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!