Gulu Updates

Hey friends!

So I’m finally getting around to updating this thing, there’s so many stories to share but I’ll try and limit it to the main points from the last few weeks! I’m still obsessed with Gulu and am so sad that I have to leave it in just one short week. The people I work with are amazing and so is everyone I come in contact with here. It’s also really starting to feel like home, more than Kampala ever did, simply because it’s so chill and everybody makes you feel at home right away. I’m even over craving American food and now crave things like posho, fried cassava, or pork. Who would have ever guessed!

Okay, so rewind to Easter a few weekends ago. We went to a Catholic service at Holy Rosary because we knew it would be in English and it was a really great experience, despite being away from home on a holiday. It was a really cool mixture of traditional Catholic practices with traditional Acholi culture. For example, the altar girls (?? I’m really ignorant about Catholicism) walked down the aisle in more traditional wear doing a traditional dance and the band playing the music the whole service used traditional instruments like drums, etc. Also, when women are excited here at ceremonies/celebrations they do this shrill shrieking thing (Ay yi yi yi!) and so they would do that whenever they were really into a song or what the priest was saying. The service lasted two and a half hours, which wasn’t bad compared to what I was expecting for an Easter service in Uganda.

For Easter dinner, I had the best meal I’ve probably had in Uganda, especially because it was finally a home-cooked meal made with love. We were talking to Big Momma, our tenant, and she said “No, tonight I cook for you. You eat here.” We were totally down for this, considering we eat out pretty much every night and so we agreed we’d buy the dessert and sodas. She made us chicken, rice, peas, and chapatti and it was UNREAL. Also, the chicken was extra delicious because it was the stupid rooster that woke me up at least four times the night before (what ever happened to roosters just crowing at sunrise????). I actually had a dream about breaking its neck so watching Big Momma kill it for Easter supper was truly refreshing. We got to eat the dinner outside in the tile courtyard by candlelight, and it was so incredibly wonderful. We’re really very lucky to have Big Momma because every time we’re struggling to cook on a charcoal stove or hand-wash our clothes she steps in to take care of us. I’m really going to miss her. Also on a side note, we were cooking grilled cheese the other week and when we offered her one she said “No, I don’t like cheese, I like Blue Band (butter).” We all died because that’s SUCH a typical Ugandan response…

Easter Dinner

So the next week our friends who stayed in Kampala came up for the weekend to visit Gulu and see what we’d been raving about. We had a great time with them and packed as much stuff into one weekend as we could. On Friday, Invisible Children showed the KONY 2012 videos (Part One and Two) at Pece Stadium (small soccer stadium) in Gulu, so we all went to that. It was a really interesting experience and the stadium was WAY over capacity. You had to fight to get in and then we had to push through the crowd to get near the stage. They had a lot of really popular African artists come too, so that was neat. Then they screened the videos and it was cool to see people’s reactions, especially after all of the global criticisms. In general, people reacted positively to the video and you could tell they were in agreement over hatred of Kony because every time his image popped up they all jeered. I think the only issue was that they maybe don’t understand what the purpose of the video is and why they were watching it, but I think it was a genuine effort by Invisible Children to let Acholi citizens see the video that is after all, about them. Anyways, so we went out that night and had a blast (4:30 AM…Ugandans go hard), and then headed to the pool at Acholi Inn on Saturday. Our Ugandan friends Tony and Jacob were also along for the ride the whole weekend, so it was like a huge ongoing party and it was so nice to have everyone together again. That night we also got to watch a pirated DVD of Hunger Games, so that was the cherry on top of a mzungu-filled weekend.

After they left on Sunday morning, it absolutely poured as the start of the rainy season was coming in. I’ve never seen rains like this before in my life, and I can’t say it’s very fun to experience them almost daily. However, on this particular day we turned into an opportunity and decided to make a slip and slide in our tile courtyard where we’re staying. We were already wet from walking home so I forced Jake and others to come outside and join. We ended up “slipping and sliding” for about an hour, and I can only imagine what Big Momma was thinking. She already thinks we’re so bizarre so I’m sure we just further added to it that day.

Slip 'n Slide

Regarding real life updates, I’m still doing research and working at the Acholi Cultural Institution. It’s been really great and exciting, although some days I do wish I had more free time to go on adventures and explore. However, I got quite my fill of adventure last week when we went to settle a land dispute in Amuru (2-3 hours north of Gulu). For background, land disputes are a huge issue with post-conflict Northern Uganda because since the LRA war went on for 26 years, a lot of land ownership is unclear because after decades of displacement, people are unclear of who the original owner was or disagree on who’s entitled to it now. So our job that day was to go into this area (middle of NOWHERE, my boss called it simply, “going into the bush”) and mediate between the two conflicting parties and begin to reach a settlement. We get out there after all this time and find out that the party basically in the wrong didn’t show up at all, so we’ve arranged this whole big meeting for nothing. The team we came with decided it would be a good idea to start walking through these acres and acres of nothing and find the Lamogi people then to try and talk to them.  We’re walking through a plots with huts on them until we get to this one where this guy stands on this huge ant hill with a spear and tells us we can’t pass. After some negotiating, we manage to get through and find ourselves at another piece of land where a few people are congregated around a few huts. I should have taken this as a red flag, but this one guy was standing on the edge of the property blowing an antelope horn that was basically an incredibly loud war cry. All of a sudden, I see people coming out of nowhere from miles and miles away moving towards us. What ensued was probably the craziest/scariest experience of my life. My boss, Santo and a few Acholi chiefs began to try and discuss with them the situation, but before we knew it the other side was becoming very hostile. Apparently their leader wasn’t in town, but his son came to be the main voice and he was PISSED. He yelled at us for bringing so many “useless” people that had nothing to add to the conversation, as he apparently preferred that we had come with fewer people instead of coming off as so confrontational. He also absolutely freaked that a mzungu was there, and that’s when I almost s--t my pants. He pointed at me and said “And what is she doing here? Did you bring her here to arrest us? I don’t know if she has pistols or grenades in her bag. I’m going to have to protect myself.” I guess he just assumed because I’m white that they had hired me to come in and forcefully settle it, which is completely the opposite of any intentions I had…clearly. At this point I notice he keeps hoisting up this heavy bag on his back that we eventually found out was full of weapons. COOL. He went on aggressively rambling for like 20 minutes about how even if everyone around him left he would still take us all out by himself and that if we came back again, he could kill us. because of “fighting fire with fire”. Also, all of his pals are just standing around him at this point with spears and evil glares on their faces. A few other guys had some more threatening words for us, and the best we could do on our side was to try and calm them and insist that we only came for peaceful mediation. When we finally managed to pull ourselves away from the situation they yelled after us promising they’d kill us if we came back. On the way home I also found out that they had been hiding in the tall grass when we arrived and were watching our every move. (Sorry you probs had to watch me pee in the bush!) So yeah that was a pretty ridiculous day, I’m going to try and stay away from those events for the rest of my time here. My organization is going to go back again because they refuse to let the situation go because it’s clearly very volatile and important, but next time they’re going to get police and government officials to go with. On a good note, that’s going to be a baller story for my paper!

Betty and I before the land dispute

Other than that, my research is going well. I’m getting to interview some pretty cool government officials and others, and I’m really enjoying collecting the information and realizing how important culture is in restoring stability and peace in a post-conflict area. The only issue I face is people are very hesitant to be critical of the national government, so some answers they give me are clearly false.

