Catching up with blogging

This post will probably be kind of long as will most of the posts to follow. I have less time to update so I cram everything into one posting. I hope you enjoy.

I’m typing this draft from my laptop in my house. I could not find wireless internet that was actually working so I’ll save this on my flash drive and transfer it to the site sometime when I have time and good internet, and access to a USB port. It’s so hot. I am sweating so much and I’m always so dirty from the dust. Ugh. I just feel so gross. I definitely look forward to showering everyday though it’s not long before I’m dusty and sweaty again. Ok, I got that over with. So I’m getting more behind with these updates. I just got back from a week in western Uganda and Rwanda which was a nice break from the city. It was a really nice trip but now that I’m back in the city again, I feel like the culture shock process is just starting up again. I am definitely noticing that it’s a bit harder to adjust to life here than in Ecuador, which I still think and miss a lot. Oh well. Before I talk about the trip, I should pick up where I left off.

After orientation, we had two weeks of lectures and Luganda classes. It was nice to have a schedule for a while. The lectures generally weren’t that great, but we did have a few good ones including one on politics. Luganda classes are interesting. We have learned about greetings (formal and informal) which are very important to Ugandans, as well as food, numbers, and random verbs. The language is completely different to anything else I have taken but I enjoy learning it though I don’t feel I will be close to fluency anytime soon. We have also had some panel discussions with men and women who work for NGOs in Uganda and a few of them are really interesting. One NGO, Conservation through Public Health, focuses on improving people’s access to public health and the quality of their care in order to conserve the environment. The program originally started to protect the gorillas from illnesses they were getting from humans and they have made some good strides in this area. Also, one weekend I went to a dance concert with some friends in the group and we were expecting traditional dances from all over Africa. What we saw was a bunch of modern dance, many of it weird but some of it beautiful. It was kind of a weird experience, not to mention that I had to brave the taxi park at night which wasn’t nearly as scary as I had feared.

We have lectures interspersed with site visits which break the time up nicely. Our first visit was to an AIDS organization working through Mulago, the largest hospital in the country. The organization is TASO and it has branches throughout the country. The presentation and tour wasn’t as interesting as I had hoped it would be. The lab technicians explained to us how they test for HIV/AIDS which was one of the more interesting parts, to me at least. We also saw where they keep patients’ files. At the end we met with a group of people who have been living with HIV/AIDS, most of them for some time now. They sang a bunch of songs that they wrote together in order to cope with the disease. One woman gave her personal story and though it was really sad, it sounded really rehearsed and things got slightly awkward when they brought out collection baskets for donations. Overall, we didn’t learn too much about how the organization works and what it’s doing to prevent and treat AIDS patients. We also visited Kasubi Tombs, a tomb that holds four Bugandan kings. It is also the largest grass hut in the world. It was pretty cool sitting on mats in this giant grass hut, listening to our guide talk about Buganda’s kings and the relatives who are still considered royalty and who take turns living in the palaces and at these tombs. We also visited Bulange, the Bugandan Parliament, where we learned a little bit about how decision-making works in the kingdom. The next week we visited CONCERN, a group that works with urban slum development. My group attended a microfinance meeting with women, though language proved to be a difficult barrier to overcome. On the way back from that we saw the smoke coming from the riot and saw police headed down to the market. Since the riot was somewhat close to where I catch a taxi for home, I headed home right after getting back and didn’t have to witness any rioting.

