Gisenyi

I will try to write an entry later this week, but for now here are some pictures from this past weekend in Gisenyi:

1.  Another typical side-of-the-road picture in the Rwandan countryside

2.  Lake Kivu

3.  Fishermen

4.  A boy who really wanted his picture taken

5 & 6.  The beach at Paradis Malahide Hotel, the place Emma and I stayed

7.  What most of the “hotel rooms” looked like

8.  The road just in front of the hotel

9 & 10.  Just to prove to my mom (and grandma?) that we do occasionally smile

11.  The leftovers of our breakfast

12.  Facing the other way on the beach

Homestay and Butare

Written last night (the 16th):

I know I’ve complained about my homestay family a lot, but I must write about them one more time because otherwise I’ll just keep it building up inside and eventually have 313 massive heart attacks in a row. 

I’m going to describe tonight, as I feel like it perfectly typifies an average night here and explains why I feel like I may rip my head, or someone else’s head, off at any time. 

I got off the bus after a 3 hour ride from Butare to Kigali tonight and had my wallet pick-pocketed as I got on the city bus to ride home.  All of my IDs and another 35 American dollars are gone; needless to say, I was already kind of frustrated as I entered my house.  As I walked in, everyone gave me a giant welcome/greeting; I thought that maybe coming home won’t be as bad as I expected.  Immediately, though, Crispin came up to me and told me that there has been a problem.  “Oh Jesus Christ, what could have happened while I was gone?” I thought to myself.  He led me to his bedroom and showed me his Gameboy and told me that he needed (didn’t want, didn’t ask) batteries (my batteries) so he could use it.  I walked to my bedroom and got out my camera so I could give him the batteries from it.  While I was emptying out the batteries, Christian came in and said “we are wanting to use the laptop.”  The batteries still weren’t even out yet and I hadn’t even set down my giant backpack that I took for a four-day stay in Butare.  I gave him the laptop (he immediately demanded the charger) and we all made our way to the living room.  As I walked in, a space on the couch was cleared for me between Clif and Caza, the youngest brother and sister.  As I sat down, they lay across my legs to the point where I couldn’t move, invading all of my personal space, and each of them then tried to show me their new toys.  Clif repeatedly showed me his new plastic insect and kept kissing it and then tried to make me kiss it over, and over, and over.  At the same time, Caza kept taking apart and putting back together her plastic giraffe and asked me to see if I could put it together about thirty-six different times.  At the same time, Christelle, the oldest sister, told me about how, by going to Butare, I missed seeing her sing in front of a crowd of people (which I didn’t know about) and how I missed their uncle’s wedding (which I had been told about once but was never reminded) and how their uncle had waited around all day Sunday for me to come home so he could meet me (which again, I didn’t know about); just to reiterate, this is all while Clif and Caza are rolling all over me and are all up in my face about their toys.  At the same time as all of this, the TV was blasting at a volume so loud that I felt like my bones were rattling.  At the same goddamn time as everything, my brothers now had both their Ipod and flash drive plugged into my computer and were trying to compete with the TV in volume; the computer and TV were literally sitting right next to each other and were both blaring (which is an understatement).  They also had so many windows open on my computer that whenever they tried to play a song it “skipped” (like a scratched CD) for ten seconds or so before it started playing.  During all this, my sister was playing music out loud on her cell phone and singing along.  The mom was sitting right in the middle of it at all without saying a word.

I sat with the family for about ten minutes but after that I couldn’t take it.  I went to my room and shut the door but the TV was so loud at the other side of the house that I couldn’t even sleep.  I tried to escape by looking at pictures but my camera had no batteries, as they still currently sit in the Gameboy.  This happens every. single. night.  If it wasn’t enough, either my oldest or youngest brother wakes me up every morning at the crack of dawn for some idiotic reason and then I have to spend the next two hours listening to Clif’s tortured-cat screams as his siblings torment him for some reason that I will never understand.  The dad is never home and the mom never says a word.  I CAN’T TAKE IT.  I really don’t think I can live here for another three weeks. 

On a more positive note, my weekend in Butare was easily one of the highlights of the entire trip.  I left early on Friday (in an attempt to escape my homestay) and arrived in Butare in the afternoon, and Emma and I spent the next three days doing nothing but bar- and restaurant-hopping and taking several intense (the hills are crazy) 2+ hour walks around the city and the surrounding villages.  I went through all the money I brought for the whole weekend within my first 24 hours and we then spent almost all the money she has over the next two days, meaning she now has about five dollars to live off per day until I bring her the ISP stipend this weekend; I can honestly say that five dollars goes nowhere in Rwanda and I feel bad because she’ll probably end up starving all week.  Regardless, it was a great weekend and I didn’t see my family at all (which is a major factor in how much I enjoyed my time) and I came back with lots of pictures of the area; I’ve posted quite a few below. 

I must mention that last night we went back to her house around 10 PM and the power was out, so the area by her house was so pitch black that I literally couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face.  We were walking side by side and as we approached her front gate we both screamed at the exact same time; I suddenly found myself waist-deep in a giant hole.  We both walked into the exact same hole at the exact same time and fell in simultaneously; because she’s significantly shorter, she was almost neck-deep in the hole and got scraped up pretty bad.  She also thinks she may have sprained/fractured/broken her foot.  I scraped my arm but otherwise made out pretty well.  Still, I think it’s one of the funniest moments of the entire trip.  I would love to see a video of us walking on the road and our faces as we fell into a hole that was several feet deep.  I guess it could have been worse. 

As we came back from the walk where most of the pictures below were taken, it began pouring; someone drove past us on the path and Emma jokingly ran after the truck for something like 0.00000003 seconds but the driver still stopped and waited for us to catch up.  He didn’t speak English but he motioned for us to get in the back so he could take us to town.  People are so nice here.  Whenever you make a mistake or sneeze or cough everyone says “sorry,” which sounds more like “sodi;” I dropped my money all over the floor in the store the other day and everyone said “oh sodi, sodi, sodi!” and ran over to help me pick it up.  My cashier just looked at me and said “your money is going to hell!” and then started laughing, though.  I’m still not sure what that means. 

Pictures:

1.  You can almost see the hole we fell in just to the left (if looking at the picture) of the road.

2.  On one of the two main strips in town

3.  In the market area

4.  I’ve seen a few cars like this and always wonder how they end up sitting like they do for so long

5.  Weird trees (banana?) with a tiny village in the background

6.  A man who saw us with the camera and kept riding by, wanting more pictures taken of him

7.  Down the path from the market

8.  We found beans growing on the side of the path but the inside was covered with some kind of suspicious sticky substance; I don’t think we ended up trying them.

9.  Another half-mile down the path

10.  We walked down the path so far we reached an actual village; you can see the road slope upwards far in the background (near the left side of the frame).

By the way, the pictures look at lot better if you click on them to expand them.

It’s been about a month.

First, wait until you have about 14 years to set aside before you read this. 