This last weekend, we broke about a dozen program rules and went to Jinja where the source of the Nile is to go rafting and bungee jumping. COOLEST WEEKEND EVER. I seriously didn’t want to leave. I went in only planning to raft, but true to style, I gave into peer pressure and decided to bungee jump too. It turns out I thought rafting was actually way more terrifying.  I thought we would get a choice of levels of rafting, but it was one path and one path only. So after we went over the first rapid, our guide casually said “oh yeah that one’s a Grade Five”. Sweeeet. The second rapid everybody got thrown out, it was pretty much impossible not to, and that was by far the scariest moment. I got trapped under the raft for awhile and while the rapids were raging above my head I was trying to swim to the surface and no matter how hard I tried, couldn’t reach it. I hit my foot on the bottom and my mouth on something, and by the time I finally came up my friend Aimee said a ton of water came out of my nose. But hey, I survived! The rest was smooth sailing, I really enjoyed the next rapid we went over where we went completely under water through a rapid and then just held on tight enough to pop back up on the other side of it. It was seriously so much fun and I can’t wait to do it again!

Falling Out on the second rapid--I'm in the orange

Then came bungee jumping. Most of the group that went did it, which made it a lot more reassuring and since I was towards the end of the line I was actually excited to do it by the time I got up there. However, it started drizzling so I made the “bungee master” promise me that he was sure I could do it with that. He said he wouldn’t let me go if he wasn’t positive it was fine, so I figured it was fine. However, when I jumped off the platform it was drizzling and by the time I was dangling at the bottom it was MONSOONING. The three people after me didn’t get to go and had to leave the platform after I jumped, so that makes me feel so safe! I’m sure he was like oops, definitely shouldn’t have let her go! But it worked out fine and actually made it a super cool experience. The hardest part is just getting yourself to jump but after that it’s just so much fun. I also dove hard enough that I got my fingers dipped into the Nile so that was sweet. I’ll try and post the video soon, I just need to figure out how to rotate it first.

Bungeeing! Notice the rain

Since it's rainy season, it's also MANGO season and that's one of the things I'm undoubtedly going to miss most. They're so plentiful that you can buy six small ones for two hundred shillings which is less than TEN CENTS. Yep. I eat like four a day, because I can just walk outside our office and hit them off the tree. It's fantastic. Also one last story, I got bored with the chief meeting on human rights yesterday so I walked outside and saw that kids were playing drums down the hill and dancing around. I walked down and asked them to teach me, so I ended up playing drums and learning the Acholi cultural dances for about two hours. Of course all the kids laughed at me, but it was so fun. 

As for our last week in Gulu, I’m trying to go out big. Tomorrow two of my friends on the program and I are headed to Murchison Falls for a game drive, boat tour and hike so I’m really pumped for that. Then on Tuesday it’s Uganda’s Labor Day and luckily this year the celebration is in Gulu! Guess what that means?! President Museveni is coming and since my organization is going to the celebration, I get to be in the same stadium as him. And Pece Stadium is VERY small, so we’re practically going to be right next to each other (kinda). Also my brilliant friend Jake has decided he wants to open a mzungu rolex (chapatti with two fried eggs—delicious!) stand next week instead of writing our final papers, so that might happen as well. Can’t wait to see the awkward stares we’ll get from that.

Sorry for this being so long!

Lots of love,

Jessamy

First Week in Gulu

Hey guys!

So the independent study/practicum part of the study abroad time has started and I’m currently living in Gulu in Northern Uganda. I absolutely adore it so far, and I can already tell six weeks here isn’t going to be enough time. Before I get into details about my time here I’ll back up and do stories I haven’t written about so far.

My last day in Kampala with my homestay family I went to an introduction ceremony with my homestay mom and her church lady friends. Introduction ceremonies here are a HUGE deal, and its basically the engagement stage where the bride is introducing the groom to her family for the first time at this huge, elaborate party that has around 600-1000 guests. The reason there’s so many is that it’s rude not to invite EVERYONE, so every single person in the village is invited and you can’t turn them away. My homestay mom also was really nice and had a gomes (spelling?) made for me, which I’m assuming is because she didn’t trust me to dress up nice enough for it. Gomes is the traditional Ugandan dress here with a floor length dress with very high shoulders, with a large, shiny belt thing tied around your waist. Everyone I talked to was so impressed I had a gomes on, so I was glad to fit in even if I felt absurd. I felt even more welcome when before going into the ceremony one of my mom’s friends told me turn around to show her and goes “Oh wow! You even have a butt, that is good!” So the ceremony was even more of a special experience because the groom was actually German, while the bride was Ugandan, so that made me for very interesting interactions, but at least I wasn’t the only mzungu there. The ceremony lasted from around 1230 to 730 (yep, 7 hours) and was filled with tons of dances and gift-giving trains. There’s a proper procedure with giving gifts to each part of the bride’s family, including her sisters, aunts, and parents, and each has to be done to music and dance. Then the bride was finally allowed to reveal the groom to everyone, so she dances through the tables to the back of the opposite tent to bring him out from where he’s been hiding. My personal highlight of the day was watching this white guy’s supremely awkward facial expressions, as he looked so overwhelmed by all the activity, singing and dancing going on.

With my mom's church friends before the ceremony

Traditional Buganda Dancing at the Introduction Ceremony

When we finally returned home that evening from the village it was time to say goodbye to my homestay family and move on to Gulu. It was actually a lot harder than I thought it was going to be, as I’m so appreciative for how giving and protective they’ve been over me. I’m going to miss my oldest sister Rashida the most because she always looked out for me and is one of the most hard-working, kind people I’ve ever met. The good news is we get to see the family again before we leave Uganda at the end of the program, so I’m looking forward to that.

After spending the night in Kampala city center, four of us left Monday morning, March 26^th for Gulu! Jake and I were lucky enough to get seated next to boxes of about 400 live chicks for the 5 hour bus ride, so that was obviously a wonderful experience…definitely one of those TIA moments. After arriving we made our way to Tropikana Inn which was recommended to us, and it’s where we’ve since decided to make our home. The owner is an older lady called Big Momma, and she’s the best. And no joke, we have no idea what her real name is, we just address her as Big Momma whenever we need something. We’ve come to love the place, as we all have our own rooms that surround this sort of tile courtyard where we can do laundry or layout at. It’s much cooler on the tile than in our rooms so we spend a lot of time out there relaxing or doing work. Also, the showers, toilets, and sinks are outside in the courtyard but I actually love the set-up and the shower pressure is the most amazing thing ever. On a side note, Gulu is SO insanely hot. I thought Kampala was bad, but Gulu is hotter and drier so the cold shower at Tropikana at the end of everyday is beyond amazing.

our travel companions for the trip to Gulu

Another thing to love about Gulu is the fact that taxi-buses aren’t here really at all, so boda-bodas are the main form of transportation. Hence, I get to take one everyday to and from work and anywhere else I go, so I absolutely love that. It gets interesting when I’m expected to wear skirts pretty much daily, but I’m learning to manage. Gulu is also not very big, the town part consists of about 8 main streets where most of the shops and businesses are clustered, and then not very far outside of this it gets pretty rural and spread out. It’s a million times more preferable here than Kampala, and I love feeling like I know the way around the town already. The other unique thing about Gulu is that there’s so much NGO and international relief presence here, that people don’t even look twice when they see a mzungu. I haven’t been called mzungu once (except for little kids) and it’s insane how much that feels like a breath of fresh air. Additionally great is that the international community presence here has lead to the presence of mzungu restaurants and supermarkets, so if I want a coffee drink or a cheeseburger I can find one (along with free WiFi!). There’s also an Ethiophian restaurant right next to Tropikana where you can get a huge plate of pasta and fresh made tomato sauce for 3 bucks, gotta love that.

