Sunday, April 26, 2009

Real World: Gulu

So, things continue to be strange and interesting in Gulu. I don’t think I have kept you up to date on this issue but in our guesthouse we have a very interesting neighbor, Christine. She is an elderly woman on crutches, so obviously we all decided to be really nice to her. However, she was completely unreceptive. Then she started doing interesting things like cutting down the clothesline that I made, and complaining about us putting our gym shorts and other crazy clothing articles out to dry. Things then progressed as she threw a chair at Kathy’s head as she was doing crunches in the courtyard. She has also been throwing all of our clothes that she deems too close to her part of the guesthouse on to the floor. Then today, Kaitlyn had made a clothesline out of one of her scarves. Apparently it was too close to Christine’s room, and she took a knife to and chopped up the scarf. Then, she began swearing at us (in English!) and calling us American bastards and idiots. She then proceeded to make turkey-like gobbling noises and cackled loudly like the wicked witch of the west. Even though it may appear that she hates us, apparently Christine has been giving everyone in the guesthouse trouble, knocking over jerry cans etc, so the manager came to speak with her, at which she took one of her crutches and began wielding it about and threatening to hit him. After this ordeal, she slammed her door, made a lot of noise, and stared at us creepily. Everyone else in the guesthouse is equally weirded out, and exchanged knowing glances with us. Word on the street is that management is kicking her out tomorrow, but I know they will have to drag her out kicking and screaming. Despite everything, she is more amusing than anything else, and I don’t want her to end up on the street or anything because clearly life has played her some bad cards. But, tomorrow’s Christine installment shall be interesting none-the-less.

In other less dramatic news, today was a good day. Pancakes at Kope for brunch, then some fabric shopping in the market. Then we went to the !POOL! at the fancy inn in town, which was simply amazing. If there’s one thing I really miss, it is being around a giant body of water that we are allowed to swim it. But a pool suffices. And after swimming for a while, I felt much cleaner than I have after countless showers here with terrible water pressure that fails to actually remove dirt from my body. Then we went to the Obama Inn (so many places around here are called Obama—Obama butchery, Obama hotel…I wonder what they were called before this year. Bush Inn? I hope not. Bush Butchery? Maybe). Anyways, it was all Indian food and soooooo good. Indian food here always takes about 5 hours to come after ordering, but it was worth it.

As for “Real World Gulu,” apparently that is what the rest of our group in Uganda has been calling the 7 of us in Gulu, and it definitely is starting to feel a little Real World esque….you know, some strong personalities living within very close proximity to each other…but such is life. I really don’t have much research left to do, but I’m staying through this week before heading back to Kampala to finish this mongo paper. Fun fun.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Sudan Suckahs

Sooooo today... we went to Sudan! I won't lie, we mostly did it for bragging rights. Because it's like... Sudan! But we were very curious about how it would all work out because out directors kept our passports and wouldn't give them back to us, probably because they figured we would try and do exactly what we did... But we caugt the bus to Sudan at 5 am (argh kill me). During the bus ride, a box fell from the rafters of the bus and squashed me as I was trying to sleep. Awesome. But, we got to the Ugandan border town and went to customs. At first the guard was like "There is absolutely no way you can cross the border without a passport.” But we thrust at him every form of documentation we had on us, and after some sweet talking he wrote us a letter granting us entry. Then we hopped on over to the Sudanese customs, did some more sweet talking, and we were in! Southern Sudan is obviously a lot like Northern Uganda, but I suppose it's the novelty of it. We talked to Namile, the nearest trading center. One of us actually did some research while the rest of us walked around, shopped, took pictures, talked to a few nice people, etc. We then took boda motorcycles back to the border to get there before they got suspicious. We easily found a taxi back to Gulu, but of course after 20 minutes all the tires blew out and we waited for 2 hours dying in the heat as they went to find tires... And we took the most out of the way back, BUT we made it. So take that SIT, with your confiscating of passports. PS Not that any of you talk to my academic directors, but you cannot tell them that this happened. Shhh!

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Just a picture


Here's me on a roof in eastern Uganda with zee mountains in the background.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Don't go barefoot...use a dom-con!