I’m obviously not going to be able to cover everything that’s happened in the last month in this one entry – I’m mostly just going to try to cover the highlights/low points.  The week of genocide memorials was pretty brutal, but I feel like I was able to handle it pretty well.  The Murambi memorial was probably the most intense for most people; fifty thousand Tutsis were killed there in the course of 24 hours and the bodies have been preserved in limestone.  Murambi itself is a school that was in the process of being built in 1994 before the genocide; people in the area fled to the school for safety but ended up being slaughtered anyway.  It’s situated in the middle of a giant mountain range and the scenery is absolutely beautiful, which makes the whole experience seem kind of surreal.  We walked from classroom to classroom (there are a total of about 20) looking at the bodies of people who were killed; some people went into every room while others barely made it through the first few.  I ended up going in every room, but the wretched smell made me extremely nauseous; the stench, combined with the shock of the visuals, is really an emotional overload.  Many of the bodies had their arms covering their faces, as they probably tried to cover their eyes as they were hacked or shot to death.  Some of their mouths were wide open in a scream; at least one still had a full set of teeth.  A couple still had the jewelry they were wearing when they died.  There was one mother whose baby was lying on top of her; her arms were wrapped around her child.  Lots of the skulls had giant chunks broken out from being bludgeoned to death.  Only four people, out of more than fifty thousand, survived the attack; one of them was our “tour guide” who unlocked the classrooms for us.  Everyone who survived had to lie among the dead bodies until nighttime and escape in the dark.  I honestly can’t imagine how he can work there; I would be so emotionally traumatized that I don’t think I’d be able to even live in Rwanda.  His entire family was killed during the attack.  As soon as I walked out of the last classroom a group of local boys came up and kept shouting “mzungu, you give me money!  Give me penny!  You give me money!”  Although I was fine emotionally, it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear at the time.  There is a village literally a thousand feet from the school; I don’t know how people can still live there.

Many, many people fled to their churches during the genocide, as they were told they would be safe there.  Most churches had no food or water so everyone starved until they were killed.  Lots of churches were blown up with grenades and those who survived were soon after hacked to death with machetes.  We visited one of the churches; the best word I can use to describe it is ‘creepy’.  It was pretty dark inside and there were shelves of skulls and bones at each end of the church, as well as coffins filled to the brim with other assorted bones.  There were buckets full of the instruments used to kill people; there were several machetes and some club-like tools.  The clothes of the victims were hanging from the rafters; some were covered in blood.

The Gisozi memorial in Kigali is actually more of a museum, and is in fact at the standard of the best Western museums.  The walls are covered with reading material and pictures and it’s really pretty informative, particularly for people who don’t know much about the genocide.  There are two things that stand out in my mind: one is a video that was playing that had footage of dead bodies in the roads all throughout Rwanda.  There was one man who was hanging halfway out a car window – it looked like he tried to jump in through the window but was shot before he could get in.  His family was lying dead on the ground around him.  The video also featured footage of a man hacking people to death in the middle of the road with a machete; it wasn’t up-close enough to be really graphic, but the vigor with which he slaughtered the victims was pretty disturbing.  The second stand-out moment is a room in the museum filled with nothing but pictures of victims, donated by survivors.  I feel like a lot of times when people talk about events such as genocide where so many people were killed it’s almost like the victims weren’t even real people somehow.  The pictures all around the room were of families, teenagers, couples, spouses, friends, children, etc. etc. in their natural environments before the genocide.  Many were hanging out in their houses, some were laughing, some were posing, some were studying; the list goes on.  It’s pretty sad to realize that these people were living fairly normal lives before those three months in April (although there was some violence before then as well) and to see their faces up-close. 

After the memorials we went to Lake Kivu in Kibuye in western Rwanda.  I don’t have much to say about it but it is an incredibly gorgeous place.  Some people took canoes across the lake to climb up the islands in the middle of it.  I ended up not going but I saw some pictures people took and it looked pretty cool; the islands are actually pretty big. 

Last Wednesday we went to visit the Millennium Village Project in Rwanda which I felt was actually a really worthwhile excursion.  There are something like twenty Millennium Villages throughout Africa and Asia; the idea behind them is to encourage tourism by showing visitors local culture and daily life.  In turn, extremely poor villages with hardly any way to survive bring money in and can support themselves.  We started out by visiting a cassava farmer who took us in the middle of what looked like a crazy rainforest and watched him pick cassava; I ended up eating raw cassava which is a pretty strange vegetable when it’s not cooked.  The only way to describe it is that it reminded me of sweet chalk. 

Since I haven’t mentioned it in any of my entries yet, I’ll use this space to explain how our director, Stefanie, who is from Germany, is far more culturally insensitive than any of the students in my opinion.  When the farmer offered us raw cassava that he grows himself, she said “oh, great.  More diarrhea.”  Our Rwandan assistant director, Apollon, said “Stefanie, what are you doing?  Go sit on the bus,” which I thought was hilarious.  She’s always making inappropriate comments like that which always make me feel pretty uncomfortable. 

From there, we went to see a cooperative of women who make elaborate and colorful baskets.  One tried to show me how to weave a basket but I was terrible at it and I’m sure they had to end up tossing it; it was beyond repair.  The women make a living, albeit a very, very modest living, solely from weaving baskets.  A single basket can take up to a month to make.

Afterwards, we visited a compound where both a survivor and perpetrator of genocide spoke with us.  The Hutu perpetrator had killed much of the Tutsi survivor’s family in 1994, but they now live together in the same compound peacefully.  The speeches were mostly about notions of forgiveness and reconciliation, which I could go into more details about, but I’m actually pretty burnt out on those ideas after the last couple months in Uganda and Rwanda.  Afterwards, the village surprised us by offering us food and drinks.  The food was extremely dirty; my cooked bananas were half yellow and half brown/black and I could taste the dirt and grit in every single bite.  They were so honored to serve us that I tried to force two of them down, but I simply couldn’t do it.  I’ve eaten some pretty questionable food in the past two months, but I couldn’t handle the taste this time; I thought I was going to vomit.  My friend Morgan ended up being served a stick of intestines which he managed to somehow get down.  They then served us glasses of banana beer and sorghum beer, but again the glasses were so dirty that I thought for sure my stomach was going to get sick.  I ended up drinking everyone’s banana beer because everyone hates it, but I don’t mind it.  It’s really thick and heavy and tastes like spicy honey barbecue sauce but it’s tolerable.  The sorghum beer was pretty awful, though.  It was like drinking a thick bean paste saturated with endless amounts of salt and pepper (they actually put a ton of salt and pepper in the beer). 

The only other day that really stands out to me is Halloween.  I went to the bar with Morgan around 4, went to Stefanie’s party around 7, went to the President’s bar (or maybe just a bar by the President’s house, I’m not really sure) around 11, went to the casino around 1:30, and from there on had a pretty weird night.  I didn’t gamble at the casino, but I watched Leon and Morgan play blackjack for a while.  There was a South African guy who looked like Lemmy from Motorhead next to us who was betting pretty heavy.  I watched him for a while but later he moved on to a bigger table – I ended up staying until the casino closed at 5, and by that point, he had lost FOUR THOUSAND US DOLLARS.  My friend/fellow student who will remain unnamed in case she ever reads this had “gotten involved” with one of the South African guy’s 35+-year-old South African friends and they invited us back to their house to hang out.  With it already being 5 in the morning, I decided I might as well.  One other girl and I got in the car with the guy who looked like Lemmy; I didn’t realize quite how drunk he was.  When we got going, his friend told him to just follow the car in front of us.  I don’t think he looked at the road for more than 30 seconds of the whole drive.  He was having crazy conversations and arguments with his friend the whole time he was driving and he kept trying to look his friend in the face instead of looking at the road.  He kept saying “where is this guy going?” (referring to the car he was following); it turns out he was following his friend back to HIS OWN HOUSE.  Once we (luckily) made it home he kept saying “I can’t believe I just followed someone back to my own fucking house” over and over.  After about 5 minutes of being there, the girl (my friend) started crying because she had made out with that old South African guy and she kind of has a boyfriend in the program (who was also at the house with us).  Morgan started getting paranoid and decided that it was time for everyone to leave, but by then, I was having fun hanging out with the South Africans and decided to stay alone.  I ended up hanging out with them, blasting music as loud as their sound system would go and eating food and playing cards, until 8:30 in the morning.  From there, I went straight to the gacaca courts session with our group (gacaca courts are local community-based courts which try perpetrators of genocide).  Having been up for well over 24 hours, I fell asleep in the car on the way.  When I was woken up I was so tired that I felt kind of disoriented, but I know the person on trial ended up getting 26 years in prison for killing an entire family. 

