the first month
I have been in Uganda for a month now but have only today been able to get this blog up and running. In the past four weeks - among other things - I’ve arrived, traveled to Rwanda, found a home in Kampala and started my field placement at a local HIV/AIDS organization. Below are a few of my thoughts from these weeks. I promise that in the future I’ll make my posts more frequent and less long, and that I’ll include some photos!
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June 21st: A few of my first impressions: My name is understood only after Alicia Keyes is referenced. Electricity is a scarce commodity, so scarce that it is rationed out on a “24-hours on, 24-hours off” basis. Kampala is extremely dusty, crowded and chaotic …
…
June 26th: I traveled to Rwanda to visit the Women for Women International office (the organization I used to work for). I wanted to see familiar faces and take-in an unfamiliar country while I had the opportunity. Immediately upon arriving in Kigali I was encouraged to go to the Kigali Memorial Center (the official name for the genocide memorial). I was hesitant. I feared that the memorial targeted outsiders and that it somehow exploited the trauma and misrepresented the reality (much like the film Hotel Rwanda, which many Rwandans have informed me is “fake”). I was wrong. The Memorial Center gives voice to the Rwandans that lived through, died from and survived the genocide. It gives the genocide a history – puts it in its proper place in time and shows how it grew out of the past. To those of us outside of Rwanda, the genocide took place in 100 days. Here, the genocide was one brutal phase in a much longer devastating war. A voice of bitterness is captured in written explanations of the colonial past and the more recent role of the international community. The memorial is a chance for Rwandans to tell their own story, to remember their own people, to try to make sense of their own lives, and to help all the rest of us try to understand as well. It literally sucked the air out of me to see piles of bones that had been exhumed from mass graves or found strewn in the streets; to walk through a display of clothing that had been removed from dead bodies; and to stand amidst photos of murdered children and to read what their last words were …
…
As I listened to and learned from Rwandans, I was also asked a lot of questions, particularly from the women who participate in Women for Women International programs. These are women who have little more than the clothes on their back and the child hanging from their breast. They are women who told me that their biggest dreams are to have a home, to buy a cow, or to feed their family. These women wanted me to tell them: Do women in America do something special so that they only have 1-2 children? Do white women have caesarian sections because they think they will be unattractive to a man after natural birth? Do people die from AIDS in America like we do here? Is there poverty and suffering like ours in America? I struggled to find answers to their questions and explanations for those answers …
…
July 1st: The others (3 of my classmates) have arrived, and we have officially begun to settle into our new home. Tonight we stocked the cabinets, cooked together, and ate the first of many meals by lantern light. Our street, Kanjokya Road, is lined with big homes and well-kept gardens most of which appear to house security firms, media venues or NGOs. If there isn’t a plague in the yard advertising what type of work is done there is a “To Let” sign plastered on the wall. That is, apart from the family that lives next door and employs a “guard” to lie in the front grass listening to the radio. As I sit typing by lantern light I can hear the drum of generated power from many of the buildings. Depending on the time of day much makes it way through these windows, beginning with a call to prayer at sun rise and ending with music, shouts and jeers from the bars of Kisimenti. Before the days of Idi Amin’s dictatorship this was an Indian neighborhood. Today it is difficult for me to determine who are our neighbors and who is passing through, going to work or here to shop at Millinneum Superstore. The supermarket shelves are equal parts Indian spices, American cereal and cheap Ugandan bread. Up the hill is Amnesty International and an Aga Khan School, down the hill is one of the cities biggest slum markets. In our home it’s easy to forget that we are in a country where 60% of the population is living in poverty – the conundrum of being a foreigner living in the capitol city of a poor country …
…
July 13th: I had to hold back my tears as Cissy counseled Moses this afternoon. Today was Moses first day at the Center. He was recently tested at the CDC (Center for Disease Control), diagnosed as HIV positive and referred to the Center for services. He came today primarily looking for something to sooth his itchy skin and aching joints.