So now onto the work I’m doing here. Like I said previously, I wanted to research PRDP implementation in Northern Uganda, blah blah blah. But it’s altered a little bit because I’m interning at Ker Kwaro Acholi which is the Acholi cultural institution, and this has given me a little more of a cultural perspective on reconstruction, rather than all political. But this has been a total blessing, because the things I get to do in the organization are so cool and probably something I’ll never get to do again. For example, last week I got to sit in on a meeting between local Acholi leaders and the Ministry of Gender on HIV/AIDS, Gender Based Violence and Maternal Health so I got to see where the communities stand on these issues, the challenges they’re facing, and the way to fix them. It’s really interesting because the area is so affected by issues such as these because for 20 years they were pretty much cut off from all services or information due to the war and conflicts. For example, an Acholi chief leader stated that the problem is some people believe that AIDS will just disappear on its own like other epidemics have, so its hard to sensitize them on how to prevent it. So that was Day One on the job, on Day Two Ker Kwaro had 54 local Acholi chiefs come here for a Peace-building Traditional Justice Conference. The goal was to emphasize the importance of the Acholi cultural norms and practices to them as tools of peace-building and reconciliation within their communities. This is a huge issue they have to face because so many ex-combatants from the war are returning to communities and the people must find someway to address these tensions.  Ugandan court systems don’t have anywhere near the capacity to handle this many complaints and issues, so the people and their traditional leaders need to take the problems into their own hands in order to create stability in their communities. The system is in a lot of ways similar to the Gacaca Court system that was instituted in Rwanda post-genocide because the court system was ridiculously backed up with cases, and didn’t have anywhere near the capacity to handle them. So instead, they went back to their roots and started using Gacaca Courts to bring guilty people forward who could admit their guilty actions in front of the community and then be forgiven. My amazement with these traditional court systems is their capacity for forgiveness, because I imagine it would be so insanely difficult to forgive person after person who had wronged the community so that society could move on and stop focusing all their efforts on dwelling on the past. 

Traditional Justice Meeting with Acholi Chiefs

Later in the week on Friday, I got to work and my boss Santo (he reminds me of Baloo from the Jungle Book) called me into his office and out of the blue told me I was going with him to a meeting in town he had been invited to on women LRA ex-combatants. It was organized by the District Reconciliation and Peace Team and World Vision on the subject of Anti-Stigma and Reconciliation and our organization was invited to speak on peace-building and reconciliation. The need for this meeting was because many of the women who were formerly abducted into the LRA were returned home to their communities and expected to reintegrate, but multiple follow-ups have shown that the reintegration and reconciliation process hasn’t been smooth and that many of these women are having a lot of difficulty moving forward in their lives. A lot of the problems are because people in the communities assume that since the women were in the bush that they chose to join the LRA and therefore were responsible for the conflict and devastation from the LRA. Hence, the women are outcasts and are rejected by society and even their family members. What’s worse is that the children they had in the bush are also ostracized and associated with the LRA. This is sickening because the women were abducted, forced to be wives to LRA commanders/soldiers, forced to bear their children and then these are the women who are left with the burden to bear along with the children who clearly had no choice in their destiny to be born in the war. As if this wasn’t enough to digest, I then was told that one of the women who was contributing to the discussion had been one of Kony’s wives. He’s rumored to have had fifty or more, which is ironic for a man who claims to be so religious and godly. The woman looked around my age, but was abducted when she was twelve and had three children while living in the bush with Kony. It was so incredibly difficult to sit and hear her speak, it honestly made me nauseous like I was going to pass out because I just kept imagining how indescribably awful it must have been for her to live through that and then on top of that be a partner to one of the most evil men on earth. Even now typing this it’s making me sick to my stomach because I can’t imagine anything more repulsive than having to bear Kony’s children. In addition, she now has to raise the children, just like the other women ex-combatants, and said she just wants to care for them despite their background and educate them and raise them in the Acholi culture without stigmatization. The whole meeting was really eye-opening because I think a lot of people, including myself, fail to think about all aspects of the effects of war, so no matter how many schools or roads get built in Northern Uganda now, it’s still not going to create a peaceful community until these women get the justice they deserve and the children get the peaceful futures they’re entitled to. By the end of the meeting, the police commanders, local government officials, and other organizations present vowed to help join together and fight the stigmatization and find more processes that would allow for more effective reintegration and peace-building. Also interesting was the District Commissioner from the Police Force that said “we won’t stop going after the LRA until the last person in captivity is brought home, we will not relent,” because it showed the conflict is still ongoing and nearby even if the LRA have moved out of Uganda.

The succeeding weekend in Gulu was awesome because we for the first time on the whole trip actually had free time to do what we wanted. Saturday afternoon my work friends invited me and my SIT friend Jake to go with them to an Acholi introduction ceremony, and it was so fun. I think it was a better experience because it was one, shorter and two, with people closer to my age. The girls I work with wouldn’t leave until I danced in front of everyone, so I got pushed to join the gift-giving dancing train for the bride. That was really fun, and I got to break out my gomes dress again. One of Jake and I’s favorite moments was when a group of older women after dinner formed their seats into a circle and then broke out a handle of Uganda Waragi (disgusting, cheap gin) that they passed around and danced with. It was quite the party (pictures below). Besides that we explored the town a lot, slept in, and even found a pool to wrap up an awesome weekend. Monday morning, April 2^nd, it was back to work and I headed to Pajule town in Pader district with Maggie, the program coordinator for a Traditional Court Training for the Acholi chiefs and their court staff. Our Ker Kwaro taxi is in the shop, so we had the pleasure of finding our own transportation to this district and naturally Maggie found us a random car that happened to be going to the same town that we could hitchhike with. What resulted was a 3 hour ride in a car that was I swear about 15 minutes from breaking down, and then to add to my claustrophobia, had four people in the backseat on a dirt, insanely pot-holed road. Good times. But the traditional court training was again a really great experience. They began the first day by educating them on human rights and what this means for peace-building and conflict settlement. At first I was baffled by this because basic human rights seem so obvious in the Western World, but then I understood that after 20 years of war where your part of the country had been cut off from the outer world and most development movements, you wouldn’t grasp the scope of human rights either. So the first goal was to help them understand women, children, and those with disabilities all have the same human rights as men and that we are all entitled to them and therefore they should be upheld by leaders and the government. The discussion got interesting when the topic of bride inheritance got brought up, because the more progressive leaders think this should be outlawed, as it’s a violation of women’s rights, but many other more traditional leaders said in this case that human rights are infringing on culture. So I think it will be a slow process because you can’t expect cultures to change overnight, but I think these human rights will be incorporated gradually as development picks up in the North. The next goal was to teach them the traditional court mechanisms along with alternative dispute resolution and communication methods to utilize to resolve conflicts in their communities. These lessons will play a big role in land disputes that are probably the biggest conflict topic in this post-conflict society because after 20 years it’s very difficult to determine what land belongs to whom. At the end of the second day, each court staff member received a bicycle so that they can more easily reach all of their community members (villages are REALLY spread out) to sensitize them on human rights and administer justice.

