Dispatches from Nakivale

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 21^st 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