So it seems like practicum has been this far off thing the entire trip… and now all of a sudden its here. Practicum officially begins today, but I will be leaving on Tuesday or Wednesday. I had several meetings last week to set up what I am doing. So, I will be working at Reproductive Health Uganda at their branch in Gulu. The organization used to be called Family Planning Association of Uganda, and I was completely unaware of the name change but I’m really glad because this means I’ll get to focus on more than just family planning. In Gulu they have also recently launched a program that I’ll get to help out with, called: “Between Two Fires: Ensuring Comprehensive Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for People in Conflict Situations,” which is basically what I’ve wanted to study this entire time. So, if everything goes as planned I will be interning with RHU and helping out with this program and doing fieldwork with women and youth in internally displaced persons camps.
Gulu is in the north, near the Sudanese border, about a five or six hour bus ride from Kampala. About seven other people from my program will be doing their internships or research in the Gulu area, so I will travel with them and a bunch of us are planning on getting a house together, so I am excited for that. I’m a little nervous never having seen Gulu before, but having spoken to other students who have been there, they all seemed to enjoy working there. When I tell other Ugandans that I am going to Gulu I get a lot of unfavorable reactions, like looks of horror or disgust, but I’ll make my own judgment.
So until then, I am just packing, finalizing things, spending a last few days with my host family which is sad in theory but I’ve still never spent more than a solid 15 minutes with my hostmom so…whatever. This past week began very stressfully but got better as things fell into place. Surprisingly, I had a really good time trying to find RHU in Kampala. The directions I had were really wrong, so I got to meet a lot of nice people who helped me out, and in the end I found the place, and everyone that worked there was very nice as well. Friday night was someone’s birthday so we went to a nearby restaurant that has some of the most amazing pizza I have ever had, and we all ate about 5000 pounds of pizza and then went out dancing, but we are pretty lame and tired so we didn’t stay out that late. And on Saturday a group of us went to volunteer at an orphanage that my friend Abbey will be doing her practicum at. It is caused Raising Hope for Uganda, and this twenty-year-old guy who grew up on the streets himself directs it. Now he runs this place, which by day is a school for kids who can’t afford public school (deceptively very expensive despite being “free”), and by night they house about 40 kids who would otherwise be living on the street. So basically this guy Patrick and his coworkers are amazing, amazing people. They have made this their entire lives and are absolutely in love with all of the kids. We came to help build a house for an HIV positive mother and her 6 children so that they have someplace to live, especially after the mother passes away… so in the morning we did a lot of carrying bricks and sand and logs, and then we had lunch at the orphanage and played and danced with the kids which was great. I’m not a huge “just go play with the kids” person but these kids were adorable, and just ran up and gave us these unconditional huge hugs, and we exchanged lots of dance moves, and got really humiliated because some of these 8-year-old girls can shake their stuff way better than I can. If I were going to be in Kampala longer than I am, I would definitely go back again, but alas. It’s weird to be leaving this area so soon, just as I am forming relationships and learning places, but oh well, I’ll get to do it all over again.
So, for the next 6 weeks I am very unsure of what my internet access will be… I’ve heard it’s very shady in Gulu so we’ll have to see how often I get access. So, until then!
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Photos
Here are some photos from someone on the trip who takes really amazing photos. I don't think I'm in any of them, but it will give you a taste of where I am and what we are doing. These are mostly from our rural excursion, and not Kampala city. Enjoy!
http://picasaweb.google.com/nolan.katherine/EasternExcursion?feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/nolan.katherine/EasternExcursion?feat=directlink
Monday, March 23, 2009
Rural Homestay
So, I am finally back in civilization after our rural excursion to the East. We left on Sunday and stayed in Mbale for a night, and I really liked the feel of the city, it was smaller and sleepier than Kampala. I walked around with my friend Abby and got ice cream and as we were sitting on the sidewalk when this guy came and deposited his baby in our lap… I was a little concerned that we weren’t going to see him again but I think he just figured that we would like to play for a little while. We spent the next two nights up in the mountains at a place called the Crow’s Nest, which is a sort of camp place build by the Peace Corps. It was gorgeous, and we all stayed in little cabins and I kind of wanted to stay there forever. We went hiking down to the Sipi waterfalls, and we did some pretty intense rock climbing around and INTO the falls, which was one of the most amazing experiences. The waterfall is HUGE so it was really painful to be pelted by the water while simultaneously gripping slippery mossy rocks and trying to climb through…but it was really cool. And wet. The next day there was another hike to more waterfalls, and everyone had to run back to the camp rather than take the van because they didn’t want to get the van wet, which was pretty fun. Dinner was really shitty the first night, and after that the foot drastically improved—for breakfast we had PANCAKES which was amazing, and for dinner we had garlic bread, guacamole, and some other really great things. (As a sidenote, we all spend about 95% of the time talking about the foods that we miss and can’t wait to have when we get home and how we will all consequentially become obese). I was in a group that went to interview a village community that has been displaced by the cattle raiders from Karamojo district. The cattle raiders have been a huge issue, because they believe that they basically have the right to whatever cattle they find and so they go to other villages and steal the cattle and burn the houses and rape the women… scary stuff. They are the reason why we are not allowed to stay in the Northeast of the country.