I went with my host brother to church the first Sunday morning I was home. It was overall a pretty interesting experience. Everyone in my family are born-again Christians and they attend a Pentacostal church. We got there shortly after the service began and people were singing and dancing, some of them outside. My brother and I sat in the back and the rest of the service began shortly. The preachers were speaking mostly in Luganda so my brother had to translate most of it for me. At one point, they asked all of the visitors to stand up and say something about religion. I tried to get out of it, but I was the only muzungu there and when I didn’t stand up to introduce myself, one of the pastors pointed to the back and said something in Luganda that probably amounted to "Look at that muzungu visitor back there" so everyone in the church, which probably had a few hundred people from the village in attendance, turned to look to me. I just said my name and where I was from but it was kind of embarrassing. Throughout the rest of the service, I noticed quite a few glances in my direction. I really don’t like drawing attention to myself so this was a slightly uncomfortable situation. I felt really out of place throughout the service because I wasn’t singing and dancing along with everyone because I didn’t know the songs and because I just felt really foolish. What did make the service somewhat more bearable was that an adorable little girl insisted on sitting next to me during the second half of the service. She was dressed in this cute purple dress with small barrettes in her very short hair. I also didn’t understand anything that was going on. There was a guy who was interpreting the Luganda into English, but the Luganda-speaking guy always spoke over the English-speaking one so I couldn’t hear him very well. It also started really pouring in the middle of the service and the rain started coming in the windows, which didn’t have glass on them, so much of the congregation moved towards the middle of the church. The noise the rain made on the tin roof also managed to drown out everything that the preacher was saying, making it even more difficult to understand what was going on.

I have also gotten to know more about my family through some assignments. For the first one, the family tree assignment, I sat down with my host dad for a few hours and we talked about his side of the family. I learned that he comes from the Ente (cow) clan and that he feels fortunate to have land here in Uganda. He has been to Kenya and finds it sad that many people cannot buy land in Kenya because it is so expensive. He works selling various used electrical parts in Kisseka Market, where there were recently riots (over ownership of the market-a few people were shot and one person died, but mainly the riot consisted of burning tires and shooting into the air). I also talked to my mother about her side of the family which was difficult because she doesn’t know English very well and because I don’t know Luganda very well. We’ll have to work on the communication between us. I also learned about the village and culture here in general through a mapping assignment where I walked around with my brother one Saturday for a few hours. It was a really hot day but we walked quite a lot and saw a lot of Kagoma as well as Maganjo. The whole area used to be Maganjo but it got so large that Bugandan (the kingdom where I’m living) authorities broke it into two villages. We saw a lot of brickmakers and new homes going up, though only for rental. My host brother David told me that the village is growing because people would rather live outside of the city than in the city. Also, land is too expensive for a lot of people to buy so many rent these small houses made of brick or concrete. We also saw a mine where old and young women and a few men were breaking up what looked like limestone into small stones that people could use to make houses with. Most people just open really small businesses selling everything from milk to meat to shoes made of tires. There are so many footpaths all over the place, it’s so easy for me to get lost. My brother showed me at least three other shortcuts I can take to go from the taxi stop to the house, but I