In the Lugandan language of Southern Uganda "Mzungu" means simply "white person." And this Mzungu is going on the trek of his life, traveling to the great nations of Uganda and Rwanda to explore and learn about their troubled pasts and (hopefully) bright futures.
My time in East Africa is rapidly approaching its end. I just received confirmation that I will be leaving about 6 days early because of the cancellation of our end of trip excursion. It would have left us with an extra week in Kampala that didn’t appeal much to me. Most of the people and places I care about are up in Gulu where we are not returning. So my friend Robbie and I changed our tickets and now we head to London on the 11th instead of the 17th.
Most of our trip has been spent living in the communities that we are studying and learning about. We have had a number of excursions that get us out to see the countries we have been living in, but our touristy outings have been very limited. My friends Hannah and Allie and I decided that there were some places in Kampala that we should see, and we felt the need to be typical Muzungus at least once.
Mengo Palace
So to the Palace of the Kabaka we went. The Kabaka is the king of the Buganda kingdom, the largest ethnic group in Southern Uganda. The palace sits upon a hill and overlooks the entire city. It’s a new structure because the old one was destroyed when Milton Obote, former President/ Dictator of Uganda, wanted to wrest power from the Kabaka and destroyed it.
The layout of the palace was based on a royal palace in Scotland with a number of architectural cues obviously taken from a more western place and with the addition of a “royal mile” connecting the palace with the parliament. We weren’t allowed into the palace, which is odd because it is not occupied right now (some dispute of some sort) but the grounds were pretty enough. Our guide took us down to the royal lake that was built in order to provide an easier commute for the king to his palace (How convenient).
On the path down to the lake we saw a large tunnel cut into the hillside that led to a dark foreboding looking cave. After gazing at the lake, we made our way down the tunnel. It was lined with vegetation and large concrete walls that ended in a large concrete opening that penetrated the hill. We had arrived at Idi Amin’s torture chambers. Idi Amin was president of Uganda from 1972 to 1979; his life was detailed in the movie “The Last King of Scotland.” He was an incredibly harsh dictator and his torture chambers remain a testament to his reign. There were five rooms whose entrances were raised four feet from the floor of the bunker. Apparently, prisoners would be put in the rooms and the bunker floor would be filled with three feet of water, the water would then be electrified so the prisoners could not escape. It was common practice for them to be thrown in the water once they were deemed unfit to live. Amin himself was hardly educated and most of his prisoners were the educated people of Uganda. Another notch in Uganda’s belt of oppressive leaders.
Mosque
Uganda is a largely Christian nation, but that doesn’t mean other religions don’t thrive as well. One of the largest structures in all of Kampala is a gigantic mosque in Old Kampala. We drive by it all of the time but we just never got around to visiting it but today we felt inspired.
The Mosque is named after Colonel Qaddafi, of Libya, who donated the money to build the mosque and maintain it for 25 years. Apparently, Idi Amin started it in 1978, but construction was halted when Obote overthrew Amin in 1979. It was restarted in 2003 when Qaddafi came to visit Uganda.
The building itself is incredible: carpets from Libya, lamps from Egypt, the intricate details created by Moroccan artists, and the design by Qaddafi’s architect. The interior space can fit 7,000 people easily and the entire structure is designed to house more on bigger occasions. The minaret of the mosque is one of the tallest structures in Kampala and can be seen from almost every part of the city.
Before we could look around the compound, Hannah and Allie first had to cover themselves as their attire of pants with their uncovered heads was not appropriate according to the Islamic tradition. They made quite the pair once they were decked out in their colorful scarves. When we were all dressed appropriately, we were taken towards the mosque. The building is massive but the designs are all incredibly intricate, truly fascinating.
Our guide first took us up to the top of the minaret where we got an incredible view of Kampala. The climb took a good five minutes, and was, besides the “marathon,” the most exercise I have had this entire trip. The view was spectacular; we picked a perfect day and could see all of the places we had been in Kampala. Our guide apparently makes the climb seven times a day and claimed it made him incredibly fit, fit enough, he decided, to take a Muzungu as his wife. I quickly had to claim both Hannah and Allie as my wives to deter his advances, the ploy worked and we soon descended the tower.
Next was the mosque itself. I have been inside many monumental churches, full of pews, paintings, and elegant statues. I honestly didn’t know what to expect from the mosque. The inside was just a vast expanse of open carpet and columns. The columns ended in large domes that had openings in the top to let in natural light. Instead of statues and carvings, the beautification was in the architecture itself, intricate designs were set in the domes and the lamps were wrought in incredibly miniscule detail. In a space composed of relatively simply architectural forms, incredible beauty accentuated the interior.
After walking around for a while we were headed out of the Mosque and we bumped into a white robed man entering through the doors. We were told he was the man responsible for the call to prayer, what a wonderful chance encounter. We were just in time to listen to him do his thing. As he walked over to the microphone he told us how he had started calling twenty years ago at the district level, he had worked his way all the way up to the national level and was incredibly proud of what he had done.
He approached the mic and we sat down to watch him do his thing. He covered his ears and then started speaking Arabic in a hauntingly melodic manner; I could see how he had become the main caller in all of Uganda. It was simply beautiful. It went on for a few minutes and his voice echoed powerfully through the mosque.
After he finished we gathered ourselves and left the mosque, ending a great cultural experience that I never would have thought would have happened to me in Kampala, Uganda.
Suit Up
We returned home in the late afternoon where I was greeted by Robbie who was decked out in a suit. Obviously curious, I asked him why he was dressed so smartly. He looked at me and said simply, “Suit up.” And no questions asked, I did. Let me explain.
In Uganda there are a limited number of TV shows that are truly bearable. In order to get by, we shared a lot of movies and TV shows amongst our group. The most widely liked and widely viewed show was “How I Met Your Mother.” I have heard some heathens call it a mediocre show, I beg to differ, but in Uganda it was pure viewing gold. One of the most beloved characters is Barney. Barney is on all counts a pretty bad person (egoistic, chauvinistic, and selfish) but for some reason he is strangely endearing. One of his catch phrases is “Suit Up,” used whenever it is time to go out on the town and impress a certain gentler sex. To turn down his demand is travesty in his eyes. So naturally, when asked to suit up, I did.
Turns out we were having a guys night out to the casinos of Kampala. Three guys from my group (Steven was sick) and the two guys from the other group, Jason and Luke. It’s been a long time since I gambled, at least three years, and it’s not something I particularly enjoy, but I was excited for the night ahead regardless. We all bodad over to Kampala City Casino to start the night off right. Luke and Jason had been there for a while; Luke was doing well, while Jason was a few shillings down. Luke made his winnings through the slot machines so we decided to give it a try. I changed out about 20,000 shillings for tokens and started off my night. I stayed pretty even for about fifteen minutes then won a little bit which prompted my buying drinks for some of the guys.
I was down to 10,000 shillings and was about to call it quits when I switched to another machine. I sat down and played a few rounds, and was about to leave and made one last pull… and won. A lot. The machine kept spitting out tokens and when it was done, and after much excitement from the guys, I gathered my winnings and brought them to the cashier. I went from 10,000 shillings (about $5) to 200,000 shillings (about $100). Not bad for one night in Kampala.