After our little stay at “camp,” our rural homestays began. We were all matched with partners from the group, but besides that we were isolated in our own rural village. I was with Jesse, a guy on the trip, and we were in a village called Bunyunyke, which is 3 kilometers from the Kenyan border (to which I really wanted to go but other people lacked my motivation). The basic living situation is family compounds. My family had a compound consisting of several sleeping huts, the cooking hut, the goat pen, and rabbit house, etc, and the compounds of male family members were connected and shared resources, so my host dad’s brothers lived right next door and the women cooked together and the kids ran around quasi-naked together. Jesse and I had our own hut, which was apparently built just for us (swanky). It was pretty well outfitted, with mattress pads and mosquito nets. The structure itself is made of circular mud walls, a tin door, and a grass roof. Pretty much beginning with the first moment, lots of awkwardness ensued, seeing that the family spoke very little English, and also because Jesse and I were treated like royalty which makes me very uncomfortable.
Things about the homestay that were cool:
We could to take part in a lot of the everyday chores—rather, I did, and not so much Jesse (as I will explain). The first morning they had us “dig,” or hoe the ground to plant cassava. Digging is how most of the families in the area make a living. We planted groundnuts, and slashed with machetes. I “cooked,” or did whatever they asked me to do like shell eggs, cut meat, stir vegetables on the “stove,” which is 3 rocks with a fire in the middle and a pot balanced on top. Why they do all the cooking inside is a mystery to me—I have never inhaled so much smoke in my life. I also washed dishes and pumped water from the boar hole. This reaffirmed my lack of strength when I could not even carry one full jerry can of water, so my host mom carried mine IN ADDITION to hers. Its amazing how even the “simplest” of things can become very complicated when water must be pumped and carried, and you don’t have basic things like matches or soap (these families have very, very little money). I mention that Jesse did not do as much because gender inequalities are very pronounced in Uganda, especially in rural areas. Women do all the chores and most of the digging while men spend much of the day drinking and sitting around and expecting meals cooked for them. So, they would have me come help with lunch while someone would fetch a mat for Jesse to lie in the shade. Sounds about right.
Also, while I am not the type of person that swoons over hoards of little kids, we got to play some football and Jesse is very good with them and they liked to sing songs together which was pretty cute. There were also gazillions of animals around, like goats, cows, pigs, piglets (!), chickens, dogs, rabbits, etc, so always something to play with.
Every night for several hours, we went into town with our host dad and went to a large hut that is sort of like the local bar. Everyone sits around and drinks marwa, which is like warm millet beer with chunks of…stuff in it. It is drunk from a large communal pot and everyone has his own “tube,” or hollow stick, with which to drink. It’s almost exclusively a male pastime but I suppose I got special permission being a guest. There is another popular drink made from maize and molasses and is like vodka times a thousand—I think it burned off my esophagus. You can literally smell it when people are drinking it across the street. But they absolutely down it.
Also, the stars were unbelievable. I have never, ever seen them so bright. It was like being in a planetarium, and I could even see the milky way. Brushing my teeth outside at night was probably one of my favorite things. Using the pit latrine and watching all the bugs crawl out of it was not. The bugs in general were a bit intimidating—my first night I rolled over and felt a squish, which turned about to be a gigantic cricket that had been sharing my bed. Fun.
Things about the homestay that were not so cool:
During said homestay, we were supposed to be doing a bunch of research and organizing interviews and focus groups, which is very hard when your family is having you do lots of stuff and no one can communicate with you in English. Jesse and I did research some health care and went to the local clinic and a pharmacy and a traditional healer, but I wish we had been able to do a lot more.
The most upsetting thing about the homestay was the fact that they kept asking us for money. Yes, we are Americans, and they are quite poor, but SIT gives them a lot of money to host us, as I found out, and we also bought them a goat (!) and some other things. Yet my host mother actually cornered me a few times in my hut to ask for money without really explaining why, and she would ask me for things every chance she got and tried to convince me to take her husband back to America so he could get a job (no joke). The father also kept taking us out but then expected Jess or me to pay for things. This all culminated during the last night, when I really wanted to go to bed, and just as I was, ALL the family members piled into our little hut, the one girl was asking for homework help and the father took his dinner. I politely asked them to leave several times but they did not understand. I think they thought Jesse and I were together and thus I could not go to sleep without him. So I dragged Jesse inside, and then one of the daughters got up and gave an apparently prepared speech about how poor they were and how they needed us to give them money, etc etc. At this point I was very fed up, and explained to them that they were getting a great deal of money to have us here, and we did want to help them which is why we had gotten them a goat. And then they finally shut up. Sigh. I thought that maybe all the families were like this, but it turns out no one else’s were, but we talked to our directors about it and they are going to take care of it. So, that kind of tainted the experience, but I’m glad we got to do a lot of the other stuff we did.