So, we continue so stay in our lovely abode behind the bar and adjacent to the crazy evangelical church. Nothing too exciting has occurred as of late. Last week I continued at Reproductive Health Uganda. They’ve actually had me do a few things around the place, so I don’t feel completely useless. I had a couple of really awkward visits to the resettlement villages. For instance, I was trying to run a focus group with women at one village, but soon everyone and their mother had gathered around and was piping in, and when I finished I got the response, “So, people keep coming and asking us questions, and we never see any results. Are you going to get us results?” I have received this on a number of occasions, and it’s really difficult to explain the whole thing about being a young, un-influential, powerless student. I can obviously understand where they are coming from, and its stinky that I can’t immediately get them better healthcare or influence others to do the same.

I had some other better experiences, like going back to Cet-Kana, my favorite village of the four that I visit. It’s the first one I went to, and I met a few people there who were very kind and friendly, and now every time I see them they seek me out and are really interested to talk. One of them, Ana, is an elderly woman, and upon my arriving she gave me an entire pot of sim-sim (like sesame seeds), which was incredibly nice of her. The local chairman (like the mayor of the village) and another man I know took me by the hand and took me on a tour of the village and talked to me, and then helped me translate as I gave a speech on hygiene to mothers and children (quite awkward and not my idea at all, but hopefully something I said was helpful). They day I went to Lela-Obaro, another village, no one was around to help me talk to people, so after sitting around for a while I just decided to walk around the village and see what happened. Turns out, I was welcomed by a group of quasi-drunk men (given, this is at noon), into their hut where they spend exorbitant amounts of time sitting around and drinking their liquor. A few of them knew English, and we had some pretty funny conversation. They also wanted me to buy them some more alcohol, to which I kept replying that I did not think that was the best idea, and that they should be doing something else with their time…probably not my place to say such things, but I’m not going to contribute to their drinking when they could be earning money for their families. One man was really interested in why I was there, so I decided I might as well start asking about family planning, and he offered me his opinions on it and then volunteered to translate so I could ask the other men what they thought. So, this random occurrence happened to be really interesting and useful.

I also enjoy spending time with and talking with Charles, the lab technician, who has been to the US and is working on his graduate degree so there are a lot of things that we can talk about. He has been having me observe as he does HIV testing, and even in 2 sessions I have witnessed several people test positive for HIV…which is such an intense experience, and it makes me feel like this tiny, insignificant piece of sand or something as these people are told that have this disease that will eventually claim their lives. Of course, HIV is not a death sentence, but that is only if one is going to be able to access the drugs and treatment that they need which is definitely not guaranteed here.

This past weekend I decided that I should perhaps begin exercising after not really doing anything the entire time being here (to my credit, I do walk everywhere and probably sweat out my weight in water everyday). So, we went on a run, and then went to Kope Café pancakes. Kope is this café we have been patronizing quite frequently. It has a cozy atmosphere and proceeds go to a local NGO that works with children, and they have amaaazing food, like pancakes and muesli and Greek salads and steak sandwiches and basically sorts of food that are hard to find elsewhere. I have been enjoying food elsewhere of course, like the local staple, kalo, or millet posho, made of millet flour and water and has a play-doh type consistency. I think I am the only muzungu to actually enjoy it, but I really do. Another favorite is mallakon, a mixture of greens and groundnuts, so it tastes really peanut buttery, and you eat it by dipping sweet potatoes in it. Sooo good.

I also found a really cute dress on the side of the road, which I decided to invest in for the evening. That night we went to Buganda Pub to see Sweet Kid, who is apparently a big deal around here. We had heard that this pub was sketchy….and that doesn’t even begin to describe it. It was basically a grabby-man fest, but we were with a guy from out guesthouse who is really nice and drove us there and stayed with us the whole time. The show began with about two hours of awful karaoke, so awful it was laughable. Then they had a few opening acts, including the female artist Bella, which actually turned out to be a series of lapdances. Finally Sweet Kid came out but by that time we were dead, so we didn’t stay that long.

Sunday I woke up and actually thought that I might have malaria…I just had a fever and some other symptoms and it is Uganda so you can never be too sure…I did test negative though and I’m feeling better now so that’s good. The Uganda experience is not complete without malaria, or at least getting tested for it.