Not wanting to push our luck, we decided to switch casinos and headed out to Simba Casino. We failed miserably at every turn at Simba and resorted to giving money to Robbie to play Blackjack on our behalf, the dealer won almost every time and before long we figured Simba was not the place for us.
The rest of the night saw us sing karaoke and find our way home. A good night of suiting up was had by all, and my winnings paid back the money owed to me by my shifty advisor Oliver. Win win.
-Muzungu currently in Notting Hill slowly adjusting to life away from Africa after experiencing a rousing carol show at the Royal Albert Hall
There are a number of things we aren’t allowed to do on an SIT trip: drugs, “relations” with our academic directors, riding boda bodas, rafting the Nile, Staying out after 7 p.m. in Gulu, using ISP money for alcohol, etc. This blog is about the times where we did some of the above, and lived to tell the tale. I have saved this post until the end of the trip because I have enjoyed my time in East Africa, and I didn’t want it to come to an abrupt end. Below are a few fun times we had outside the bounds of SIT law.
PIZZA
Pizza is something that I have missed immensely while here in Uganda and Rwanda. After months of eating rice, beans, and goat meat, little cravings for food back home start to come creeping. When we made it down to Kampala at the end of the Uganda section of our trip, we checked out Robbie’s guidebook and discovered that there was a Dominoes Pizza in town. Our travel weary bodies needed to at least make a slight effort to taste the delights of this pizza oasis. For God’s sake, they even offered delivery! So call we did. We ordered four medium pizzas and one large pizza. Our excitement was palpable. The delivery guy called us and told us that he was waiting outside the University. We scrambled up the hill to find our pizza messiah. He saw the approaching Muzungus and walked towards us, his pizza carrier looked thin, too thin. He pulled out one pizza. What! He recognized our order but said they only made one pizza. Damn. We begrudgingly sat down on the sidewalk to try our smaller than expected meal. It was out of this world delicious.
At that moment, it was decided that the rest of our order must be had. We elected two members of the group to head down town to find this Dominoes (not the American chain). So David and I hopped on a boda and sped into downtown Kampala. We reached the pizzeria and walked inside. We re-ordered our original order; the owner looked at us and said, “Oh, you are the order from Bativa hotel.” The guy knew our order from half an hour ago, but didn’t send the pizzas along. AWA. We waited thirty minutes and our order was ready to go. Five pizzas, two guys. Two guys with five pizzas are incredibly hard to fit on one motorcycle while maintaining the structural integrity of said pizzas. So we split up and snagged two bodas.
There are very few rules when it comes to negotiating the traffic in Kampala. People go when they want to go, motorcycles often use the sidewalk as a road and gridlock is frequent (locally known as “Jam”). This fine evening, traffic was heavy and any westernized rules for travel were well and truly disregarded. We zipped between big trucks that could have easily crushed us, not to mention the pizzas; we dodged other bodas; and we made great use of the sidewalks. At one point, we burst into an intersection and another boda stopped just in time to allow its front tire to rest softly on my calf. Phew. We finally whipped around the corner to our hotel and dismounted gingerly. Our lives and pizzas intact, we brought our Americanized feast home. Because it was the 5th of November, we watched “V for Vendetta.” Pizza, a movie, and for some, a beer, life doesn’t get much more American than that.
DENIAL?
And by that I mean The Nile. On our last Sunday before our ISP we had a free day, a day to relax and work on our ten-page comprehensive Uganda essay. We had gone to Jinja the day before to see the source of the Nile, even swim in it a little bit. But for us, that just wasn’t enough.
Ever been rafting? It’s a pretty good time. When I worked for Overland Summers in Massachusetts I got to raft three times in one summer! We got to raft a nice gentle Massachusetts river with Class 1 to Class 3 rapids. The scale goes up to Class 6 (Highly likely death). Ever been rafting in Uganda? We got to raft the Nile, one of the largest and longest rivers in the world. Class 3 rapids are as low as the Nile goes. More common, Class 5.
We left our hotel early Sunday morning and were picked up my Adrift rafting Company and bused back to Jinja. A nice Belgian man joined us on our trip over. We arrived, checked in and grabbed our gear. Five people in our group decided that it would be a good life choice to go Bungee jumping over the Nile, more power to them, but I wasn’t even close to thinking that was a good idea. After they all plunged headfirst off of a metal platform over a cliff, we met our raft guides and set off down the river.
Meet Lee. He is Scotsman who works as a raft guide in Uganda for half of the year, and Canada for the other half. Tough life, right? He has been bitten by both a Sac Spider (?) and a monitor lizard in his time in Uganda. Why he still comes back is anyone’s guess. Lee was tasked with keeping our group fully alive for the entire day while also keeping us entertained. As someone who survived the day, I can say he did a good job on both counts.
We began the day by practicing strokes, capsizing the boat, and then hitting our first rapid. For some reason, the guides get a real kick out of flipping the rafts during the rapids. Apparently the Nile is “the safest rafting river in the world,” so they feel justified in this. And I will give it to them; the thrill of being tossed underwater by the full force of Nile and getting popped back to the surface safely is certainly exhilarating.
On one rapid our entire boat capsized and only Caitlin and I returned to our original boat with Lee. It wasn’t very long before we hit another rapid so the boat of Caitlin, Lee and I, in a boat built for 9 mind you, took the rapid on our own. We made it through no problem. The other boat that had taken our stragglers was now a boat of thirteen, they capsized again in no time.
Through out the day we dropped over an eight to nine foot tall waterfall and didn’t capsize, we rafted the largest commercially rafted rapid in the world, and we relaxed and floated down the River Nile. Oh, and in an earlier post about Jinja I mentioned Bujugali falls and the man who rode a jerry can down them. Well we ended up rafting down those falls as well!
Our day went as smoothly as we could have hoped. All thirteen of us had a great time. Our day ended with a strong row against the current to shore where we had a short walk to a hut where a meal of brochette (meat on a stick) and chapatti awaited us along with plenty of beverages. We perused photos of our journey and after a while boarded the bus for the ride home. The following day we all nursed our sunburns (mine were so bad one section of my leg blistered…)
During all of our fun I couldn’t help but notice the large amount of people that actually use the river as an everyday part of their life. Not a kilometer went by where we didn’t see at least 20+ people washing their clothes, bathing, fishing or cooking. We were accompanied by safety kayakers, all of who were local Ugandans. We were told that many of them joined the company because they make a lot of money compared to other jobs. As kayakers they get paid 25,000 UGX ($12.50) a day compared to a teacher who gets paid 5,000 UGX ($2.50) a day. For all the fun we were having rafting the river it was really important to see the way the river impacted the lives of the people of Uganda. With environmentally friendly and sustainable tourism like this rafting organization was providing, local Ugandans are making a great living while not taking too much away from the local environment. It’s unfortunate to think that they are soon going to dam a large section of this part of the river. I am curious to know how much the government has done to help relocate those who will be displaced by the reservoir. My guess is unfortunately not much.