One last thing…Friday night I went to a pretty remote bar with Morgan and Leon (even the moto driver couldn’t find it) and I ended up leaving around 1:30 because I had been up since 4 AM the previous morning and was exhausted.  I went out to the road to try to catch a moto but I couldn’t find one so I started walking home.  I never found one the whole night.  I ended up walking roughly two or three miles in the pitch black alone in the early morning in a pretty isolated part of Kigali.  While it wasn’t “dangerous” scary, I don’t think I’ve ever been so creeped out in my life.  I started thinking about the genocide and how 10,000 people died per day for 100 days and I was thinking about all the dead bodies that were piled up exactly where I was walking and I didn’t see anyone else walking on the road for at least an hour. 

My homestay in the past month has been pretty rough.  I think it’s best to talk about it in list form:

Things I like about my homestay:

1. The family is actually really nice.  They’re all very friendly and good-natured and very “family-oriented” – I feel like they have “family time” 24 hours a day.
2. The room that they gave me is comfortable and nice; I have a lock for my door, the bed is big and has an effective mosquito net, etc.
3. They let me go out and be independent – some other student’s homestay families will call the directors if they’re 20 minutes late and ask why they haven’t come home.  Two different nights  my phone died in the early evening (so I had no way to contact my family) and I ended up staying out until 5 in the morning one night and 8 in the morning the other night and they never called the directors and they weren’t mad when I came home the next morning. 
4. They took me out Thursday night for a really fancy dinner and bought me traditional African clothes for my whole family, which is more than they needed to do.

Things I don’t like about my homestay:

1. I had 150 dollars stolen (by the house workers — I was able to get 50 back because when I asked the parents about it the house workers sudden remembered that they “found a 50 dollar bill under my mattress [they could have come up with something better than that]).  I’ve had several articles of clothing taken to be washed and never returned and “no one can find them.”  My brother borrowed my headphones and lost them, meaning I can’t listen to my Ipod.  My brothers took the device that charges my rechargeable batteries and lost it (I ended up getting it back just this morning but the batteries are gone).  My brother has either taken and lost or is just “borrowing” my the cord for my Ipod charger but I haven’t seen it regardless.  A pillow that I borrowed from one of my friends has now disappeared.
2. THERE IS NEVER ANY TOILET PAPER OR RUNNING WATER.  WHAT DO THEY DO?!  I haven’t seen a collection of round rocks sitting around anywhere. 
3. My six-dollars-a-bottle shampoo disappears faster than I can use it and NONE OF THE KIDS HAVE ANY FUCKING HAIR.  Someone please explain to me how that happens. 
4. I brought back a bar of soap one day and the next day it was gone.  I no longer use soap. 
5. My siblings borrow my laptop every day to play the SAME DVD OF CHRIS BROWN MUSIC VIDEOS.  If I ever hear Chris Brown when I get back to America I may jump off an eleven-story building into a giant blender. 
6. The kids really have no sense of privacy.  Last week Clif, the little boy, was at the point where he’d come in my room and get in my mosquito net with me and if I made any movements whatsoever he’d replicate it.  When I got up to brush my teeth he came in the bathroom and watched me and made comments.  When I went to shave he watched and told me all the places I was missing.  They sometimes wake me up at 6 in the morning on weekends because they want to use my laptop or go outside and play soccer.  They’ll go through my suitcase looking for something without asking.  When I’m working on school assignments they come in my room and bug the shit out of me.  I hate sitting behind a locked door but that’s what it’s coming to whenever I feel like I can’t take them anymore.
7. All day long they watch horrible American and French action movies with English subtitles that MAKE NO SENSE AT ALL.  Sometimes random words will be in Spanish with upside down question marks at the end of questions.  I remember one time a villain screamed something while pushing a guy through the glass window of a tall building and the subtitles just said “Dies, you fucking!”  Literally every sentence is like that; I can’t make it through one phrase and come out knowing what the person said.  What’s worse is that they get bootleg DVDs of American movies dubbed in French with English subtitles; it seems like it would make more sense to leave the original voices and use French subtitles.   
8. Everyone, including the mom, listens to the TV so loud that a deaf person lying under sixteen mattresses four streets away would complain.  It’s even worse when they’re blasting horrible music on my laptop while the TV’s going; it’s enough to make me want to leave and go down the street to get a drink because I can’t even think when I’m in my room at the other side of the house. 
9. They always ask me which superstars I know in America.  Like many people here, they think everyone in America walks down the street and sees celebrities left and right.  It doesn’t bother me but I think it bothers them because I don’t know any of today’s stars and they don’t understand why. 
10. The dad always tries me to get me to eat meat even though he knows I don’t.  Sometimes he even puts it right on my plate so then I feel pressured to eat it. 
11. Somehow the food here is absolutely terrible.  I like Rwandan food fine but my family’s food is always really dry and bland and I never end up eating much. 
12. I’m 100% sure that one of the kids thinks you’re actually supposed to put the toilet seat down and piss all over it rather than trying to aim to get it in the bowl. 

I was so happy on Friday when the homestay was finally over, but somehow I’ve managed to end up staying here for the next month.  After I had packed up all my stuff and was ready to find a guest house, my father told me he’d love to have me stay and that way I could save money.  I ended up staying with friends Saturday night and told them I might come back after that, but I was actually planning on finding a guest house on Sunday.  Since the program is only giving us 450 dollars to live off for a whole month (food, transportation, interview costs, phone calls, etc.), I have since decided I might as well just stay with my family, though.  It’s going to be absolutely miserable but I’m going to travel around Rwanda a lot and my wallet will be happy at the end of the month.  My family was SO happy when I called them to tell me I was coming back; they told me that they already missed me so much and they even came to pick me up so I didn’t have to find a private hire.  My friend Emma is staying in Butare by herself and I like her more than I like just about anyone else staying in Rwanda for their ISP so I’m probably going to end up going to Butare sometimes, even if I don’t necessarily have work to do there…which brings me to my next and hopefully last point. 

I wanted to research perceptions of homosexuality in either Rwanda or Uganda for my ISP and Stefanie, my director, not only approved the topic but was really excited about it.  I was really excited about it because I think it’s so under-researched and it’s such a taboo topic here.  I had a contact in Uganda who does similar work and he found me four different organizations that I could work with to set up interviews and gather information.  Then, at the very last minute, Stefanie told me that she decided it was too risky for me to do.  I had specifically asked her before if it was going to be too risky (just because I could see her pulling that from a mile away) and she said that it was no problem and that it would be great research.  After that, I had to quickly put together a new topic and proposal and I’m not nearly as interested in it; while I obviously have to put together decent research by the end of the next month, I also want to spend the next month travelling around Rwanda because I don’t know when I’ll have another chance to come back. 

Anyway, that’s enough.