know if I take them I will get so lost. That night, we watched the Arsenal-Mancester United game when we had power, so I missed the first fifteen minutes or so but got to see ManU score the first three goals before the power cut out again. They ended up winning 4-0 which made me happy. It’s been a while since I’ve actually paid attention to football but it’s so popular here that it’s hard not to hear something about the game last night. I have also interacted more with my host sister Martha. She really likes American "high school" movies and she wanted me to "illustrate" some movies for her. I started with "She’s the Man" but did a very bad job with it (according to her) and she went on to tell me all about "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" and "Little Man." It was pretty interesting to hear her talk about the former because I remember loving it as a kid but I haven’t seen it for quite a while. Again, it’s really strange what gets passed on from American culture at home to popular culture here. The variety of pirated dvds that people sell is even more random than in Ecuador.
The taxi ride process continues to be interesting every day. Often the taxis take the bumpy backroads and I can’t read, but when we’re on semi-paved road, I like to sit and read for the hour or so that the ride lasts. I have finished reading "We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families" (a really good book about the Rwandan genocide) and "Mountains Beyond Mountains" and have read half of "What is the What" thanks in part to these long rides. It’s a nice break sometimes, but oftentimes it’s hot and smelly in the taxi. Even with windows open, traffic is generally stop and go and when we are going, it gets pretty dusty. I know I probably get ripped off on the taxi everyday, but I still haven’t figured out the correct system of paying and stops. A lot of people lately have been paying with large bills expecting change, which sometimes holds us up. I haven’t figured out yet if you pay with large bills at the beginning of the ride so that the conductor knows to get you change, or if you pay regardless of the bill shortly before your stop. The stop issue has gotten better though people often stop the taxi a few feet from where it was previously stopped. I don’t like to do this so sometimes I get out a little sooner or a little later than I technically could, but I enjoy walking (unless of course it is raining). People have also been fighting lately on the taxis. One man didn’t have enough money to pay the conductor, which he wasn’t too sorry for, and the conductor made fun of him in Luganda, which I couldn’t understand but everyone else in the car started laughing at him. The conductors also occasionally fight with each other over potential clients and though they don’t come to blows, they start hitting each other’s cars. These are occasions when I wish I spoke more Luganda because it would be nice to know what is being said and if I should be concerned for my safety. I have gotten to talk to some people, both nice and strange, on the taxis. One guy kept tapping me on the shoulder and wouldn’t leave me alone, talking to me in Luganda the whole time. I kept telling him "Simanyi" (I don’t know) to try to get him to leave me alone and finally when the taxi stopped and we both got out, he started to say something to me and I bolted. It was a little scary because it was dark out but he didn’t follow me home. Another time, a woman made the conductor give me change because he was overcharging me. The women tend to be somewhat motherly towards me, telling me how much to pay without overpaying and making sure I am treated fairly though I am a muzungu. Then there are the people who practically sit on me in the taxi which is slightly uncomfortable. And after the taxi ride, there’s this friendly guy who always says "Welcome back friend" and today when I walked home from town, he told me it had been a long time since he had seen me and asked me where I was. I enjoy talking with him because he’s not creepy and persistent. It took me a week or so to warm up to him just because I was sick of hearing "muzungu" and "hello friend" in solicitations to take a boda-boda or buy something from someone.