-Muzungu currently in Notting Hill slowly easing his way back into the western world
I have turned in my ISP and I just presented my project to the group yesterday (19 minutes and thirty seconds, yikes). It's time for me to go. Because of the way things worked out with the evacuation from Gulu, our end of trip safari was cancelled. So there is an awkward four or five days to play with. It sounds like SIT isn't providing the money to fund another expedition so Robbie and I have planned an exciting European trip with my friend Andrew from the UK. We are flying out of Uganda tonight and getting into London at 7 in the morning. After a day in London we fly up to Edinburgh and make our way to St. Andrews were I have some friends doing their study abroad. After two days there, if we survive the snow, we fly to Paris for two days to soak up some European culture, and then back to London on the 16th to meet up with my mother dearest.
I have a blog post that I have been working on for my last few days in Uganda and I will probably have a few more with reflections and tales of reintegration and reverse-culture shock that are certainly going to affect me. I might be out of internet range for a while due to my travels but I wish you all the best. I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog. It's been a joy for me to write and I hope it has been equally enjoyable for you to read. I'll keep the posts coming but the end is in sight. Goodbye Uganda, Goodbye Rwanda, it has been a truly incredible experience. The Ugandan saying for "don't burn any bridges" is "Don't up root your pumpkins," I hope I take this advice to heart and keep the relationships I have formed here strong.
I am excited to come home, but incredibly sad to be leaving. I'll keep you posted on my life in the next few weeks. Thanks again for following.
-Muzungu on the way out of East Africa, about to lose his status as a Muzungu
We went the way of the Peace Corps. A few days into the much talked about plague we received a phone call from our academic advisor telling us that we were being evacuated to Kampala. Most of us were pretty upset to be leaving Gulu and our Homestay families behind, but the logic was pretty clear. We packed up all of our things and loaded them onto our trusty matatus. We were supposed to leave at 11 but naturally we left at a little before 1, AWA. We encountered the usual bus matatu break down on the way to Kampala so our four-hour journey turned into an eight-hour journey. Our driver, Tycoon the Man, also decided it would be a good idea to buy a chicken, still clucking, and set it under the back seat. I don’t know how the little guy didn’t make any noise or try to escape but it was definitely still alive.
We made it to Kampala by nightfall and returned to the trusty Bativa Hotel where we started our trip three months ago. Most of us were pretty exhausted so we passed out. The following day Dr. William, our Academic Director, gave us a briefing on the situation. Apparently there were confirmed cases of Pneumonic Plague and a strong possibility of Ebola, I’m glad we got out of there as soon as we did. It’s still upsetting to think that us Muzungus can escape so easily but we leave behind all the residents of Gulu to fend for themselves. There is nothing we can do, but it’s troubling that the actual Ugandans really have no escape. We also learned that our safari at the end of our trip has been cancelled so our trip might end earlier than expected.
Europe?
Because of the premature end to our trip, my friend Robbie and I have been planning a little European adventure. We were originally going to fly out on the 17th in the wee hours of the morning but now we might be able to fly out on the morning of the 12th. I have a lot of friends studying abroad in Europe right now so there is a chance of us going to visit folks in Italy, France, Scotland, London, etc. The most viable option seems to be Scotland right now, and considering I just finished Braveheart, I’m pretty excited about it. Although I realize I have literally no winter clothes.
So a few days in Kampala it is, I have finished my Independent Study Project, longest paper I have written yet, and I feel good about it. Our presentations happen next week and then this African adventure ends for me. It’s been an amazing experience and it has really changed my outlook on the world and how I plan on living my life. I am sure that I will find uncountable ways that this experience has changed me upon my return home.
Nakivale Update
I don’t know if I have mentioned this before but a lot of my studies in Nakivale were focused on an event on July 14th, 2010 when a large group of Rwandese was forcibly repatriated to Rwanda. The official story is that two people died because they jumped out of trucks taking them back, but the refugees told a very different tale involving Ugandan troops rounding up the Rwandans and shooting at them and then forcing them into trucks. They claim up to 27 people died.
I mention all of this because I received a call from Everest, a Rwandan refugee in Nakivale, last night. He was terrified. He told me that about 100 Ugandan troops had showed up at Nakivale and were not telling people why they were there. He fears another event like the July 14th massacre. Hopeless does not even begin to describe how I felt after that phone call. He asked me what he should do, where he should go. I felt so powerless. This man wanted me to tell him the best way for him to preserve his life, and I had no idea what to say. All I could tell him was to avoid going to large gatherings organized by the Ugandan troops, because that could too easily turn into a similar situation as the July events. Beyond that, I had nothing to say, I don’t know where he lives, what his finances are like, where he can go, or how legitimate this threat is. I have no pull with any political or Non-Governmental organization. My role as a student has been a blessing and a curse. People feel comfortable talking to me about their lives and their struggles but the information I get at this point doesn’t have much readership or much sway in the world of academia. I am able to get solid information but it goes into a paper to advance my own personal learning and that’s about it.
At this point it seems I can only look forward and hope that this experience helps build an understanding of the world around me and allows me the possibility of enacting changes in the future that prevent similar situations as described about from happening or happening again.
I hope this blog post finds you well wherever you may be. Happy Holidays.
-Muzungu currently back in Kampala, contemplating his time in Africa and his coming time in Europe.
Math isn’t my strong point, never has been, probably never will be. But life abroad is a lot about the little calculations; my simple math skills have increased tremendously while here. Firstly, figuring out how prices. In Uganda, to figure out how much a given meal or item costs you have to consider the exchange rate. One US Dollar equals around two thousand six hundred Ugandan Shillings. To get an extraordinarily rough estimate of cost we simply divide whatever the price is in shillings by two, then drop three zeros. In Rwanda, one dollar equaled 600 Rwandan Francs, so double every price and drop three zeros.
Then comes time. I have been trying my hardest to keep in touch with my friends and family back home. The time difference obviously makes it difficult, especially when daylight savings time came into effect mid-semester. Right as I got used to figuring out the eight-hour time difference with Nashville and the seven-hour time difference with Bowdoin, it went and changed on me. Uganda doesn’t participate in that Daylight Savings Time nonsense. Now it’s nine and eight respectively, still trying to get used to that.
Lastly, Cards. Yeah, when power isn’t always a given and you only brought two books for a three month stretch, cards are a life saver. Spades and Hearts are the most played games among my group, each requiring their own little calculations in the score keeping. I went from having to write out the addition and subtraction to figuring out scores quickly in my head, helps on the long bus rides on pothole ridden roads.
ISP
I just finished my ISP. Procrastination failed to get the best of me. I wrote the longest paper of my life, and the first real research involving interviews of my life as well. I’m happy. Now I have to figure out what to do over the next five days, I’ve got a lot of time to kill.
Mysterious Illness Update
The Peace Corps were evacuated yesterday. The CDC and the US Embassy have kept quiet on anything that might be happening, their responses to emails claim that nothing is really amiss and that we shouldn’t be worried. But the fact that the Peace Corps bolted to Kampala certainly isn’t reassuring. Robbie talked to one of them who had 10 months left in country who said he thinks they might just send them home.