Cissy began with easy questions of what he knew, how he felt and what he wanted to know. Moses knew that he needed to have better nutrition and to use condoms to avoid re-infection. He felt that his body itched and ached all the time. He wanted to know how to feel better. Moses was initially hesitant to say more than this. His fear and nervousness were visible, almost even palpable. I could see his throat pulsating. His hands clasped each other. His eyes darted in every direction other than towards the people in the room. Both Cissy and the counselor-in-trainer encouraged him to feel comfortable here. They thanked him for his courage to come to the Center.
Sitting with Moses I was reminded of my pulse racing in preparation to see a doctor and the sickening anxiety that rested in the pit of my stomach while waiting to see a counselor for the first time. I am rendered speechless at the thought of adding to these a positive diagnosis of HIV/AIDS.
As Cissy counseled Moses on what foods qualify as better nutrition Moses revealed with embarrassment that he does not know how to read or write. As she discussed with him how to use a jerry can and WaterGuard, he said more. He started with questions about water and moved from there. Moses shared that he is a 29-year-old widow. His wife died in December. He fell ill in January. He lives with his maternal aunties and works as a peasant. He has not told his family that he is HIV positive but he knows that he must. All he has ever wanted was to go to school and to learn English – he asked if he would ever be able to do this now? This was just the beginning of his questions. If he can’t read and write how will he fill out his forms? His health has prevented him from taking another woman after his wife’s death – will he get healthy again and when he does will he be able to get married? He wants to have children – will he ever be able to? His questions encapsulated his fears.
Moses is to come back in two weeks, or earlier if he has a pressing issue. I wonder if he will? …
…
July 22nd: Everything I have spent the past year reading about, analyzing and debating is occurring in its true complexity around me.
Southern Sudanese vice-president Riek Machar is in the midst of brokering peace talks between the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) and the Ugandan government. The talks began last Friday, July 14th, in Juba upon a backdrop of 20 years of violent conflict, 5 unfilled ICC (International Criminal Court) indictments and a recent offer of amnesty to LRA commanders. One week into the talks the daily newspapers are filled with updates on events in Juba as well as what people throughout Uganda have to say about the proceedings. Yatman, Brian, Patrick and I along with many of our Ugandan friends have passed countless dinners debating why it is that the Ugandan government is engaging in peace talks now. Is it that they feel pressured by the international community – informed among other things by UN Under-Secretary Jan Egeland’s declaration that the conflict in the North is the world’s “most neglected humanitarian crisis?” If so, then why buck the ICC’s indictment of five LRA top commanders in the name of “African amnesty?” Does Museveni’s government fear that its reputation as the model African nation will be tarnished if Kony and his men testify in front of the ICC? And what about the LRA? Why peace now? Are they as militarily defeated as the GoU proclaims?
In my humble opinion, alongside all of the political and military posturing is a tremendous amount of masculine hubris. At the core of the LRA’s stated grievances is an incensed defense of masculinity and male sexuality. For example, in a description of the immediate causes for the conflict the LRA declared:
The Government of Uganda’s statements offer much of the same, although with fewer details. Based on the LRA’s and the government’s position papers one could assume that there are absolutely no women, never mind women with interests, in the northern regions of Uganda - that is, aside from those women that exist as an embodiment of male property and honor (note the following scant description of rape: “our mothers, sisters and wives were raped in front of us”). The negotiating table appears to me to be an officially sanctioned cockfight, with millions of innocent women, men and children’s lives at stake.
Amidst everyone’s assertions and speculations - including my own - about the causes, the conditions and the potentials for an end to the conflict in Northern Uganda it is impossible not to note a missing voice. What do the very people who have suffered through this conflict have to say? What do the 20,000 children who have been abducted and forced to kill in the name of the LRA have to say? What do the men who have been rendered incapable of protecting their families and their futures think? What about the women who have lived through their sons/daughters being abducted, who have been taken as wives to Kony and his commanders, who have struggled to raise families in the inhumane conditions of an IDP camp, who have faced constant beatings and sexual abuse and who have been forced to exchange sex with soldiers for food and shelter? Not very many people seem to be asking. And no one seems to really know what peace, if it is brokered, will look like...