with my work friends Maggie and Betty before the Acholi introduction ceremony

Traditional Acholi dancing at the Introduction Ceremony in Gulu

Then came getting home, which was another interesting experience of course. To get out of Pader, we had to wait an hour for a guy who happened to be going to where we needed to be to catch the bus back to Gulu. So we all hop in and then down the road pick up this poor guy who had jumped off a truck and broke his leg and probably something else because he was gushing blood. I felt so bad for him because the road was so bumpy and when I told him I hoped he felt better soon he didn’t even notice because he was in so much pain. After awhile we made it to Acholi Bur where we waited another hour and a half for the bus coming from the South Sudan border to take us to Gulu. I filled the time by making a baby cry. She was so cute and I was trying to wave at her and play with her, but when her dad made her shake my hand she went absolutely nuts and freaked out. I felt awful, but the dad said it was because “you’re the first mzungu she’s ever seen.” By the way, we were in the complete middle of nowhere at this point. Around 5 we finally caught the bus and made it back to Gulu in time for me to join my friends for dinner. The rest of this week has been pretty smooth, and I got to interview the District Speaker today on PRDP which was really helpful. I’m looking forward to the Easter weekend, and our friends from Invisible Children are coming back to Gulu so we’re talking about getting a goat for the Easter celebration. Should be a great time. Also, as I’m typing this I’m listening to all the ladies of the office talk about how I must stay longer and marry a Ugandan man. During the past few days they’ve made several remarks about how many cows I would get as a brideprice and that they would be so proud to marry me to an Acholi guy. That should be amusing for the next few weeks…

Also, I’ve finally booked my ticket home so my family can breathe a sigh of relief. They got lucky I did that last week or else I’d probably stay longer in Gulu because I love it so much. But after wrapping up stuff in Kampala I’m going back to Kenya to see baby Jessamy, my Uhuru Child friend Lydiah, and spend some time at the coast! I can’t wait.

Until next time!

Jessamy

Eastern Excursion & Last Week in Kampala

Oli otya mikwano! Greetings from Uganda!

So this past week we were in the Eastern part of Uganda, right near the border of Kenya which is marked by Mount Elgon. The first night we stayed in a cool town called Mbale, which was fairly big and had an awesome view of Mount Elgon on the horizon. During the day I went to an organization called TASO which is the AIDS Support Organization for Uganda. It was a really great experience which enhanced the knowledge I had previously gained regarding HIV/AIDS while I was in Kenya. Unlike popular belief, or at least what I used to think, people who have contracted HIV don’t become sick extremely quickly and have to lose all physical ability and hope. The organization does an awesome job of bringing in HIV positive clients and giving them anti-retroviral medications that help offset the disease and keep them healthy. We got to talk to the “drama group” who sing songs in communities and educate rural populations, and all of them looked and acted extremely healthy despite having the disease for many years. They told us that at first they had lost all hope, but after coming to TASO they had learned about their options and that they could take the medicines and keep themselves healthy to keep living normal, healthy lives where they can work and live long lives. Also fascinating is the organization helps pregnant HIV-positive women to give birth to negative babies. I can’t remember exactly how that’s possible, but I think that’s the greatest thing ever. So on to that night, we decided to hang out on the roof of the hotel and look at the stars, and it was one of the greatest moments ever. I’ve never seen the stars like that in my life, everything was clear enough that you could see planets and the constellations. Also, you could see Mount Elgon on the horizon so it was just amazingly beautiful.

The next day we left for a little town called Kapchorwa, an hour farther east where we would stay for the rest of the week and with our rural homestay families. The nights we weren’t with our homestay families we stayed at this awesome little hotel place called Crow’s Nest. It reminded me so much of summer camp, because all of the buildings (more like cabins) are on the side of a mountain that overlooks Sipi Falls. We had about 5 people per room, which 2 sets of bunk beds in each. For showering, you had to walk back up the hill to this enclosure near the kitchen where the water came straight from the springs. Every morning here we got to wake up to the sunrise over Sipi Falls, and eat pancakes and eggs (hallelujah) while looking over the falls and the mountains. It was absolutely gorgeous. At night there we’d hike past the hotel cabins up to the top of the mountain and lay down and look at the stars. Again, I’ve never been so amazed by the stars. You could see absolutely everything, and the Milky Way was so so so visible and beautiful. The first afternoon there we also did the hour long hike down to the base of Sipi Falls, and it’s literally what paradise looks like. The area and the pool at the bottom were just absolutely beautiful.

For the last four days of the trip we lived in a rural homestay in pairs, and it was such a fun experience. Although I had expected to live in the normal grass-thatched huts of the area, we were placed in a pretty nice home. Our family, including Helen, Michael, and the nephew Immanuel, had just recently upgraded in the last 3 months to a concrete home from their previous house with mud walls. They were the greatest hosts ever, they were so incredibly kind and generous with us and were constantly making sure we were comfortable. When the dad found out we liked coffee he brought us home like six jars of Mount Elgon locally-grown coffee, and then at the end gave us some traditional gifts, including baskets and a beaded gourd. The first afternoon we got there, we brought them a chicken and a rooster as a gift, and they were so happy and grateful. Then Jason, my homestay partner, was messing around trying to catch the chickens when Helen, the mom, was like “you catch that one there and we will eat it tonight.” We thought she was kidding, but nope! When the nephew got home a little later he helped Jason catch one then told us to come over to watch. I really honestly just wanted to look away because of how much I hate blood but Jason reminded me how much of a “once in a lifetime” experience this was. So nonetheless I watched Immanuel pin its legs down and stand on them then lean the chickens neck back and slice it open. The part that was the grossest to watch was that it didn’t die immediately but still like squirmed and moved even with the head cut off. So then we boiled the body and then got to help pluck the feathers out (they come out easier when the skin is hot). A few hours later, we had the freshest chicken I’ll probably ever have in my life…check that off the bucket list.

So during the day in the homestay we were supposed to conduct a research study of our own choice. Our parents paired Jason and I up with a neighbor to be our translator and guide, and we decided to go with coffee farming because it seemed a very big aspect of the rural area. I won’t bore everyone with the details of that, but what was really cool was that we happened to meet this awesome Ugandan guy named Wilson who is in charge of the Kapchorwa Commercial Farmers Association that had just finished building this enormous warehouse, partnered with World Food Programme and USAID. A family contact got us the interview and we got to go twice to talk to him and walk around the entire complex, and it was one of the coolest experiences of my life. To simplify this to be somewhat interesting to readers, the association built this enormous building and processing station so that local farmers can raise their livelihoods and increase their agricultural productivity by selling their maize, wheat, barley, and sorghum to the center where it’s then cleaned, dried, and packaged. The cool thing then is that the association sells these huge bags of grains back to the World Food Programme, who then uses them or gives them out on their projects all over the world. For example, grains bought from Kapchorwa grown by local farmers may be used in humanitarian assistance feeding programs in Somalia, etc. Additionally, the association has a huge contract with Uganda breweries, so the grains used for beer are sold to them. Wilson pointed out that there’s obviously an endless demand for brewery grains, so the local farmers have a huge opportunity to expand their farms and produce greater yields of crops to raise their livelihoods and incomes. Being there was a great opportunity, because the theme of this whole study abroad program is development and I think institutions and systems like this are the key to development in third world countries and beyond. Making use of practical comparative advantages in order to give rural populations the opportunity to make a profit and change their situation for themselves, versus outsiders coming in and trying to change societies to be more Westernized is what I’m becoming to think is a real, more appropriate solution to these development issues.