Another group of Muzungus got so spooked that they didn’t just leave the North they left the country entirely. They are currently biding their time in Nairobi, Kenya. Apparently they heard from a nurse who was here in 2000 (when there was a big outbreak of Ebola), that she saw one of the new cases and it was definitely Ebola. This is unconfirmed, but unsettling nonetheless.
We have already checked the prices of private hire cars and private jets (fifty bucks a head to Kampala, not bad) to Kampala just incase this blows up, but all signs are pointing to it not being a big deal. Although there is some concern that the government in Kampala will try to cover up whatever happens because of the upcoming election in February of next year. Hmm….
Home
Two weeks until I am no longer in Africa. It’s currently my warmest December on record, hasn’t been cooler than 75 degrees any day yet. This is while I am hearing about negative fifteen degree centigrade weather in Vienna and massive snowfall in the UK. This news comes as a shock to me because I am spending ten days in London after I leave here to spend time with my family and friends. I have a legitimate fear of freezing to death once I step off that plane; my warmest clothes are khaki pants.
I am really excited to get to London though. I’ll meet my mother at the airport and spend the day with her and then Robbie and I are going to see a show in London before he flies out the following day. Over the course of ten days I hope to: See Dave (my good friend and freshman year roommate), Tobi (another Bowdoin friend), Catherine (a friend from Nashville), and the Speers (Friends from London). It is certainly shaping up to be a hectic few days. I’m sure I will experience debilitating culture shock, but I cannot wait to get my hands on some greasy western food.
-Muzungu in Gulu reveling in the fact his paper is done and eagerly awaiting a reunion with family and friends.
Ebola. One of the most deadly diseases known to man, with in a week 89% of people die. It’s one of the diseases that I learned about in Miss. Hutchison’s 5th grade biology class, one of those things that’s so rare and deadly that 99% of the people in that young class wouldn’t be within 1000 miles of a case in their entire lives. So imagine how excited I was to get this email:
U.S. Embassy Kampala, Uganda
Warden Message-November 30, 2010
Outbreak of Unidentified Illness in Northern Uganda
Ugandan press are reporting an outbreak of an unknown severe illness in three districts of Northern Uganda, characterized by fever, vomiting and diarrhea. The districts identified as being affected are: Abim (specifically Morulem sub-county), Agago (Omiya P’Chua, Adilang and Paimoi sub-counties) and Kitgum (Orum, Namokora and Kitgum Town Council).
While we are seeking to confirm these details, the U.S. Mission in Kampala and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) office in Uganda recommend U.S. citizens residing and traveling in Uganda minimize their travel to these affected areas until further information becomes available. Non-essential U.S. Government official travel to the three affected areas is presently restricted.
Kitgum is about 50 kilometers away… Word on the street is that it’s either Ebola or Dysentery, that’s right, the Dysentery that your character always died from in Oregon Trail. The Center for Disease Control and the US Department of State websites have yet to mention any thing at all so my level of concern is pretty low. But our group is a little on edge nonetheless, we leave Gulu in about 8 days so our level of possible contact is hopefully pretty low. Won’t stop me from keeping my fingers crossed for this next week for this little outbreak to sputter out. The fact that people here actually have to worry about contracting Ebola is mind-boggling. I was talking to my host mother, Jackie, when I was here last, and she mentioned that a few years back there was an outbreak in Gulu. Apparently the Ugandan government sent troops who had been stationed in the Congo, who were showing signs of the virus, to Northern Uganda to keep them away from the favored south. Almost 100 people died. People may question our government in the US sometimes, but sending infected soldiers to a separate region of the country instead of quarantining them? That’s a whole new low.
Watoto: A reflection on service and mission trips
Mission trips and service trips are unique experiences. They allow you to leave the comfort of home and travel to a place that is drastically different from whence you came, to see how people in different cultures live. Most of these trips have a service element to them, to allow participants to give back to the community they are visiting. I have been on three trips like this, to Ecuador, Jamaica and Peru. I realized very quickly, right after my freshman year of high school trip to Jamaica through my church, that these are much more about personal growth than the growth of the communities. A week spent by thirty American highschoolers in the hills of Jamaica helps about thirty-four people: Four Jamaicans who benefit from the laying of a concrete floor in their house, and thirty Americans who learn about a new culture and can take their experience there back home to help expand their idea of the world around them. My biggest problem with mission trips is that their brevity only allows for a glimpse of the culture and situation at hand. Most of the time is spent among fellow Americans and that can seriously cloud the actual situation at hand. I think personal growth is a very important thing as well as increasing your awareness of the world around you. And I have no problem with giving back to the community to which you have come but active steps need to be taken to make sure the giving back is going to be more helpful than detrimental.
Building structures on a trip for a foreign population is a concrete, tangible creation that can benefit a certain number of people for a considerable amount of time. Unfortunately, it still increases dependency in the area where the structure has been built; now other people from the community have a reasonable expectation that a group of foreigners will come and build them a house. The more frequently this happens, the more the receiver comes to expect anything and everything from these visiting peoples. Work ethic becomes an unnecessary trait as one can now expect to be given what they need to survive without working for it. Teaching someone to make something is more sustainable than giving it to them.
I go on this tangent because of something I witnessed this past week. We have been in East Africa for three months now. There is no service aspect of our trip, we are here strictly to learn about the culture and post-conflict situation in both Uganda and Rwanda in order to apply our learning to later experiences in life to affect change on a large scale if necessary. In Gulu, where NGOs and mission trips abound, simply being a white person from anywhere means that we “have to give” people things. You’ll walk down the street and children will demand that you give them money, adults too. I wondered where this mindset came from, who was handing out money and clothes and food so freely and happily to these people that they had come to expect that because of my skin tone that they were entitled to receive something from me. Then, my question was answered.
Watoto is a mega-church created by Canadian missionaries. There is a large church based in Kampala and another one in Gulu. They have very noble goals, to help orphans and widows in Uganda.
The world has a need for nice people who want to give of themselves to help others, but misguided help is a dangerous thing. By giving the young resident of Gulu a new outfit and bag, merely because they encountered him in the street, most certainly instilled a sense of dependency in the young man. If he can just walk around town, the Muzungus will come and give him things. This sort of charity is exactly why many people here simply expect that any foreigner in Gulu is only here to give them something and then leave.