Our last day on the excursion, we went to the home of one of our teachers because it is in the area. They have a REALLY nice compound, and our teachers had arranged a DJ and a dance and a cash bar. So we all got to dance and get our directors tipsy, which is always a good time.
I was never so happy to get back to Kampala, however, and I have a newfound appreciated for the privacy I get in my homestay here as well as the familiarity of the city even though it is still crazy and overwhelming. While my little host sister is still annoying at times, we have been “doing homework” together which is cute, I just have to keep an eye on her because if I turn my back for a second she goes through all my stuff. And Irene, the housemaid, is great and missed me a lot. And I have been able to have some really great conversations with my host mom, talking about gender inequalities in Uganda, and HIV/AIDS, and a lot of other stuff that has been provoked by my rural excursion. It’s unfortunate that now that I feel we are finally getting to know each other, I am leaving in less than a week.
That reminds me—I am leaving in less than a week! This is the last week in Kampala before we begin our practicum, or internship/research period. We have this week to finalize plans, write 2 major papers, say bye to our families, and do everything else we want to. Quite overwhelming, to say the least. And it’s a very strange feeling to not know where I am going to be living or what I will be doing even a week from right now. This is very typical for Uganda, but strange for me.
In other news, I went shopping for kangas today, which are these fabric wraps that women wear around the house or while doing chores or use as towels, etc. And I found one with a giant picture of Obama’s face. Perfect. In other interesting news, going a little bit back in time, they day before the excursion was our free day, so some of us went to this nice hotel on top of one of the hills in the city to use the pool. Most of my friends brought their host brothers to swim as well. Ariela’s younger brother insisted that he knew how to swim… which was not really the case. So he went in the deep end and promptly swallowed a bunch of water and started choking and couldn’t breathe… Ariela was like “Jamie!!!” So on autopilot I leapt out the pool and Heimlich-maneuvered the kid and he threw up all the pool water, which was quite a relief. But what it made me think about was how I learned how to do the Heimlich and CPR and even save people out of a pool… but besides the Heimlich, which does seem kind of like common sense, I don’t really remember the rest of it, and now I really feel like I should take a refresher course because you never know when you’re going to need to use that stuff.
After our little stay at “camp,” our rural homestays began. We were all matched with partners from the group, but besides that we were isolated in our own rural village. I was with Jesse, a guy on the trip, and we were in a village called Bunyunyke, which is 3 kilometers from the Kenyan border (to which I really wanted to go but other people lacked my motivation). The basic living situation is family compounds. My family had a compound consisting of several sleeping huts, the cooking hut, the goat pen, and rabbit house, etc, and the compounds of male family members were connected and shared resources, so my host dad’s brothers lived right next door and the women cooked together and the kids ran around quasi-naked together. Jesse and I had our own hut, which was apparently built just for us (swanky). It was pretty well outfitted, with mattress pads and mosquito nets. The structure itself is made of circular mud walls, a tin door, and a grass roof. Pretty much beginning with the first moment, lots of awkwardness ensued, seeing that the family spoke very little English, and also because Jesse and I were treated like royalty which makes me very uncomfortable.
Things about the homestay that were cool:
We could to take part in a lot of the everyday chores—rather, I did, and not so much Jesse (as I will explain). The first morning they had us “dig,” or hoe the ground to plant cassava. Digging is how most of the families in the area make a living. We planted groundnuts, and slashed with machetes. I “cooked,” or did whatever they asked me to do like shell eggs, cut meat, stir vegetables on the “stove,” which is 3 rocks with a fire in the middle and a pot balanced on top. Why they do all the cooking inside is a mystery to me—I have never inhaled so much smoke in my life. I also washed dishes and pumped water from the boar hole. This reaffirmed my lack of strength when I could not even carry one full jerry can of water, so my host mom carried mine IN ADDITION to hers. Its amazing how even the “simplest” of things can become very complicated when water must be pumped and carried, and you don’t have basic things like matches or soap (these families have very, very little money). I mention that Jesse did not do as much because gender inequalities are very pronounced in Uganda, especially in rural areas. Women do all the chores and most of the digging while men spend much of the day drinking and sitting around and expecting meals cooked for them. So, they would have me come help with lunch while someone would fetch a mat for Jesse to lie in the shade. Sounds about right.
Also, while I am not the type of person that swoons over hoards of little kids, we got to play some football and Jesse is very good with them and they liked to sing songs together which was pretty cute. There were also gazillions of animals around, like goats, cows, pigs, piglets (!), chickens, dogs, rabbits, etc, so always something to play with.
Every night for several hours, we went into town with our host dad and went to a large hut that is sort of like the local bar. Everyone sits around and drinks marwa, which is like warm millet beer with chunks of…stuff in it. It is drunk from a large communal pot and everyone has his own “tube,” or hollow stick, with which to drink. It’s almost exclusively a male pastime but I suppose I got special permission being a guest. There is another popular drink made from maize and molasses and is like vodka times a thousand—I think it burned off my esophagus. You can literally smell it when people are drinking it across the street. But they absolutely down it.
