Category Archives: Notes from Uganda 2010

Posts from my “internship” in Uganda – Summer, 2010

North to South

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So, the passed day or so since my last post has gone more or less as planned, though with some delay.  Last night, almost immediately after I updated this blog, I met JACOB.  That’s right, I met Jacob.  For those of you not as intrinsically hopped up on Invisible Children, Jacob was one of the four boys that the IC crew met on their very first trip.  He had escaped Kony’s ranks and was in hiding in Gulu with his brother.  His story and his resilience are a huge inspiration, and meeting him was really exciting.  I didn’t want to be one of those starstruck types (like I was in San Diego in 2007) so I quickly went back to my own thing at the cafe.  But when I got ready to leave, Jacob offered to walk with me to the office the next morning!

Spent the night in a small but decent room.  Woke up really early to get things ready and headed out to Kope Cafe to meet up with Jacob.  We walked for a while before Richard rode by us on a bike!  Richard is an IC mentor and, specifically, Tony’s mentor.  Tony (another boy from the first film) and Richard came to Arizona this passed spring as a part of the Legacy Tour.  After we made it to the office, I met up with Jessica, my contact, and we had a long sit-down talking about the different programs and going into some of the specifics about the way they work.  After talking for a while, I had a look at the local IC store and nabbed myself a messenger bag! Totally awesome. I also got one of the famed yellow bracelets which you can only get at the office here.  Awesome.

From there, I went and checked out of JoJo’s before heading back to Kope Cafe for a bit.  I made a little bit of progress uploading pictures, but was ultimately foiled in updating anything.  But!  As I was getting ready to pack up and thinking about finding the bus park, Alison texted me that she’d be in Gulu.  Happy to join a friend, I agreed to head to her favorite Ethiopian restaurant in the country.  Said goodbye to Jacob and walked with Alison to Abyssinia and had Ethiopian food for the first time (that I can remember).  It was actually pretty good!  The injera takes some getting used to, but all in all it was pretty good and I’ll have to make it a point to visit the one by ASU when I get home.

From there, Alison and I walked to the bus park where she met up with her ILF crew and I found a bus to Kampala.  A very empty bus.  Buses usually don’t leave until they’re full, and I ended up waiting for almost two hours for the bus to get moving.  Part of this time I passed reading, and part of this time I spent outside (I saw the ILF truck pull over nearby so I went to chat with Alison and her co-workers [both of whom had tried teaching me to dance at the ILF party] after getting some biscuits).  Then!  We moved!  And five hours later we arrived in Kampala and I had no idea where I was.  I made it to the Jaguar bus station and now I’m waiting for the 1:00am bus to Kigali.  I should make it to Rwanda around 6 or 7 I think, and arrive in Kigali at 9.  But that’s if I believe them.  I’ve heard it usually takes at least a couple of hours longer than that, so we’ll see.

Acholiland

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So, adventure week has begun.  It’s off to a rough start but it’s on.  This morning I packed up and headed to ACF (where Erik works) and met up with his coworker Maxwell.  There was a huge mix-up with cars and we ended up having to wait a lot longer than I would have liked.  Originally we were supposed to take the Lira car to Gulu while the Gulu car went to Kampala, but for some fun reason the Lira car went to Kampala so the Gulu car had to drive over and pick us up and then turn right ’round and head back.

Needless to say, we got to Gulu a bit late.  Invisible Children had just closed, so I talked to my contact there and I’ll be going to the office in the morning.  I wandered a little before making my way to a hotel that I found in my travel book and got the last room.  It’s not bad, except I’m sharing a bathroom, but that’s not a problem for a $12 room.  From there, I headed to a cafe I had heard about and that’s where I’m hunkered down for now.

Tomorrow morning after visiting the IC office, I’ll probably head out soon after.  I figure Gulu is an easy trip for a weekend in the future, so I want to move forwards (i.e. south or southeast) as soon as possible.  Since I’ll be en route home next weekend, I’m also debating visiting the U.S. embassy for the 4th of July!  I’ll keep you updated.

