We wrapped up our work in Gulu last week so Sheryl and I headed to the mountains in the West and took a 4 day hiking and camping trip. The maintain range is supposed to be great technical hiking (it takes 7 days to reach the peak and there's snow at the top) but Sheryl and I were less ambitious and hiked around the much warmer crater lakes instead. The series of 16 lakes were formed by collapsed volcanoes and fill from underground. Our guide claimed they're so deep that no one knows how deep they are but we're skeptical.
In addition to the lakes, on the hike we went to hot springs that were packed with locals after church (we were shocked by the women's toplessness, they were scandalized by our swim suit bottoms), a waterfall, tea / banana / corn / vanilla plantations, and a forest reserve.
A tree hiking in a forest reserve...they told us the name, I clearly don't remember
Primates! One of 6 kinds we saw
A lake we camped at one night
Apparently we need more stuff than our guide
Cutting the jackfruit we bought...I'm still undecided if I actually like it
A presidential election will be occurring in Uganda this coming spring.A specific date, or even month, has yet to be set but there are signs everywhere reminding people to register to vote.The current president of 25 years, Museveni, will be running for reelection along with several to be determined opponents.
Mediocre is the best review I’ve heard of Museveni….sending the country downhill is more representative of most people’s current sentiment.While he implemented effective social and economic policies decades ago, most believe he is well past his prime and no longer benefiting the country.Despite this it seems no one thinks, or even hopes, he’ll be voted out of office.
Before Museveni, Uganda had two horrific presidents (Idi Amin and Obote… here’s a short overview http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Uganda).Each killed hundreds of thousands of their own citizens, eliminated any opposition, looted the economy, and fueled ethnic conflict for their own gains.While people openly acknowledge that Museveni being reelected will slow or even reverse development, at least it’s a known quantity of harm as opposed to the potential destruction of the unknown candidate.As Mr. C put at “At least we know what we’re getting even if it’s no good.”
In a country that seems to have endless love for Obama (apparently people went in mass to his family’s villages when he was elected) his campaign platform would never have worked here.While people strongly desire political change in the abstract, given their history the actual risk is way too great to go for it.
A 100% unrelated picture of goats...they're so photogenic!
I woke up at 4:30 this morning to a crash and yelling outside my apartment.When I looked out the window I saw a couple people running down the street but couldn’t tell what happened.Sleeping is not a talent of mine so I ended up staying awake hearing the bodas start doing their rounds, a group singing in the street at about 6 am (I have no idea why) and the call to prayer.
At 7:30 I was on the phone with Traci in the US when I heard angry yells and painful screams.I looked out my window and saw about 50 people, mainly adults but also a few school children, surrounding 5 teenage boys who were laying curled up on the ground.I watched and realized that the mob was actually beating these boys with their hands, feet, sticks, and belts.The younger boys in the group were screaming and crying while the older ones were pleading with their attackers to stop.Neighbors came outside on their balconies to watch with bored expressions while I watched, pretty horrified, from my apartment window.
After about 10 minutes the beating stopped but the crowd remained surrounding these boys as they continued to lay on the ground until a police pick up truck pulled up and pulled the five boys into the cab with the crowd resuming their hitting and kicking as the boys were yanked up.Their shirts had all been ripped off by the crowd at some point and blood was running down their faces and backs but the injuries didn’t look life threateningly serious.Once the pick up pulled away the crowd left, continuing wherever they’d been headed as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
View off my balcony this morning
I went to the shop below my apartment and asked the friendly shopkeeper what happened.She said the boys, ages 11-16, had been caught by the street cleaners this morning stealing airtime and other small things from people’s houses.The street cleaners had chased them and once they caught them all brought them back so that the people they stole from could beat them.Seeing my appalled look she laughed, “You all don’t like beatings do you?How else are they going to learn they can’t do that?”
Why wouldn't you carry a goat in a bag on your bike?