Also, the stars were unbelievable. I have never, ever seen them so bright. It was like being in a planetarium, and I could even see the milky way. Brushing my teeth outside at night was probably one of my favorite things. Using the pit latrine and watching all the bugs crawl out of it was not. The bugs in general were a bit intimidating—my first night I rolled over and felt a squish, which turned about to be a gigantic cricket that had been sharing my bed. Fun.
Things about the homestay that were not so cool:
During said homestay, we were supposed to be doing a bunch of research and organizing interviews and focus groups, which is very hard when your family is having you do lots of stuff and no one can communicate with you in English. Jesse and I did research some health care and went to the local clinic and a pharmacy and a traditional healer, but I wish we had been able to do a lot more.
The most upsetting thing about the homestay was the fact that they kept asking us for money. Yes, we are Americans, and they are quite poor, but SIT gives them a lot of money to host us, as I found out, and we also bought them a goat (!) and some other things. Yet my host mother actually cornered me a few times in my hut to ask for money without really explaining why, and she would ask me for things every chance she got and tried to convince me to take her husband back to America so he could get a job (no joke). The father also kept taking us out but then expected Jess or me to pay for things. This all culminated during the last night, when I really wanted to go to bed, and just as I was, ALL the family members piled into our little hut, the one girl was asking for homework help and the father took his dinner. I politely asked them to leave several times but they did not understand. I think they thought Jesse and I were together and thus I could not go to sleep without him. So I dragged Jesse inside, and then one of the daughters got up and gave an apparently prepared speech about how poor they were and how they needed us to give them money, etc etc. At this point I was very fed up, and explained to them that they were getting a great deal of money to have us here, and we did want to help them which is why we had gotten them a goat. And then they finally shut up. Sigh. I thought that maybe all the families were like this, but it turns out no one else’s were, but we talked to our directors about it and they are going to take care of it. So, that kind of tainted the experience, but I’m glad we got to do a lot of the other stuff we did.
Our last day on the excursion, we went to the home of one of our teachers because it is in the area. They have a REALLY nice compound, and our teachers had arranged a DJ and a dance and a cash bar. So we all got to dance and get our directors tipsy, which is always a good time.
I was never so happy to get back to Kampala, however, and I have a newfound appreciated for the privacy I get in my homestay here as well as the familiarity of the city even though it is still crazy and overwhelming. While my little host sister is still annoying at times, we have been “doing homework” together which is cute, I just have to keep an eye on her because if I turn my back for a second she goes through all my stuff. And Irene, the housemaid, is great and missed me a lot. And I have been able to have some really great conversations with my host mom, talking about gender inequalities in Uganda, and HIV/AIDS, and a lot of other stuff that has been provoked by my rural excursion. It’s unfortunate that now that I feel we are finally getting to know each other, I am leaving in less than a week.
That reminds me—I am leaving in less than a week! This is the last week in Kampala before we begin our practicum, or internship/research period. We have this week to finalize plans, write 2 major papers, say bye to our families, and do everything else we want to. Quite overwhelming, to say the least. And it’s a very strange feeling to not know where I am going to be living or what I will be doing even a week from right now. This is very typical for Uganda, but strange for me.
In other news, I went shopping for kangas today, which are these fabric wraps that women wear around the house or while doing chores or use as towels, etc. And I found one with a giant picture of Obama’s face. Perfect. In other interesting news, going a little bit back in time, they day before the excursion was our free day, so some of us went to this nice hotel on top of one of the hills in the city to use the pool. Most of my friends brought their host brothers to swim as well. Ariela’s younger brother insisted that he knew how to swim… which was not really the case. So he went in the deep end and promptly swallowed a bunch of water and started choking and couldn’t breathe… Ariela was like “Jamie!!!” So on autopilot I leapt out the pool and Heimlich-maneuvered the kid and he threw up all the pool water, which was quite a relief. But what it made me think about was how I learned how to do the Heimlich and CPR and even save people out of a pool… but besides the Heimlich, which does seem kind of like common sense, I don’t really remember the rest of it, and now I really feel like I should take a refresher course because you never know when you’re going to need to use that stuff.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Picture
PS Here is a picture of some of us during our Western excursion. The land in the background is actually the Democratic Republic of Congo! And that's a funky palm leaf that I liked.