TV and radio continue to add an interesting background to my life here. One or the other is always on in my house when the electricity is working. Generally on tv my family is watching a religious program, the news, or music videos while on the radio they listen to all kinds of random music and spoken shows. A lot of the popular music here has to do with bad boy bands (*Nsync, Backstreet Boys) and Britney Spears, with a little Latin thrown in once in a while. There is also a really awful Spanish soap opera on that my family occasionally watches but I can’t bear it. One of these days I will sit and copy down lines just so I can share how bad it is. I really miss my telenovelas, but I’m not desperate enough to watch this one. I am trying to keep up with English recaps of "Al diablo con los guapos" which I started watching before I left and which I really wish I could have continued to watch. Maybe I’ll get to see the finale when I get home in May.
I love the kids around here. Oftentimes I have a small parade following me home from the main road, chanting "Bye muzungu" and "see you muzungu," the only phrases most of these kids know in English. Some mischievous ones try to kick me and grab onto my backpack, but I just ignore them. Also, whenever a plane flies over, I hear them say "Bye Museveni" and "bye queen" because they think that whenever a plane goes over, it is carrying either the queen or Museveni. (They think of the queen because of her visit to Uganda this past November for CHOGM.)

The trip was great. We started out going to Mbarara, a city in eastern Uganda. I crossed the equator for the second time this year, stopping to take some touristy photos on the line. Then it was into the Southern Hemisphere yet again. The countryside we passed while driving was gorgeous-lots of rolling hills and green everywhere. From there we traveled for an hour on a very dusty, bumpy dirt road to a United Nations Millennium Development village which was quite neat to see. It was nice to see development in progress and a program that was succeeding at least in part. I still remain convinced that development is often sustainable rather than progressive because people generally stay in the same state they were born in with important but, on the scale of humanity, minor changes in lifestyle that leave them better off but not better off enough. I don’t know. Enough development talk. Regardless of this somewhat pessimistic view, the village is cool. We saw projects that support women with the sale of their beads made from dried banana leaves, though they only sell between three and five necklaces a month. Some tourists are trying to open up a market in the US. They were pretty cool necklaces. We also saw an agriculture project to introduce new crops to the communities so that they don’t only have bananas to rely on, which isn’t so great because disease may cause problems in the future. Also, bananas are not very nutritious though they are a main staple here. Banana trees (which are pretty much anywhere you look) cover about 40 percent of the ground in the area where we were. Also by this agricultural project was the water project. They filled in a pond and are somehow draining it so that it flows eventually into two large storage containers, from which people get the water. The water isn’t very clean and it is full of different minerals in larger amounts but it is a great improvement on the water people previously collected from the topsoil. However, the big problem with this project is that many people do not have easy accessibility to this water. Some have to walk 3 km up and down hills. We climbed down to the water and it was a pretty steep climb. It would have been much harder carrying 20 liters of water or if we had been elderly. They’re working on pumping the water uphill, but that may take some time to get running. We also saw some clinics, one of which was built with the help of Jeffrey Sachs, a somewhat controversial development scholar. About 30 percent of the people there suffer from malaria while TB is another big problem and only 9 percent of pregnant women give birth in clinic which leads in part to a high infant mortality rate. We also passed by a food storage facility which didn’t appear to be used by many people though the World Food Programme offers to buy products from the village farmers at fair prices. I’m not sure how successfully this is working but there needs to be more effort made to increase and diversify production to decrease malnutrition. We got to see tons of schoolchildren who raced out of their classrooms to wave at us as we drove by. Unfortunately we didn’t get to stop by any schools but there were tons.
After this, we headed to a refugee settlement, Oruchinga, near the river border with Tanzania. Most people have been living there for fourteen years, since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Almost all of the people living there are Hutus and the adults likely participated in some way in the genocide. It was quite an intense situation, especially with my group. After splitting up into four groups, we went to a village within the settlement to talk to the people living there and hear their side of the story. We were immediately swarmed by pretty much the whole village as soon as we stepped out of the vans. So we had children standing in front of us and people all around. The people behind me were playing with my hair and the children were all waving, so it wasn’t a hostile situation but still somewhat uncomfortable for all of us. We had a guy to translate for us because the people there only spoke KiRwanda or a little bit of French. I got to use a little bit of my meager French skills (Je m’appelle Christie. Je parle un peu de Française). We asked questions and learned that the people still felt threatened in their home country. They return to Rwanda every year but find that they will be punished for their crimes (often a combination of prison time and community service) so they come back to Uganda where they don’t really have a legal place. Though many children have been born here in Uganda since the genocide, they don’t automatically gain Ugandan citizenship. Instead, they are considered refugees forever until they return to their home country, which doesn’t seem likely to happen soon. The children really caught my attention. Many of them were born after the genocide occurred and are thus innocent, but they are made to continue living in this very poor state because of what their parents did fourteen years ago. Everyone here lives in poverty. I think this is the poorest place I have ever seen. People live in tiny rooms and wear dirty, tattered clothing. The children all have distended bellies that signify they don’t eat nearly enough and suffer from malnutrition. Their education also isn’t sufficient to lessen the hatred that still exists to some extent towards their fellow Tutsi countrymen. Though Rwanda is stable, there is still tension between the Hutus and the Tutsis. Anyway, the only reason people were talking to us was because they were drunk off of an afternoon of drinking banana beer. One man remembered Miriam because she had brought a group to the same village before. The previous time he accused her and the students of being spies for President Museveni of Uganda and wouldn’t let them take pictures or ask too many questions. He was drunk when we were there so he wasn’t too hostile to us. He even told us about his two wives and eight children.