- Christian

* I actually wrote this entry yesterday (Monday), but the internet was down all over town so I wasn’t able to post it.  Last night my brothers took my laptop for a couple hours, and when I got it back, I got a message saying something along the lines of “your computer is unable to start.  Windows will try to restore your computer to a previous time when your computer was still working but some programs may be lost.  This cannot be undone.”  I waited 15 minutes and eventually got a message saying “Your computer was unable to be restored and cannot start.”  I almost flipped out, but luckily I turned it off and turned it back on and it seems to be working alright.  Still, they always play DVDs and shut the lid of the computer without stopping the disc, unplug their USBs without safely removing them from the computer, etc. etc. etc (the list goes on).  I’ve been expecting something bad to happen for a while.

This morning, I was actually having a good, deep sleep for the first time in a while, until Clif came in my room at 7 in the morning yelling “Christian!  Christian!  Christian!”  Barely awake and really pissed off, I asked him what he wanted.  The conversation continued as such:

Clif:  Christian!  Christian (the other one) has told you to give him the laptop!

Me:  No, Clif.  Later.

Clif:  The laptop!  We are wanting to use the laptop!

Me:  Clif, I need to use it soon.  You can have it later.

Clif:  Christian is wanting the laptop!  The laptop!

Me:  No.  Later.

Clif:  (proceeds to come inside my mosquito net and take the laptop)

Me:  Clif, GET OUT OF HERE.  Leave the laptop alone. 

This is NOT the first time this has happened.  Has no one ever told them that it’s rude to wake up someone who’s sleeping, especially at 7 in the morning over a laptop?  I’ve tried sleeping behind a locked door but then he just stands at the door knocking and yelling my name until I open the door.  I’m going to lose my mind.

Pictures: 

1.  The cassava farmer

2.  Kids who followed us to watch him pick cassava from the ground

3.  Banana trees (in the same area)

4.  Joel (left), Tonia, and Morgan watching/trying basket weaving

5.  Traditional dancers at the Millennium Village

6.  My homestay parents

7.  (from left:) Leon, Morgan, Jeremy, me, Hanna, Laura, and Taylor embarrassingly singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” for our cultural presentation at the homestay party.  I have many pictures like this which would be great if the kids had remembered to use the flash like I’ve showed them ten trillion times. 

8.  Emma and I at the palace of a king whose name I cannot remember (during Butare trip)

9.  My homestay mom and I (along with flash problems, there are focusing problems as well.  I have a lot of would-be-good pictures.)

No writing this time

I haven’t had much time or energy to write an entry lately so here’s a few more pictures…

Pictures: 

1.  My homestay house in Rwanda

2.  Christian and Christian

3.  Some of my extended family, minus my dad

4.  Clif and his cousin Davida

5.  Lake Kivu in Kibuye

6.  A crappy bus-window shot of typical Rwandan countryside

7.  What my shower water comes in when we have no running water

Two weeks later…

Tom (left), my homestay dad (second from right), Peter (right)

            It’s been exactly two weeks since I used the internet.  Whenever I first think about it, it seems like nothing much has happened since then, but the past couple weeks have actually been pretty busy.  Since the last time I was on the computer, we’ve left our families in Gulu, travelled to Kampala for four days, and continued on to Mbarara and now Kigali. 

            Two days before I left Gulu, there was a giant homestay party for all of the students and families.  My homestay dad and brother Tom were out of town, but I brought two of my brothers (Peter and Chris) and my sister (Brenda).  I can’t even imagine how much money was spent on the party – over 200 people showed up and there was unlimited food, soda, and beer for every person.  A couple made speeches, some local high school students performed traditional Acholi dances, and there was a regular dance party for everyone afterwards.  I never dance but I did some “sampling” (what my brothers call some slight dancing in place, which I still think is hilarious) to please my brothers and sister.  Because there isn’t much to do in Gulu and because my brothers don’t socialize much at all, I could tell the party was probably one of the highlights of their entire year.  They took a bunch of pictures and really enjoyed themselves. 

            Leaving my homestay family in Gulu was actually pretty sad.  I didn’t quite realize how much I would miss them until it was time to go.  My homestay dad threw me a party and made a big speech about how they love me and for me to consider them my second family – he said I would be welcome to stay with them anytime I’m back in Uganda.  A bunch of his friends from work came over and it was really nice – he wanted me to invite some of my friends from the program over too, but he didn’t tell me about the party until about three hours before it started and by then everyone had plans with their own families for the last night in town.  My brother Tom wants me to attend his wedding in 2012.  They gave me a card and a “Greetings from Uganda” plaque and bought so much alcohol that everyone in Gulu could have ended up face down in the street, even though no one in their family drinks.  The morning after I said goodbye to Tom and my sister Brenda – I told them I would come back to visit, but I was pretty sure that I would be staying in Rwanda to do my independent study project (which may be changing, but I’m trying to keep this fairly chronological) and that I would never see them again. 

Tom ironing my clothes

            Our four days in Kampala were a lot of fun.  It was the first time in roughly a month that the group had been together outside of class, and being in a big city was exciting after the relatively quiet Gulu.  My favorite part, other than being back at the Jeliza hotel and being able to hang out on the roof at night, was that there was some variety in food.  Gulu only has Ugandan food, but Kampala has a bunch of Indian restaurants and a couple Chinese restaurants; there is even a pizza place, although I didn’t have time to go.  After a full month of eating only rice, beans, greens, and cassava, mediocre Indian food was the most satisfying meal I’ve ever had.  That said, the filthiness of Kampala gets to be overbearing after a while.  As I wrote in my first entry, the city is enveloped in a disgusting haze that probably results from a combination of burning trash and the horrible black clouds of smoke that come out of every taxi van in town.  There aren’t any garbage cans anywhere in Kampala, so the streets are lined with decomposing trash, including food and (if you’re lucky) feces.  Also, much of the most striking poverty I’ve seen in East Africa has been in Kampala; I remember seeing one man who looked like both of his shins had broken at 90 degree angles to his knees crawling down the street and trying to dodge the absolutely insane traffic. 

            After leaving Kampala, we made a seven hour drive to Mbarara in western Uganda.  The city itself was pretty unspectacular (although it has some nice scenery, being in the mountains), but our hotel was actually very nice.  I was able to take a warm shower for the first time of the entire trip.  While in Mbarara, we took an excursion to Nakivale Refugee Camp, which was one of the highlights of Uganda for me.  While I often feel like we’re exploiting the people we visit, the trip to the camp was actually very respectful and informative.  Our group split up into two groups; I was in the group who met with Congolese refugees, while the other group met with Rwandan refugees (most of whom were Hutus who had to flee the country, meaning there were most likely many genocidaires among them.  The Congolese discussed how there are no services available to them; they have not received food aid in over three months and when they go to the “doctor” they are given the same medicine no matter what their symptoms, as they are told that it treats any condition or disease.  In addition, the land around the camp is completely arid and nothing grows there, leaving them without any source of food.  They poured their water out for us on the ground of the hut we were sitting in; it was dark green and had little white worms swimming in it.  As if it weren’t hard enough, there’s no security at the camp, and many of their enemies from home storm the camp and try to burn their huts and kill them.  Three people in the Congolese camp had been killed in the past three months and they had been warned that they (the enemies) would be coming back to kill more in the very near future.  Although we didn’t meet with them, the camp also has refugees from Burundi, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, and Ethiopia.  The most surprising thing about the visit was how educated the people in the camps were; many people, including myself, make the mistake of imagining refugees as uneducated people living in the most abject poverty and filthy living conditions.  When our talk was over, however, we spoke with many of the refugees one-on-one, and that could not be any further from the truth.  I met two twenty-year-old boys from Congo who were attending university when they had to leave their homes and run to Uganda; they were very intelligent and had email addresses and dressed as nearly anyone in America would dress, and they had studied medicine and politics before fleeing.  To see them living in the middle of basically a desert with hardly anything to live on was tough; I wanted to stay and talk with them but our Rwandan program director, who is constantly in a hurry and pissed off about something, told the bus driver to pull away so I had to stop in the middle of writing my contact information and jump on the bus while it was already moving. 