Storks and mouthwash
Okay so the most exciting news is thaaaaat…. My computer is fixed! I am sosososo happy. And I would never wish for my computer to be broken, but the fact that it did was a really interesting experience and I got to meet a bunch of interesting people because of it. It think I had told you about up until taking my computer to the store and working on it there…. From there, it was still not working. So this women Barbara, who had been working with me, whispered to me that she knew who could fix my computer, but that I could not tell anyone I was leaving it with her or at the store because they would try to steal it. So, I pay the store, leave and go around back, at which point Barbara sneaks out, takes my computer, and then hands it off to a man selling pirated DVDs out of a shack on the side of the road, and he pays her. And then she peaces. And I was like….what just happened. So I called my academic director and she was like “yeah, you should get the computer back.” So I go to her car to drive back there, and she off course gets a flat tire promptly after I get in the car. So then this other guy that works for the program walks me there and to check it out, but Barbara was already gone and no one else knew that she had my computer because it was a secret, so I knew that nothing would come of us going there. So for the next night I am freaking out thinking that my computer is being sold for parts on the black market. So the next day I go back to the store—Barbara still not there. Then, she calls me and it like “Jamie, why are you going back to the store?? I told you not to! You are freaking out, do not freak out, I will take you to your computer.” So she instructs me to go to this mall (and she is calling me every 30 seconds as I am running there because I am not there yet) and then I meet her and she takes my hand and leads me on this whirlwind chase through about 17 stores and down alleys and through a hair salon etc, until we get to this teeny tiny office in the back of the building where this guy, Tinka, is working on my computer! And he really knew his stuff. It was not ready for another day because things kept going wrong, but I picked it up the next day and it was all fixed and it was not expensive at all. And we had a really good chat because Tinka is the man.
So what else…. This past weekend was really good. A bunch of us decided to stay in town so we could go out, so we checked into a guest house, and then took a taxi to the nice/expensive/white people part of town, and went to sushi, which was amazing and just really nice to eat outside in the evening and talk and such. And then we went to a bar and later a club, which were fun and…interesting. It was International Women’s Day so obviously there was a special performance with these two girls in skin tight velour jumpsuits, clearly representing freedom of oppression. Then, we went back the guest house where I shared a double bed with 3 other people…actually not that bad, though it was tough to make the mosquito net fit. Oh well. The bathroom was the typical shower with toilet inside of it, but there was no drain so that was also…interesting.
On Sunday, my friend Ariela was making latkes for her host family (I have not yet made a meal for my host family because I do not want to burn their house down). But, I had hung out with her host borthers before so I went over to join them, and it was actually really cool to figure out how to get somewhere on my own. A few weeks ago I would have been terrified to try taking new taxis to another parish, not know exactly where I was going, but now I am more confident that even if I don’t know where I’m going, I can just always ask. So I got there, and got to eat latkes and see someone else’s homestay, which was really interesting.
Had to do another assignment lately, which was drawing a writing about a family tree of my host family. So I actually got my host mom to talk to me and she ended up telling me about her life story which was really interesting… her father died when she was really young, so all of the kids had to work on the mom’s coffee plantation. And she had 7 siblings, 4 of which were brothers and they all have died, whether from AIDS or drowning or throat cancer, and all of their kids have been distributed among the sisters, which is why my host mom has several other children that she raises and sends to school other than her 2 biological sons. She also separated from her husband a long time ago, so she has been financing everything by herself for a long time. The thing is, people die here so young and so frequently that most people are raising many kids that are not theirs, which is just so different than in the US, and here its an obligation to do so, people would never dream of not taking in their deceased siblings children etc. And also, men RARELY have one partner, even when they are married. Divorce isn’t legal, but couples will just “separate” and the husband will often go live with another family. Or he’ll just keep it all going at the same time.
In other news, I have been feeling like my oral hygiene is not up to snuff, even though I floss and brush but I miss my electric toothbrush. So I found this mouthwash which is British, and when I used it, it was so strong I think it burned off my entire cheek lining. No wonder Brits have such bad teeth.
Yesterday in public health class we went to a slum to look at the different options to get water…pretty dismal. None of it is really safe to drink without boiling, but people drink it anyway. We also went to the Kampala City dump which smelled sooooo bad, and the Maribu storks, which are all over the city, were super concentrated there. They just eat trash, and apparently their bodies are so toxic form it all that when they die, flies don’t even want to eat them. And if they poop on you, really bad things happened. But, no stork poop yet, thankfully.
So what else…. This past weekend was really good. A bunch of us decided to stay in town so we could go out, so we checked into a guest house, and then took a taxi to the nice/expensive/white people part of town, and went to sushi, which was amazing and just really nice to eat outside in the evening and talk and such. And then we went to a bar and later a club, which were fun and…interesting. It was International Women’s Day so obviously there was a special performance with these two girls in skin tight velour jumpsuits, clearly representing freedom of oppression. Then, we went back the guest house where I shared a double bed with 3 other people…actually not that bad, though it was tough to make the mosquito net fit. Oh well. The bathroom was the typical shower with toilet inside of it, but there was no drain so that was also…interesting.
On Sunday, my friend Ariela was making latkes for her host family (I have not yet made a meal for my host family because I do not want to burn their house down). But, I had hung out with her host borthers before so I went over to join them, and it was actually really cool to figure out how to get somewhere on my own. A few weeks ago I would have been terrified to try taking new taxis to another parish, not know exactly where I was going, but now I am more confident that even if I don’t know where I’m going, I can just always ask. So I got there, and got to eat latkes and see someone else’s homestay, which was really interesting.
