Something Happened Today...

Something happened today, it doesn’t matter what and I’m still trying to figure it out but it got me thinking. I should also say don’t worry (if you were worried) everything’s fine.

The past couple of weeks I have loved being in Uganda. I finally feel at home and in fact just yesterday I was thinking about how I could live here after I graduated…and not just that I could but that part of me really wants to.

But then today happened and I still love Uganda but maybe I just don’t like it so much right now. Not a day goes by where someone doesn’t ask me for money or ask me to help them in this way or that. Or even ask me to marry them and take them back to America with me. And this is all because I am a muzungu. Even people I know and see and talk to everyday ask me for things, to leave my clothes when I’m gone, or if I can give them my cell phone.

And to be honest it is exhausting, but that’s not the only thing that’s bothering me. For my first few weeks here I felt really bad. I wanted to give and would have left everything behind for whoever wanted it. I would feel bad as I walked past someone on the street asking for money and continue to think about them for blocks as I continued to walk. When someone at a school or organization asked for something I started trying to think of ways I could help. But once you also place this in the context that you have to constantly wonder if people want to get to know you for you or because you are a muzungu and have money. Or that you constantly have to watch your stuff because the second you feel confident that its safe is the very minute someone tries to reach into your backpack to get it.

Now I find that when I walk past someone on the street I barely think about them. Or if someone asks me for my clothes or my extra fabric, inside I get really angry, furious. In the village I went to a primary school and the kids spoke in unison a greeting to us telling us that we were welcome and that they were in a bad condition and needed our help. For the rest of my time there I couldn’t focus on the needs of the school. I role my eyes every time I get asked for money. I hate it.

So I guess basically I’m saying that I’m afraid I’m becoming heartless, and at the same time heartbroken that I feel I can’t trust anyone and always question their motives.

Lira and other news

So I just posted recently but I’m not sure when I will again and there are some other updates that I thought I should include that weren’t in my last post

I’m going to Lira…
I’ve spent most of the past 2 weeks since I’ve come back from the east trying to figure out what I am going to do for my practicum/ Independent study time…and its been a hassle.

I was finally able to get in touch with the organization that I had been trying to get in touch with for weeks, and had a meeting with the guy that would be my boss. Turns out that the reason I had such a hard time getting in touch with them was because they didn’t want me and just decided not to fill me in on that piece of information. Apparently they had a student intern for them last spring and it didn’t end well. So naturally since we are both American I’m going to be exactly that same as him…not really but I spent the first 10minutes of my meeting trying to explain this to him and defending my program.

Anyway they said I cold work with them in Lira…sweet. But then for the next couple of days I was freaking out not knowing if I wanted to…I like Kampala and don’t want to leave the city to go live by myself in Lira, I don’t want to leave my family hear, the organization rejected me at first and didn’t think to tell me, I would be working a lot with agriculture (not in my top 20 favorite subjects) and maybe I want to do something more with politics…

Well I got over all those issues…not so much over them but I put them aside and just decided to suck it up and work for them…it probably helped that my Academic Director told me the organization would look good on a resume.

So this Saturday…or Sunday I’m getting on a bus and going to Lira…the furthest north my program allows me to go. I will be working for…Get ready for the acronyms…RALNUC, which is a component of ASPS, which is a part of DANIDA (The Danish aid organization, like USAID but in Denmark).

RALNUC works in Northern Uganda and started a couple years ago once the area became more stable. It was formed out of consideration of the internally displaced people (IDP) who would be returning to villages with destroyed infrastructure and no way to begin generating income and most importantly, that the relief agencies would not follow them home to continue providing food and shelter etc. RALNUC provides the agricultural inputs necessary to help IDPs become economically self-sufficient. Through a voucher-for-work program they also build infrastructure. They also do work rebuilding markets on both the supply and demand side.

Overall I’m interested in working in the north because the idea of development in a post-conflict area is fascinating to me. How do communities come together after the violence to rebuild and how can economic development play a role in maintaining peace. Issues of dependency and self-reliance seem to collide in this kind of environment as people try to get back on their feet.

I remember when I was in Southern Sudan just after the peace treaty was signed all the talk of the development that could take place now that there was peace. The people there were so full of excitement, trepidation and hope for the future.

So I’m off to Lira…somewhat hesitantly and full of nerves but with hope. So we’ll see


My Birthday
So in my last entry I forgot to mention that for my 22nd birthday I was at my rural home-stay. Maybe I forgot to mention it because it wasn’t that eventful. Anyway It started out with opening a birthday card that my mom had snuck into my suitcase followed shortly afterwards by a phone call from her. It was followed by another phone call from my friend’s home-stay brother. She had texted him that it was my bday and he thought that meant bad day, so he called to ask me why it was a bad day. It was sweet.