Africa time remains a mystery to me. I know that it means “Don’t expect people to be on time” but it seems there’s so much more of a precise system to it than that. We were coordinating with the VHTs at our training on Tuesday about when we would meet them in the field. Our on the ground coordinator, Mr. C, gave a stern, threatening speech that they absolutely must be there on time to not waste his time and to respect us (the volunteers), the community, the project, and themselves. I’m usually an on time person but after this speech I would have checked my alarm three times to make sure it was set right for the next day (if I used an alarm here…but I’m oh so fortunate to have the roosters who ensure I never sleep past 6:30). We left agreeing we would meet the VHTs at 10:00 am the next morning and Mr. C would pick me and the two other girls up at 9:40 to drive us to the meeting location. Mr. C even requested we wait outside so that precious minutes were not wasted…
Well the next morning at 10:40 we were still standing outside waiting. We had not heard from Mr. C and when we finally called him he said “Don’t worry, I’m on my way!” Eventually he came tearing around the corner in his little car and as soon as we piled in we raced off to the meeting location already over an hour late. The other girls and I worried that the VHTs would have already left on their home visits or perhaps given up for the day. When we finally got to the site at 11:15 we thought that’s what occurred when neither of the two VHTs were there. However 30 seconds later both VHTs arrived from opposite directions, perfectly on time to meet us an hour and fifteen minutes late.
They all seem to understand the system perfectly - always showing up exactly when the other person does, never at the agreed upon time. We, however, continue to go outside at exactly the agreed upon time every morning to begin our wait for Mr. C.
An Internally Displaced Persons Camp where we did data collection
How we entertained ourselves one night in Ntenjeru
So I have been terrible at blogging (well this one anyways…the work one has been updated http://tamtam-africa.blogspot.com/ ). I think the problem is that there are actually so many cool little things to talk about it gets overwhelming. I’m going to do one longer post here then just try to post something little everyday and see if that goes any better. Clearly I will still be using bullets…
• Life there – So I never really said much about what life was like in the Ntenjeru in the South. The village we lived in was described to me as an “average poor” village for Uganda. Some people didn’t have the fees to send their children to school (as low as $15 a year) or money to take a boda (motorcycle) to the hospital about an hour away when an emergency occurred (a woman in labor needing an emergency C-section was trying to beg for money to take a boda (while in labor!!!) to the hospital...I wasn’t there but other volunteers were and that night we debated whether we’d give the money in that situation. My answer is a definite YES).
Overall though, it was not a desperate poor. Because Uganda is so fertile, people are mainly able to grow their own food and at least in Ntenjeru there is enough space for people to have land and build a house. The work is endless (I now somewhat understand the effort of maintaining a dirt floor and how clean it can actually look) but people still spend some of their day playing games and talking to neighbors. While unexpected events can definitely cause crisis, day to day life isn’t the struggle and despair you imagine when you think of people living on less than two dollars a day. It really highlights what a difference living in a rural area in a country that’s fertile can make versus living in slums in a rural area where you can’t grow and build what you need to meet your basic needs.
• Life here – I’m now in Gulu, which if you know at all you know as the town that was most affected by the LRA rebel group when the North was in war for about 20 years more or less ending about 5 years ago (Read here for a brief description…its interesting history http://www.invisiblechildren.com/about/history/). The LRA is notorious for its abduction of children, often forcing them to kill their own families, and forcing them to be child soldiers. In all the surrounding villages, the children walked miles to Gulu every afternoon to sleep in the streets of the town surrounded by soldiers or their entire family moved to refugee camps closer to the town. Children that escaped after abduction often had no family or homes to return to and the community they left that now saw them as a murderous rebel.
Today, most families are back in their original homesteads or at least in transition camps (smaller and in more rural areas than the massive refugee camps but they still cannot return to their permanent homes because their fields were destroyed and they cannot grow enough food yet). Children have been rehabilitated (I have no idea how it’s possible to overcome what some of them were forced to do but it seems to be) and while alcoholism is common it seems that the majority are now leading normal lives.
So that’s the context of the lives of the people here. My days are spent going with a VHT (a volunteer community member who is responsible for health education in their community) everyday to visit homes to conduct our survey. Walking around for 8 hours a day with a stranger you end up talking about most everything including what life was like for them during the war. Most all of them lost family members, some were abducted themselves, and some lived in refugee camps. Walking through a field with someone and having them tell you what horrors they witnessed in that particular field ten years ago is a very very surreal experience. As much as I hear about it and as many questions as they let me ask I still cannot begin to imagine what it was like to live through that time.