On the way back from the East we got to stop at the source of the Nile in Jinja, and although not what I expected, was still a really cool experience. I also got to take a picture with my Terrible Towel, so that was great.

As for now, this week is our last week in Kampala doing regular classes and being together as a group. Starting Monday, we all go out on our own for our practicum periods where we can do internships, research projects, or both. I’ve decided on a mixture of the two, but it will really just evolve based on what I’m able to do and find out where I’m at. I finally got confirmation this morning that I have an internship, and I’m going to be based in Gulu in the North working on and studying the impact of the PRDP policy on the area. PRDP is basically the umbrella policy that the national government created in October 2007 to help with the post-conflict societies of the North and also bring its development levels up to those of the South (where Kampala is). So yes for all you KONY 2012 viewers, that’s the region and subject I’m going to be working in and researching. Like the video states, the LRA is now out of Uganda but there is still a lot of work to be done. So I’ll be following the implementation of this PRDP policy and trying to find where the biggest gaps and failures by the national government are. Additionally, I hope to look into the effects of these actions on the local populations, mainly the Acholi people.

On March 21^st we had Norbert Mao come and talk to us at school, which was an AMAZING experience. He is the head of the Democratic Party here in Uganda, and he ran in the 2011 elections. For clarification, elections are so ridiculously fake here, it doesn’t matter who’s running or popular, Museveni’s still going to rig all of it and win by a huge margin. Anyways….it was obviously super awesome to have him come and talk to us, and I was so impressed by everything he said. He was a parliament member earlier in his career representing the Gulu District, which is the area I’ll be based in for practicum and one of the epicenters of where Kony and the LRA used to terrorize. So he filled us in on the background of the conflict, the situation today, and his impression of Invisible Children and the Kony video. It was really great to hear his views on these topics because he’s clearly an expert, making his opinions valid and reliable. It was really interesting to learn that the LRA wasn’t the only guilty side in the decades of war. After Museveni’s bush war to come to power in 1986, his army was responsible for many deaths from forcing people into refugee camps and using force to control the volatile north. This put a new perspective on it, because Museveni wants to frame the LRA as the only guilty side of the civil war, but he himself was guilty at times as well. As for KONY 2012, he said that the people in the North are generally happy that their story has been told. He pointed out that no it’s not the full story, but we are happy that now the world knows and is educating themselves about it. He said he had been keeping up with all of the criticisms and to respond to all of the criticisms that the video frames the conflict like its still raging in Uganda, he said that there was a “clear graphic explaining that the LRA had moved out and were now in Central Africa.” I also got chills when he brought up Jason Russell, the guy who made it, because he had nothing negative to say about him and said “I think Jason has the most important human characteristic: compassion.” From a personal standpoint, I think that is so important to remember when looking at the whole KONY 2012 campaign, because no the campaign and organization isn’t perfect, but their mission and goals are so noble and like Mao said, purely compassionate. Equally awesome that he said was the fact that no Invisible Children’s spending and budgeting isn’t perfect, but neither is every other NGO or government sector. He said “if you’re going to hold them to those high standards, you need to do it with everyone else too.” This is such a true point, because yeah their spending isn’t entirely going to projects on the ground, but check the UN, WFP, Medecins sans Frontieres, Red Cross, etc, etc and you’ll find the exact same issues, if not worse.

So in general news it’s an awesome time to be in Uganda. It’s so politically active and crazy right now, so there’s so many things constantly going on. Besides the Kony video and the international attention towards it, there’s been instability with Museveni and national politics. There has been riots pretty much daily the past two weeks, and here it doesn’t matter what you’re rioting about the police use tear gas and rubber bullets to stop them. So we get calls periodically telling us to avoid certain parts of town, and everyday on the news there’s all this uproar over the latest riot and how the police beat someone in the streets. Pretty crazy. Also, opposition parliament members started the petition to get Museveni’s impeachment brought up in Parliament and that’s caused so much tension and uproar. It won’t happen yet because too many people are scared of Museveni and what he would do if they turned on him, but the fact that 53 members have signed it so far and are bringing it up is a good sign towards political change and challenging accountability and transparency in the government. So I guess Museveni got nervous this week about all this challenging of his authority, so on Tuesday the main opposition leader Besigye got arrested and the city went nuts. He’s on house arrest right now, and it’s caused all these other issues. We went to Parliament on Thursday (wow, casual) and we couldn’t meet with one of the guys because he was in an emergency meeting regarding the opposition being arrested and the riots with it. It just felt crazy to be in the middle of this going on. Then we got to sit in on the afternoon session of Parliament and it was AWESOME. They even introduced us from the balcony and we got to bow to the members. The NRM (Museveni’s party) sits on one side and all of the opposition sits on the other side, making it an interesting dynamic. Also a casual sidenote, Museveni’s wife, The First Lady, was there so we were just sitting 100 meters above her, no big deal.

On a side note, severely missing my heels and friends during March Madness. This is probably the worst part of this semester to miss, but I’m trying to manage wakng up at 2 am to watch the games. As for now, tomorrow I get to go to an engagement party with my homestay family for my last day with them. It’s a HUGE production here where the girl introduces her fiancée to her family for the first time (yes first), so it’s a surprise and it’s a huge deal. My mom made me a traditional dress too so look forward to those pics. Then Monday I head to Gulu with some friends to start practicum time!! I’m really excited to start researching and living in a new area, but I am sad to say bye to people in Kampala for awhile. Hopefully I’ll update soon from Gulu!

xoxo

Jessamy

Early March Updates

Hello everyone!

So I think this post I’m going to try and fill everyone in on stories and anecdotes I haven’t been able to share with people yet.  Firstly, for the past two weeks we’ve been in Kampala doing our normal schedules with going to class and living with our homestay families. We split up into groups for electives and have been taking these more specific, focused classes at Makerere University with Ugandan students, which has been really neat. Makerere is one of the best schools in East Africa, and its pretty nice to be on a college campus again. This week however we’ve been doing a few more site visits to see our subjects firsthand and do some interviewing. We went to Jinja (the area with the source of the Nile) and a few other rural towns a few hours outside of Kampala and talked with people in the villages about their experiences with microfinance loans, self help groups, etc. It was really nice to be in the villages and get to talk these people, everyone was so nice!

 As for acclimating, I’m becoming slowly more and more assimilated and not feeling like such an outsider/white tourist. I’ve learned the importance of knowing the local language, as it drastically affects how some Ugandans treat us. I love being able to formally and informally greet people, ask how much things cost, tell the taxi where to stop, bargain, etc etc. From my experiences, as soon as you greet someone in Luganda they just immediately brighten up and become so welcoming and talkative, as opposed to assuming you’re a tourist. Also, when you ask how much the taxi fare is going to be in Luganda I’m WAY less likely to get ripped off because it shows I know what I’m doing. Multiple times when the “conductors” have jacked up the price I tell them exactly what I’m going to pay in Luganda and then they back off. One of my favorite things ever is when I say “Masawo”, meaning “up ahead”, for where I want the taxi to stop and everyone in the cab turns around and stares because they can’t believe that just came from the white girl. I’m also a lot less likely to get harassed when I respond to people yelling “mzungu” at me with “oli otya” (“how are you”) and they’re shocked expressions are priceless. I even got told today that my Luganda pronunciation is “very good” so I’m feeling good about that aspect of getting accustomed to Uganda.