P.S. – I have quite a few posts in the queue to be posted, but I want to add pictures and my internet connection just isn’t letting that happen.  Hopefully I’ll get those up for you to read and see soon enough.  Sorry!

AdventureWeek

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So, tomorrow Stephen and I are going into the field with Jeoffrey to oversee a program in one of Lira’s sub-counties.  It’ll probably be an all-day affair and it’ll be nice to get involved in the community doing…. anything.  However, immediately afterwards I will be faced with a huge decision.  Hope told me that there will be nothing to do next week and that, if I had other things to do, I should.  So I’m looking into how many hours I want to try to clock in at Nadja’s orphanage and I’m looking into just how many kilometers I can cover in seeing Uganda.

For the last week and a a half I’ve been thinking about going to Gulu with Alison (and recently going to Murchison Falls with Alison). Things got a little shuffled around and she’s going to Murchison tomorrow while I’ll be in the field.  Kind of a bummer, but I think I’ll be alright.  For the passed month I’ve come up with a fairly comprehensive list of what I’d like to see if I had the means and the time.  This week I will be trying to cross a few things off the proverbial Ugandan bucket list.

Now, even some of those who know me might not realize how dependent I am on other people.  I’m not very good at being alone, and I’ve been struggling with this idea of being the only one in my group doing what I’m doing.  I kinda clung to the Penn girls while I was in Kampala (I was going to try to go rafting with them, if you recall) and after Monica and Nadja left I veered right at Alison for company.  I’m not uncomfortable traveling alone, as marked by my hours of walking around Lira alone immediately after arriving, but there’s something undeniably nice about being with someone who is at least a teeny, tiny bit like you.  I knew going into this that I’d be going solo a lot.  Heidi reassured me that going on a trip by myself would be empowering (and I believe it).

So the point of this post is this: I’ll be moving around next week.  I’m trying to arrange some time to go the Invisible Children office.  Part of me wishes I could have gone sooner, due to that desire to be with others and the fact that the S4S winners and some staff were in town (I’m hoping there are some stragglers still in Gulu).  But last night I also came across a realization via Erik and Alison: I could do more than go to Gulu.  I could go to the southwest.  I could go to Rwanda.

If I had to decide right now, I’d probably go to Gulu, then to Kigali by way of Kampala, then back through Kisoro and Lake Bunyonyi and find my way on up.  But I have some thinking to do.  There’s also an Eastern Uganda trip with Sipi Falls staring me in the face. Or I could cut Rwanda out and spend more time at Lake Bunyonyi. And a nice trip would take me northwest to Arua and Hoima and maybe to the Rwenzori Mountains. Lots of thinking.

Owner of a Lonely House

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So, I’ve been hanging tight in this house alone for about six days.  Monica and Nadja left on Friday morning to Kigali and Kampala, respectively.  That evening I met up with Alison at Sankofa for some yummy pizza and a good amount of chatting.  All in all a good night.  That night, as you know, I had my big white ant encounter, which was a heck of a lot of fun.

On Saturday I shaved for the first time in about four weeks, so I’m looking a little cleaner but a little less-traveled. We’ll see whether I decide to keep clean.  Then I headed over to the ILF House and hung out with Alison all day.  She let me take a bunch of movies and we watched Definitely, Maybe and Hotel Rwanda between lunch.  That night I reheated a bunch of leftovers on the stove for a decent dinner.  It rained on me pretty bad on my way home, which made me wonder if white ants would return – they did (but in lesser numbers).  Sunday I got to talk to people on the internet a lot in the morning while making scrambled eggs.  Headed to Sankofa for a bit and hung out with Alison/watched TV before going to dinner at Aanya.