-Muzungu entering his last week in Gulu while dodging Unknown Illnesses
I am back in Gulu and I couldn’t be happier. I spent a few nights at the Acholi Ber (Yes, it’s spelled “Ber”) Hotel but realized that my budget couldn’t support the 20,000 Shilling Per Night fee so I decided to move into the house that the group has been renting for the past few weeks. I needed to buy a mattress to actually sleep there so I paid about $15 for a thin foam mattress, more or less a glorified ground pad, and headed over. The house is great, besides bright orange color. We have running water that works most days, and electricity that also works the majority of the time. I am in the largest room of the house with three other people. There is a large chain-link fence with barbed wire and a nice big metal gate to keep us safe. It is pretty close to town as well which suits our needs very well. So the settling in process begins again…
The Gulu Corporate Marathon
A few days after I arrived, the group began seeing advertisements for a Marathon. A few of the people in our group have run marathons before so they were intrigued. After inquiring at the main offices we discovered that a marathon in Gulu apparently means a 10 Kilometer run, suddenly a lot more people were interested. The sign-up fee was $5, and since I missed that annual Thanksgiving Day Boulevard Bolt in Nashville, I felt like I had a long run to make up. My fitness regimen in East Africa has been nothing short of abysmal. I ran once in Kampala and once in Kigali. Every once in a while I will do some pushups and sit-ups but besides that I really have not done much. So the thought of a 10-kilometer run was somewhat daunting but I still felt like it was something manageable. Six of our group decided to wake up early on a Sunday morning and head to the Acholi Inn to participate. We soon discovered that not many people in Gulu come to races for fun, especially when there is a 1 million Shilling ($500) prize on the line. Our competition looked fierce, so we decided a slow and steady tactic would be best, let the fast guy run as they will and we would keep our own pace. Before the race started, thirty minutes late naturally, we were told this was the first ever “marathon” in Northern Uganda.
The starting line was marked by a plastic Coke banner and soon enough, we crossed the line and began our run. Because most of the roads here are dirt, they marked the course was with ash, which showed up very well on the reddish roads. Robbie was in it to compete, so he bolted ahead, and we didn’t see him until later in the day. The rest of us stuck together as a group for the first bit. Stephen, David and I pulled ahead about a quarter of the way in, and Hannah and Allie stayed together. We got totally smoked by 85% of the runners. They were kilometers ahead of us within twenty minutes. But we held our own against the rest of the field and we kept a tally of those we passed (24). The run dragged on and on in the day that was slowly becoming sweltering. The three of us encountered a fellow runner along the way, Patrick, who joined us in our suffering for the last half of the race.
The route itself was awesome. We ran on main roads, down little village paths and by Gulu University campus. It was a really great way to see Gulu. There were plenty of Acholi who found us supremely interesting and watched/followed/greeted us during the day.
As I mentioned the race dragged on and on for an hour and a half, our pace was considerably faster than almost twenty minute miles, so our confusion kept growing, if this was indeed a 10k race, we should have been done a long time ago. Our friend Patrick told us about an hour and fifteen minutes in that the race was 15k, but it still felt longer than that. Our main problem was that we forgot a valuable lesson. Much like “Africa Time,” “Africa distance” is also highly fluid and subject to change. Once we finished the course, we were told that it was actually a half marathon, 21k. What!!! The cross country runner in our group decided that it was actually less than that so we decided to call it an even ten miles. From not running for three months, to finishing a ten-mile jaunt in under ten-minute pace, I was pretty content with my performance. I am assuming my legs will hate me tomorrow. We finished pretty far in the rear but we were happy with what we had done and had a good time while at it.
I hope everyone’s Thanksgivings went extremely well! My time in Africa is growing short, thank you for following the blog for as long as you have!
-Muzungu currently in Gulu nursing his blisters and sore legs after a deceptively long run.
The music here in Uganda is like a wonderful combination between American Rap and Reggaeton. People love music and anywhere you go there are speakers pumping loud music into the streets. There are a number of songs you hear over and over, some incomprehensible, some comparing a woman's body to a vuvuzela (what!?), and another one by a very famous Ugandan, the president Yoweri Museveni. Yes, that's right, the President of Uganda has a rap song. And just because I want you experience this bizarre cultural phenomenon, here is the odd/entertaining/painful/helps-explain-why-Uganda-is-where-it-is-today link. Enjoy...
Also, crazy advisor update: My academic director received a text from Oliver yesterday. He read it out to me. "Dr. Komakech, I apologize for being out of contact for a long time. I have been hiding in a cave for the past three days because the spies are after me. I did not want to tell the students because I wanted as few people to know as possible." If he really is being chased by spies, I wish him the best. But I have a feeling this is a nice explanation for him to hold on to my money...
NEW ADDITION:
The girls in my group are the stars of a top 20 Ugandan music video. Mary is the "One in a Million." The artist is Simple Man. This is experiential learning at its finest
-Muzungu currently in Gulu, listening to the President's rap and contemplating the erratic actions of a Rwandan advisor.
I love Thanksgiving. I especially love being in Nashville for Thanksgiving, the weather is perfectly crisp and it’s always good to see and catch up with friends and family. So I was pretty disappointed that I would be spending Thanksgiving away from my family and in a country where most people don’t really have any idea what Thanksgiving is. But things have a way of working themselves out here (sometimes), and my turkey day turned out extremely well.
After spending the past few days in Kampala gathering info about Refugees in Uganda from the Refugee Law project and trying (and failing) to talk to government officials, Whitney and I decided that we wanted to be back among our friends here for Thanksgiving. We thought that keeping it a secret would be fun too, so that’s what we did. On Thursday morning we packed our bags and we hopped on a bus to Gulu. It was a long trek, and after about six hours we arrived in Gulu just as it was getting dark. We hurriedly grabbed our bags and scurried to a nearby hotel where we got the only available room. We tossed our bags in the room and then made a call to group. We wished them all a Happy Thanksgiving “from Kampala” and asked where they were celebrating the holiday, found out they were at the SIT office and said our goodbyes with our cover still intact. They mentioned that they were about to sit down to dinner so time was a factor. We made our way swiftly over to the office and quietly entered the compound. We made a casual entrance. The shock on everyone’s face made the long Thanksgiving Day trek absolutely worth it.
They had prepared a downright feast! Some of the crew had slaughtered two or three chickens that served as our African Turkey. There was stuffing, mashed potatoes, peas, coleslaw, pasta with sauce, garlic bread, vegetable soup and delightful amounts of wine. Whitney and I made it just in time to sit down and join them for dinner. The food was fantastic and it was great to hear about what everyone had been doing in Gulu and it sounds like people have some really cool ISPs. Mary is looking at Traditional Dance and modern dance (specifically break dancing), Hannah is looking at the IDP camps, Stephen is examining the opportunities for education in the North, etc. Cool things are being done.
We did serious work on the food but in true Thanksgiving fashion, there were a good amount of leftovers.
After the meal it was time to head to BJ’z a local bar to end our celebrations with something we all love to do: quiz night. Thursday night is quiz night here in Gulu. Historically we always place third, it happened in Kigali and it happens in Gulu. We can’t seem to break out of our third place rut but every Thursday we try our best to attain the lofty position that is first place. This evening we came in with the most passion and drive yet because for us Americans on Thanksgiving it was time to prove ourselves. There were 40 questions, four sections, and no discernable theme. Over the next two hours we attentively listened to the questions and put our knowledge of the obscure and useless to the test. Then the time came to turn in our answers and hear the scores. They read off the scores from lowest to highest, the lowest score was 7 out of 40, the highest was 37 our of 40. And on Thanksgiving Day, 2010, The Americans in Gulu made our country proud as we claimed the highest score of 37 out of 40. We won by a margin of seven and a half points and proudly claimed our crate of Nile Gold, a local brew.