Throughout the rest of the day I got various calls and texts from my friends in the program and it was nice. That night my home-stay brother called followed by my home-stay mom.

It wasn’t that eventful of a day but it was nice knowing that even though I was in bufu Uganda people were still thinking about me. And to be honest I don’t know if for this birthday I would have wanted the typical birthday celebration.

Going to Parliament
Last week, when I was back in Kampala our group took a trip to Uganda’s Parliament. We had a chance to meet with 2 female MPs and asked them questions for about an hour. This all was not that exciting or informative.

But 3 of us stayed later with or Academic director and Program assistants to watch a session of parliament. We were introduced and had to bow in front of the speaker and everything. The session was a little less than an hour late in starting, typical Uganda. But sitting even just for a half hour of the parliament session I was able to learn so much just from observing. Its set up much like the British parliament, ruling party on one side, opposition on the other.

On the day we were there this MP from the ruling party was reading a personal statement about him getting beaten up and later harassed at a police station earlier that week. In the statement he accused an MP from the opposition, saying he had thugs with him at the police station and all kinds of other accusations. It was honestly hilarious. Here this man was reading this statement, completely seriously, and yet MPs on both sides are yelling back and forth and laughing with every accusation. The accused MP kept yelling objection and the Speaker was hardly trying his best to mediate between the two. For example when the guy yelled objection for maybe the 11th time on the grounds that he was making charges against his character the Speaker said, “At least hes still using your title as honorable.”

It was funny and I learned a lot about the political process. I also saw President Museveni’s wife…she’s an MP.

Hanging with my family
Since coming back from my trip to the East I’ve been able to spend more time with my home-stay brother and sister and they are awesome. I really like them. I haven’t had to leave for town as early so I’ve been able to hang around later in the mornings so I get to talk to them more.

Also last Friday night about 10 of us from the program decided we would go out. And my brother and sister came with. You will have to ask me about some of the crazyness from that night but it was awesome having my home-stay brother and sister with me.

Last Sunday I also went to a parents meeting at my youngest home-stay brothers secondary school with my other brother. They were talking about some of the misbehavior among the S1 students…not my brother though, he's a good kid. But it was funny and kind of awkward being at a parents meeting.

Mountain Tops, Mud and Bodas...best trip ever!...Maybe

So last week I got back from my trip to Eastern Uganda, I’ve just been really busy and haven’t had a chance to type this up yet…

Anyway… I was really not looking forward to this trip East. Before my trip to the West and Rwanda I was really excited and couldn’t wait to get out of Kampala. But before this trip east I had finally started really enjoying Kampala and feeling at home there. I knew when I got back that I would only have a little more than a week left in Kampala before my practicum started so I was not excited to leave. I didn’t start packing until about 15minutes before I had to leave my home-stay…if that says anything about how much I didn’t want to go.

And of course, because I packed in a rush, I forgot a lot of things that I wanted to bring, so when I showed up at the group meeting place I was tempted to turn around and go back home to stay.

I am saying all this so you know my state of mind before the trip, so that when I say that I had an amazing time. I’m really not just saying it. The way I felt about the trip before hand meant that it was going to take a lot for me to have a good time and I had more than just a good time.

Here now is a good time to warn you that this will probably be another long entry…Also I tried to upload pictures but it wasn't working so I will try again soon...

Mbale

We left Kampala on Sunday morning and drove to Mbale. We got there at about 2 and proceeded to have what I think might have been the longest lunch of my life only because it took over an hour to get our food. The food was good though. Then we went to the guest house…it was run by the Church of Uganda…aka the Anglican Church (they changed their name I think because of some of the issues in the international communion…someone told me that but I am not sure)

Then before dark we took a drive up this mountain. We were in two taxis and we were driving through this wet patch and you could feel the car fish tailing underneath us…it was fun. I was in the first van and we were able to make it through the mud but the second one got stuck. After a couple of attempts of trying to reverse and drive through the mud a crowd had gathered. And a bunch of kids helped to push it out of the mud. It was pretty awesome.

TASO Mbale

One morning we visited TASO aka The AIDS Support Organization. Its an organization in Uganda that works with people who have HIV/AIDS mostly through counseling. They also distribute medication and provide clinical services for their clients. It has done a lot of work to combat the stigma of HIV/AIDS in rural communities. There is a lot more that can be said about the organization but overall it is considered to be a really successful organization and similar organizations in Africa have tried to model themselves off TASO Uganda.