            As everyone notes, Rwanda is an incredibly beautiful country.  Even Kigali, the biggest city, is seated in the middle of a mountain range, so the roads are extremely hilly and you can overlook most of the city from the top of one of them.  Kigali is such a stark contrast from Kampala that it’s hard to adjust to; the roads here are paved, there are traffic lights, palm trees line the medians, and everything seems very clean and organized.  It’s common to see cars that would cost fifty thousand dollars in America, whereas Kampala really only has old white trucks and taxi vans which are always on the verge of breaking down.  There are neighborhoods that consist solely of mansions.  Still, little shacks with broken roofs line the streets of the city as well, but they seem to be more hidden here. 

            We stayed in a hotel that consisted of rooms that were basically just four concrete walls for our first two nights.  On Thursday, we moved into our homestays.  The house that I’m living at is insane; it looks like an American mansion, and it’s only three months old, so everything is essentially brand new.  While it may sound great, however, I’m not very happy here.  While some students staying in mansions (not all are – my friend Leon is basically living in a shack with a hole in the back that serves as a bathroom) have complained that they aren’t experiencing the “real Africa,” I think that’s untrue; people get most of their ideas about Africa from commercials and news stories on TV, but the reality is often quite different — I’ve seen as many mansions as I have shacks and huts in Kigali, and Rwanda has a whole is very developed in comparison to most of East Africa.  Plus, even though my house is visually very nice, it is missing many of the amenities that even people in public housing in America would have.  Air conditioning doesn’t exist here, the electricity is out more than it works (my house happens to have a generator, though), we haven’t had running water for the past 24 hours, the window to my room doesn’t close anymore so mosquitoes and other insects come in all night, hot water doesn’t exist, we don’t have internet, having toilet paper is a treat, etc.  I can say with complete confidence that it’s not fun using the bathroom when there is no toilet paper and no running water in the shower or sink. 

            My homestay family really makes me miss my family in Gulu, which is why I may reconsider my independent study project.  Everyone is nice, but the mom speaks only French and everyone else struggles with English.  In addition, my oldest sibling is sixteen; I don’t feel any real connection with anyone because of the age difference and the kids are so shy that it’s impossible to have a conversation with them.  Rwanda is inarguably more obsessed with American culture than Uganda, which is really what I want to get away from; my sister watches MTV videos all day, and my family loves Chris Brown and all of the horrible rap that comes out now.  I don’t listen to or even hear any of that music at home so when my sister asks me about all of the American superstars I have nothing to contribute.  Whenever I’m with my family I usually spend most of the time trying to think of something to say, whereas conversation came naturally with my family in Gulu. 

            Being obsessed with American culture, my sister really resembles any spoiled teenager who models themselves after what they see on mainstream television.  On Friday she was supposed to pick me up from class at 5:00 so we could go home together; she ended up picking me up at 7:00 because she and her best friends were out shopping.  When she did pick me up, I had to accompany her to visit some “friends,” who were actually two 28-year-old guys (one of whom was Shaggy’s brother, strangely enough) who clearly were interested in, but didn’t give a shit about, her and her friends.  The whole thing reminded me of the girls in high school who were always hanging out with really sketchy older men and it made me pretty uncomfortable.  I also had to lie to my homestay parents and tell them that I got out of class late (four hours late, by this point) because she couldn’t tell them where she really was. 

            Saturday afternoon I went out to lunch with Leon and Mark before seeing a soccer game at the local stadium that was some sort of fundraiser.  We were running late after lunch so we decided to take boda-bodas to the stadium.  In Uganda, the boda-boda drivers are crazy but the streets are too crowded and/or full of potholes to get much speed.  Here, however, my driver was going so fast that I had to hold onto my helmet with one hand and my wallet with the other.  It was really windy outside and I literally thought I was going to fly off the back of the motorcycle.  To make it worse, my driver was weaving in and out of car traffic the entire time.  On the way, I realized that Stefanie, our director, might be waiting for the students in the parking lot, so I hit my driver on the shoulder right outside the stadium so he wouldn’t pull in the lot.  Mark and Leon’s drivers stopped right in front of me.  When we walked up, Joe told me that Stefanie had seen Mark outside of the parking lot with a motorcycle helmet on; when she asked the students if we were taking bodas, though, everyone covered for us and said that they had seen us walking down the street.  I’m not sure if she believed them or not, but she hasn’t said anything to us yet.  During the first week of class, she told us that if we were caught once on a boda we would have to bake a cake for the class; if we were caught a second time, we’d be kicked out of the program.  It seems pretty hypocritical to me since she takes bodas all the time. 

            Saturday night all of my friends went to Beerfest, an annual festival with beer, food, and live music, but I had to attend a birthday party for my sister’s friend.  We had to leave as soon as I had gotten home, meaning I didn’t eat dinner, and we arrived around 7:00 to an empty room.  No one showed up until around 10, meaning I was just hanging out alone for three hours at a nonexistent party that I didn’t want to be at in the first place.  When people finally arrived, everyone was dressed exactly like people at American parties; many of the guys, for example, wore giant baggy clothing with thick jackets and New York Yankees hats.  The music played was all new American R&B and rap.  I spent a couple hours talking to two brothers from Burundi, but eventually I started to get really tired and began to fall asleep.  Christelle, my sister, told me that she wanted to spend the night, so I had to go upstairs and sleep in a bed with people I’ve never met.  When I returned home this morning I couldn’t help but wonder what my homestay parents thought of me taking their sixteen-year-old daughter to a party and returning the next morning. 

My friend from Burundi (Clement) and me, blinking at the perfect time as always

            As of right now I’m already starting to want to get back to Uganda.  It’s nice here but I miss being able to walk places and having everything so close together.  I can’t walk right down the street to get airtime or use the internet or to buy water here.  The public transportation is really miserable; they pack it so tight in the vans that you can’t even move and there are people jammed into you on both sides and everyone is sweating and there’s obviously no air conditioning. 

            I generally like to keep my fingernails pretty long.  Last night my dad pulled out some nail clippers and asked if I wanted to use them, but I said I was fine.  My mom then took the clippers and cut one of my younger brothers’ fingernails.  Five minutes later, she put out one hand and motioned for me to put my hand in it.  I thought she was going to say some sort of French prayer since she’s pretty religious according to the rest of the family; instead, however, she pulled out the clippers with her other hand and proceeded to cut my fingernails.  I haven’t had my fingernails cut for me since I was a little kid, so it was pretty bizarre.  Also, she held my hand at all the wrong angles so my fingernails would flatten out in an attempt to break before they actually broke.  The whole thing was pretty painful.  She motioned towards my feet when she was done but I assured her that I would take care of it later. 

            On Wednesday we will be travelling to Butare until Friday afternoon.  I believe we’re visiting the Murambi Genocide Memorial which is apparently the most intense place we’ll visit on the entire trip.  They’ve preserved the bodies of the genocide victims in limestone so it won’t just be a bunch of skeletons; the flesh will still be there.  At least in a couple weeks we’ll be travelling to Lake Kivu to relax a bit.  I will try to add more pictures soon, but I haven’t been taking very many. 