My Thanksgiving started on a bus with one traveling companion and ended at a Quiz night with eighteen friends. I might have missed a traditional celebration at home but I certainly had a Thanksgiving to remember.
-Muzungu currently in Gulu, incredibly thankful for his family back home in the States and for all the support they have given him over the past 21 years of his life, thankful for old friends from Nashville, Bowdoin and all over the world, thankful for new friends in Uganda and Rwanda, and thankful for Thanksgiving in Uganda.
As I was talking my anti-malarial pills today I realized that I only have seven mefloquine pills left. Three for my time here, and four for the first month I am home. It’s amazing how quickly my time here has gone, I started out with 20 tablets, to be taken once a week, Monday for me, starting one week before entering the malarious area and taken four weeks afterwards. Three weeks left, the end is fast approaching.
One final reflection on the Nakivale Refugee Settlement, for most of the time we have been in Africa we have been living with and around societies and people who have experienced great amounts of trauma and personal loss from the Genocide in Rwanda and the LRA war in Northern Uganda. But surprisingly, we haven’t seen very many manifestations of this trauma. In Gulu there were a sizeable number of people who were obviously mentally affected by the conflict and who might grab you on the street or yell at passers by. In Rwanda, a large majority of the population is traumatized but there seems to be a “cleaning up” of those who really show signs being affected. The streets were free of beggars and I did not once see anyone who showed outward signs of trauma. I mention all of this because in our last night at Nakivale we were sitting in the canteen and watching TV. The man in charge of the remote was switching back and forth between the Manchester City/ Fulham match and the second Transformers movie. We had been watching the movie for a considerable amount of time, fighting and loud noises being pretty frequent, and nothing seemed amiss. But all of a sudden a woman sitting at the edge of the porch screamed and started sobbing hysterically. They immediately turned off the TV but no one did anything for the woman. She covered her face with her jacket and just sobbed for about ten minutes. Whitney and I really wanted to do something, anything really, but we felt our efforts might be misconstrued because of the language barrier. The men turned the TV back on to the soccer match. The woman eventually calmed down and they moved her inside and switched right back to the movie. It was handled in a way that suggests that this is a pretty common occurrence.
I was taken aback by what happened, but I am honestly surprised that it took three months before we really saw anything like it. It’s incredibly understandable that loud noises and violence would bring people back to an intensely horrible and visceral time in their life. I can’t even imagine what happened to this woman. I don’t even know who she was or where she is from. With so many nationalities at the settlement anything might have happened. Somalia has been seeped in war and conflict for decades, most Somalis I talked to had fled in the early 1990’s. The Ethiopians mostly fled from severe food instability and land conflict. The Rwandans fear killings and jailings from an increasingly oppressive Kagame regime. The Congolese are under constant threat of rape and murder from the roaming Interahamwe militia, a left over from the Rwanda Genocide, as well as a number of other rebel groups and the government. The Burundi people exist in a similar situation as Rwandans but their ethnic-ish struggle is not widely recognized. The Sudanese are suffering from the North/ South Divide and the conflict in Darfur. So much strife in this region and so many reasons for this woman to be severely traumatized.
We are now in Kampala for a while to take advantage of the Refugee Law Project and to talk with representatives from the Office of the Prime Minister and the Refugee Desk Office. Hopefully our time here can shed further light on our experiences at Nakivale.
-Muzungu currently in Kampala reflecting on his time in Nakivale and looking to discover more about refugee life and law.
This entry is a conglomeration of a few days blogging, hence the length. I had a hugely eye opening and interesting experience at the Settlement. I hope you enjoy the posts! I have split them up into days so take them day by day, or all together if you have the time! Thanks again for reading, I really do appreciate it!
First Dispatch
Mbarara and Nakivale (11/15/2010)
Mbarara
My last post ended on a frustrated note. Bureaucracy was eating away at the little time we had to get going on our ISP but as always, things started to fall into place. I was able to interview five Rwandese in Mbarara who were all refugees. Most of them had come to Uganda in the 2000’s fleeing oppression under Paul Kagame and the RPF. They were my first interviews for my ISP and therefore they also helped me learn which questions needed to be dropped, which ones needed to be revised and which ones needed to be added. My focus is more on the Rwandese refugees in Nakivale Refugee Settlement so it was nice to have a somewhat dry run.
On Saturday, Whitney returned from Kampala, with permissions in hand from the Office of the Prime Minister granting us access to the settlement. We weren’t allowed to go until Monday so we had some time to kill on Sunday. We explored Mbarara a little bit, which we found to be a pretty nice town, and started reading up on some articles that pertained to our papers. We also watched Inception.
You don’t rent movies in Uganda. You buy them, but I have yet to encounter what us in the United States might so close mindedly call “legitimate” DVD’s. The video stores are little holes in the wall where you can flip through a vast amount of plastic sleeves, completed with printed out copies of the original DVD cover, that contain burned copies of DVD’s. They have almost any movie your heart desires and for only one dollar a pop. The quality varies but overall you get a solid movie, in extremely watchable quality, for a buck. I’m not complaining!
Nakivale
On Monday, our patience finally paid off. After a short (two hour) delay in the morning while waiting for Oliver to show up, we headed towards Nakivale. We used a private hire taxi for the trek that set us back a mere 12 dollars for a 72km ride. The roads to the settlement were surprisingly well maintained. Whitney made the astute observation that it was probably due to the high number of Western NGO’s that made their way back and forth to the settlement that had influenced somewhat the creation of this road.
We made it about halfway before we pulled over to a little town to add some coolant to our cars engine. The driver opened the trunk to get some jerry cans for the water, and he left the key in the trunk lock. When he returned, the keys were gone. Apparently it is quite common in little towns like this for people to steal keys in similar situations, then offer to “go look for the person who stole them” for a fee. After about 30 minutes of heated argument with the locals, our driver called for a mechanic who dismantled the entire steering column of the car. He removed the ignition and rigged up a keyless ignition, basically a glorified hot-wiring of the car. The car started right up and two hours after we stopped we were on the road again. If I have learned one thing during my time in Africa, it has been that patience is the supreme and all-powerful virtue. I have gained the ability to sit in one position for two hours and let my mind wander and at the end of those two hours feel no anger or frustration, just a sense of acceptance and pride at having killed two hours in the middle of nowhere with literally nothing to do.
The countryside in southwestern Uganda is spectacular. Rolling, green hills, great vistas, trees fresh out of “the Lion King,” and scenic lakes. Nakivale Refugee Settlement is perched right in the midst of all this beauty. After months in cities and medium sized towns, Nakivale is a breath of fresh air. The settlement is spread out over a vast number of kilometers of pristine land with interspersed villages and houses. The settlement is arranged in to sectors by nationality of the refugees; they want to keep people from the same countries together in order to reinforce their community and to help them adapt better to life away from home. The “Command” is in the center of the settlement; here is where most of the NGO’s have their head quarters, where the Refugee Desk Office is located, where the World Food Program is based and where the UN High Commission for Refugees is located.
