea house in the middle of Gulu, Uganda. I love the freedom I have been given with this project. It started as a dream of Jolly Okot's, and was pushed to the surface by the action of Katie Bradel. Katie and Jolly have worked tremendously hard to get this project off the ground, and have really laid a great foundation for me to step in. Katie, who has lived in Gulu for nearly 3 years, is one of the founders of Invisible Children's presence in Uganda. She spent the last year working on getting a place in town for Kope Cafe. What she found was perfect. The building stands in the middle of town, across from the biggest radio station called Mega (Kope has a Mega View...get it?) It is a brick building with a great front patio. Katie had a wall knocked down to allow two rooms to come together, so we have two large rooms for the cafe, and two smaller rooms to serve as a kitchen and back room. The building is a storefront that has an entire apartment complex behind it. Miraculously all of the neighbors thus far are really cool, and supportive. These three cute kids call me Uncle and are always peeking in to see the progress. Katie also helped Jolly make the furniture. It is all made of wood, painted black, and look great. There are 5 big couches and 4 chairs with 1 long table. We have 2 other tables, and some bar stools all made out of the same furniture. Plastic chair capitol of the World, Gulu isn't going to know what do think when they see this furniture.
So, Katie left with those big goals accomplished. On her final day, she handed me the keys, the money she had raised for starting the project, and the words "run with it". I stood in this huge, echoey empty room, furniture sitting still wet with paint, and took a big breath. Excitement of the challenge has motivated me ever since. Of course there is that nervousness, especially trying to stick to such a tight budget, while working with Acholi people who think Americans come from a land where money actually is handed to you when you step out into the street every day. (An actual conversation with a local).
So, the project has begun. Hours before Katie flew home, we met with a couple coffee distributors in Kampala. The one we gravitated to was this company called Good African Coffee. It is a new company, Ugandan run, whose motto is "Africa needs trade, not aid to fight poverty". They give 50 percent of profits back to the communities where they get their beans. They invest back in these Ugandan farm communities. I am planning to go on a Coffee Safari to see how it works. But they are willing to distribute to us- meaning they will send coffee every week on a bus headed for Gulu, where we will recieve it at the bus park 4 blocks away. It was an exciting meeting, and more thrilling was visiting coffee shops in Kampala where I was totally inspired by their ambiance. Living in Gulu for so long, I bet even walking into a Quiznos at this point would look stylish.
I went back up to Gulu and cancelled my plans to travel to Ethiopia, because I felt so hungry to start. With the help of the most eccentric designer in town, Franco, we began to pick colors for the cafe, and buy paint. It is great to have an Acholi designer, because in Gulu, there are not many people that make a living doing art of any kind. They people here are just waking up out of twenty years of survival mode. Creativity has not been honored or practiced for two decades. It is a subtle intention of Kope Café to influence creative thinking. For years, creativity has not been encouraged beyond survival methods. In school, the students are taught using an outdated British system of rote memorization. There has not been any money or motivation to support creative efforts due to the war. Thus, there is an obvious lack of a developed creative thought process in the general Acholi populous. In example, when NGO researchers for Invisible Children asked people in the IDP camps what businesses they could think of that would generate business, their ideas only rotated around what they had already seen in town. They could not imagine other possible ideas. As well, when I was surveying people to ask what colors to paint Kope Café, a typical response were the colors that were typical to all of the other buildings in town. One man even suggested I repaint it the same color it currently was. I am hoping that in some way, Kope Café will serve as a place of creative inspiration, challenging the status quo and influencing others to think outside the box, in unique, innovative ways.

The Acholi co-designer of Kope Café, Franco, is completely supportive of this idea, acknowledging that now is the time for a revolution of thought. Coffee and coffeehouses have been a meaningful part of community life for centuries, in Europe as well as in America. They have been associated with political upheaval, writers’ movements and intellectual debate in Venice Vienna, Paris and Berlin. It has become painstakingly clear that Gulu does not have any venue for artists and thinkers to come together in a public setting. In a historic time in Gulu, as peace appears on the horizon, Acholis are going to be transitioning from a “survival mode” living standard to one that will want to explore their creativity, and critical thinking. Perhaps this will serve as a place of political debate and inspiration for change.

While at this point, this is all wishful speculation for the existence of Kope, I will continue to paint, sand and pour my heart into this project. More updates to come next week...