the slums

This week is turning out to be about on par with the Rwanda week in terms of intensity. I feel like they slammed everything into one day yesterday and I’m still reeling. Last week and this week we split up into four different modules (human rights; grassroots development; public health; and gender and development – I’ll give you one guess as to which one I’m in….). Last week we had lectures, and this week we’re out in the field. Instead of moving from NGO to NGO every day, the gender and development group is sticking with the Slum Aid Project (SAP) all week. SAP assists people living in the slums of Kampala, especially women and children who are the victims of domestic violence (DV) and/or have HIV/AIDS. So every day we’re going to different slums. Yesterday we went to Kisenye, which according to my mother is one of the worse slums in Kampala. We went to the homes of a few refugee women affected by DV, which was incredibly hard, of course. Then we went to one of the few areas of this particular slum where the prostitutes live and we got to talk to them and ask them questions and it was so sad and interesting and conflicting. Right when we sat down to talk to them, it started pouring rain, so they took us to this building where the prostitutes work and we shoved into this tiny hallway that was only lit by a single green lightbulb and the rain was pounding on the tin roof and we continued talking to them and it was SO strange and surreal. Then we were supposed to talk to children who were victims of DV but it didn’t end up happening, so we moved on to the most dreaded/anticipated activity of the day: condom distribution in the slums. SAP distributes condoms for free to all the slums in the city, so we came armed with boxes and boxes full and walked around handing them out. Apparently they get all their condoms from USAID, so it was kind of funny walking around with boxes that said, in huge letters on the front, “From the American People.”

Snichols/anyone else who cares: these are my potential research ideas:

(a) this is the idea I came in with, and I think I’m going to end up sticking with it. Drawing on my work at PeaceWomen Project, I want to study how women are influencing the peace negotiations in Northern Uganda. Obviously it’s going to have to be more specific than that, but that’s the gist of it for now.

(b) this is the idea I was thinking of switching to the other day, but now I’m thinking of dropping it. During one of our gender lectures, the professor mentioned that it’s been notes that cases of DV have increased in the North in response to western NGOs that are targeting only women for development/reconstruction programs (especially microfinance) and leaving the men unemployed/idle. I thought that could be pretty interesting to look into.

(c) this idea will of course be incorporate in anything I study: how Leonard Cohen’s music will bring peace to the world.

p.s. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHNNY!!!!!!

p.p.s. a few nights ago I kept hearing scratching in my suitcase but I kept trying to ignore it because I didn’t want to deal with what was in there and finally I couldn’t take it anymore and I made my mom come and look cause I’m a huge wussy and it was RAT.

p.p.p.s. i have to fill out a housing form for where i want to live in the spring. suggestions????!?!?! obvs i'm gonna put parsons/pannex as my first choice, but what else should i put?

i think i might be homesick

But it’s manifesting itself in weird ways. At the beginning of the program they gave us this graph that supposedly charts the emotional “curve” that students go through on study abroad programs. According to the graph, the 5th and 6th weeks are the hardest and the lowest, during which people tend to feel “irritable and hostile”. Considering what I said about hating everyone here in my last post, I guess maybe that graph might be somewhat accurate, eh?

It’s weird, but since I’ve been here I’ve been missing new york SO MUCH. I’ve been trying to figure out why, and it finally hit me last night – I miss the total anonymity that I had in new york. Not only because I was white (though I’m sure that’s a big part of it), but also because I was on my own and not tied down to a huge group, I was accountable only to myself, I could walk down the street without being constantly hyper-aware of myself and my body and my difference. I could go a whole day without ever interacting with or being noticed by anyone, whereas here, surviving requires constant reliance on other people. And, of course, I miss the predictability and reliability of it – especially of the public transportation system. I’m not saying either place is better or worse, I’m just saying, when I get homesick and/or overwhelmed with the chaos and unpredictability of life here, I miss new york.

ALSO. I MISS COFFEE SHOPS. I think that’s what I miss most (place-wise, not people-wise, OBVS). God I miss coffee shops. I miss gaymarket and woodstar and cd, and I’m just about at the point where I’d settle for a starbucks (I’m sorry, j). there are a few coffee shops here, but they’re in the opposite direction from where I live and they’re MUZUNGU CENTRAL. [btw: if you’ve read the post on the “stuff white people like” blog about how white people HATE seeing other white people in foreign settings/situations where you wouldn’t expect to see a white person, IT’S SO TRUE. White people will rarely even make eye contact with other white people when they/we pass each other on the street. SO AWK.]

if i get a chance to post tomorrow, it's going to be JUICY.

i'm going to vent now

so if you don't want to hear me complain, don't read this post. but if you do read it, you'll be rewarded at the end of the post with pictures! or you could just scroll straight to the bottom now.

