Chickens, Baboons, Paul Kagame and more

Written November 18

This past week or so I’ve started thinking about how my time is Uganda is starting to come to a close and to be completely honest as excited as I am to eat cheese, sleep with all of my pillows and of course see my friends and family again I am not excited to leave Uganda.

I really do like my life here. I was talking about it with some friends the other day (on the one month before we leave mark) who feel the same way as me. We have created a life here and if you had told us in the beginning that we wouldn’t want to leave I don’t think any one would have believed you. However, now I have a routine, friends, a job (sort of), a family and different obligations. I even have my own comfort food here…matooke with sauce preferably. It’s a nice life and it’s an easy life. But when I say easy I don’t exactly mean easy because it seems sometimes even the simplest errand like going to the post office takes advance planning, but it’s easy in some other kind of way.

Anyway that’s just what I’ve been thinking about lately but here are some tidbits from the past week or so…or just random things that I remembered that I don’t think I’ve written about yet…

What do Baboons and Soldiers have in common?

On my trips back and forth from Kampala once you to a certain point in the North you can start seeing baboons on the side of the road.

They are completely normal. People don’t really get excited about them at all. How can you not like a place where baboons here can be only as exciting as seeing a rabbit or something back home?

So living in Lira and travelling to the different villages around it I’ve also gotten used to seeing soldiers. The other day we drove by these military checkpoints and drove by a military barracks. But seeing Ugandan soldiers here is slightly scary not like when you see military personal in the US, here they are really intimidating and I don’t so much trust them.

But anyway that’s what Baboons and Soldiers have in common…I’m not used to seeing them.

Signs

I’ve noticed this throughout my time here but it has become abundantly obvious in Lira, that just about everywhere you go you see a sign for some sort of development organization or when driving through the villages you come to place where the roads meet and you see signs pointing to different development organizations projects. Even on some aid cars you see paid for by the Government of Japan or this building was donated by USAID.

In one sense it’s exciting to see all the organizations that are coming and working for development but in another sense its kind of like WOW there are a lot of organizations here. I don’t know enough to say much or make judgments but it makes me wonder some things like how much do organizations coordinate their activities? What is this doing to people living in poverty seeing all these signs of people who have come to develop them? Why do the people still seem to be so poor?

But mostly it makes me wonder why the signs are necessary? Let me say again I haven’t talked to anybody about them so there could be a perfectly legitimate reason why they are around but it seems to me that its just organizations flaunting what they have done to some extent. And also it kind of serves as a sign to the poor that the need these organizations to develop them, that without the help of others they can’t escape poverty.

I think that in order for poverty to be eradicated people living in poverty need to become self-reliant they need to develop themselves. I am also of t he opinion that the international community through government and NGOs should play a role in helping to facilitate but the balance between self-reliance and international participation is something I’m trying to figure out. But I don’t think all the signs help, but maybe I’m just reading too much into it. It is exciting to be in a place where so many people are working towards the same goal, whether you agree with their exact methods or not.

Maybe the funniest old man ever, somehow

So with the organization I’ve been working with I’ve taken various trips out to the field to see the projects that they are helping people with (ps they don’t have signs really at all that I’ve noticed).

The other day I went with to help some beneficiaries move wood from one place to another (with a pickup truck) to build a market place.

While I was in one this community the people there loved getting their picture taken with my camera and then seeing the picture afterwards…this wasn’t really anything new. After taking a couple of individual or small group shots I went to take a picture of the whole group gathered. And this old man, whose picture I have already taken, starts dancing this traditional dance and singing. But it was this crazy active dance like nothing I had seen before and it seemed as if he was going to charge towards me at the end. Thankfully he didn’t and I got a couple of funny pictures of him and all the people gathered had a really good laugh.

Starry Starry Night

When I was in Sudan I remember each night I spent in Renk town I would spend time looking at the stars. In Renk there was no electricity or other things to block the stars so you could see all of them. And there are so many and they are so bright. And it was in gazing at the stars that I had time to think and reflect on the day.