• The Welcome Committee – On a daily basis I’m AMAZED at how friendly and welcoming people here are. While I’ve had one or two negative experiences, across the board people have gone out of their way to help us and make us part of the communities we’re in. Yesterday I was walking home after being dropped off about three minutes from my house and in that three minutes met a Ugandan woman in her twenties who invited me to her village to have dinner with her family. She got my phone number and already called to schedule. Whenever we look lost (which is often) we’re almost instantly surrounded by people trying to help and have had many shop owners leave their shops to walk us the 15 minutes to where we’re trying to get to. I was with a VHT the other day who didn’t know the village we were in well and a village leader spent 4 hours walking us from house to house and waiting while we did the interviews. I find the interviews mind numbingly boring at times and it’s my job to do them, this man was working in his garden and thought helping us was more important. None of this is offered with any expectation of anything in return except friendliness back. Its made the experience here soooo much better because there are so many opportunities to get to know Ugandans from all different economic levels and be included in their day to day lives. Also its fun to instantly have so many friends
Ok I’m off for my day of home visits. Hope everyone’s doing well! Also if you have something you’re interested in hearing about please please let me know and I’ll write about that one day, its hard to focus when there’s so many unique things.
I’ve been trying to write an update for a bit but can’t figure out an eloquent way to weave together all the things that are really defining this experience.So I will act like a typical consultant and use bullets that in no way go together but look much more organized and official.
The greenness – It’s hard to describe what the landscape is like here in the more southern region near Lake Victoria other than lush greens covering everything. Its somewhat like covering the Blue Ridge Mountains with tropical plants with massive leaves. Foods grow here easily and there are fruit trees everywhere, my personal favorite are jack fruit trees which have massive green spiky jackfruits on them that could definitely cause some permanent damage if you were under a falling one.
A view a little ways from our house
Zombies – So this may not be totally PC but it is hilarious.The kids that live near us are constantly entertained by us, to the point that we’re when inside they’ll stand at the window reaching their arms inside the bars saying “Mzungu!” (white person) over and over again.We felt a bit we were in a zoo or, as a guy living at the same house as us said, like we were being attacked by zombies.So we did the logical thing and started yelling “Braaaaaaaaaains” at them (as a zombie would do) until they started yelling “Braaaaaaaains” back.We now have about 15 Ugandan children running around our yard and sticking their hands in our windows acting like zombies.They’re still around but at least it’s much much funnier.
Zombie Child
The color orange – The dirt (which the roads are made from) is a very bright orange/red color which means I am generally also a very bright orange / red color.We walk about a half hour along the road to school and the trucks that go by kick up a ridiculous amount of dirt that especially likes to cling to my hair and turn me into a redhead for the day.The worst was after a run when a Ugandan woman I had never talked to before stopped me as I was walking back to the house and said “Hello. You are going to shower now, yes?”I’m not kidding.
Postrun
Pit latrines – Oh the pit latrines.Every morning I go to it and sigh that that is the way I’m starting my day once again.We now talk of “good days” (when the flies aren’t so bad in it and its clean) and “bad days” (I won’t give details).Overall it’s not as bad as it could be, we have a paint on ours that eliminates the smell, but it’s the thing that I haven’t and won’t fully adapt to
Water – The amount of time and energy the women and children spend getting water here is unbelievable.The water spout (a place where pipe comes out of the ground and into a creek, I think the water is completely untreated but I’m not sure) is about a 15 minute walk downhill from our house which means that the water must be carried back uphill.The women are able to balance one jug that’s way more than I can carry on their heads and carry another smaller one in their hands.I go some days more for exercise then to help because the amount I can carry is pathetic. A man in the village will deliver water for about 10 cents for 4 large jugs but that’s too expensive for most people.The water that will be used for drinking is then boiled and tastes about like if you mashed up cigarette ashes in the water so I turn all of mine into tea to hide the taste.I can now also shower with 4 cups of water including washing my hair. I’m very proud of this fact. I’m definitely not continuing this practice at home.
Filling the water jug post fetching
Food – The food here can best be described as “mashes”.Plantains mashed, wheat flour mixed with water mashed, potatoes mashed, rice that somehow is converted into a more mash like substance….there is no need for teeth here.On this you dumb “sauce” which is usually beans, sometimes eggs, on rare and very special occasions a meat.And if you’re a westerner on top of this you dump as much hot sauce as possible to try to give it any taste at all.Our house goes through about a bottle a day and the amount we each want is growing. I think we’re going to create an entirely new industry in our village of supplying hot sauce to mzungus.
Hopefully next time I can come up with something more clever to talk about but this are really the day to day things that are making our lives funny and interesting right now.Hopefully you can picture it now a little better :)