On the topic of refugees from Rwanda, it’s a complex issue. The international community pretty much ignored what was going on in Rwanda while over 800,000 people died there. After the killing was ended, Hutus fled as Tutsis retaliated and the international community supported them in refugee camps, often helping them live in somewhat decent circumstances despite their participation in the murder of so many Rwandans. This support has been going down year after year and though the camps continue housing many people, they don’t have nearly as many resources as in previous years. It’s a sad situation though a complicated one because one doesn’t know whether to continue supporting these people guilty of killing their neighbors or let them live in poor circumstances that aren’t fit for anyone to live in. It’s hard for me to really think of this right now. Anyway, a good book to read about the genocide is "We wish to inform you that we will all be killed tomorrow with our families" by Gourevitch. I read it before going to Rwanda and it really helped me understand more fully what I saw before me. Anyway, on with the trip.
We drove to Rwanda the next day, the same day that President Bush was arriving in town for a quick stop on his Africa tour. Unfortunately, he was visiting the sites the day before we were so we didn’t get to sit and have a chat with him. That would have been interesting. There was a lot of security, although some Rwandans told us there was normally a lot of security, regardless of having the President of the United States visiting. I did get to hear Air Force One taking off from the airport that afternoon because the hotel was right by the airport. There were also American flags up everywhere which was strange for us to see. Rwanda was beautiful-hilly and green like Uganda but more cultivated which made the hills more interesting-looking. The roads were quite nice (I am told the best in Africa) though they wound through the mountains and around tight curves a lot, making it hard to play euchre. We arrived in Kigali a few hours after crossing into the country and noticed right away how different it was than Kampala. The capital city was beautiful, clean, safe, and had enforced laws for driving, unlike in Kampala. People drive on the same side of the road as in America, making it a little easier for us to get used to, but people also used lanes and signals and slowed down to allow us to cross. Boda-boda drivers were pretty good and used helmets as did their passengers. The crosswalks were actual crosswalks and there were traffic lights everywhere. The city was clean and well-tended. We saw people in pink suits pruning trees and grass and sweeping up dust and learned that they were inmates (most of them participants in the genocide) who were doing community service as part of their sentence. They keep the city looking really nice. Anyway, it was a lot less dusty and polluted. The sidewalks were also very nice without potholes and ditches running through them. They also went everywhere instead of just stopping outside of the main area of the city. It seemed like we were all in culture shock as we got there. Martha told us that the city was so much more developed than Kampala because the Rwandan government was a lot less corrupt and therefore more money actually made it to maintenance projects.

The next day we visited various memorial sites. The first place we went to was the Kigali Memorial Center. We saw mass graves where 200,000 people were buried. There was also a museum that told the story of the genocide in Rwanda as well as the genocides that have taken place during the Holocaust and in Armenia and in the Balkans. It was a really beautiful museum and I learned a lot by walking through it. It was also very sad just to see testimonies and pictures. After stopping there, we went to some churches that were areas where massive amounts of people were killed despite being supposed safe places. The first one, Ntarama, was where 5,000 people were killed. The church was full of holes from grenades. The main building continues to hold the bones of people who died there and their possessions (clothing, jerrycans, etc.). There are also buildings where the pastor of the church allowed burnings to take place as well as the Sunday school where children were killed in gruesome ways. It was really intense and really sad to visit, but it’s good to know what happened in order to prevent anything like that from happening again (and to stop genocide in the Sudan and other places where it may be taking place). The other church we went to, Nyamata, was where 10,000 people died. There were lots and lots of bones there. The church still has blood stains on the walls and ground and holes in the ceilings from grenades. Again, it was quite a sad place to be. Overall, the day was intense and sad. We were all quite silent in the cars. I just don’t know how to fathom that many people dying in such a short while. Furthermore, it’s amazing that no one, including the US government or the UN, would step in to stop something like this from killing more people. I couldn’t help but look at the kids and wonder how old they were, if they had been around when the genocide was going on and looking at the adults and wondering what had happened to them during the genocide, which side they were on. On a lighter note, we ate dinner at a really good Italian restaurant and I had pizza and bruscetta. It was lovely to eat cheese again. I can’t wait to go to the muzungu supermarket and buy some quality cheese.