Thinking about how we can see those same stars in America but they aren’t as brilliant or as abundant because of all the lights and smog and whatever else. And I began thinking that maybe sometimes that’s how we see Africa. We can’t get the whole picture most times because our mind is caught up in other things whether you want to call it materialism or the way our culture values certain ideals over others. America’s picture of Africa is distorted and sometimes it is hard to see how bright it can shine.

However when you are out in what most would consider to be the middle of no where or bufu Africa but what others would call home you can see the stars and how bright they are. I was reminded of this during my rural home-stay in the village and just the other night when I was driving back from the field. It is in these places that Africa can truly shine. Where you see its beauty in the people and in the way they live. But more importantly where you can see its hope and promise in the people’s struggle to improve their livelihoods. Not because they are trying to decrease the number of people living on less than a dollar a day, or the number of children who die before the age of 5. Not because they are trying to root out corruption in the government and not because women all over the world are treated unfairly and are among the worlds most vulnerable. The work to improve because it’s their life. Their home. Their community.

Its in seeing these people that you can understand the beauty and value of each star and how they can come together to form a beautiful sky.

Or maybe I’m just starring at the stars too much but they are so beautiful here.

Why did the Chicken cross the Road?

So this joke always seemed weird to me. It’s so random. Chickens crossing roads and all. And honestly who cares if the chicken crosses the road or not.

Well after driving around and spending sometime in Uganda I understand the question. Chickens cross the road all the time. People let their chickens run free. And when you are driving in the villages they cross the road…a lot. I find this annoying because the car, which is already driving on difficult roads, has to come to a complete stop to avoid hitting the chicken that crossing the road. Well once it sees the car it flees the road.

I even noticed in the Sunday paper the other day that there was a section called “Why did the Chicken Cross the Road?” and it had answers by various politicians that created answers based on relevant political issues.

So now I think I understand the origins of the question. Unfortunately I still don’t know why.

Paul Kagame

I was out in the field, in Aloi Sub-County to be exact and I was talking with the person I was with about President Museveni and his army when he was fighting for power in 1986 as a rebel/guerilla army.

In his army was a commander (or some ranking position) named Paul Kagame. Paul Kagame was a Rwandan refugee (Tutsi) who grew up in Uganda. He was in charge of a base and the other day I drove by it.

Paul Kagame later went on to lead the RPF in fighting the genocidaire in Rwanda in 1994 and is now the current president of Rwanda. His army as well as himself or kind of controversial and its interesting to hear Ugandan opinions of him but I will say that it was cool to see where he sort of got his start.

Partying with my host parents…

The weekend of November 15 I went back to Kampala again to visit for various reasons. That Saturday night I left town to go home with my home-stay mum, her sister and friend. They parked to go to the hotel. So it turns out there was a graduation party going on for these two women that were family friends from the village.

I of course show up in basketball shorts and a t-shirt. Luckily I had jeans and a nice shirt in my backpack.

So I go to join my host mum et al who are off in a corner away from the party and am told to go sit with my host dad who is at the party. So I do. And in less than 20 seconds (and I’m not exaggerating) I have a beer in hand, a beer waiting and a plastic cup of wine.

I’m hanging out with some of my father’s friends and it’s become obvious that there is a muzungu at the party and the camera guy comes over to start taking my picture. Then one of the girls whose party this is comes over to introduce herself to me. I of course feel a little bad for crashing the party but she seemed really happy I was there and introduced me to whom I think were her parents. Then I proceed to dance with her in the center of the party where there are maybe 5 other people dancing. Spotlight on me, camera rolling. Yah there was a camera.

She then gave me a push back (escorted me) to my host dad et al. Where I took a couple of quick drinks from beer number 1, and was given a plastic cup of something else which I took a sip of and I think it was whisky.