…
June 21st: A few of my first impressions: My name is understood only after Alicia Keyes is referenced. Electricity is a scarce commodity, so scarce that it is rationed out on a “24-hours on, 24-hours off” basis. Kampala is extremely dusty, crowded and chaotic …
…
June 26th: I traveled to Rwanda to visit the Women for Women International office (the organization I used to work for). I wanted to see familiar faces and take-in an unfamiliar country while I had the opportunity. Immediately upon arriving in Kigali I was encouraged to go to the Kigali Memorial Center (the official name for the genocide memorial). I was hesitant. I feared that the memorial targeted outsiders and that it somehow exploited the trauma and misrepresented the reality (much like the film Hotel Rwanda, which many Rwandans have informed me is “fake”). I was wrong. The Memorial Center gives voice to the Rwandans that lived through, died from and survived the genocide. It gives the genocide a history – puts it in its proper place in time and shows how it grew out of the past. To those of us outside of Rwanda, the genocide took place in 100 days. Here, the genocide was one brutal phase in a much longer devastating war. A voice of bitterness is captured in written explanations of the colonial past and the more recent role of the international community. The memorial is a chance for Rwandans to tell their own story, to remember their own people, to try to make sense of their own lives, and to help all the rest of us try to understand as well. It literally sucked the air out of me to see piles of bones that had been exhumed from mass graves or found strewn in the streets; to walk through a display of clothing that had been removed from dead bodies; and to stand amidst photos of murdered children and to read what their last words were …
…
As I listened to and learned from Rwandans, I was also asked a lot of questions, particularly from the women who participate in Women for Women International programs. These are women who have little more than the clothes on their back and the child hanging from their breast. They are women who told me that their biggest dreams are to have a home, to buy a cow, or to feed their family. These women wanted me to tell them: Do women in America do something special so that they only have 1-2 children? Do white women have caesarian sections because they think they will be unattractive to a man after natural birth? Do people die from AIDS in America like we do here? Is there poverty and suffering like ours in America? I struggled to find answers to their questions and explanations for those answers …
…
July 1st: The others (3 of my classmates) have arrived, and we have officially begun to settle into our new home. Tonight we stocked the cabinets, cooked together, and ate the first of many meals by lantern light. Our street, Kanjokya Road, is lined with big homes and well-kept gardens most of which appear to house security firms, media venues or NGOs. If there isn’t a plague in the yard advertising what type of work is done there is a “To Let” sign plastered on the wall. That is, apart from the family that lives next door and employs a “guard” to lie in the front grass listening to the radio. As I sit typing by lantern light I can hear the drum of generated power from many of the buildings. Depending on the time of day much makes it way through these windows, beginning with a call to prayer at sun rise and ending with music, shouts and jeers from the bars of Kisimenti. Before the days of Idi Amin’s dictatorship this was an Indian neighborhood. Today it is difficult for me to determine who are our neighbors and who is passing through, going to work or here to shop at Millinneum Superstore. The supermarket shelves are equal parts Indian spices, American cereal and cheap Ugandan bread. Up the hill is Amnesty International and an Aga Khan School, down the hill is one of the cities biggest slum markets. In our home it’s easy to forget that we are in a country where 60% of the population is living in poverty – the conundrum of being a foreigner living in the capitol city of a poor country …
…
July 13th: I had to hold back my tears as Cissy counseled Moses this afternoon. Today was Moses first day at the Center. He was recently tested at the CDC (Center for Disease Control), diagnosed as HIV positive and referred to the Center for services. He came today primarily looking for something to sooth his itchy skin and aching joints.
Cissy began with easy questions of what he knew, how he felt and what he wanted to know. Moses knew that he needed to have better nutrition and to use condoms to avoid re-infection. He felt that his body itched and ached all the time. He wanted to know how to feel better. Moses was initially hesitant to say more than this. His fear and nervousness were visible, almost even palpable. I could see his throat pulsating. His hands clasped each other. His eyes darted in every direction other than towards the people in the room. Both Cissy and the counselor-in-trainer encouraged him to feel comfortable here. They thanked him for his courage to come to the Center.