The next morning we had some free time in Kigali. I walked around with a Rwandan and he showed us where to buy fabric (really beautiful fabric-unfortunately I didn’t have enough money to buy two yards) and the Hotel des Milles Collines, a famous hotel where Tutsis stayed to escape the genocide. We also walked around various areas in the town to a lookout and took a taxi back. Then we got in the car to head back to Mbarara. From there we went to another development village, this time Rukararwe, not through the UN. We saw the agriculture project they had going on. This visit interested me especially because of the focus on traditional healing in the community. The healers. Queen Elizabeth National Park near the eastern border with the Congo. It went from being somewhat chilly to being hot in the park. The landscape also drastically changed from green mountains and banana trees to savannah. On the drive into the park we saw baboons and waterbuck (large antelope). We also saw warthogs wandering around the parking lot, including a mother with two little babies. That night we took a boat ride and before we even left land we saw a hippo. I got a little overexcited at that, but I realized how much I loved seeing these animals, especially since I hate seeing them in zoos because I hate zoos. Anyway, during the rest of the boat ride we saw more hippos, some crocodiles, more waterbuck and the smaller Ugandan kob (the national animal, I think), as well as an elephant, which was the highlight for me. We also saw lots of birds, including egrets and cormorants and lots more I can’t name. It was nice to ride out on the water. That night we were warned not to go out alone and to take our flashlights with us so that lions wouldn’t attack, which was unlikely but still possible. How cool is that. Anyway, the next morning was an early game drive, beginning when it was still dark out. The first animal of significance we saw (the waterbuck and kob were everywhere) was a male lion just hanging out in the grass. We didn’t have a good view of him, but we could see him moving his head a bit. Later on we saw a female lion chilling out in more tall grass, as well as some hyenas dragging some meat with them and warthogs. I was a little disappointed to have not seen elephants but then in the drive back to the hotel with twenty minutes left we saw a herd of six elephants just standing in a field and a short distance away we saw another pair of a baby and an adult eating and another pair a little more ways down the road. So total we saw eleven elephants during the drive and one the day before so I was completely satisfied. I love elephants. It’s fun to just watch them. Then we got back to the hostel and saw a giant old warthog sitting under a tree. So it was a cool experience. I was so dirty after the morning ride though because I had the window open and we were driving on dirt roads. I think that’s probably the dirtiest I’ve ever been, but it was a satisfied dirty.

So we drove back to Kampala yesterday. On the way we passed more gorgeous sites as well as lots of areas where slash and burn agriculture is clearly taking place. It was sad to see burnt stumps of trees coming out of the ground. There were also tons of trash fires-I guess Saturday night is burn trash night. It was cool once the sun set though because most people we passed didn’t have electricity and because of this, the only light in their shops and homes came from candles or lanterns with a flame inside. It looked really cool like that with only natural light. We made it back a little behind schedule. I headed down to the Old Taxi Park and felt welcomed back into Kampala by the dust, pollution, and bad drivers (and my pit latrine at home-it was really nice having real toilets during most of the trip). I know it sounds like I hate Kampala but I don’t. It’s not my favorite city, but it has its merits. It’s nice to be back where I’m somewhat familiar with the roads and system and know where to go to buy something. My family welcomed me back with a Kuli Kayo (Welcome Back) so it was nice. And today I went into the city to use internet and got to use some really fast (for Uganda) internet for an hour to get some reading done (a week’s worth of e-mails). And now I’m sitting in my room listening to my music (currently some Louis Armstrong but previously a good mix of Latin, classical, opera, and random). It’s kind of surreal to be back and be starting classes again tomorrow. I’m in the public health in depth classes so we have that for the first time after Luganda. It should be interesting, especially because we’re based through Makerere in Mulago Hospital, the largest hospital in the country but controversial because of the lack of quality care there. Anyway, the expedition was a nice break from Kampala and it made me appreciate being here more. I think I needed to see another side of Uganda to really begin to start liking it here. I feel more at home and more comfortable now in Kampala so I think I’m finally really adapting, though I can’t ever not stand out. Oh well. Hope things are going well for everyone wherever they are. Chao chao! Siiba bulungi.