Monday was a pretty slow day at work.  Had a lot of “fun” trying to find maize seeds for the chickens – got the wrong bag and didn’t know it until I had hauled it all the way home! But the crisis was averted eventually.  Tried hopelessly to make Alpen macaroni (Nadja made it on Sound of Music night and it was delicious!) but it came up lacking.  Yesterday Lucas came by and spent the night in town, so we teamed up on a pasta with onions, garlic, and tomatoes and all in all I think it came out pretty well!  And as I type, Nadja and Erik are on their way back from Kampala.

All in all, I spent a hefty sum of my week passing time with Alison, which was really nice.  Plus I was able to use the internet and talk to more people back home.  I ate in town quite a few times, but also tried – with moderate success – to make food at home.  Today after work I’m going to finish preparing some dumplings, but I’m not sure when they’ll be cooked.  Now that people are on their way back to Lira town, I’ll find some much-needed partners in cooking.

Along with the Rain

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So, as I type, I can hear a particular noise. I’ve heard this noise before, but never so loud as 4 o’clock this morning. It’s a buzzing, flapping sound, and when I woke up at 4 and turned on the light, I found out that it’s also the sound of white ants.

White ants are these little black bugs with long white wings. They tend to crawl around, but in the light they sometimes fly and sometimes lose their wings.  They’re a delicacy in Uganda, and after a big rain people tend to round them up for snacks.

In my drowsy, half-awake state last night, I didn’t notice them at first. And when I did I was bewildered. There were dozens of white ants in my room, crawling all over the floor and zig-zagging the air. The first thing I did was walk the house to assess the situation: all over the hallway outside my room, a couple dozen in the living room.  I went outside and called Fred, our night guard. He explained that they were white ants (all I knew at this point was that they were big bugs) and we spent the next hour or so sweeping hundreds of ants and collecting them in a bucket.

After everything was said and done I went back to sleep, but when I got up there were tons of wings on the patio outside, so I spent the morning sweeping them. This afternoon I went to the ILF House and hung out with Alison for a bit, and they had quite a few wings scattered outside too. It was a busy night for white ants! And right now, as I’m typing, there are about a dozen in my room and another dozen in the hallway. I should go gather them up, wings and all.

Three Weeks Down

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Typed on the 16th of June in the afternoon.

So, it’s been a while. And not much has been happening, therefore this post will be a jack of all trades. In the days since the last post I’ve been busy and not busy at all.

Work has been a complete bore. While I’m at work I feel like I might as well be at home because I’m not doing anything worthwhile, it’s been very frustrating. Just today the director returned and I talked with her for a while. Apparently I’ll be very busy once there are more funds for the child rights project. In July. So I’m trying to figure out my plan of action for the next two weeks. She said that next Monday one of the sub-counties has something going on and maybe I’ll go check it out. And next Wednesday ActionAid, the partner for the women’s empowerment project, is coming in to do training so I might sit in on that as well. Two days in one week!! And there’s a workshop tomorrow put on by two Brits so I may try to get into that as well.

I talked to Nadja a bit and I might fill out the week by visiting the orphanage she works at. That or I’ll try to meet with Monica’s friend who works with former LRA abductees. Either one would be a nice change of pace and get me a little more involved in the community, which is good. The other thing I was thinking was to use the downtime to plan some travel and figure out what to do.

In the meantime, I’ve now gone to four of the five restaurants in town. The passed three nights have seen me dine with a number of guests in different restaurants, so it’s nice. The first one, the night I got here and another time since then, was Hotel Aanya, an Indian restaurant that has a decent Chinese menu. Monday was Carwash, which is an Indian restaurant and its namesake. Last night was PanAfric, a more traditional spot. And I just got back from Lillian Towers, which is the fancy hotel/restaurant in town. I now have however many weeks to go to Whiskers, the last one standing.