An interesting part of being here is learning about the Buganda culture, which is the largest tribe in Uganda and makes up the majority of Kampala’s population. They are still very into their old traditions and culture, and it’s been really neat to experience that. For example, they still have a Buganda king who they personally respect and admire more than the President (which isn’t hard when your president is Museveni, but anyways…). Also, they are all divided up into clans, and each clan has a totem which is your symbol and identification. For example, my family is in the Mamba (snake) clan because that’s what my dad is. You aren’t allowed to eat your totem or your mother’s totem (no worries, I wouldn’t be eating snake anyway), and you also can’t intermarry within your clan because they’re all supposed to be your cousins/aunts/uncles. Also, there’s a huge importance put on formal greetings and respect to your elders within the culture, so I’m expected to greet people formally when I have the time for it. This includes:

1. how did you spend the night/how did you spend the day

2. how are the people at home

3. thank you for the work you’re doing

I even have my favorite chapatti stand lady who I greet every morning this way on my walk to school. Also, when you greet someone formally you’re supposed to kneel to the elders and not make eye contact. Luckily, I’m not expected to do that, but my homestay sisters kneel when they serve my parents dinner or when they return home from work. I’ve also seen my homestay mom kneel to women who are her elders, and at the graduation party I went to the graduating boy kneeled to his mom in appreciation. So I don’t find it sexist or demoralizing, but I think it’s a really cool cultural practice that I’m glad has lasted through globalization.

As for the food, it is a very interesting experience being submerged in that part of the culture. For those of you who assumed I’d lose a lot of weight coming to Africa, think again. The majority of the average Ugandan’s diet is like 90% carbs and its based on the basically the same 5 things over and over again. The main staples are white rice, matooke (mashed plantains…equivalent of eating sour lime-green thick mush), posho (porridge), irish potatoes, and beans. Then if we’re lucky in my homestay we’ll get vegetables (I’ve never craved vegetables so bad in my life) and these could include tomatoes, pumpkin, sweet potato, carrots, cabbage, avocado, greens, etc. My favorite meal we’ve had in my homestay was this past Sunday when we had rice, beef (we only have meat on Sundays), sweet potato, pumpkin, and greens. Most nights its usually matooke, rice and probably beans. Sounds appetizing right? The good news is there’s lots of mzungu food in Kampala so at school we normally get delicious things for lunch. For example, one of our favorite spots is La Fontaine by school where you can get amazing chicken burritos. Thank goodness for these places or I’d probably be really cranky all the time.

A few weeks ago we had to do a village mapping assignment and paper to make sure that we understood and grasped the layout/socio-economic distribution of the village we’re living in. Luckily, my mom set me up to do the assignment with our Local Council member, Richard. (Side note: Local Councils are the decentralized government system, which I like a lot more than the corrupt national government. There’s 5 levels and they’re in charge of their zones and listening/handling the problems of their village members.) He’s the lowest Local Council level and is in charge of Mpererwe zone where I’m living. We walked around the entire village for about two and a half hours one afternoon, and it was one of the coolest experiences ever. He was so insightful and informative and he took me through the slum, the richer parts, the agricultural parts, etc. It was really interesting to compare the income levels and issues within the 2 mile by 2 mile zone and it was a cool hands-on look at development issues. When the slum area floods (every rainy season), the sewage in the drainage system floods above the banks and into people’s homes, where Richard said even some children drown in it. One thing that’s amazed me while being here is that people would rather come from the village and live in an unsanitary, dangerous slum that floods seasonally just to be close to Kampala and its job opportunities. I don’t blame them, it’s just so hard to see so many people living like this all for the chance to be closer to employment opportunities, schools, and what not.

So for anyone who hasn’t heard of Invisible Children, it’s a well-accomplished, really important organization that has aimed to end the violence and now recover and seek justice in the Northern part of Uganda where an atrocious war waged for over two decades. The atrocities were led by Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and they are infamous for abducting child soldiers (more than 25,000) from rural areas and forcing them to work in the army, kill their own families, terrorize populations, and much more. The sad part is that while these things went on, the world was extremely ignorant on it because it was happening in such a small area of the world and Westerners commonly like to write off African wars as tribal conflicts that will just go away. I’m telling whoever reads this about it because I’m finally learning more about the conflict and feel it’s an important time to share because Invisible Children just released their new video about making Joseph Kony a household name so that he can finally be brought to justice. I highly encourage everyone to check out this video, because knowledge is power and informing ourselves on current events outside of America is really something that can change the world. Here’s the link: http://kony2012.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ The International Criminal Court has indicted Kony and many of his top commanders, but he is still yet to be found and punished as he hides with his exiled remaining troops in the Congo. A lot of negative press and criticisms are coming out about the organization and its dispersal of this video, but no matter what complaints are brought up, the organization is still doing something AMAZING by having that many people over the entire world watch the video and get informed. People are entitled to their opinions, but I don’t know what there is to complain about that, because all of the recruited child soldiers who had their lives destroyed finally have a chance at having a voice. Yes, the war’s height was years ago, but Kony and his army are still living as free men while Northern Uganda still has a long way to go for full recovery as thousands of people went through more traumatic atrocities than we could ever wrap our head around. In general, it’s a human rights precedent and it could set the stage for holding people who commit mass human rights atrocities accountable for their actions, so that they have to fear justice and face the punishment.

On another note, we’ve been really lucky to meet and become good friends with a few of the guys that Invisible Children has found and put a spotlight on in order for them to share their stories. A guy in our program is really involved with Invisible Children at home, and one day in Kampala he ran into Jacob who’s in several of the documentaries and we’ve all been hanging out since. For those of you who watch the Kony video above, Jacob (now much older) is the young boy who cries in the first few minutes about losing his brother. Also, we’ve become fast friends with Tony, who one of the organization's documentaries is based on. When we go out in Kampala on the weekends we go out with them and they watch out for us all night long and make sure we get home safely, which has been a huge help. I even took my first boda-boda ride (the motorcyles used here for like 50% of the transportation) last night with Tony on it as well on the way home from the bar last night. It’s safer to take them at night because there’s no traffic, and it was suchhhhh a cool experience. (Sorry mom and dad!) The link for the documentary on Tony can be found here, if anyone’s interested. http://www.invisiblechildren.com/frontline-tony-documentary Also, they live part time in Gulu in Northern Uganda, and I think that’s where a lot of us are doing our practicums/internships at the end of the semester so it will be really awesome to have them to show us around. I can’t wait to live in a smaller city where I feel like I know the whole area on my own! But all in all, its been really cool to make real friendships with Ugandans, especially with such amazing people!