PS the title to this post is a quote from the night at Buganda Pub. This is apparently the MC's way of advertising condoms (or dom-cons, as they like to call them.) So remember, don't go barefoot!

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Housing

Ah, I forgot to mention the outcome of our housing search (because I know none of you could sleep at night waiting to find out). We are all staying in rooms at a guesthouse that is literally behind a bar... so things are often loud and a bit rowdy... And actually, there has yet to be both running water and electricity at the same time...usally one or the other, or neither...but such is Gulu. The rooms are cheap though, we are all living in sets of 2 in rooms that are next to eachother, so we're all together but not on top of eachother. And it is costing me 2 dollars a day...which is sahweet. Thus far the only casualties have been a pair of flipflops and a pair of pants that dissapeared off of the drying line...gotta work on that. But, it's amazing what you can do with a scarsely furnished cement room!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Gulugulugulugulugulu

So! Another week in Gulu has passed. Did a lot of observing last week for practicum--it was the biannual training session for peer counselors in the IDP camps, so I got to go along for all of their training. They even do things like make puppets and then have puppet shows to teach about gender based violence. So, a lot of good stuff for me to write about later in my paper.

One evening we got together with the army general again, and this time he brought a long a guy that distributes one of Uganda's most popular brands of beer to all of East Africa, and also this guy Sam Okello, who was a major character in the Last King of Scotland! IMDB that, I do not lie. He also started his own NGO here, and he has spent time in New Hampshire, as well as all over the US. So basically he's a really well-to-do guy. And these are really helpful connections to be making. Next weekend hopefully they are going to take us on safari so I can see some of these animals that SUPPOSEDLY live here but that I have not seen yet, like zebras and giraffes.

On Friday, all of us Gulu-ers embarked for Mbale, a town in the East where a few of us are staying. The bus ride was very long and bumpy and I was literally encased in dirt when I emerged, but it was worth it. A bunch of us turned up, so it was a fun weekend and good to see friends I hadn't seen in a few weeks. The first night we got Indian and went dancing at what we are guessing is a sketchy gay club cause there was a really weird vibe going on...the next day we went for a pretty intense hike to a waterfall. In the evening we visited the Abayudaya Jews. There is this one little village of Jewish Ugandans--the only Jewish society in Africa other than the Ethiopian Jews. I believe they came about because in the early 1900s, missionaries attempted to convert a Ugandan general. He was not having any of it, and decided that Judaism was a much better deal. (Duh.) So, we went to havdala, or the ceremony to mark the end of Shabbot, and it was really surreal to hear Hebrew being sung in the middle of Uganda. Fun fact: to get there, we all rode standing up in the back of a flatbead truck. I also had my first bodaboda, or motorcycle ride, which was really fun. Everyone else has taken them a bajillion times but somehow I have escaped thus far.

Sunday it was raining all day (it is the rainy season now in Uganda, which means rain for at least part of the day, every day, and also that mangos are in season), so we just ate and watched TV on peoples laptops--very nice and relaxing. Mbale has a lot of Indian-owned supermarkets, which generally means good imported food. I think I drank my weight in Diet Coke. And there were M&Ms and toblerone and pringles and laughing cow cheese and apples...I'm basically going to get really fat when I get home and have access to everything I want. The ride home, with the all the waiting we did, left us in transit for TWELVE HOURS. But, whatever.

But, I really can't believe we are only here in Gulu for another 3 weeks, then a week back in Kampala to write my paper, and then our last week presenting at a resort...geez. So, I guess I better go and make the most of it! Talk to you later.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Helloooo

So, since I am once again mooching internet from my friend's modem, I might as well make use of it by posting an update. So, it looks like my schedule in Gulu will be long days Monday through Thursday, shadowing Reproductive Health Uganda, but Friday through Sunday I won't really have anything to do, which is sweet. This weekend has been pretty busy though, as we have been trying to find an apartment. We have visited several brokers and have a couple options, but we cannot get a definite answer about our first choice, so we are sort of in limbo. This would be an apartment in a nice, clean complex very close to where we are now, and it is dirt cheap. As in, each of the 6 of us would be paying about 50 cents a day. Hahaha. The only downside is, the apartment is so small that we will literally be on top of eachother. Our other option is more spacious and more expensive (and by that, I mean 3 dollars a day...Ugandan prices are really spoiling me), but it's kind of grimy so we're hoping this other one pulls through. I don't like being grownup and having to find my own housing! It's so stressful.