The have a dance group that is made up of some of their HIV Positive clients and they go around to different communities and perform pieces that raise awareness about the different aspects of HIV/AIDS. They performed for us and then a few shared their stories with us about how they became infected or how they decided to get tested and how they dealt with the results. The stories were pretty incredible but for me what I was most struck by was their strength and ability to confidently tell their stories in a place were not very long ago it would have been taboo to talk about with severe consequences.

Sipi Falls

After in Mbale we drove to Sipi Falls and stayed at a place called the Crows Nest; an adorable place on a mountain. It had all these little cabins that were very cozy. The cabin I stayed in looked out onto the Mountain with the falls. I think there are three of them. Everytime I go someplace in Uganda I think to myself ‘How could this country get more beautiful?’ and then I go to the next place and am again amazed by how beautiful the country is.

We went hiking twice while we were at Sipi and when I say hiking it wasn’t exactly walk in the woods…it was intense…people have broken bones. And to make it more difficult the rainy season had started there so it was really wet and slippery.

On the first day we hiked to the first waterfall. It was scary and I was slipping every few steps but luckily I was able to catch my balance every couple of steps. Once we got to the Waterfall it was so worth it. It was amazing watching the power of the water crash into the rocks. We stayed there for a couple minutes and then we had to hike back again.

The next day we hiked to a different fall. And again it was really slippery as we climbed up what seemed like vertical mud and then through a creek. And then we got to a cave type place where the waterfall was. And then we climbed down into the waterfall. It was hard to get down to it and the water was freezing but being there in the falls was this amazing feeling. You felt so alive and all you could do was yell and laugh. (Sidenote now that I am back safe and sound, we weren’t allowed to go in the cave because recently someone got Marburg from one of the caves in the area)

As we were hiking back we were walking along this narrow muddy ledge and I slowly started slipping and next thing I knew I was slipping down the mountain and grabbed onto a root. A couple of friends grabbed my arm so I didn’t fall and then I had to pull myself up again. Afterwards I was really happy I had almost fell…it was exciting!

That night we sat around the campfire and some of the guys at the hotel taught us traditional dances most of them which are performed during circumcisions, some of them for female circumcisions. It was a lot of fun and you were able to gain an understanding of the cultural role circumcision plays whether you agree with it or not.

Then at like 11pm me and a friend climbed up the mountain with our pillows and blankets to sleep. I really wouldn’t recommend climbing up a mountain at night carrying anything. That night about 10 of us slept on top of a mountain. We had a 360 degree view and there was a full moon. In one direction we could see mountains with the falls and in another we could see a huge lake. Over the lake there was a lightning storm. It was amazing. I woke up more than a few times in the middle of the night and the stars were awesome, so big and brilliant. I have never seen stars so big. That morning I woke up just before the sun rise and could still see the moon set as the sun was rising in the other direction. I don’t think anything else I write could do the view justice.

Also while staying at Sipi Falls I visited with this community who had been pushed off their land because of the establishment of Mount Elgon National Park. The government pushed them off the land without providing any sort of resources or support for them to resettle. Now some still live in the park where they have to hide from park officials so as not to be shot all because they cannot afford to leave. Some park officials also rape the women in the surrounding communities. Overall it seemed like a problem that was largely ignored by the government, even the areas own MP. Its strange to think that Mount Elgon is a place that draws tourists and the whole time you are there you could have no idea that these people are suffering for the sake of someone’s vacation.

Rural Home-stay

After the time at Sipi falls we drove to Busia (which is right on the Kenya border and near the village where Obama’s family lives!)

From there we were divided into partners and were taken to our rural home-stays. In the taxi I kept hoping that I would be dropped off last so that I could see where everyone else was staying…and of course I was dropped off first.

My friend and I walked to my family’s compound and was greeted by our home-stay mother and shown to our hut where we would be sleeping. Then we sat awkwardly outside as the children gathered staring at us. One started crying when she saw me but I was assured that it was because she has never seen a white person before.

After we got bored of sitting awkwardly we asked the mom if we could take a short walk around the village and she said we could go to the borehole with the kids. Most of the kids didn’t speak English or only knew the few words they had learned in school so it was hard to talk to them. But amazingly when it comes to playing games there is no language barrier. So during the walk we ran around chasing them and having fun.

My rural home-stay family was amazing though. My home-stay father was the secretary of defense for the village (and after many questions I still have no idea why the village needs a secretary of defense). There were 2 wives but we only met the 2^nd wife. And there were so many kids in the family; I would guess 15. Lets see their names were Esther, Irene, Beatrice, Sara, Patrick, Peter, Dennis, Adrian, Francis, Kate (the one who cried), Patricia, Raphael, Mukaga, Godfrey, Sharon and John. Ya I think that’s all of them.