(a) I NEED A BREAK FROM THESE PEOPLE. there are so many of us, there's never enough room for us no matter WHERE we go, everyone's always confused, we never have enough information, etc. etc. etc. and i think what bothers me the most is that NOBODY listens to each other. everybody just wants to hear their own stupid voices. seriously. sometimes i watch people talking and can actually SEE them tuning each other out and barely letting the other finish before they start saying something completely unrelated.

(b) the academic directors are wonderful but SO not on top of things. i hardly ever see them around anymore, to begin with, and then when they're supposed to be around they don't come. the day before yesterday 8 of us had appointments to meet with charlotte, one of the academic directors, to talk about our practicums. keep in mind that practicums begin in TWO WEEKS, in which time we have to figure out what we're researching, how we're researching it, where we're going, where we're staying, how we're getting there. so we're supposed to meet with her, and an hour into when the meetings were supposed to start, i hear somebody mention that charlotte isn't coming. not only did she blow us off, they didn't even TELL US. THEN, yesterday, they said she'd be there at 1 to make up the meetings. 2 rolls around and someone tells us she's not coming, but she'll definitely be there by 4:30 if we want to wait around. most ppl can't stay that late because it takes them so long to get home that by the time they get home it's dark and we're not allowed to be out past dark. another girl and i decide to wait. 5 rolls around. she doesn't come. AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. and they keep telling us we need to get a move on in "finalizing" our practicum plans. FINALIZING?!?!?! try FORMULATING. i finally managed to meet with her today (nobody even knew she was there; i just happened to wander past her office and see her there) and i've decided to switch to a completely different topic than what i've been considering all along, so basically i'm back to square one. SO STRESSED.

(c) i can't access pdfs ANYWHERE. no matter where i am, no matter how fast the internet is. how the hell am i supposed to write a RESEARCH paper if i can't do any RESEARCH?

okay. i'm done. i'm sorry. i'll try to write some positive things now.

(a) in my freaking-out-ness, i randomly realized on my walk home that there's a hotel down the street from my house, and decided to risk looking like a fool by asking if they had internet. THEY DO. THEY HAVE WIRELESS. AND IT'S FREE. AND IT'S RIGHT DOWN THE STREET FROM MY HOUSE. but i still can't download pdfs.

(b) i had my luganda oral exam today and i KICKED ASS. they said that most ppl would be rated novice, and he said that i definitely surpassed the novice level. this gave me a burst of luganda confidence, so in the taxi when some guy started talking to me, i spoke back in luganda and we actually managed to have almost a full conversation in luganda. of course he asked me about obama. he asked me if i have obama's email address, and when i said no, he was ENRAGED by the fact that every u.s. citizen can't contact obama personally. then he asked me to pass a message on to obama on behalf of all ugandans -- he wants me to ask obama to come to uganda and be their president because they don't want museveni anymore. LOL. i told him i'd try, but that we don't want museveni either.

i'm considering not even posting this because it's so ridiculous and pointless, but whatever.

here are some random pics.

colors

The other day I bought a set of markers for Jethro because he loves to draw but all he has are a few really crappy pencils (that he still manages to be completely satisfied with). He’s been coloring NONSTOP since I gave them to him, and last night out of the blue he suddenly stops coloring, looks up at me, and says with the most mournful look in his eyes, “Ashley, will these colors [he calls markers “colors”] last forever?” It was so heartbreaking to have to tell him that they won’t. It’s so funny (I don’t know if funny is the right word) how I can learn so much about poverty, deprivation, etc., and yet what really gets me is the thought that Jethro can’t get more markers when his run out. Ugh.

mango-in-chief returns

I had my first African mango yesterday! And it wasn’t just any mango – it was a mango fresh from a tree in my own backyard! It was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good. I had also been really excited to try fresh Ugandan coffee, but not only do most Ugandans not drink coffee, but, thanks to the beauty of international trade, Uganda ships its raw beans to other countries (especially Kenya) where it’s processed and packaged and shipped back in Nestle canisters. So….not quite what I expected.