Last week Erik left for a week’s leave to Kisoro (and Lake Bunyonyi, swoooon). Tomorrow Annett and Martin leave for a month on their honeymoon to Madagascar and the Comoros. The next day Monica heads to Kigali for a ded meeting, and she’ll be dropping Nadja in Kampala on the way. So all this disperal has reinvigerated my search for local travel, and I was thinking of maybe going to Gulu during the week next week since I have free days, but apparently Alison was thinking about heading over there this weekend and I might just follow for some company. I’d love to see Gulu sooner rather than later, but the IC office will be closed, so I’ll have to make a return. However! I could easily make this return on my way to or from the northeast, and I’m hoping to see Arua or one of the other towns in that corner of the country.

I went to the town market for the first time on Sunday! That was quite interesting. Lira isn’t big enough to say it was bustling, but it’s very much how I imagined it: tiny booths of all sorts of produce with a patchwork of cloth for a roof over an open-air market. I’m also learning Luo! Months ago Heather gave me a Luo-English dictionary and a pdf of Luo essentials, so I’ve been digesting it for a few days and bouncing words off of my colleagues at work. It’s actually a really, really simple language but I need to concentrate to remember all of the vocabulary. Other than that, just holding down the fort around these parts. Hopefully the next update will be more interesting, we’ll see.

Rotaract: Uganda Style

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So, in the move to Lira I forgot to post about my experience with Rotaract! The night before I left I went with Morris to the Makerere University Rotaract Club’s installation (where they inaugurate the next year’s officers).

I have spent 2 1/2 years in the Rotaract Club at ASU. I’ve been involved with Rotary, Rotaract’s parent organization, since I was born. My dad has been an active member in Rotary for years and I can’t count the number of meetings I’ve attended and the number of fun events in which I’ve been involved.  It was nice to see the work of a club in another country.

I met a lot of great people, hanging out and having drinks before we all sat down for the big night. The departing President gave a speech and talked a lot about how Makerere had moved forward in the passed year, and the incoming President gave a long speech in which he described Rotaract, and I think rightly, not just as a project of Rotary but also as a partner.

After the speeches there was some downtime in which one of the officers asked trivial questions and gave out airtime for rewards. I won 2000 UGX for knowing the club’s web address! Thank goodness it’s in Morris’s e-mail signature :)

After some free time we started dinner, and it was a sizeable sum of pasta and meats with some traditional food mixed in.  Morris and I left soon after dinner as people started dispersing to different afterparty parties. On the way out I met, who would have thought, a college student who will be going to ARIZONA STATE this fall. How weird is that?

Anyways, the whole affair was much more like a Rotary Club induction than anything Rotaract Clubs, or at least mine, do. We have an annual benefit dinner in the spring and we usually use that time to introduce the incoming President.  I’ve been to a couple with my dad for his club and what I saw in Kampala was reminiscent of  that.  All in all a fun night!

The President of a local Rotary Club putting a pin on the incoming Rotaract President
Morris receiving recognition for networking with Interact, the younger branch of Rotary.

Morris and a blurry me.

Cuisine

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So, I thought it was about time to write about the food here in Uganda.  I knew a little bit about the local food here, but it was interesting to experience it first-hand.  Fresh off the plane on my first night in Uganda, Morris and George took me to their favorite hangout (and a place I frequented while in Kampala for its proportions and prices): People’s Choice.  My first meal was beef stew, but what was exciting were the sides.  The stew came with all sorts of staple Ugandan foods on the side: things you know like rice and beans, along with local versions of yams. But also: matoke (you take not-quite-bananas and steam them before mashing them up), posho (a type of cornflour blob), and cassava (a tuber [i think] that can be cooked a variety of ways).  Here’s a dimly lit picture of my first meal:

from the bottom, counter-clockwise: matoke, rice, cassava, yams, beans with posho in the middle.

In the days before I left Kampala, I seized the opportunity to go to a burger place in Wandegeya. I figured that I should try to get a taste of what Ugandans thought was American food before I left for a smaller town where I may not have the option.

The burger seemed oddly lonely on the plate. Next time I got it I ordered chips (fries) to go with it!