The kids were adorable and each one with their own unique amazing personality and my favorite would always be the one that I was playing with at the moment. They were so happy and the little ones who were too young for school would just play all day. It was amazing the way they could entertain themselves and how they could just run nonstop all day. Every kid in the family had this amazing smile too. They were so beautiful. They would smile at you and get these really big eyes and you couldn’t help but smile back and forget how dirty you were or that a hen slept under your bed all night, or that there were rats living in your thatch roof.

Our last night there we were dancing and playing with about 6 or 8 of the kids and had a sing along where we taught them different songs; just singing outside on the compound under the moon and starts singing “He’s got the Whole World in His Hands.”

More Stories from the Village

During our stay there we were supposed to be practicing our field research skills using Participatory Rural Appraisal and/or Rapid Rural Appraisal, so the next day we visited the hospital which was a 3km walk from the homestead and also visited the primary school. The following day we visited a lot of homesteads and went to a secondary school. Most of these visits confirmed a lot of things that I had read about or learned in classes such as the successes and failures of the governments Universal Primary Education (UPE) and Universal Secondary Education (USE) and agriculture issues but at the homesteads it was fascinating talking to people about their individual hardships.

We came to this elderly family, a man and his 2 wives, who were probably in their 60s. They described to us how their children had died, most from AIDS, and that now they were taking care of their children’s children. They found this particularly difficult because they depended on agriculture to generate income but at their age the intensity of the labor was too much for them. They only use a simple hoe. They asked us if we knew of any organization that supported the elderly who were taking care of orphans and I couldn’t think of anything. I have always heard so much about AIDS orphans at orphanages but I have never heard of any organization that was working to help families that were trying to take care of the orphans…If anyone knows one please let me know

We me another man who was a widower trying to take care of his family. His compound was so clean and you could tell that he was trying his best to play the role as both father and mother.

There was another young woman that we talked to whose husband had died a couple years ago from AIDS and she too was HIV positive. She talked about how hard it was to make a living in agriculture when it was just her. She was also worried about her children’s future because when she dies she doesn’t know who will take care of them because she doesn’t have any family.

Lets Talk Poverty

So I talked to my friends here and many of them were blogging about the intense poverty in the village. And its true there was a lot of poverty. My family there never changed their outfits the whole time I was there. And ripped torn rags could qualify as an everyday outfit. And as you visited the homesteads you could see malnourishment. And you could see that farmers were having trouble increasing production of their crops for kinds of reasons and even in the schools all the hardships that teachers and students face just so that you can get a basic education. The poverty there is exactly what you might think of when you think of rural Africa…

But in the village there is something else. The same sort of feeling I got when I was in Southern Sudan. A simplicity that can’t be ignored and denied. Living off the land, eating what you grow and selling the surplus. Spending the night singing under the stars because there’s no electricity. Dropping what you might be working on to welcome a visitor into your home and offering food when they themselves have so little.

The village faces real problems or poverty that need to be overcome but at the same time there is something about that way of life that is beautiful and that in the process of development should not be lost. Too often I think muzungus come to a place like Africa, especially in the village looking for what they can fix. And there are things that need to change. But I think we shouldn’t focus on what needs to be fixed. I think when you go to the village you should look for whats there. For whats beautiful. For what works. And gain an understanding and appreciation for their lives and it is from that point you can encourage change to eradicate the poverty.

My First BodaBoda Ride

Yep, that’s right I rode a boda!! In order to get from my village back to Busia town I had to bet on a boda (motorcycle for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about) It was awesome, riding through the dirt roads, speeding past all the bicycles, wind in my hair. I loved it and can’t wait to ride one again…but I still will never ride one in Kampala.

Ok well this entry has been long enough. Thanks for reading!

Elections, independence, forests and grassroots

So I just posted recently…like yesterday but I’m about to go on another trip for a week so here’s some quick updates since most of the stuff in the last post was from 2 weeks ago.

Presidential Election
So I’ve been trying to keep up with election news in the US and I’ve been having a lot of conversations with various Ugandans about Obama and McCain. So while most Ugandans like Obama and are really excited my home-stay father and one of my brothers likes McCain, so that’s interesting. I really like talking politics with them. Its interesting to hear insights from people who aren’t American.
I also was able to watch the VP debate and I would just like to take a quick moment to say that I love Joe Biden and Palin makes my stomach churn. I could rant for a long time about it but I won’t put you all through that.