 

- Christian

Some pictures…

I originally wanted to edit these into the last post but theymight as well just go here…

 

Kids in Orom who were so happy to get our empty plastic water bottles that they began fighting over them

Mark and a little girl (boy?) in Orom

The main road going through Orom (and also what the majority of the roads in Northern Uganda look like)

Brenda, Me, Emma, Bulam (Leon’s brother), Chris (my brother), Megan, Leon, and Danielle at the homestay party

My shower

EDIT:  The pictures are for some reason so small that they’re basically worthless, but the internet is so slow here that it literally took me over an hour to upload those five pictures and I’m running out of Ugandan money to pay for the internet with so they will have to stay that way for a while.  I’ll maybe try to fix them later this week.

Other things I have yet to mention about Uganda/Gulu/my homestay family…

Other things I have yet to mention about Uganda/Gulu/my homestay family…

 

This week has been pretty uneventful so here are a few things that haven’t made it to my blog yet…

 

1. Uganda recently ranked 186 out of 191 countries in the world for quality/level of health.
2. My brothers make the funniest comments sometimes.  When going through my Itunes list Tom came across a song called “I Bought a Headache” (which is about buying crappy weed); he turned to me, slapped my back and laughed before saying in his thick Ugandan accent, “Ah!  Where did you buy this headache, my friend?”  When Brenda, his sister, left for church without me on Sunday, he declared upon returning:  “Ah, my friend, it seems she wants to go to Heaven alone!” 
3. Everything here is ridiculously cheap.  For lunch I usually go to a place that’s literally a straw shack with no sign or any kind of marker on it, but inside there are two long wooden benches that serve as tables. For one US dollar I can get one giant bowl of rice, two chapatti (basically a really thick tortilla bread), and another giant bowl of beans and cabbage.  The other night I took my brothers out so I could interview them for an assignment I was working on and it cost me US $5.60 for four 500 ml (~17 oz) beers, three sodas, and a pack of gum. 
4. My family’s TV receives exactly one station which features the worst programming from a wide variety of cultures.  Every night some sort of Mexican soap opera comes on; as if they weren’t all bad enough on their own, they’re dubbed in the most ridiculous American accents imaginable.  My family claims not to like them, yet they sit down to watch them nearly every night.  Last Sunday, I was able to catch a brief marathon of Hogan Knows Best.  The night before, the family’s uncle came over, and he and I sat down and drank beer and watched American (WWE) wrestling.  He and the brothers cheered and screamed and made sighs of fascination while I just looked on in horror.  As if the experience weren’t bizarre enough, the following program was some horrible early-1990s melodrama about a teenager trying to teach blind kids how to ride horses starring Randall “Pink” Floyd from Dazed and Confused.  The following morning I tried to convince myself it was all a terrible dream.
5. As previously mentioned, I failed to make it to church this past Sunday.  For the rest of the day, my family made a countless number of references to God, clearly trying to get the point across (although they were all in good humor).  When Tom walked in the door he immediately began dancing (which is really a sight with his slacks that go up almost all the way to his chest; I wish I had it on video) around the room.  I told him that he seemed to be particularly excited about the day and he replied:  “My dear, I cannot help it!  When I have been praising the Lord I just become so jovial!”  Later, I asked when his brothers were coming back from Lira.  He replied that they would return “whenever the Holy Spirit may allow” and never gave me any other answer.  The day reached its peak, however, late in the evening when I was sitting on the couch alone with Tom, Brenda, and Brenda’s visiting friend.  Tom informed me that he was about to pray; usually this is done done in the local language, but on this particular occasion it was spoken in English (perhaps just for me).  The prayer started off fairly normal, but after roughly a minute I noticed a slight increase in the volume of Tom’s voice.  As his tone continued to rise in intensity, I heard the visiting friend making some noise across the room that sounded like whispering in tongues.  While it’s unlikely that she was actually speaking in tongues, she was unmistakably making some sort of odd rhythmic sound with her tongue that didn’t resemble any formal spoken language.  At this point I couldn’t close my eyes anymore; I had to keep an eye out to make sure David Lynch wasn’t filming from some hidden corner of the room.  Soon after, she began stomping her feet and crying with a horrible grimace splashed across her face.  By now, the prayer had been going on for at least a full five minutes, and Tom’s voice was so loud that he was just short of a scream.  If the whole scene weren’t creepy enough, every line of his prayer ended with “Jesus, my master,” “Jesus Christ, my beautiful master,” etc. etc.  I was sure that upon saying “Amen” all of our heads were going to pop off and giant green snakes were going to pop up out of our open necks.  Strangely enough, however, everyone stood up upon the prayer’s completion, smiled, and Tom said “Alright, let’s take a walk” as if the we had just been having a casual discussion. 
6. One day when I was walking home a boda-boda driver yelled “What’s up, nigga?” to me from across the street.  I laughed, assuming he was being ironic, and kept walking.  When I told my brothers about it later that day, they thought it was hilarious and told me that if it happens again I should reply with “yo, yo, yo!”  Since then, my brothers constantly tell me that I look like a “nigger.”  The other day, Tom asked me which outfit I was wearing so he could iron it before I left for school; when I handed him my pants, he said “oh, you’re wearing your nigger pants today!” before yelling “yo, yo, yo!” as I exited the door.  Finally, at dinner a few nights ago I asked the family what they meant by the term.  They informed me that in Uganda it refers to a musician/artist/poet/etc. who dresses with small pants and big shoes.  I tried to explain to them that in America it is a derogatory term used toward black people but somehow they thought I meant it was a derogatory term used toward white people and began apologizing profusely for offending me.  I laughed and tried to explain again but I’m still not sure they fully understand. 
7. The local music here is really bad.  By bad, I mean really, really bad.  The songs usually sound like Shaggy on a bad day singing a fusion of Arab and Caribbean music.  The videos are the worst part, however; they are so influenced by Western rap videos that it’s actually really ridiculous.  This morning I watched a slew of new, “hip” gospel songs where the singers were standing inches from the camera and waving their arms in the “macho” way that you see in nearly all modern rap videos.  The highlight, though, was clearly the point in which one singer was praising Jesus while outlining the “hourglass” shape of an invisible woman with his hands.  In another, two men were singing about the Lord while bouncing on the hydraulics of a Cadillac with Texas license plates.  The videos actually manage to make me hate modern American music even more. 
8. Ugandans begin roughly half of all sentences with “for me,” “for him,” “for her, she is thinking…,” “for them, they will…” etc. etc.  I’ve heard it so many times that I’ve started doing it myself without even noticing. 
9. Ugandans put an “h” sound in front of vowels, yet they never pronounce the “h” sound when it’s on the front of a word.  Therefore, “hair” is pronounced “air,” while “air” is pronounced “hair.”  “However” is always pronounced “owhever.”  I’m beginning to get used to it, but it’s still confusing sometimes. 
10. At the first church service I attended, the sermon was basically a standup routine which involved the preacher continually describing how ugly is wife is.  At one point he even explained how his mother did not think his wife was pretty enough and then he pointed her out in the crowd, resulting in everyone turning their heads and laughing.  The whole audience was in hysteric fits throughout the whole speech.  Afterwards, my brothers asked me why I was not laughing during the sermon.  I just told them that I did not understand what he was trying to say. 
11. People here don’t have garbage cans.  Everyone burns their trash, and the smell is unbelievably nasty.  When one person burns their trash, it brings about a giant gray cloud that is able to be seen from a long distance.  In Kampala, where many people burn their trash simultaneously, there is a disgusting haze that covers the skyline and never disappears.  People also throw their trash in the middle of the street when they’re done with it; it’s completely normal. 
12. Women here are basically servants.  They spend all day cleaning the house and cooking in the kitchen and when it comes time for a meal, they bring everything out and later take it all back to the kitchen to wash.  Sometimes they don’t even eat the food that they spend all day cooking.  I’m hoping Rwanda will be a bit different in that regard. 