We were first taken to a sitting room before we met the people we would be staying with. We sat for thirty or so minutes but we were kept entertained by a little boy in a camouflage get-up holding a way-too-big water bottle. He made it his job to mimic everything we did, from our facial expressions to our body positions. I found this out because after he first came into the room he sat and stared for a while. I found it only fitting that I make a face at him to break his gaze. He returned the face and so our mimicry began. Even when people were coming in for what appeared to be serious meetings Whitney and I made faces and absurd motions across the room to the child. We even attracted an audience of another small child who was holding a baby. We first noticed her when we say the head then face of a baby slowly rise up outside the window followed by the hushed whisper of “Muzungu.” It was like a little baby periscope. The shenanigans continued until our new hosts arrived. This is starting to feel like a third Homestay!
I am living in the home of a man who works in the Command office. It’s a quaint two-room building (entryway/ kitchen/ sitting room + bedroom/closet/office) right next to the two canteens for the staff here. It looks like I have the place to myself but who knows what the future may hold. It sounds like last year he had four people crash here. Whitney is living in a considerably nicer establishment of comparable size about a three-minute walk from me.
As the day came to a close, Whitney and I took a walk around a small section of camp. We passed by some kids playing soccer, a group of men playing volleyball, and a group of kids just being kids. We were greeted left and right by everyone we passed. Everyone was eager to wish us a good evening and wave to us. We rounded a corner just in time to catch the sunset over the rolling hills and the nearby lake. The fading pink aura of the sun lit up the clouds and reflected off the lake, making for a majestic way to end our day. Our time at Nakivale has begun. Time to get to work!
-Muzungu currently getting settled in Nakivale Refugee Settlement
Second Section
Dispatch from Nakivale: The Beginning of the End (11/16/2010)
It turns out that the first day of our stay in Nakivale is a large Muslim holiday. Which means lots of calling in Arabic through loudspeakers… at 6 o’clock in the morning onwards. Combined with the fact that my neighbor knocked on my door at four o’clock in the morning looking for the regular resident of the house, I did not get much sleep the first night here. I finally greeted the day around seven when John came back from wherever he spent the night to shower and get breakfast. I am back to good old bucket showers again which I really do love.
We fortunately live right next to the canteen for the settlement staff. So breakfast was matooke, cooked bananas, which is like regular bananas minus the flavor and the soft consistency. It’s the one food item here I have legitimately come to despise. I chocked down a few pieces and headed out to meet Whitney and Oliver. I stopped at base-camp and waited for Whitney. The little kid who we played with yesterday was there, in the same camo outfit, and up to the same shenanigans. He is always really excited to see us and I have to admit, we love seeing him. He certainly brightens our day, especially a day started with matooke.
Whitney showed up and we walked down town to meet Oliver. It was interview time! I though that we would be doing three to four interviews a day to space things out and allow time to sort through what information we had gathered. I couldn’t have been more wrong. We were led to a small out of the way house as we were discussing somewhat taboo things in the camp. Whitney and I plus six Rwandese men all squeezed into a room and Oliver encouraged us to start talking. We quickly realized how not beneficial that was going to be so we split up, Whitney took the outside and I stayed inside. We did one-on-one interviews but we were never really one-on-one. There was always a peanut gallery of at least four men who didn’t hesitate to add their own personal thoughts that made for an interesting interview environment. Every time I finished interviewing one person, he would hop right out of his chair and would be replaced by someone previously in the bullpen who I would start interviewing right away. It was a seven people, three-hour interview marathon. And I got amazing information. It has made me realize that I might not spend as much time here as I originally thought. Whitney and I are going to try to make it back to Gulu by Thanksgiving so we can celebrate with our fellow trip mates. I could probably write my paper based solely on the information that I got today, but I am lining up interviews with NGO’s, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and with the Commander of the Refugees here in Nakivale.
For lunch we went back to the canteen, for beans and matooke! Argh. We then wandered around camp and found a horde of brightly garbed people. We went to examine what was going on and it turns out that it was a group of Burundi refugees interviewing with the Settlement to attain refugee status. According to the woman Whitney is staying with, Margaret, not many of them would qualify for refugee status. I can only hope that our little camouflage friend is one of the few who did qualify.
In the afternoon, I interviewed two more Rwandese while Whitney talked to some people from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A common narrative is starting to emerge from my conversation with people from Rwanda so I might broaden the scope of my interviews to get a sense from other nationalities how their camp experience is developing.
We finished just in time for dinner. We started out watching a soccer match on the big playing fields near the camp center. After a while we decided that we didn’t want to face any more matooke at the canteen so we went to the local stores to piece together a meal. We went to the Somali part of camp and bought some bananas, some great bread, sugarcane and chocolate. There is a lake nearby so we set out in search of it. The path we took wound through the Somali section and we were able to observe the set of up the settlement. It is broken up into plots of land that allow for each resident to build a house and allows enough room for planting small crops. The paths are lined with natural shrubbery fences that create beautiful green corridors to walk through. Our chosen path led us to a section of camp that provided absolutely no access to the lake or even a view of the lake. Instead we were greeted with green as far as the eye could see which to us looked like a perfect picnic location. We trekked down a hill to find a place to settle down.
Halfway down we were greeted warmly by a man leaving a nearby house. As a Muzungu we I get greeted quite frequently, I say “I” because it takes people longer to realize that Whitney is actually a Muzungu too. The man joined us on our walk and started up a lively conversation with us. It had been a long day but he was a very charismatic guy and he ended up joining us for dinner. His name escapes me for it was rather hard to pronounce, but he is a Somali refugee who left a long time ago and has spent time in the UK (two years), Tanzania (Sixteen years), and Uganda. We talked for a solid hour about his life, what we were doing in Nakivale and his experience in the settlement. It was really nice to make a friend in the settlement. As it is hard to find work around here he asked us if there was any work the he might be able to help us with. He bagged the right Muzungus because we need all the translating help we can get, he is going to help out Whitney on Friday in her conversations with the Somali contingent of town. As it grew dark we headed back. He took us to his abode because it was seven and he had to pray. We waited for him to finish then he very kindly walked us back to the center of camp. We walked and talked under the bright moon and the incredibly clear sky with the sunset fading into light yellow tones in the distance. It was the ideal end to a hectic and rewarding day.
More interviews await and I can only hope they go as well as today’s did. My paper is coming into it’s own, life is good.
-Muzungu currently living the nomadic life in Nakivale Refugee Settlement
Third Section
Dispatch from Nakivale (11/18/2010)
I turned 21 to the sound of Shakira blasting through the calm African night. Unlike many 21st birthdays, this one will most likely end with me sober as a rock, in my one room abode at an African Refugee Settlement. And I couldn’t be happier. I have immensely enjoyed my time in Nakivale and am glad I get to spend my birthday in such a beautiful and fascinating place. It looks like most of my birthday will be spent interviewing Somali refugees, yet another wonderfully unique life experience that this trip has afforded me.
The past few days have been incredible. Over two days I have interviewed twenty-eight people about their lives and time in the settlement. They have mostly been Rwandese and Congolese. Mothers, daughters, fathers, brothers, children, all have been affected by violence in their countries. Women attacked in the middle of the night by men who looking for her husband. Men hunted to this day by the Rwandan government who is seeking to silence all opposition voices there and abroad.