Yikes, sorry for such a long post! Sunday we leave for our Eastern Excursion where we get to do our rural homestays and I absolutely cannot wait. I’m corn-rowing my hair tomorrow because I’m not sure what the bathing situation will be, and my big sister volunteered to do it. So that will really different, but exciting. We’re getting paired off and get to do our own research projects for the week, so it should be a really great experience! Also, I get to take a picture with my Terrible Towel at the source of the Nile in Jinja :).

Until next time!

Jessamy

Western Excursion/Rwanda Week

Hey everybody!

So I’ve been really bad about updating this, but hopefully this long post will give a good update of some things I’ve been up to. Last night we returned from our week-long excursion to Western Uganda and Rwanda, and it was SUCH an amazing experience. I’ll start by going through all the places we visited and things we did last week…sorry if this post is long.

On Monday of last week, we visited the Millennium Village Project in Ruhira, Western Uganda. The project is based on achieving the UN’s Millennium Development Goals which are really ambitious goals aimed at alleviating the world’s largest poverty issues drastically by 2015 (they include free universal primary education, reducing HIV/AIDS, reducing poverty levels of those who live on less than $1/day, etc). It was a really cool project to see in action, as its taking the holistic plan of action to reduce poverty in all aspects. They’ve installed solar panels, clean water sanitation and drainage systems, created better schooling and business opportunities and more. Personally, I really like this approach to development because it teaches the poorest of the poor or the most remote rural villages to grow and develop on their own, without complete reliance on foreign aid. The project is aimed at pulling out of the village in 2015, so by this point the village should be self-sustainable and the experiment will hopefully be a lesson on how to achieve the Millennium Development Goals in other impoverished areas around the world.

On Tuesday we went to Uganda’s largest refugee settlement in Nakivaale. It has 60,000 refugees of 12 different nationalities, and it was an incredibly difficult but rewarding experience. When we first got off the bus, we were swarmed by refugees wanting to talk to us and inquire why we were there. Right off the bat the experience became overwhelming because many of the people expressed their distrust in whites as outsiders constantly arrive in the settlement and don’t ever bring truly beneficial change or hope. One guy who was extremely intoxicated (and as we learned later, was also mentally unstable) approached my friend Aimee and I and started scolding us about how we were full while he was dying of hunger. Then he pointed at my pink fingernails and made me feel awful about how I have money and time to paint my nails while he’s dying. This initial experience was really tough, but the day got better as we talked to more sane people. We got split up into groups to explore the different nationalities of the camp, and I got put in the Horn of Africa group so I got to speak to Somalis, Ethiopians and Eritreans. The experience was especially cool because I felt like I was in the Horn of Africa for the afternoon because these people in general look different from East Africans. Their mainly taller, lighter-skinned, and have different facial features, so it was really cool to spend time with a different group of people than I’m used to. We had two awesome Somali women guides, one named Halima who was elderly and such a strong woman. She was really educated and had even studied in Italy, but lost everything 15 years ago with the political conflict and instability in Somalia, and has lived in the settlement ever since. The majority of the people we talked to came to Uganda because it’s the most stable of the neighboring countries, but still had a lot of complaints about how the United Nations High Commission for Refugees is running the camp and providing aid. It was all really interesting to hear on a first-hand basis, and a topic I’d really like to explore more at some point. The majority of the refugees are Congolese, and then there are Rwandans, Burundians, Kenyans, Somalis, Ethiopians, and Eritreans. All of them feel unsafe returning home and some even said they felt like they had no nationality or home when asked if they ever wanted to return.

Wednesday was the drive to Rwanda, and the bus ride was awesome because we passed through the most gorgeous hillside and rural areas I’ve ever seen. There was nonstop hills and miles and miles of green farms and land. When we arrived in Rwanda at night, we first went to the Rwandan Governance Board for a lecture. I did a lot of research/papers on Rwanda and the current government led by Paul Kagame so I was really curious to hear what they had to say. They had a largely positive and optimistic view on the government, and they went on and on about how low their corruption levels are and how far they’ve come since the genocide. I agree they have made tremendous strides since the devastation of the 1994 genocide, but Kagame has been in power for almost two decades and is far from democratic. We found out later on that we had spies following us the entire time we were there to keep tabs on us and figure out what we were doing. At our hotel our passports were even taken so they could record our information. This was really, really fascinating to me because it became evident quickly how much military power and control Kagame has over the entire country. On another note, we all enjoyed Kigali (the capital of Rwanda) a lot though because it is SO much cleaner and organized than Kampala. In Kampala walking through or riding in traffic is literally a fight for survival, but in Kigali it was pretty much like being in America.

Thursday was Genocide Memorial Day, and the whole experience of that is really hard to put into words. No matter how much you read or hear about the genocide, nothing can really prepare you for being there and experiencing the sites where so many people died. We first went to the Nyamata site, which is a Catholic Church where 10,000 people were killed in a single day: April 15, 1994. The church is now filled with the infinite bundles of clothes of those who died there, and the lot behind it is a mass grave for them. Being in there was so eerie, and it made the horror of the genocide very real. The second church in Ntarama was a site where  5,000 people, mostly women and children, were killed between April 15^th and 16^th, 1994. It was mostly women and children killed because the men were on the hill nearby launching a counterattack to try and fight the interhamwe, or perpetrators of the genocide. In the main church building, there are bundles of clothes of the victims and various coffins as bodies are even STILL being found in the surrounding area. The guide pointed to the newest one, saying that that body had been found just the week prior. He then showed us the machetes, clubs, and axes recovered from the site which made it horrifyingly real how personal and atrocious the genocide had been. The killers didn’t usually use guns, but instead killed with the most rudimentary weapons that required them to be right next to their victims, inflicting the most painful, prolonged deaths possible.

Don’t read this paragraph if you don’t want graphic details. We then went into the Sunday School room, where I was the most overwhelmed and completely lost it. This room during the killings was reserved for “smashing” babies on the wall and raping the women. There is still a huge black stain on the wall where babies were “held by the foot” and smashed against the wall, so the stain is a mixture of “blood and brains”. The image of the stain on the wall will forever be burned into my memory. Then the guide picked up a large wooden stick that had been sharpened at the point and told us that that’s what the killers used to kill the women by shoving it through them after raping them repeatedly. At this point I almost fainted from being so disgusted and upset, and was immediately overcome by tears and a rush of emotions. I don’t think those feelings or memories will ever leave me, and it will be a constant reminder of how blessed and lucky I am because I can’t even come close to imagine experiencing such terror.

We finished the day up with the Kigali Genocide Memorial, which is a museum and also mass grave for more than 250,000 corpses recovered after the genocide. It was a really great museum, and I’m glad the country has constructed something that can help future generations learn from this horrible failure in humanity. On Friday, we went to the Kigali Free Trade Zone, which was interesting because it has the potential to greatly expand Rwanda’s economic and trade potential. The afternoon was then free to explore, which was a nice release from such a heavy few days. We ate lunch at a very “mzungu” café (meaning it was targeted at white people with its coffee and American dishes) and then went had a drink at the Hotel des Milles Collines. This hotel is the one that the movie Hotel Rwanda is based on, because the manager of the hotel was able to save 2,000 people during the genocide here by hiding them in rooms. It was kind of eerie being somewhere where that had happened but was now a functioning, very nice hotel, but we really enjoyed the experience of having a great view of the city and having a margarita by the pool.