 

We are having our homestay party later today.  I am still surprised that I am already nearly done with my time in Gulu; although it seems like I’ve been in Uganda for a year, the time is also flying by rather quickly when I realize that the program is almost a quarter of the way over.  On Wednesday we will be heading back to Kampala, and on Sunday we will be leaving to travel to Mbarara for a couple days before continuing on to Rwanda.

Another week down

            This week has been very busy.  I feel like I’ve spent most of it riding in a bus. 

            Sunday night I was asked to help one of my homestay sisters move into her dorm.  My brothers told me we would walk there and carry some of her things with us.  When we got outside, I noticed it was beginning to get dark.  My brothers flagged two boda-boda (basically a small motorcycle) drivers and two minutes later I was riding on the back of one to her dorm.  Our program directors have strictly forbidden us to take boda bodas because they drive very dangerously (80% of traffic accidents in Uganda involve boda-bodas) and 60% of the drivers have some form of mental illness (mostly as a result of the war).  My driver sped all the way down the dirt road to her dorm, dodging giant potholes and people every few seconds, and by this time it was pitch black outside.  It was pretty fun, but I can definitely see why they’re dangerous.  I made it back safely and other people in the program have been taking them as well so I don’t feel too bad about it. 

            On Tuesday we visited the Koch Goma IDP (internally displaced people) camp about 30 km outside of Gulu.  The camps were created by the Ugandan government in the 1990s and Northerners were forced to live in them.  The idea behind the camps was that they would keep people safe and away from the LRA by allowing security groups to watch over large groups of people (which would be impossible in towns and in villages because people are so spread out).  The people in the camps had to live in tiny huts with grass roofs and the huts were built so close together that people were almost living right on top of their neighbors.  The camps have proven to be just as deadly as the war, however.  When a fire breaks out in one hut (which isn’t uncommon when your home has a grass roof), it generally spreads to every other hut in the area, burning some people alive and leaving others without shelter.   Because people are so close together, sickness and disease spread extremely easily.  The camps have created even more Northern animosity towards President Museveni, and although he granted people permission to leave the camps in 2003, some still live there. 

I felt very uncomfortable touring the camp.  The guide took us through the huts where people actually live and the living conditions are awful.  Most kids’ stomachs are giant and expanded from malnutrition; the ground is covered in human feces because people have nowhere to use the bathroom and therefore go anywhere; the huts are basically hollow shells with dirt floors; everyone’s clothes (mostly from America) are torn and dirty if they have clothes at all (many were naked); and the list goes on.  On top of that, most people in my group were walking around taking pictures and pointing and staring at the “cute” children.  The children generally like the attention (although not all do) so it’s not always a problem, but I just feel like it’s almost like we’re going to a museum and seeing everything through a glass window when this is how people really live.  If I were living in a hut and had literally no money I wouldn’t want a bunch of wealthy Westerners coming in and staring and taking pictures of me. 

On Wednesday we made a three hour journey to Kitgum.  The road, like all roads in Northern Uganda, was in terrible condition and made the ride miserable.  I’d go as far as to say that the worst road in America is probably better than almost any road here.  All of our trips are constantly stop-and-start drives because the driver always has to slow down to hit or drive around potholes.  When we aren’t stopping for potholes, the road is like a never-ending washboard.  We’ve had to pull over a few times so people can puke. 

Our time in Kitgum was basically a disaster.  The trip was so disorganized and we (the students) were so uninformed that it all culminated in a student-run meeting to discuss and prioritize our frustrations with the program so we can tell the director and hope things will change.  For one thing, we spend half of our days waiting.  If we’re scheduled to leave somewhere at 9:00, we never leave any earlier than 10:30.  When it’s time to board the bus, we all get on and sit for upwards of 30 minutes waiting for the driver or the director.  When we’re supposed to have a five minute break between lectures, it usually turns into a half-hour break.  The bus driver never gets gas before he picks us up so then we have to drive to the gas station and wait.  Most of the time, we have no idea what we’re waiting for. 

            When we arrived in Kitgum, we ate and then had a terrible lecture from a member of the local government.  We then drove to the Kitgum Youth Center (we had no idea what we were there for and then had to wait a long time for our speakers to show up) and were told that we were supposed to go see a presentation from the students at a local school but that we arrived too late.  This was the first time we had heard of it because our director never told us anything.  It ended up being rescheduled for Thursday morning. 

            As we drove down the road to the school, the kids (several hundred) were all lined up along the road and singing and clapping and holding signs for us.  As our bus drove by, they came running after us in a giant swarm.  As the program started, the speaker told us that the students were very excited for our arrival and had planned a whole day of activities for us, but that due to our time restraints, we would only be able to stay for one dance session and poem recital.  Again, this was the first time we had heard of it.  The kids in the school literally had nothing; all of their clothes and books were donated from the US.  We were there for 30 minutes and then left, which was clearly a huge disappointment for everyone.  We all left frustrated at having not been told anything until it happened.

            From there, we drove two hours to Orum.  We were told to get off the bus and were greeted with the stares of hundreds of locals.  Again, we had no idea why we were going to Orum or why we were getting off the bus.  Some people played with the kids and some took pictures until a local drunk started aggressively asking (in the local language) for money for the pictures.  Thirty minutes later, we got back on the bus and drove another ten minutes.  We arrived at some sort of youth center (the leaders of the program in Orum kept calling the people “youth” even though nearly all were adults and some had full heads of gray hair).  After an introduction, we were split into three groups and were sitting face to face with the “youth” and a translator.  We literally had no idea what we were there for or what was about to happen next.  Then, they told us that they were sure we had many questions that we wanted to ask the Orum “youth” to find out about their lives and what they need.  We were all caught completely off-guard.  We knew nothing about Orum or its history or any of the people there.  I had no idea what to say.  Luckily, some other people in my group faked their way around some questions, but the entire situation was incredibly awkward.  This situation was the main cause for our meeting later that night. 

            As a side note, people here deal with devastating situations in a very interesting way; they laugh.  One Orum “youth” (adult) told a story in the local language and all of the locals began laughing.  When the story was translated, we found out that his house had been burned down by an angry neighbor the night before and that every single one of his belongings was lost in the fire.  Early in the program, our directors warned us of this.  Last semester, they showed an incredibly graphic and intense movie about the war, and many students cried.  The two locals in the room, however, were laughing hysterically.  It’s the only way they know how to cope. 

            Everyone in our group is getting sick.  As I’m typing this, I’m feeling a bit feverish myself.  I’m also dehydrated, though, so I will drink some water and see how it goes.

This was written on September 12, 2009

Attempting to wash my clothes

Grandma and my brother Chris

The road to class

Again, I couldn’t find internet yesterday.