Forest Adventures
The other weekend some friends and I were going to spend Saturday and Sunday in Entebbe (a city near Kampala) the beach is there, a zoo, a lot of stuff. Someone suggested going first to the Mpanga Forest where we could go hiking and see monkeys, butterflies and birds. So in the Taxi on the way to the forest we realized that Entebbe was in the opposite direction of the forest so we would need to go back to Kampala after the forest then on to Entebbe. OK

So we hike. See cool things. It was good. A couple monkeys, lots of butterflies and some birds…one looked like Toucan Sam, sort of. We took this side path and after 3hours of hiking we were lost. Not just lost but waking in a swamp on these wooden planks that look like they would have been a good bridge 50years age. Luckily we stumbled across these village kids who were collecting firewood and the helped us find our way back to the main park area.

Then we had to walk back to the road which is kind of like a highway and then walked along the road (highway) trying to get to the closest town where we could get a taxi. So of course right when we get to the road it started down pouring. So we walked along the road for a half hour in the rain getting laughed at by people who were dry and watching the 11 stupid muzungus walk in the rain.

We eventually hailed a taxi. So normally taxis hold about 15 maybe 16 people and that’s already packed really tightly. After 6 of us got in there were 21 or 22 people in the taxi and sat all squashed and cozy for a half hourish and drove back to Kampala. We got there at 4 and ate lunch. We called it a day because we were dirty and disgusting…so no Entebbe. It was a crazy, funny day though.

AWA
So this girl in my program a few weeks ago came up with the term AWA – Africa Wins Again. The above story was an AWA moment. We say it when a situation so strange or funny comes up. Or something that would never happen back home or a time where we just look like stupid Muzungus.

Grassroots
The past two weeks my group broke into four smaller groups to study various topics more in depth. I was in the Grassroots Development group which involves empowering the poor, encouraging group formation, and savings among other things.

We learned about Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) which, without going into too much detail, gives a voice to the poor. Letting them identify who in their communities are poor, what their needs are, and how to go about lifting themselves out of poverty…It seems like a pretty obvious idea yet it is actually relatively new in Development Studies.

In the past and still today a lot of organizations come in and decide what is needed in the community but the community especially the poor don’t play a role in the decision process and in many cases the project fails, or is underutilized.

I’m going to stop because I’m starting to get more in-depth but if you want more info about it just let me know…

Anyway we visited these farmer and women groups where grassroots methods and PRA have been used. There was this women’s group and you could see in their faces happiness and the sense of empowerment they felt. The group of about 20 comes together each week and each saves 200 Ugandan Shillings (1500 shillings is about $1). They have been together for just under a year and have already raised about 120,000 shillings. They then use this money for loans to buy things for their own individual income generating activities or to pay school fees for their kids etc, and are able to pay the group back, with interest, on time.

We were taught that groups are supposed to rotate leadership positions so when we asked the group if they rotated leaders their answer was “We are all leaders.”

In meeting them its hard to believe that one year ago they did not know each other and now they take care of one another and are helping to pull themselves out of poverty together, and this was the poorest of the poor in that community. I can’t stress enough though how exciting, and hopeful their energy was.

Ugandan Independence Day
Thursday October 9 was Uganda’s Independence Day so I didn’t have class. I was hoping for parades and fireworks and people walking around in yellow, black and red (Uganda’s flag color) but honestly with the exception that the taxi park wasn’t as crowded you could have gone the whole day without knowing it was independence day.

Apparently there was some kind of something going on somewhere with speeches and parades but my friends and I didn’t find that out till after it was over…which is kind of a bummer but it was still a good day.

A few of us had lunch at this really nice Chinese restaurant (they gave us hot towels before and after eating) And the food was so good. It was the first time since I’ve been here that I’ve kind of splurged on a meal. We got our food, drinks and split a dessert for less than $7. You can’t get Chinese food that cheap even at a bad Chinese restaurant in the states.

Afterwards we took a Taxi to Lugogo which someone recommended to us. I think it was like some kind of international trade fair of maybe East African goods. I’m not exactly sure because we never went inside. You had to pay 3000 shilling to get in and we didn’t feel like paying. So we stood outside where there was a crowd looking in. And we got this man to teach us Uganda’s national anthem -First you have to stand up straight (he made us stand up straight) and look kind of like a soldier…it was at this point that we asked him if this was for real or if he was just trying to make us look silly…then he started singing it for us and a couple others joined in…it goes something like “Oh Uganda, May God uphold thee. We hold our future in thy hands.” And so on. It’s a pretty song.

We stayed for a bit talking to other Ugandans and a random Kenyon about what we should have done for Independence Day which probably would have been more helpful the day before rather than the day of.