Had to do another assignment lately, which was drawing a writing about a family tree of my host family. So I actually got my host mom to talk to me and she ended up telling me about her life story which was really interesting… her father died when she was really young, so all of the kids had to work on the mom’s coffee plantation. And she had 7 siblings, 4 of which were brothers and they all have died, whether from AIDS or drowning or throat cancer, and all of their kids have been distributed among the sisters, which is why my host mom has several other children that she raises and sends to school other than her 2 biological sons. She also separated from her husband a long time ago, so she has been financing everything by herself for a long time. The thing is, people die here so young and so frequently that most people are raising many kids that are not theirs, which is just so different than in the US, and here its an obligation to do so, people would never dream of not taking in their deceased siblings children etc. And also, men RARELY have one partner, even when they are married. Divorce isn’t legal, but couples will just “separate” and the husband will often go live with another family. Or he’ll just keep it all going at the same time.
In other news, I have been feeling like my oral hygiene is not up to snuff, even though I floss and brush but I miss my electric toothbrush. So I found this mouthwash which is British, and when I used it, it was so strong I think it burned off my entire cheek lining. No wonder Brits have such bad teeth.
Yesterday in public health class we went to a slum to look at the different options to get water…pretty dismal. None of it is really safe to drink without boiling, but people drink it anyway. We also went to the Kampala City dump which smelled sooooo bad, and the Maribu storks, which are all over the city, were super concentrated there. They just eat trash, and apparently their bodies are so toxic form it all that when they die, flies don’t even want to eat them. And if they poop on you, really bad things happened. But, no stork poop yet, thankfully.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Another Week
So, the current themes are really broken computer, and lots of Luganda. We have our Luganda exam tomorrow which is pretty bad news, I'm going to have to do some intense studying this evening. There just isn't enough time in our everyday lives for studying, and it's quite hard to pick up a language in THREE weeks, especially mostly orally. Today we did a bunch of role play like pretening we are at the market and restaurant etc...which was fun but stressful because I feel like I know very little, and once I leave Kampala, other parts of Uganda don't use Luganda so its hard to feel like putting in a lot of effort...
Also, in an effort to revive computer, I brought it to a place where they had a harddrive that SHOULD have worked, it ended up not fixing the computer thus the problem is something else, though as a consequence I have now spent many many hours in a computer repair tech room working on my own computer because people here don't know how to even open a macbook...sigh.
So, what are some better things from this past week.... Last weekend I spent a nice day in town, got caught in a rainstorm but got yummy Indian food and then coffee at the coffee shop we frequent. I also got my dress made with my fabric from Rwanda! It looks amazing and I get lots of compliments from Ugandans because now I look really "smart" (you know you look good when people say you are looking smart). Also, a big highlight was going out earlier this week--my friend Abbey had befriended a few Ugandans from the internet cafe and they seemed very smart and sincere and not just trying to take home a young American girl, which is what most people want. So we went with them to the National Theater for drumming/hip-hop night, and it was just a nice atmosphere with a small crowd and a traditional drumming group as well as this really funny rap group of which one member was this little white guy from colorado, haha. And then Abbey's dad organized a group taxi home for us so that we lady folk could get home safely in the dark and not have bad things happen to us. We have found a good place for SUSHI so tomorrow we are going there and then dancing, which is exciting. Still trying to tigure out where to go/ what to do for practicum, yikes. There is another SIT group studying in Uganda right now, and they are in the city this week. I have a friend in common with them (Molly) so I hung out with a few of them, and they have loved Northern Uganda where they have been, so that seems promising if I want to go to Gulu where many NGOs and Internally displaced peoples camps are. I just need to make up my mind.
This past week has been public health class, which myself and 6 others are taking, and its been nice to learn about some stuff that I have a grounding in, like biomedical ethics and insurance and also gender issues in health and nutrition, etc. The nutrition guy was pretty funny, kept telling us about how we had to stop drinking soda and get up off the couch and I'm just like ummm I think you're talking to the wrong people. Next week we get to go to the trash dumping and sanition place, among other things, which should be interesting/gross.
Interesting thing: last week sometine, this market called Owino burned down, and tons of people lost their stalls and merchandise. Owino is also 300 meters from the fire brigade. And they did not show up for an hour. Some people think it was a conspiracy to clear out the market for other business, though I would not be suprised if it were an accident because the government departments here are just that whack. Just a little snippet of the wonderful infrastructure here.
Ok must run! Love you all,
Jamie
Also, in an effort to revive computer, I brought it to a place where they had a harddrive that SHOULD have worked, it ended up not fixing the computer thus the problem is something else, though as a consequence I have now spent many many hours in a computer repair tech room working on my own computer because people here don't know how to even open a macbook...sigh.