Last night I had a conversation with my mother at dinner about hillary vs. obama. I asked her what Ugandans thought about hillary when she was running and she said that, despite the fact that everyone LOVED obama (obviously), people really liked hillary because they thought of her as an “African woman” because of the way she stuck by bill during the whole monica scandal instead of leaving him. SO interesting, right? Especially considering that that was one of the big reasons why so many American people were turned OFF by hillary.

longest post EVER

Wow do I have a lot to post. I don’t even know where to begin. So I suppose I’ll try to start from the beginning and see how far I get. Just to forewarn you, this is going to be a massive, massive post. I’ve been writing it over the course of a few days, and I’m just realizing that it’s basically culminated in a BOOK. Oops.

This past week has been one of the most intense, surreal, overwhelming, and emotionally draining weeks of my entire life. I still haven’t fully digested most of what happened (or at least a few particularly surreal incidents), and I don’t know that I ever will. One thing is for sure – I am NOT cut out to be around 31 people (or pretty much any people, for that matter) 24/7, especially when we’re all crammed on a bus and the majority of the girls have an endless supply of energy and a major penchant for sing-alongs. Let’s just say that I was very, VERY happy to be back with my homestay family at the end of the week.

So my last post was a pretty hurried one. It seems like so, so long ago that the riots happened. I can’t believe it was only a week ago. I added to the post from the 11th; I know it’s outdated but I wrote it out while I was quarantined in the hotel without access to internet, so I figured I might as well post what I wrote. Anyways, things have calmed down in Kampala and we’re set to resume classes this morning. Of course, just because there’s calm on the streets doesn’t mean there aren’t lingering tensions, and it doesn’t mean that the government handled the situation in a non-dictatorial way. I haven’t had a chance to read a whole lot about what commentators are saying about the situation, but from what I gather, the incident that sparked the riots last week was largely just an excuse to voice a discontent that’s been simmering for a long time, and will continue to simmer (and will likely be sparked again) until the government agrees to actually listen to the Buganda and other kingdoms. But for now, hundreds of rioters are locked up and awaiting trial, so only time will tell what comes of that.

So from our ivory tower in the hotel outside of Kampala, we headed for the west and for Rwanda on Sunday. We drove and drove and drove, ending up at a refugee settlement (I can’t remember the name) in Western Uganda. They’re adamant about calling it a “settlement” as opposed to a “camp” because they claim that it’s a place where people can actually “settle” and build livelihoods as opposed to a temporary place of retreat. This was one of the most interactive experiences I’ve had yet, and I’m so grateful for it, but it was HARD. Apparently this place was started in the 1930s and for the first few decades housed mainly Tutsi refugees fleeing persecution in Rwanda. Now, however, 10 nations are represented (DRC, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania, Liberia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia), adding up to 52,000 refugees. It was really interesting to hear about the informal hierarchy among the different nationalities. Apparently, because the U.S. is currently allowing group resettlement of Somalians in America, the Somalians (the largest population at the settlement) are at the top of the totem pole, getting way more resources and attention from the settlement officials. The Sudanese, on the other hand, are at the bottom of the totem pole, barely surviving. So the way they organized our visit to the settlement was by splitting us up into groups and sending each group to a different area (each nationality occupies its own area). My group visited the Ethiopians and Eritreans, who basically live together. An Eritrean refugee led us to the area and introduced us to some people living there. We ended up talking for about an hour to a man and his wife, with more people gathering and chiming in as time wore on. The thing that was most impossible to comprehend about this place was that EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. had a horrible, traumatizing story. And their horrible stories hadn’t ended upon reaching the settlement, but were actually getting far worse. As they told us, upon arriving at the settlement, you’re given nothing but a tarp and a small piece of land (the settlement officials told us that refugees receive far more land than most of the refugees said they actually got), with which they’re expected to build a home and, supposedly, farm. The land was SHIT, and their houses looked like they would blow over if a slight breeze came. Furthermore, many of the refugees came from urban areas, meaning they never knew how to farm in the first place, so even if the land weren’t shit, they wouldn’t have known what to do with it. Once a month they receive 15 kg of maize. That’s it. I’m not sure if that’s per person or per family, but either way, every refugee agreed that by mid-month, they’re starving. And the settlement is out in the middle of NOWHERE, so for them to try to get any work (with their highest hopes being selling random crap on the street) requires going all the way to Kampala (many hours away). The main man who was speaking to us said that, basically, he eats and sleeps, because he never has enough food to give him the energy to do anything else, and he doesn’t have any prospects for getting out of the life he’s leading. A few people said they had been there over 15 years, and nothing had changed. Moreover, they said they have essentially NO protection from the Ugandan police who are supposed to provide it, and that they’re attacked periodically from rival tribes who also live in the settlement. What was even harder was that they assumed that, because we’re white, we have connections to authorities who might be able to do something to help them. They begged and begged and begged us to please do something for them, to help them, to tell someone; they gave us their names and told us their stories and cried, and all we could say was, we’re students, we’re trying, there’s nothing we can do. It was heartbreaking and I can’t stop thinking about it. I feel like there’s so, so much more to say about this place, but I suppose I’ll move on to the next of many eye-opening and trying experiences.