Afterwards we walked back to Kampala, it was a kind of long walk but it was good. Along the way we saw this guy selling Ugandan flags and we decided we should each get one. The man only had 2 at the time so he had us wait while he ran to a store and got another one for us. While he was gone a bunch of other people came up to us trying to sell us things. This one really persistent man was trying to sell us a night stand and we said we weren’t going to carry it home and he said he could get it to fit in one of out bags (there is no way that would have been possible)

Anyway there are all these people around the 3 of us including the taxis full of people stuck in a jam just looking at us. So we got them all to sing Uganda’s National Anthem with us. And when the flags came we waved them.

It was a day where I completely loved Kampala and Ugandans. It was awesome. So I guess I didn’t need the parades and fireworks!

Another Trip
This Sunday I leave for my trip to Eastern Uganda. I’m going to Mbale and also doing my rural home-stay…so more updates when I come back.

Rwanda, grasshoppers and other news

So I’m back from my trip. I’m sorry it has taken me so long to post again s my internet café has been closed for various reasons…no power…no internet and I had to find one where my flash drive would work. Anyway here I go with my entry its going a long one so I broke it up by topic so you can skip around if you want.

Mbarara

We stopped in Mbarara which is a few hours from Kampala. It was such a pretty area. Its so hilly and green and every now and then there would be this brilliantly colored flowered tree like red or yellow. And throughout the whole drive I kept thinking of the part of the Sound of Music where the family is hiking in the hills to go to Switzerland with the song the Hills are Alive playing in my head…only the scenery was slightly more tropical.

We also stopped at the equator on the way which is cool only cause now I can say I have had one foot at each end of the equator at the same time.

Another interesting tidbit is that once in Mbarara 3 girls shaved their heads and we all went to this tiny salon to watch. I thought it would only take a few minutes but it took an hour and a half.

Millennium Village Project

We stopped to visit a Millennium Village Project in a village called Ruhiira which is in Western Uganda near Mbarara. In case you aren’t sure what the Millennium Village Project is it is basically a village where the UNDP and other organizations give a bunch of money for this experiment like village to holistically develop it encompassing all the MDGs to escape the poverty trap. In the case of Ruhiira they spend about $110 per person per year and they’ve been there for about 2ish years and plan to be there for 5ish years. 60-70% is donor funded, about 10% comes from the people in the village and the rest is from the government or that’s how the breakdown should be.

The tour around the village to the bank, health center and their agriculture site was interesting. It was cool to see how much they were doing but it raised questions as to how much community input there was although we were assured that the community was involved in the decision process and I think our guide was from the village as well.

There was some controversy among the group over whether the village project was a good idea or not because the surrounding areas might feel resentment, it did seem like it would be able to self sustain after the UN was gone, and it seemed like a lot of money for something that wouldn’t be replicable in other areas. Oh I forgot to mention that there are 12 of these villages throughout SubSaharan Africa in different agrozones with the goal of learning what works best in these areas so that it can be replicated later.

I think that I think it’s a cool idea. The theory of going into an area and attacking poverty at every angle is intriguing and if you have read Jeffrey Sachs book the end of Poverty then he explains why it actually makes a lot of sense. I do think that it had more grassroots development included in it, with more community empowerment and what not but there could be and I just wasn’t exposed to it. In terms of it being to much money…I disagree I think when someone considers the immense wealth of the western world spending $110 per person per year is not that much money. Just look at how much money the US government has spent on the war in Iraq in comparison to how much is spent on foreign aid and then looking at how much of that aid actually goes to development work. I wish I had the numbers on me but its kinda crazy.

Refugee Settlement

So we also went to a refugee settlement in Western Uganda that holds Rwandan Refugees. The settlement has been there for about the past 50years originally with Tutsi refugees but after 1994 it switched to Hutu refugees who are there now. We were told that some of the refugees could have been perpetrators in the genocide which is why they don’t want to go back.

The settlement its important to mention was not like a refugee camp at all there were homes, they have land for crops etc…they are settled…hence the term settlement…but the people were still very poor. The place was loaded with kids and you could tell that a lot of them had signs of malnourishment. Someone in the group asked the refugees why they couldn’t go back to Rwanda and their answer was because the country wasn’t stable which is interesting because I think it showed a lot about their views of the current government which is largely Tutsi. It’s also interesting now that I’ve been to Rwanda because it seemed more than stable to me. In fact in Rwanda, a Rwandan student was talking to us about how boring Election Day is there because everything is peaceful on election day relative to elections in other parts of Africa.

The Refugees in general seemed to ask us a lot for money and complain a lot about their lives and how they weren’t given enough. Even some of the kids were asking us for money. One of them told one of my friends to give them their camera because they could get another one. Overall it left me with a bad feeling about the refugees there and raised questions about the issue of dependency and also about how would you have a refugee settlement for 50plus years without repatriating people or encouraging them to settle somewhere.