Sitting with Moses I was reminded of my pulse racing in preparation to see a doctor and the sickening anxiety that rested in the pit of my stomach while waiting to see a counselor for the first time. I am rendered speechless at the thought of adding to these a positive diagnosis of HIV/AIDS.
As Cissy counseled Moses on what foods qualify as better nutrition Moses revealed with embarrassment that he does not know how to read or write. As she discussed with him how to use a jerry can and WaterGuard, he said more. He started with questions about water and moved from there. Moses shared that he is a 29-year-old widow. His wife died in December. He fell ill in January. He lives with his maternal aunties and works as a peasant. He has not told his family that he is HIV positive but he knows that he must. All he has ever wanted was to go to school and to learn English – he asked if he would ever be able to do this now? This was just the beginning of his questions. If he can’t read and write how will he fill out his forms? His health has prevented him from taking another woman after his wife’s death – will he get healthy again and when he does will he be able to get married? He wants to have children – will he ever be able to? His questions encapsulated his fears.
Moses is to come back in two weeks, or earlier if he has a pressing issue. I wonder if he will? …
…
July 22nd: Everything I have spent the past year reading about, analyzing and debating is occurring in its true complexity around me.
Southern Sudanese vice-president Riek Machar is in the midst of brokering peace talks between the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) and the Ugandan government. The talks began last Friday, July 14th, in Juba upon a backdrop of 20 years of violent conflict, 5 unfilled ICC (International Criminal Court) indictments and a recent offer of amnesty to LRA commanders. One week into the talks the daily newspapers are filled with updates on events in Juba as well as what people throughout Uganda have to say about the proceedings. Yatman, Brian, Patrick and I along with many of our Ugandan friends have passed countless dinners debating why it is that the Ugandan government is engaging in peace talks now. Is it that they feel pressured by the international community – informed among other things by UN Under-Secretary Jan Egeland’s declaration that the conflict in the North is the world’s “most neglected humanitarian crisis?” If so, then why buck the ICC’s indictment of five LRA top commanders in the name of “African amnesty?” Does Museveni’s government fear that its reputation as the model African nation will be tarnished if Kony and his men testify in front of the ICC? And what about the LRA? Why peace now? Are they as militarily defeated as the GoU proclaims?
In my humble opinion, alongside all of the political and military posturing is a tremendous amount of masculine hubris. At the core of the LRA’s stated grievances is an incensed defense of masculinity and male sexuality. For example, in a description of the immediate causes for the conflict the LRA declared:
The Government of Uganda’s statements offer much of the same, although with fewer details. Based on the LRA’s and the government’s position papers one could assume that there are absolutely no women, never mind women with interests, in the northern regions of Uganda - that is, aside from those women that exist as an embodiment of male property and honor (note the following scant description of rape: “our mothers, sisters and wives were raped in front of us”). The negotiating table appears to me to be an officially sanctioned cockfight, with millions of innocent women, men and children’s lives at stake.
Amidst everyone’s assertions and speculations - including my own - about the causes, the conditions and the potentials for an end to the conflict in Northern Uganda it is impossible not to note a missing voice. What do the very people who have suffered through this conflict have to say? What do the 20,000 children who have been abducted and forced to kill in the name of the LRA have to say? What do the men who have been rendered incapable of protecting their families and their futures think? What about the women who have lived through their sons/daughters being abducted, who have been taken as wives to Kony and his commanders, who have struggled to raise families in the inhumane conditions of an IDP camp, who have faced constant beatings and sexual abuse and who have been forced to exchange sex with soldiers for food and shelter? Not very many people seem to be asking. And no one seems to really know what peace, if it is brokered, will look like...
posted by alicia at 8:16 AM
1 Comments:
Hi Alicia,
I work for Open Source, a public radio show that uses the Internet as its primary research source. I've been looking into stories in Uganda, and I found your blog using a search. Your first post allows me and others to get a sense of the situation there.
Please drop me an email if you get a chance. It was a pleasure looking over your blog, and I would love to talk to you about what you are doing and seeing there.
Best,
Henry Shepherd
Community Producer
Radio Open Source
henry radioopensource org
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