Next thing you know this really drunk man comes and asks me to dance so again I found myself in the center dancing. And the camera decided to film me again. So I’m dancing with these two drunk guys now who keep looking at me and saying Obama. It was totally harmless just a really awkward funny time. Things continued like that for a bit, sitting only to get pulled up again to dance with the camera coming and taking my picture at of course probably the most un-photogenic times.

And for those that are wondering about my line of alcohol…I finished beer 1 and started on beer two and while I was still taking my first sip beer number 3 appeared. So I quickly realized I needed to start passing of my drinks when no one was looking. Host dad took my wine, some man took my maybe whisky and I started handing the beer to my host mum et al. By some miracle I only managed to drink 1 and a half beers.

Oh and as for the two guys that were dancing with me that loved Obama…the asked for my number. So I gave them a number. At the end of t he party they came and talked to me while I was standing with my host mum. She had a questionable, worried; who are these drunk men look on her face. The 2 guys promised to each call me in the morning. So when they walked away I turned to my host-mum and said “They aren’t calling me in the morning” To which she replied, “No they seemed serious. They’ll call.” And I said “Well they will call someone in the morning but its not going to be me!”

It was a good night!

Kampala, Nutella and Beaches

So last weekend I went back to Kampala because the thought of spending that weekend in particular with people that I barely new in a town that is still new to me made me sick to my stomach so I went home to Kampala.

And going back to Kampala was very much like going home. I hadn’t been gone for very long but even still I felt like I was coming back for fall break or something after having been away at school.

The whole bus ride all I could think about was getting to Kampala and wishing the bus would go faster…although this could also have less to do with my excitement and more to do with another incredibly long bus trip.

But I finally got there Friday afternoon and was able to go see some friends and stopped by both my host moms and brother’s shops, then spent the night in town with some friends who had also come to Kampala for the weekend talking about all that we had experienced since our time apart.

There’s this one guy who is teaching at this school in the village and he’s the only teacher for like 250 kids. The guy who is actually the teacher sometimes doesn’t show and other times just sits in the back of the room. It’s a private school run by an aid organization that’s waiting to get funding for the government so while they are waiting for funding the kids are in limbo and not learning very much. My friend has to run from class to class putting notes on the board and then to the next level’s class to put notes on their board so on and so forth. He was starting to wonder if it was really worth it. I haven’t heard of a school that bad yet.

Nutella and other Saturday stories

Anyway I decided that I was going to treat myself to whatever I wanted this weekend. So I bought Nutella something I see all the time in the supermarkets and have up till now resisted buying. I immediately opened it and ate it with a spoon…yum. Saturday morning I went to this restaurant at a gas station that has what I’ve heard is the best breakfasts in Kampala…and I can now say that they do and its better than a lot of places in the U.S. I got Cinnamon French Toast with bananas and pulled out the nutella and spread that on too. There was also a strawberry served with it. I don’t know where the strawberry came from (they don’t have them in Uganda anywhere). I was totally stuffed.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Read the paper over tea and then wandered around with a Ugandan friend.

Oh but that night was a total AWA moment. I was going to go home from town but first stopped at my moms shop and she told me that it was her sisters birthday and they were having a party for her that I needed to go to and that I needed to go to my brother’s shop before I went home to tell him about the party then go home to wash and change then come back to town to meet my brother at the shop and go to wherever the party was going to be.

So I do all of that. I even go back into town at night by myself…something that I have had yet to do because I was too scared. I get to my brothers shop and we leave and he calls his mom. She tells him that they are at the family’s hotel for the party. The hotel by the way is right by the family’s home aka I was had just been there. So naturally me and my brother where slightly ticked; me because there had been no reason for me to take the taxi into town and him because he had planned on staying in town and meeting friends afterwards.

So we get in the taxi and are in the taxi for an hour and a half because there was a big jam. So we finally get to our stop and go to the hotel. No one is there. We wait for a half hour and still no one. So we go home to wait there. Nothing. So the night was basically a bust. AWA

Just another day at the Beach…kind of

So Sunday came. The day that I was scared about and my reason for coming all the way back to Kampala. And it was a really good day considering.