Our lectures started on Tuesday and we have had two each day (or three if the Acholi language class is included).  So far, the quality has varied quite a bit.  The first speaker was a man whose daughter was kidnapped and gang-raped by the LRA while they were still active in Gulu; it was hard to understand him because of his thick accent, but I think he said she committed suicide as a result.  If not, she was killed by the rebels; either way, she died during the attacks.  A few years later, his wife was blown to bits when a vehicle she was riding in ran over a landmine in their home village.  His story is devastating, but his lecture was meandering and impossible to follow, which is a recurring characteristic of many lectures we have heard.  I think Ugandans by nature have a very different approach to thinking and speaking than we, as Americans, have.  Speakers’ answers to questions are often so longwinded and circular that by the time they reach their end no one can remember how they began.  Contradictorily, they find Americans’ questions to be too longwinded to the point where they (Ugandans) simply cannot follow.  We often preface our questions with “I was reading an article the other day that was talking about ________ and I noticed that ___________ and I was just wondering if ________” etc. etc.  Ugandans, however, are very direct with their questions and skip all the unneeded background information.  At the end of some lectures I feel like I have learned absolutely nothing; others, such as the one on Acholi traditional justice, are very concise and informative.  Regardless, there are two future lectures that I am particularly excited about:

1.  Gender, Conflict, and Peace Building in Uganda

“Women play many different roles in the context of armed conflict.  Women are particularly vulnerable to sexual crimes during armed conflict.  Women are disproportionately affected by the social and economic impacts of armed conflict.  Violence on women increases during and after conflict.  This session examines what can be done to address the above issues and the idea that peacebuilding cannot succeed if half the population is excluded from the process.  Research in Sudan, the DRC, and Uganda suggests that peace agreements, post-conflict reconstruction, and governance do better when women are involved.  Women make a difference, in part because they adopt a more inclusive approach toward security and address key social and economic issues that would otherwise be ignored.  But in Uganda, they remain marginalized in formal processes and under-represented in the security sector as a whole.  The Government and the international community must do much more to support women peace activists.”

 

2.  Gender, conflict and peace-building in Rwanda

“Women have an important role to play in peace-building and reconstruction.  We will learn more about women’s representation in different government institutions and about their participation in organizations that promote reconciliation and healing in Rwanda.  Furthermore, we will investigate the question in how far women have different challenges in the post-conflict society and how their needs are being taken care of.  What are their opportunities and how do they see their future role?”

 

Plus, there are assigned readings to go along with each.  Besides applying to my studies, this also means that I can do my independent study project in either Uganda or Rwanda; therefore, if I’m dying to get back to Uganda after a month in Rwanda (which seems to be the case with many students) I could do my research here, providing that the violence in Kampala subsides.  Still, I think that the situation in Rwanda still appeals to me more – especially with the female-dominated parliament. 

My homestay has been going well.  I found out today that the woman who I thought was the mother is actually an older sister (I think) so I’m not sure if there is a mother in the house.  Next week we have to write a paper about our family’s origins and draw a family tree and I already feel uncomfortable because I feel like it is not my place to barge in and ask about family members.  Their grandmother lives here and doesn’t speak English and she is always speaking to me in Acholi but I only know the absolute basics, such as how to count.  It is always awkward when it is only the two of us in the room and she speaks to me in Acholi because there is no one to translate and I have no way to respond. 

Breakfast consists of soda, tea, bananas, and lots of bread and butter.  I try not to waste any food but on Wednesday the bread they served me was harder than toast (it wasn’t toast) and smelled exactly like old vegetables that you find in the back of your fridge that have been rotting for half a year.  The taste was worse.  I took four bites but I couldn’t stomach any more.  Today they offered me an after-breakfast beer but 9 AM is a little early to get started if you ask me.

Every night for dinner we have beans, greens, cassava, and rice.  Some people have said that they couldn’t eat the same thing every day but I don’t mind.  My stomach has been feeling pretty rough for the last few days, though.  I’m probably lacking a lot of nutrients by now. 

Today I tried to learn how to wash my clothes by hand and my brothers and sister laughed hysterically before telling me to go inside and rest so I don’t waste any more time.  They made me come back out with my camera so they could take pictures of me washing my clothes by hand so I could show everyone at home; I told them I would tell everyone that I was really good at it.  They were amazed by the idea of washing machines. 

Tomorrow I think I am going to have to go to church.  I have the choice between Pentecostal and Protestant.  I think I will try to find out which one is shorter.

 

- Christian

 

*I ended up writing a much more negative entry last night before I went to bed about some issues I’m having with my family’s ideals and the whole society and culture in general, but as of right now I’m not going to post it.  I will see how things go.

Homestays have begun

I moved in with my homestay family last night.  It is a bit different than I was expecting, both in good ways and bad, but it could definitely be worse.  My homestay dad works at a bank and their “apartment” is overtop the bank.  He picked me up but immediately had to return back to work.  When I entered their home no one said anything.  I went to my room and set my things down and introduced myself…everyone told me their names but sat back down and started watching TV.  I did my best to start conversations with them but they generally seemed indifferent and had a hard time understanding my accent.  Fortunately, I eventually ended up taking an evening walk with two of the brothers and it definitely eased the tension.  Since then, they have been very friendly and welcoming although not quite outgoing.  The family often speaks to each other in Acholi and I am left with no way to respond or communicate.  The entrance to their “courtyard” (not like an American courtyard, but mostly just a concrete area that holds a couple cars) is guarded by four men holding either pistols, double barrel shotguns, rifles, or some combination of the three.  As I expected, they are not too trusting of a mzungu like me and it took some convincing for me to be allowed entrance when I came home from lecture today. 

Their house has electricity, and when the power in Gulu goes out, they have a generator for backup.  I do not think they have consistent running water; last night while taking a shower the water ran out as soon as I had soap lathered all over me and I had to wipe all of it off with a towel.  Their bathroom looks like a janitor’s closet last updated in 1740 and three giant cockroaches ran out of the drain as soon as I turned the water on.  Their toilet has no water or even a flusher.  Despite all this, their home is the high life here in Gulu and I am very fortunate to have been placed there.  Dinner last night was good and although I was served peanuts and soda for breakfast I ate it graciously. 

In many ways, Gulu and Uganda are like another world.  The life expectancy in Gulu is 40.9 years, which is up considerably from the last estimate of 35.  My homestay brothers were discussing how it’s hard to find a job in Uganda, even with a degree, and I told them that it is the same case in America; later last night, I saw on the news that unemployment in Uganda is a whopping 65%.  I feel bad for even making the comparison. 

Still, as Ugandans are adamant in pointing out, the media does portray Africa very unfairly.  Not everyone here lives in a shack.  Not all kids have giant malnourished bellies.  Not every city is a war-torn hellhole, although Gulu was something of the sort as little as one year ago.  Kampala even had the “mzungu mall” which was very similar to any mall you could find in any city in America. 

I am a bit concerned about the health here.  The restaurant I ate in for lunch was swarming with flies and was filthy and had naked children running in and out of the kitchen.  The bathrooms often don’t have running water, toilet paper, or soap on the sinks, if they have a toilet at all.  It’s hard to brush my teeth knowing all the water-borne illnesses found here.  I think I am going to start using water tablets soon.

There are so many things I want to take pictures of here, but I never know when it is safe or appropriate.  There are certain sites and buildings in all of Uganda that are offlimits; if you are caught taking photos of them you can be arrested on site, and they aren’t marked.  Last night I wanted to take a picture of a Gulu University building; my brothers talked to the giant security guard but he denied us permission, and I didn’t want to argue after seeing the size of his gun.  I want to take pictures of the markets but the traffic is pretty crazy and there are many people on the lookout for mzungus for selling goods at inflated prices and possible pickpocketing/robbing.  I have taken a few good shots so far but of nothing particularly of note. 

I am going to take another walk with my brothers tonight if I have time before dinner.  The women in the house do all of the work, from cleaning to making food to serving food to washing dishes, etc. etc.  I’d like to help out but I don’t want to offend anyone by interrupting Ugandan culture; the men are supposed to sit around while the women do the housework.  I have some free time now that we’re staying with our families so I will try to get on the internet a bit more frequently.

- Christian