Saturday was the return to Uganda, and when we made it to Queen Elizabeth National Park in the evening we got to do a safari boat ride on Lake Edward. It was AWESOME, and I’m so happy because I got to see the animals that I didn’t see on my safari in Kenya. The area has the largest concentration of hippos in the world, and so they were literally everywhere. We also got to see crocodiles, many elephants, tons of birds, warthogs, colobus monkeys, and cape buffalo. It was so gorgeous being on the water, and I really loved seeing the elephants and hippos. We then slept in a safari lodge for the night, where there were warthogs, bats and other things stirring around us. Sunday morning we did a game drive in the bus, and we saw more of those same things, AND a lion! We were all so pumped to see the male lion, because that can be rare especially since the park is in its dry season.

Then we headed back to Kampala yesterday morning, and we’re all back to “normal” life here which means constant dust, absurd traffic jams, and a faster pace of life. We got back close to dark last night (around 7:30) which freaked me out because I have a 15 minute walk from where I get off the taxi (public transport mini-buses) to my homestay. It was taking longer than expected to get home so I called my mom on the taxi to see she would meet me at the stop to walk with me, as I was going to be a huge target being a white girl with a huge hiking backpack with me. She said she would but we have a very difficult time understanding each other on the phone (and in person but that’s another story) so I was getting nervous about waiting on her in the dark. I walked a little up the road from where I get off because I didn’t want to stand in a huge crowd of people as it got to be really dark and sketchy, so I stopped at a shop with a light on outside with a few people. My mom said she’d leave to find me around 7:20 and we didn’t find one another until 8:00 so needless to say I had a little panic during these long 40 minutes. Thank God there were two super nice, helpful 23-year old guys who talked to me while I waited and even talked to my mom on the phone when she couldn’t find me and gave her directions. Without them, I probably would have freaked out completely because I was short on airtime (prepaid minutes on my Ugandan phone) and Ugandan schillings, so I was completely unsure of how I was going to get home safely in the dark if my mom couldn’t find me. While I waited the guys were super nice and asked me questions about America and taught me more Luganda (the language here). Once my mom finally found me, I was relieved to be back “home” and I got the warmest welcome from my whole family.

Sorry for the length of this post, but I hope that’s a good update for now mukwano! Siiba bulungi!

First Days in Uganda

Hey everyone!

[This is copy and pasted from my tumblr, because it would never allow people to read it. I wrote this on February 6th]

So I’m a little late in updating first impressions and days in Uganda and getting in touch with everybody, but I’m finally getting settled in with my internet and living situation, so it’s finally time to post something on here!

The first week here was orientation for us, and they had us all stay at Jeliza Hotel in the middle of the city for orientation sessions like health, safety, etc and some survival Luganda (the language). The first time they really let us out on our own was Thursday, which was the infamous “drop off” where they pair us up and have us each do a task and report back later in the day when we’ve found our way back. Another girl, Alex, and I got restaurants and food, so naturally we were pumped because thats the easiest/funnest task ever. We started on our pub crawl except with food, and it was great. However, things took a turn for the worse later in the afternoon when after running into 2 of our other classmates, I was robbed. We were walking back up a PACKED street (Kampala is absurdly chaotic) and as I crossed a road up onto a curb with about 30 people on it, a guy walking the opposite direction of me came out of nowhere and yanked the gold cross necklace I got for my birthday off of me. Before I could even jump to feel my neck, he was fighting through the crowd to get away and I was left there in shock. The day before we’d learned Ugandans think it’s unusual to cry in public, so I began to almost have a small panic attack because I was in shock, couldn’t cry, and had just been robbed on my FIRST day in the city. Thank god I was with 3 other friends, one of whom was a boy, to get me through the next tough little period of shock.

I’m still not quite over the incident, as I’m now constantly paranoid that anyone is going to go for my bag or any piece of jewelry just because I’m a muzungu (white person) and they assume that I’m rich. I don’t want to feel like this, as the majority of people here are amazing and SO welcoming. I even debated telling anyone the necklace story because I don’t want to feed stereotypes, but I promise there will be a billion more positive memories/stories than the prick who jacked my necklace. I’m going to trust that that was God trying to teach me a small lesson early on, and in the end it will have happened for a reason. My mom has even already ordered me a new one (its not real gold or expensive, so that persons gonna be sadly disappointed) because she’s the sweetest person ever, so I’ll have that to look forward to when I’m returning.

So Saturday (yesterday at this point) was the day that we got assigned to our homestay families and sent home with them. We had this ceremony thing at another hotel and just stood across from each other until they called our the muzungu student name and then we walked out and met our family. It was nerve wracking, but at this point I’m really happy with my family! I’m living with Marjorie and Meddie and their 4 kids, all of whom are girls ranging from age 4 to 26 (I think). I was really worried about what their standard of living would be, and the first few hours were a culture shock, but I think I’m getting used to it and realizing how lucky I am because this region is filled with poverty and it could be A LOT worse.

They have a nice little house north of Kampala that has a gate and high brick wall around it, because if you have any kind of money here you do this to ensure security and don’t give any outsiders “temptations” like Marjorie says. So that makes me feel safe. I even have my own room, but it’s hot as hell and I’m in a bunk bed with a mattress with a comfort level of a rock slab. But all in all, its cozy and I’m glad I have my own space.

They have electricity (unless it goes out in the area, which it did last night) and running water, but the flush toilet doesn’t work :( sooooooooooooo that means we all get to go outside to the pit latrines next to the big chicken house. So that’s an experience FOR SURE. But once again, it could be worse. I can’t wait to see what everybody else on the program’s living situations are like tomorrow at school, and I’m hoping I’m not the worst situation haha

They also have a car so that is HUGE (words can’t even describe) relief because that means that I get to ride to school in their car and NOT in the scary, dangerous, death trap taxis (matutus) here. THe doctor at orientation told us not to ride them in any event because they are so dangerous and filled with pick-pocketers, but the program directors told us most of us will have to take them. So I only have to take them on the way home, which I’m hoping I can figure out and get used to by the end of this week. My fam also has cell phones so my dad told me “if you are anywhere you don’t know, just call mommy or daddy and we will come get you and remove you from the situation.” So hallelujah for that.

Today (by the way, its 10:36 pm here while writing, or 2:36 pm Chapel Hill time) I woke up early and first went with the parents to their farm a few miles away to “check” on the workers and the work their doing. It was beautiful out there. Then mom and I went to decorate for a graduation party at “Denise’s Pub” in about 100 degree heat. I thought I was going to pass out, but I had to withstand this “decorating” for 3 hours before we could come home and rest. We bathed and rested shortly then went back for the party, and it was such an experience.

It was for 5 university graduates, which is a huge deal here because barely anyone can afford the school fees, and they all invited family and friends for the party. Four out of five were girls, which I also thought was great. In total, there were probably 200 people there, and the majority were dressed in traditional wear, or gomes, which I love seeing. Everyone was really nice to me, even though I could hear them whispering “muzungu” at times. At the party, which lasted roughly from 1 to 8, there was tons of dancing, speeches, and hugs. I hope I can put up pics later, because it’s really hard to explain, but Americans could really learn a lot from places like this where people don’t rush through celebrations and reasons to be with family and friends. It was really cool to see how much they all cared about each other and wanted to be around one another.

I think that’s a long enough post for now, especially since I have to wake up at 6 am for school so I hope that will suffice. Hopefully I will give better details and stories soon!