Oddly enough, I haven’t had traditional food since I’ve arrived in Lira. Sankofa, the internet cafe here, has delicious samosas among other things (I just tried their pizza today and it was not too shabby albeit not Pizza Hut). Twice I’ve been to an Indian restaurant called the Hotel Aanya where I’ve made the unique (to my party) decision to have Chinese food. At home we’ve had Mexican food, potatoes, macaroni, and soup. And every morning before he left I teamed up with Erik to make fruit salads for breakfast with mango, papaya, passion fruit, watermelon, and pineapple.  I’m hoping to check out some other places in town for regional foods and local stuff.

Lira, from A to “Zed.”

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Typed on the morning of the 9th of June at Sankofa Internet Cafe

Today’s Hero’s Day, so I’m enjoying my day off at the cafe and typing up a blog!  Anyways, yesterday was my second day of work and I did very much the same thing. I sat for a bit.  Took tea. Sat some more.  But Steven and I were talking and we’re trying to think of ways to be more proactive.  I also asked for proposals of the projects so I read a lot about NACWOLA’s field projects in Lira.  Now hopefully I can go out there? Called it a day early again, and I went into town to inquire about some portable modems.  Stopping here at Sankofa for a couple hours a day will cost me about 180,000 Shillings, plus I use my phone to call back home some.  Having a modem would cost more but I’d have internet more often and maybe cut down on phonecalls as well.  So later today I’ll go take another look and probably get one.  Yay!

Yesterday evening I went with Erik, Annett and Martin and we played badminton for about an hour and a half with some bad shuttlecocks (stupid other English).  It was fun though! And it was nice to get a little bit of sport in as well.  From there, we went to a party to see off some mizungus that were leaving Lira.  It was quite a gathering of people at the International Lifeline Fund.  I got to meet a lot of people!  The farewell was for Hoi, a Vietnamese-Australian who now lives in the U.S. and is going back to his pregnant wife after spending some time with ILF and Marco, an Italian who was moving to Kampala – they were also welcoming Amandine, a Frenchwomen who has lived in Uganda for eight years and is now the director of ILF.  Also also, I met an American named Alison and guess what – she was in Masaka with FSD when Heidi was in Jinja and they know each other – small world I guess.  Also small world, ILF is working with Invisible Children on a project?!

So!  After meeting all of these people and eating a bit of dinner, some music started playing and I got to just hang out with everyone.  I got to know everyone and heard a lot of fun stories.  One thing I did learn, speaking with an Australian, a Brit, and three Germans who learned British English, is that I will never not be surprised to hear the letter Z pronounced “zed.”  Also I was forced to dance a few times, and I don’t think dancing will ever not be awkward for me.  Ever.  Anyways, enough talk! Enjoy some pictures.

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Slow Day

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Typed the night of the 7th of June

Today, was more of an experience. I woke up early and got cleaned up before my first big day at NACWOLA’s Lira Office. Left, and took a long ride on the back of a bicycle until I finally made it. Met up with Geoffrey (one of the staff whom I had met on Sunday) and Grace, the two staff members, and an intern named Stephen from a university in Kampala.

And that was it. We all sat around for about an hour before taking some tea. Then Geoffrey left to take care of some business. Then Grace, Stephen and I sat for a good 2-2.5 hours. Occasionally conversing, occasionally reading things, not doing much of anything. Around 1 Geoffrey called and said we could go home.

That was my first day at work.

SO! I decided to use the free time and try walking home. I knew it took 20 minutes to get home from Sankofa (the internet cafe) so I walked and walked and walked and I made it to the cafe in just over an hour. Stopped in, sent a few e-mails and had some ice cream (it was hoooooot in the afternoon), and then made my way around the outskirts of town, stopping at a few shops. I picked up some cookies and a few notebooks before hiking back home and playing Age of Empires.

Put in a short call to my parents before making my way back to Sankofa for a little bit (trying to register with the US Embassy, but it’s taking far too long on bad internet) before wandering back in the dark until I made it home for a small dinner. After dinner we hung out a bit before calling it a night.