So, what are some better things from this past week.... Last weekend I spent a nice day in town, got caught in a rainstorm but got yummy Indian food and then coffee at the coffee shop we frequent. I also got my dress made with my fabric from Rwanda! It looks amazing and I get lots of compliments from Ugandans because now I look really "smart" (you know you look good when people say you are looking smart). Also, a big highlight was going out earlier this week--my friend Abbey had befriended a few Ugandans from the internet cafe and they seemed very smart and sincere and not just trying to take home a young American girl, which is what most people want. So we went with them to the National Theater for drumming/hip-hop night, and it was just a nice atmosphere with a small crowd and a traditional drumming group as well as this really funny rap group of which one member was this little white guy from colorado, haha. And then Abbey's dad organized a group taxi home for us so that we lady folk could get home safely in the dark and not have bad things happen to us. We have found a good place for SUSHI so tomorrow we are going there and then dancing, which is exciting. Still trying to tigure out where to go/ what to do for practicum, yikes. There is another SIT group studying in Uganda right now, and they are in the city this week. I have a friend in common with them (Molly) so I hung out with a few of them, and they have loved Northern Uganda where they have been, so that seems promising if I want to go to Gulu where many NGOs and Internally displaced peoples camps are. I just need to make up my mind.
This past week has been public health class, which myself and 6 others are taking, and its been nice to learn about some stuff that I have a grounding in, like biomedical ethics and insurance and also gender issues in health and nutrition, etc. The nutrition guy was pretty funny, kept telling us about how we had to stop drinking soda and get up off the couch and I'm just like ummm I think you're talking to the wrong people. Next week we get to go to the trash dumping and sanition place, among other things, which should be interesting/gross.
Interesting thing: last week sometine, this market called Owino burned down, and tons of people lost their stalls and merchandise. Owino is also 300 meters from the fire brigade. And they did not show up for an hour. Some people think it was a conspiracy to clear out the market for other business, though I would not be suprised if it were an accident because the government departments here are just that whack. Just a little snippet of the wonderful infrastructure here.
Ok must run! Love you all,
Jamie
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Back in Uganda
Hello, so we arrived back in Kampala yesterday from our week all over the place. In synopsis: We piled into our vans and drove to Western Uganda. The road was managable at times but was also just rediculous, at times I wanted to die there was so much jostling around. However, the scenery was absolutely stunning, rural Uganda is so gorgeous. We arrived in Mbarare, a biggish town that we stayed in for a couple nights. They had amazing food…we all went nuts because they actually had vegetables, which are hard to come by in the average meal.We visited a Millennium Village site, which is a project done by the UN. The have have a few such sites all over Africa, and they sort of vamp up a impoverished rural village and try to make it sustainable and start a bank, a good school, agriculture, etc, but in such a way that when the UN pulls out, the village remains self-sufficient. It will be interesting to see if this will work… The village was a little eerie, had the feeling of Strawbery Banke or something, where stuff is real but not really. We also went to Oruchinga Refugee Settlement. The settlement used to be all Tutsis, the ethnic group that fled Rwanda when they were prosecuted during the genocide. However, many Tutsis eventually returned, and the camp became mostly Hutus, because many of them are afraid to return to Rwanda for fear of prosecution. There are also rumors that some of them are planning revenge…yikes. Anyways, the scene at the settlement was really desolate, and it’s clear that these people are stuck in limbo, not feeling like they belong in either Rwanda or Uganda.
In Rwanda we saw a lot of powerful places. We went to the Kigali Museum, which is a really amazing place that depicts a really good history of the genocide as well as other genocides that have happened throughout the world. Parts were really chilling and emotional, like walls and walls of photos of the killed that families gave to the museum. There is a famous church that was supposed to be a refuge during the genocide, which was then attacked by the Hutu extremists and almost everyone was killed. The church is a memorial, which we went to, and our tour guide was a man who had survived the church massacre, and his story is just ridiculous—smearing himself with his dead friends’ blood and pretending to be dead, etc. Inside the church, they have left the clothes of everyone who died on the benches, so there are just piled of dirty and bloody clothes. Behind the church are the mass graves, and you are able to go down into a couple of them and there are shelves and shelved piled with skulls and femur bones and coffins… really hard to look at.
It is interesting to compare Uganda and Rwanda. Looking at infrastructure, Rwanda is so much improved over Uganda—the roads are, well, more like roads than potholes. There are sidewalks, and traffic lights, and bodaboda drivers and passengers must where helmets. There are most Westernized buildings and malls, and more running water. Stores have things that we were excited about like Nutella, Snickers, and cornflakes, but they are really expensive (like a box of cereal is the equivalent of $8). All this stuff is very impressive, but then I step back and think that though Rwanda is more developmentally advanced, it basically took a genocide to get that way. And it’s evident that there is hatred bubbling right under the surface, and no one is sure what the future holds, and at the same time people are not comfortable talking about what happened. In Uganda, there are so many problems, but ethnic identity is not one of them.