My host mom cooked lunch. The house girl used to do the cooking so I had never had my moms cooking and it was so good. She’s a much better cook.

My brother new that Sunday was going to be hard for me so he suggested going to the beach in Entebbe. Without knowing it I’m pretty sure he chose the best place in Uganda for me to be on that day. My dad loved the beach and I have all of these memories of us at the beach in Michigan and Florida and even at the visitation we handed out cards that had a picture of a beach on it. So it was really fitting.

The beach at Entebbe was on Lake Victoria at this resort type place. It was beautiful. The lake is huge and you could see some of the islands out in the distance and fisherman in their small boats. There was music and a dance floor and food and a bar and families and a park. It was so alive and happy. We just hung out at the beach kicking sand into the water and attempting to throw a Frisbee.

Oh and do you know those things that when you put them in hot water they turn into sponges of different shapes…well I had some of those which were Chicago themed so we tried those. However since the water wasn’t hot we ended up just pulling it apart in the water and tried to discern what each shape was.

Maybe the best part of the day was riding on the boda bodas. I even rode one at night which was so cool.

Anyway it was a good day. And it helped me to realize that I have really good friends. I was worried about how I would handle being away from my family and friends back home and thought that I was going to be all alone to be miserable by myself with my nutella. But that wasn’t the case. My home-stay family was great, especially my brother. And my friends from my program were amazing. They texted and called me throughout the day to make sure I was ok. It felt so good to know that even though I was away from home that I had found people here that cared and were looking out for me.

And to those of you back home thanks for the emails and thoughts I really appreciated them.

First Days in Lira

So I’m in Lira, but this was only after a bus ride that I can only explain as an AWA experience…

My Bus Ride to Lira

I got to the bus at 9:30…this is after going to a bus that was going to Gulu but had a stop on the way to Lira where I could get off and change buses where they told me there were no buses going to Lira on Sundays.

So I get to the Lira bus and they tell me the bus well leave in an hour. Awesome. The put me in an aisle see in the front row that looks straight out onto the road. I was nervous about this because buses in Uganda drive fast and can be unsafe, so I kept picturing myself, if anything happened, going straight through the window and onto the road. Unfortunately just two weeks before I left there had been a very serious bus accident so I think my fear was legit.

After 2 and a half hours on the bus, with it being stuffed past capacity we pulled out of the bus lot. Even as we were driving our people kept knocking on the bus door to be let in and would jump in as the bus continued to drive. I was told that the trip would take 4hours from multiple people so at 4 o’clock I would be in Lira. Yay!

I guess my bus trip was fairly normal because with everything that went on I seemed to be the only one that thought it wasn’t normal. We got pulled over once and from that point on all the extra passengers had to sit low to the ground and the conductor sat in the very front looking out the window.

The second time we got pulled over all the excess passengers had to get out and be counted. They got back on but our conductor was arrested.

Oh at some point there was a really drunk angry man who got kicked off. And we stopped numerous times along the side of the road for what I can only describe as Ugandan fast food. We would pull up to a village and people would run towards the bus with water, juice, beef on a stick, roasted bananas (gonja) and roasted Cassava. There were a whole bunch of other things but I’m not going to write about them now.

At 6pm we arrived in Lira…so not a 4hour bus trip but still better than Greyhound.

Also maybe now I can mention, since I’m here and everything is ok, that I came to Lira with no idea where I was living or what I was going to do once I got there. All I had was a phone number for my advisor who I had met once. Thankfully my advisor came to get me and took me to what I thought was dinner (but what turned out to be lunch) and took me to his home to stay with his family, which is where I am still staying.

Independence

My first night in Lira my advisor talked to me about the past student who had worked for them. He said that he stayed at a guest house instead of his home because he wanted his independence. He made the connection betweens Americans liking their independence and how parents send their kids away. In comparison in Africa he said families are more dependent on each other and parents take care of their children for a lot longer. For example he said he wouldn’t let his daughter who is my age travel or live alone.