In other news...Friday night we had dinner with majors from the UGANDAN ARMY. My friend Kathy was walking down the street, and a truck of them drove by and offered her a ride, and then asked her to dinner. So a bunch of us met them for drinks and dinner, during which they continued to pump us full of alcohol, but they did pay us for everything and took us dancing, which was fun. We have also met a number of other important people, like the head of NAADS, a really big organization over here, and some professors who are helping us all with of our research. But, I continue to like Gulu a lot, it's just very chill and pleasant, and the nights are nice and cool (in temperature) and there is music everywhere. It's nice to be with friends too and always have someone to do things with.

So, hopefully more updates soon. PS Happy Birthday dad!!

Friday, April 3, 2009

Gulu

So here I am in Gulu! After a five-hour bus ride filled with many speed bumps, we pulled into Gulu on Tuesday, and moved into a pretty nice hotel for the time being. I really like the town--you would never guess that until recently it was right in the middle of a civil war. It's pretty small compared to KampalaÑquaint, if you will. There's no crazy traffic and far less harassment as we walk down the street. It is a different language of course, Acholi instead of Luganda, so another set of greetings and such to learn. There are a lot of good restaurants, and the staple here is millet bread, this gooey brown stuff that I love, and not matooke, the mashed plantain stuff that I do not love. There's also a cute market, and some (insanely slow) Internet cafes, a decent supermarket, and a pool at one of the nice hotels--so what more can you ask for? So on Tuesday we just got acclimated.

Wednesday I set out for my organization, Reproductive Health Uganda, which involved me walking for an hour in an unknown direction before calling the RHU director, who was like "No no no, you are very far, just go back to the hotel."So then they picked me up and I discovered that RHU was about 50 feet behind the hotel. Sweet.

So everyone there was very nice, and the organization does community outreach for the Internally Displaced Persons camps Monday through Thursday, so they brought me along to the days outreach, so I got to see the activities they do there as well as talk to people around the camp. In many of the camps, people have been moving back to their homes, but many people are still afraid to do so or are not able. The camps are areas densely populated with mud and grass huts. There's a lot of dirt, and not much vegetation, and not many other resources there. The government is tactfully trying to get the people to leave the camps by not providing thigs for them anymore. Somebody helped me translate as I talked to people in the camp, and I met this 18-year-old guy who is the head of his family after his father was killed in the violence and his mother left with another man (because the woman must always move to where the husband lives). He was not able to finish school, and he must care for his 4 younger siblings. So, really intense stuff. The next day I traveled with RHU to another camp where I was shown around again, and another intern tried to feed me sill-alive insects, which I politely declined. I got to lead a women focus group and the other intern helped me translate, which was really cool and I got to hear their thoughts on what RHU is doing for them. RHU's clinics seem to be the only thing going for these people-they don't receive much other assistance or funding, the local clinics are a joke, and they are still displaced. So they have to come to really rely on RHU. Unfortunately, RHU programs in the IDP camps are about to end since funding is about to end in a couple months, so I am really curious to see what is going to happen.

I made several more stops with the RHU staff on our way back home and they kept feeding me-sugar cane, beans, posho-and I feel kind of guilty because I haven't actually been doing any work for the organization. I really want to, but thus far I have been mostly just going everywhere with them and seeing what happens. When we got back yesterday, they were all like "Ah, we are so traumatized by the IDP camps, we must play a game." So then we played Ludo for a long time, which is like the Ugandan version of Parcheesi. They are a funny bunch, and I think I will like working with them.

Today I am just chilling, since RHU doesn't do programs on Friday. We are currently trying to get an apartment for the 7 of us that are here from my program-we have several leads so hopefully we can even move into one tomorrow. But, all in all, I really like it here. And my practicum is going well-almost TOO well, seems suspicious. But I'll just enjoy the ride for now.