We did do some slightly more fun things. One of the highlights was going to this Italian restaurant for dinner in Rwanda. It was outside and on the hill and overlooked all of Kigali (the capital). And we got PIZZA and it was amazing. I was at a table with some of my good friends on the trip and we imbibed a bit and it was really nice to just hang out. On our last day we also went to the market to get some crafts and fabric to have made into dresses and such back in Uganda. Also on the way back through Western Uganda, we stopped at a place where the grow all these medicinal plans and work to combine indigenous medicine with Western medicine, really interesting especially for those of us into medical anthropology… and we went on a game drive through Queen Elizabeth National Park! We saw a bunch of baboons, including a little baby on its mothers back, and antelope, and waterbuck, and hippos, and water buffalo, and this crazy lizard thing. I still have not seen any of the animals on “Jamie’s List of Animals that She Must See,” which includes lions, elephants, giraffes, and zebras. Must see at least ONE of those, so I’ll just have to go on another safari.
Also after this trip, I consider myself a pit latrine expert, after having used many of all shapes and sizes.
Arriving back in Kampala was a little like a slap to the face—so much traffic and people and shouting and stuff. Some people are really unhappy to be back. I am mixed, because it was nice to do something different and get to be with everyone, but it will also be nice to be back here and have a little more control over my schedule and have my homestay, etc. Right now I am feeling like I really want to explore more of the city, because I have gotten to know a few areas well but there is still so much. I also want to see more art/theater/music type things, so hopefully I will be able to do more of that coming up. At time I wish that were more a basis of the trip, but then I realize I can seek that stuff out on my own while I couldn’t have access to some of the amazing speakers we have had and NGO sites we have visited.
This week begins my public health modules—more long days. Oh also, attempted to fix my computer with the start-up disc—didn’t work, so still no computer. Phht. Anyways, talk to you all soon!
In Rwanda we saw a lot of powerful places. We went to the Kigali Museum, which is a really amazing place that depicts a really good history of the genocide as well as other genocides that have happened throughout the world. Parts were really chilling and emotional, like walls and walls of photos of the killed that families gave to the museum. There is a famous church that was supposed to be a refuge during the genocide, which was then attacked by the Hutu extremists and almost everyone was killed. The church is a memorial, which we went to, and our tour guide was a man who had survived the church massacre, and his story is just ridiculous—smearing himself with his dead friends’ blood and pretending to be dead, etc. Inside the church, they have left the clothes of everyone who died on the benches, so there are just piled of dirty and bloody clothes. Behind the church are the mass graves, and you are able to go down into a couple of them and there are shelves and shelved piled with skulls and femur bones and coffins… really hard to look at.
It is interesting to compare Uganda and Rwanda. Looking at infrastructure, Rwanda is so much improved over Uganda—the roads are, well, more like roads than potholes. There are sidewalks, and traffic lights, and bodaboda drivers and passengers must where helmets. There are most Westernized buildings and malls, and more running water. Stores have things that we were excited about like Nutella, Snickers, and cornflakes, but they are really expensive (like a box of cereal is the equivalent of $8). All this stuff is very impressive, but then I step back and think that though Rwanda is more developmentally advanced, it basically took a genocide to get that way. And it’s evident that there is hatred bubbling right under the surface, and no one is sure what the future holds, and at the same time people are not comfortable talking about what happened. In Uganda, there are so many problems, but ethnic identity is not one of them.
We did do some slightly more fun things. One of the highlights was going to this Italian restaurant for dinner in Rwanda. It was outside and on the hill and overlooked all of Kigali (the capital). And we got PIZZA and it was amazing. I was at a table with some of my good friends on the trip and we imbibed a bit and it was really nice to just hang out. On our last day we also went to the market to get some crafts and fabric to have made into dresses and such back in Uganda. Also on the way back through Western Uganda, we stopped at a place where the grow all these medicinal plans and work to combine indigenous medicine with Western medicine, really interesting especially for those of us into medical anthropology… and we went on a game drive through Queen Elizabeth National Park! We saw a bunch of baboons, including a little baby on its mothers back, and antelope, and waterbuck, and hippos, and water buffalo, and this crazy lizard thing. I still have not seen any of the animals on “Jamie’s List of Animals that She Must See,” which includes lions, elephants, giraffes, and zebras. Must see at least ONE of those, so I’ll just have to go on another safari.
Also after this trip, I consider myself a pit latrine expert, after having used many of all shapes and sizes.
Arriving back in Kampala was a little like a slap to the face—so much traffic and people and shouting and stuff. Some people are really unhappy to be back. I am mixed, because it was nice to do something different and get to be with everyone, but it will also be nice to be back here and have a little more control over my schedule and have my homestay, etc. Right now I am feeling like I really want to explore more of the city, because I have gotten to know a few areas well but there is still so much. I also want to see more art/theater/music type things, so hopefully I will be able to do more of that coming up. At time I wish that were more a basis of the trip, but then I realize I can seek that stuff out on my own while I couldn’t have access to some of the amazing speakers we have had and NGO sites we have visited.
This week begins my public health modules—more long days. Oh also, attempted to fix my computer with the start-up disc—didn’t work, so still no computer. Phht. Anyways, talk to you all soon!
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