They all experience extreme trials in their everyday life. Their monthly rations are not nearly enough, they have very poor access to healthcare, and they live in constant fear of forced repatriation. But through all of this many of them maintain cheerful demeanor, I think might be the only way they can get through the pain and just shows how legitimately happy they are to be alive and at peace.
Dispatch from Nakivale (11/19/2010)
I slept through my alarm for the first time on this trip, a little unintentional birthday present to myself. I then took my fastest bucket shower yet and met Whitney near Somalia to interview some Somali refugees. We were able to interview our Somali friend from earlier, Shirwa, and three other people, one of whom was the chairman for all Somali refugees in Nakivale. The interviews were very interesting and hopeful. The Somalis are some of the most frequently resettled refugees, meaning that the United States and other western countries tend to allow them to relocate in the US and the West much more often than other nationalities. There is currently a resettlement process going on now and it seemed to provide hope to those we talked too. The Somalis were also notably self-sufficient and were the first nationality I talked to that didn’t demand of me a solution to their problems.
After our interviews we stopped by a Congolese teahouse to visit a friend Whitney had made. They served us a great Congolese lunch and made sure that we took lots of pictures of them. The next few hours were spent relaxing/ attempting to find interview with NGOs, a task that is surprisingly hard to perform. You would think that information about NGOs was top secret. And the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) headquarters looks like a high security prison. After four or five attempts we have yet to talk to anyone besides a security guard there.
Around five we headed back to the Somali district to find Shirwa who took us to the nearby lake. It is absolutely stunning. Blue water surrounded by thick vegetation on all sides with copious amounts of beautiful birds soaring over the tranquil surface. We sat and talked for about an hour and he told us his full life story. He has been a refugee since he was around fifteen, and he is now thirty-one. He has been fleeing his entire adult life. He had a woman he loved but he had to leave her in Tanzania. He is alone with great ambitions to be resettled in the United States. He told us he wants his life to be so great that it is enshrined in a movie, with him as the director. I can only hope his dream one day comes about.
After our visit to the lake, Whitney and I parted ways with Shirwa and headed to the Ethiopian section of town for a meal, which was delicious, then we went to a Somali restaurant, which just happened to have fresh cake, a wonderful coincidence. After a few great meals we returned to my abode and watch “The Dark Knight.” And my fantastic Ugandan birthday came to a close. I interviewed Somalis and Congolese, had a conversation with a Rwandese, ate Ethiopian, Congolese, and Somali food, greeted some people from Burundi, and watched an American movie, all while in Uganda. I certainly had a birthday worthy of an International Relations major. I am sad I couldn’t have celebrated with my friends at home, but I think I had a pretty special birthday regardless.
-Muzungu currently being 21 in a far away land.
Dispatch from Nakivale (11/20/2010)
My first full day of being twenty-one was glorious. I was woken up at 6:30 a.m. with a knock on my door. I opened it up to see a little girl standing there with three jugs of something, I never found out what. She stared up at me. I figured she was looking for the regular resident of the house, but he wasn’t here. She stared up at me, looked to the right, stared up at me, looked to the right. This continued for quite literally three minutes until she looked up one last time, grabbed her jugs and scampered off. It felt like strange dream. I went back to sleep and awoke feeling lethargic and a little queasy, I guess like a regular night after your twenty-first birthday, but minus the actual previous night’s consumption of alcohol.
Today was set aside for exploring. It is looking more and more certain that we are indeed leaving Nakivale on Monday so we decided to get a better understanding of our surroundings. Whitney and I grabbed chapatti, bananas and water and set out on a walk. Nakivale is bordered on one side by a lake, and on the other large hills. Our goal was to get to the top of the hills to get a panoramic view of the lake and the settlement. We started off through the Sudanese section of town and soon his great green plains. There were large birds and sizeable herds of goat, the latter driven by young shepherds. After a lengthy jaunt through the bush, we reached a little town of Ugandans. We garnered a sizeable following of young children fascinated by the Muzungus in their midst. They followed us up to the base of the hills, until Whitney and I hid around a corner and scared them. They ran away but kept following, albeit at a distance now.
The ascent was relatively gentle and very rocky and we were passed on the way up by young boys carrying large bundles of sticks, presumably for firewood, on their heads. The cheerfully greeted us and went on their way. Upon reaching the summit, we were greeted with a simply magnificent view. We could see the entire valley, with the blue lake stretching out both left and right into the distance. The settlement was a scattered collection of tents and buildings that looked like it certainly did not contain 50,000 people. We enjoyed our quaint lunch in majestic settings. It made me miss hiking, while at the same time making me realize how out of shape I am. Many people think one would lose weight while spending time in Africa, I have certainly gained it.
Our day ended with a nice Ethiopian meal.
Oliver
My advisor in Nakivale is a man named Oliver. He is very secretive and paranoid and changes his phone number every two months so people (the Rwandan Government) can’t track him. He knows a lot of people in Nakivale so his help was invaluable in the first few days but once we got settled and talked to residents, we had countless contacts and people wanting and waiting to get interviewed. Good thing too, because Oliver has become a ghost the past few days, claiming that he has seen Rwandan officials at the settlement that even the Nakivale authorities don’t know about and that “something is going to happen while you are here.”
This is all made shadier by the fact that Whitney and I are more than certain that Oliver has scammed us quite a bit regarding our housing fees. He told us that for my housing, it was 250,000 shillings and for Whitney, who is in the nicer quarters, 300,000 shillings. We obliged and paid Oliver who was going to pass the money on to our hosts before we met them. Mistake. After a few days, John asked my home much I had paid Oliver because he, John, had only received 100,000 shillings as had Margret, Whitney’s hostess. When confronted, Oliver claimed he would talk to the right people and see what he could do about the money. So as of right now Oliver might just have scammed us of 350,000 Shillings, about 175 USD. We are, to put it lightly, livid.
To end on a more cheerful note… Walking around the settlement, Whitney and I get more than our fair share of attention. The most vocal and active attention givers are the children. They yell and follow us and always stop to greet us with a “Hi, how are you!?” One child stands out above the rest though for the pure hilarity he creates with his greetings. I would say the child is around two or three and he lives right on the edge of “New Congo.” I think he has a deep fear of me. But this brave little lad isn’t one to shy away from his fear, in fact, he embraces it, quite literally. With a look of absolute terror and pure unadulterated fear, he opens his arms wide, looks away from me and runs as fast as he can towards me. He collides, wraps, does a quick squeeze around my calves, as he only comes up to my knees, and then turns around and bolts back to the safety of his house or mother, whichever is closer. He then turns around and from his safe distance, waves energetically with the same look of terror on his face. Every time I see the little guy he does the same thing, even when I passed him on a street far away from his regular haunts. It makes any depressing day here a little bit lighter and certainly entertains.
-Muzungu currently scaring small children but at the same time garnering their affection while trying to get his money back from sneaky, shifty advisors as he come to the end of his time in Nakivale Refugee Settlement