Rwanda

Now would be a good time to mention that before I went to Rwanda I read this really good book about the Genocide called We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families. It’s really good and gives a good analysis of the stuff leading up to, during and after the genocide.

I should also mention that I really liked being in Rwanda. It’s a beautiful country and Kigali (the capital) is amazing. While there I saw traffic lights, the boda-boda drivers all wore green helmets and matching vest jackets and pedestrians for the most part had the right of way. The city is also very clean and actually has laws against littering. The city is so nice and beautiful and clean that you can’t help but wonder how much of that has to do with the countries history and if someway they are trying to make up for their messy past with a clean city. Who knows?

Genocide Memorial Museum

We only really spent one full day in the city but it was emotionally draining.

First we went to the Genocide Memorial Museum. It provided information about the genocide, the history leading up to it and what not and then information about what was going on at the time. For me as I learn more about the Rwandan genocide I am continually frustrated with the international community’s response…or lack of response. If you’ve seen Hotel Rwanda, the movie doesn’t even come close to showing how badly the United States and the United Nations stunk it up. And France involvement in actually selling arms to Hutu Power, the people leading the genocide, is sickening.

The museum also had a section about genocides that have occurred including the Holocaust, Bosnia, Cambodia and others. Now here comes the part of the blog that turns a little lecturey…In looking at the Museum, reading about Rwanda and seeing the Church memorials and mass graves I can’t help but think that despite the continual promises of never again that seem to occur after each genocide they happen again….and despite the continual apologies from the US or the UN or elsewhere after the fact for not doing something to stop it, they always allow it to happen again. Need I mention Darfur…but not just Darfur, Burma, The Congo, Northern Uganda and so many more…so much for never again and not on our watch.

And for those of you out there reading this who say how can the US or the UN possibly get involved in all that it is financially feasible…If you look at how much money it would have cost to stop the genocide in Rwanda versus the amount of money that was spent on refugee camps and Rwanda afterwards to help assuage Americas guilt…well it would have been cheaper to stop the genocide.

On another note at the Museum they also had survivors talking about their experiences during and after. A lot of them had loss parents and talked about what that meant for them and how sometimes they still talk to them at night as if they are still there and it made what happen become so real for me. When you look at the numbers of how many were killed (close to one million) it doesn’t truly affect you because it is so incompressible. But when you think of the death of one person and how much that one person means to you then you can begin to understand. There was a quote that I read somewhere in Rwanda that said something along the lines of genocide isn’t the killing of one million people but the killing of one person, and one person and one person till you reach one million. Something to think about I guess.

Kigali Prison

After the Museum, the Rwandan students we were with thought it would be a good idea to go to the prison in Kigali to visit the prisoners. So we did. The prison seemed really nice and had a mix of both genocide perpetrators and people in there for other crimes. It seemed really strange to me because we didn’t have to go through any kind of security to get into the prison and prisoners just seemed to walk around freely talking to guards it was weird and nothing like American prisons.

The people in charge of the jail gathered about thirty to forty prisoners who were apart of the Genocide. So they trickled in staring at us and us at them just facing each other. It was an incredible feeling to come face to face with killers with no bars, glass or chains in between. Some of them shared their ‘testimony’ with us about what they did some in more detail than others and you could tell those who were reluctant to talk about what they actually did, some eager to blame it on the person above them, and some whom you could tell weren’t sorry despite them saying they were.

One women said she had been a teacher and had taught the methodology that led people to kill because the government made her…that was all she said but the wardens said afterwards that the fact that she was in jail meant that she did more than what she talked about. One man had been the leader of the ruling political party, which would mean he most likely would have been a planner even though he blamed it on people higher up than him. Another woman had been a radio personality during the genocide and had encouraged people to go out and “Do their work” which would have meant killing the Tutsis. Another man had been in charge of a road block that checked Ethnic Identity Cards. But there was only really one man who talked about how he had killed Tutsis with a machete. He seemed the most genuine and he was the only one who spoke to really say, ya there was a plan for this genocide, and a lot of people can be blamed but I was the one who chose to pick up a machete and kill someone. Even if I had been taught to hate Tutsis, I chose to kill them. I believed him when he said he was sorry.

Afterwards the prisoners asked us to have their pictures taken with them. So we did not knowing whether to smile, or how to act in the photo. Some put there arms around us and when some tried to shake our hand it was an interesting thought process deciding whether to go ahead and shake them.