I was still undecided where I was going to stay (his home or a guesthouse) but my advisor chose for me…I was staying with his family. And the home is really nice like I have more TV stations available to me at his home than I do at my own home. And then the first couple of days went by and I had rides to work, rides home, was taken to lunch, had tea and dinner prepared for me. I was treated well. But something kept bothering me.

I’m American. I’m independent. I like choosing what I eat for lunch or dinner. I like choosing when I eat. I like to decide when I stop eating. I like my me time. The whole time I’ve been in Uganda I’ve been dependent. My first week here the program took complete care of us. There was a lot of handholding that week.

Then I stayed with my home-stay where I had a family taking care of me. Living there I gradually was able to be more independent and I think I was lucky to have the family I did because I think they allowed me to be more independent than a lot of other families but I was still dependent to some extent.

My independent study time was supposed to be just that…independent. I was looking forward to living a lone, washing my own clothes, preparing my meals and figuring out my new town on my own. It is with this mind set that I am now living with the family in Lira where completely under their care. Which most people would like and welcome but had me yelling inside “Let me go!”

I’m still trying to reconcile my desire for independence with my current living situation but I am gradually trying to do more and more on my own. Like on Thursday I walked to work and back all by myself. I even got lunch on my own…which seemed to surprise everyone else at the office. But this may have just been because my advisor is out of town…so we’ll see.

Lira

I like Lira. It’s a cute town. It’s not the prettiest place that I’ve been in Uganda but the people are so friendly. I’ve been assured that you don’t really have to worry about theft and its really safe.

Unlike Kampala, I don’t have to worry about getting hit by a motorcycle bodaboda but instead getting hit by a bike which is a lot less scary.

Lira is considered a big town and is in “competition” with Gulu to be the Northern city…the thing is down town Lira is really small. Which is nice because I don’t have to worry about getting lost.

Lira is friendly, unintimidating and I can’t wait to get to know it better.

OBAMA!!!

Leading up to the election it was so exciting to be in Africa. Everyone knows Obama and everyone loves him (except one of my home-stay brothers). But on election day/night I couldn’t help but wish I was in America.

On the evening of November 4 I watched the election coverage and saw people standing in line excited to vote and talking about the historic election. Then I woke up at 6am to watch the coverage. (11pm Eastern Time) And I watched as Obama quickly took the lead and was announced to have been elected president. The whole time wishing I was home, wishing I could be there with other Americans and talk to them about what was happening. So I thought that since I couldn’t I would write some of the things I wished I could say and I hope you share your thoughts with me.

McCain’s Speech

I though McCain gave a very gracious speech. I couldn’t help but think that he was a man of deep pride and honor who loved serving America and wonder if this McCain, the pre-campaign McCain, had been the one campaigning, the election may have been different.

I believe that he changed, caving under political pressure. Where he used to reach out to moderates, he reached out to conservatives (as was clearly evident by his VP pick) alienating many people who may have supported him. Despite all this I hope now that the old McCain, the one who also gave the speech will be present to work with and push Obama throughout the next 4years

Side note though how obnoxious are Republicans…I can’t believed they booed when McCain said Obama was his president. Clearly McCain was mature enough to handle the election results, but his party may not be

Obama’s Speech

Obama’s speech was amazing! I want a recording of it to play over and over again. There were so many points in there that I loved.

When he talked about those who didn’t vote for him and he said he was there president and he heard them. How nice is it to have a president that will listen to you when you don’t agree with him and still try and understand where you are coming from.

Maybe my favorite part was when he was talking about the way America’s viewed abroad…maybe because I am currently abroad…He said “ And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world – our stories are singular but our destiny is shared and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand…And to those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright – tonight we have proved once more the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth but from the enduring power of our ideals; democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.”

I won’t say to much more about the speech because it’s amazing and speaks for itself. I will just say that as I watched him give it and saw the people in the crowd with tears in their eyes. In my mind I was mocking them until I realized that I had tears in my eyes too.