I think I should mention the way the Rwandan Government has decided to deal with trying, convicting and punishing people in the genocide. For starters after the Genocide they abolished the death penalty. How amazing is that…the clear statement that killing a person will not be accepted at all, and this done by a largely Tutsi government the very group that Hutu power was attempting to eliminate. Also because having Trials for everyone involved in the genocide is not really feasible cause the number involved is so big so Rwanda has gone back to a traditional method of having perpetrators go back to their communities and be tried, usually confessing what they did and the community decides if they are guilty, innocent, the punishment, and if they should be accepted back into the community and many of the perpetrators get reduced punishment for confessing sometimes being allowed to go back home.

The process is more complicated than what I’ve described but it is this incredible process of reconciliation, and acceptance, allowing both victims and killers to come to acceptance with what has happened with the goal of being able to move past it. The only way I can think of how to describe is grace, beautiful, hopeful, amazing… The strength of the survivors and the government to take their country in this direction is incredible. I honestly don’t think that if I had been in that situation I could do that. But maybe it isn’t until you are truly in a situation like Rwanda’s that you can truly understand the process. I think its important to mention that from the conversations that I had there was a difference between reconciliation and forgiveness…many of the Rwandan students we traveled with said they didn’t think they could ever forgive the people who took their parents from them.

Church Memorial

After the prison we went to a church memorial. During the genocide people went to the churches for safety and at many of these churches there were mass slaughters…sometimes with the help of the parish priest…how sickening is that. At the church I visited 5000 people were killed.

The church sits on a small hill with some trees and these small purple flowers (purple is the genocide remembrance color). The church itself is this simple clay brick structure. Before you even walk in the church you can since that something happened there and just before entering you can see the bones inside. I honestly didn’t think that I was going to be able to go in and turned to start walking back outside but decided to go ahead and go in. Inside the church you can see the simple wooden benches for pews. I have no idea how 5000 people were able to fit it looked like it could hold 200 maybe but 5000 people sought refuge there for 3days before they were killed. Against the back wall is a shelf full of bones. There are arranged on the shelves according to the type of bone skulls with skulls etc. Too many to count. On The side walls of the church were the clothes the people had been wearing when they were killed. And in the front of the church there was a small alter with a cross. On the side there was another shelf but this one had the possessions that people had with them. There were a lot of Rosaries and a small statue of the Virgin Mary alongside a few children’s toys. Then across the front wall there were coffins.

Being in that space gave you an interesting feeling. Everyone in my group was silent, lost in their thoughts, shocked by the site before them, some praying. We were told to take pictures. I honestly was torn as to whether to take pictures. In one sense I thought it would be important to have as a reminder of what happened and to show people so that it won’t happen again but on the other hand in order to respect those whose resting place was at the church I didn’t think I should take pictures. I took one of the front of the church and felt guilty, so I hope this description of what I saw shall suffice.

In Other News

I went to a place where the grow plants for traditional healing methods and sell it as a form of development it was actually really cool and an interesting blend between modern and traditional Ugandan culture.

I went on Safari at Queen Elizabeth National Park and saw a bunch of animals like Water Buffalo and ELEPHANTS! But I’m still waiting to see a zebra, lion and giraffe.

So I ate a grasshopper…And liked it!!! And random other stories

The other day I was at a market and we made friends with this guy selling stuff and he was showing me and some friends around the market and we came to a grasshopper stand and the guy handed us a grasshopper. And I ate it. And it tasted like a potato chip. And I would probably eat one again. True story.

So I went out to a bar with my home-stay brother who is my age and a friend. And these 30yr old guys bought us beers. One started talking to my friend and she relayed to me that the guy she was talking to told her to tell me that his friend “Fancied me” and I said to tell him I had a boyfriend (its just easier to tell people you are taken than to explain you aren’t interested here…some people wear pretend wedding rings) anyway after he was told that I had a boyfriend he asked if “he was heaven sent” I lost it and couldn’t do anything but laugh.

This is an old story – it happened when we first moved in with our homestay families. At my friends family she found out her first night there that to bath you had to use a basin. So her sisters set everything up for her and went away and when she started to bath her sisters came back in and started to bath her. Afterwards they came up to her and the younger one told her that her nakedness was weird.

Along the same lines at another girls homestay her sister told her that her home-stay mom wanted to see her and she walked and saw her mom with the basin and just looked at her and said “Do you fear me” and then washed her to show her how to use it.

I was glad I wasn’t in their families.

I was walking around with my home-stay sister one day and we met the LC Chairman (like a village leader). He looked at me and said “You’re a big American, a big one” and my sister said “Shes reduced” and afterwards tried to explain to me that he meant it as a compliment but I just thought the whole experience was really funny.

Things are going well with my homestay...I really like them

I will try to come up with more funny stories to write sometime. The past couple weeks have been really good and I noticed from some of my blog entries that it didnt sound like I was having any fun...but I am and these stories are proof.