So on to Rwanda. The drive there was BEAUTIFUL. Hella long, but beautiful. Everything is so lush and green and the sky is so blue. Kigali (the capital of Rwanda) is a beautiful city – much, much different from Kampala. The roads are in perfect condition (as opposed to Kampala, where the roads are more pothole than road), there’s landscaping and fountains everywhere, there’s no trash lining the streets (the trash disposal system in Kampala basically entails piling your trash by the side of the road and burning it periodically), and there are rarely traffic jams (the jams in Kampala are almost worse than the 91 during rush hour). It’s eerie though, because it seems like one big façade – like there’s so much horror and tension just under the surface, but they’re using the pristine, beautifully-planned city as a means of fooling everyone into believing that everything’s fine and the troubles are over. Kampala just feels more….honest, I suppose. What’s more, Uganda receives a TON more foreign aid than Rwanda, so there’s something to contemplate….

I guess I should stop stalling and get on to the hardest and most shocking part of the trip – the genocide memorials. I know that my description isn’t going to even begin to do justice to what I saw and felt there. It was just mind-numbing. When my homestay mother packed up my stuff for me during the riots (because we weren’t able to go home but we needed stuff for Rwanda), she didn’t pack my camera. I was really upset at first, but I soon realized that it was a blessing in disguise, because not only does it feel wrong to take photos at these places, but it also seems to take away from truly experiencing things in the moment because you’re focusing instead on taking photos to look at later. The point being that I didn’t take any photos, but everyone else did and we’re all going to share after the trip, so you’ll definitely get to see. So we visited the official, state-commissioned memorial center first, which basically contained a lot of information and exhibitions about the Rwandan genocide and other genocides around the world. It was hard, but not visually shocking in the way the next two memorials would be. The next two memorials, however, were quite different. They were both churches in more rural areas where people had been told by the government to hide for protection but were ultimately used as a means to pack thousands of people in one place so it was one-stop killing for the genocidaires.

The first church was Nyamata. 12,000 people were killed there. In one day. The church is filled with rows of pews, and every row is piled with the clothing of the people who were slaughtered there. You can see everything – hats, socks, children’s shoes. And the smell… I’ll never forget it. And the silence – you could almost hear it, it was so heavy. Behind the church are stairs that descend underground into mass graves. You go down the stairs and you come to corridors that are about 2 feet wide, and on either side of you, stretching from floor to ceiling, are shelves piled with skeletons. They’re arranged by category, so there are shelves of skulls, shelves of pelvises, shelves of thigh bones, completely surrounding you. Before we left, we came upon a lone woman sweeping the tops of the mass graves. We started talking to her, and she explained that she was a survivor from that very church (apparently the only people who can work at these memorial sites are survivors….i can’t even begin to imagine how hard that must be). She survived by burying herself under dead bodies and smearing herself with their blood so the genocidaires would think she was dead. Not only did she survive that, but just last month, she was attacked in her home by a few genocidaires who wanted to kill her so that she wouldn’t testify against them in court. I don’t understand how these people go on.

The next church was pretty similar, though it had some of its very own uniquely horrifying aspects. Not only did the government tell people it would be safe to hide here, but the church’s own priest was actually involved in tricking the people and helping to massacre them. Inside the main church were the skeletons, the clothes, the items that people had brought with them to use while they were hiding them (cups, mattresses, blankets, school books, etc). Behind the church were two other, smaller buildings that had been used for Sunday schools. One of the buildings had been used for Sunday school children, but during the genocide, a number of women and children hid there. When the genocidaires killed the children, they did it by smashing their bodies against the wall. The huge blood stain is still on the wall.

And after seeing all this, we proceeded to visit a prison the next day where a huge number of genocidaires are being held. Get ready to hear the WEIRDEST. STORY. EVER. (sarah b., I know I always get mad at you for romanticizing, but if you want to include this story in your book, I won’t fight you.) Apparently SIT brings the students to this prison every year, but every year the agenda is a little bit different and the academic directors never know exactly what to expect. So we get there and we’re standing around waiting to find out where to go, and there are prisoners milling about all around us. Some are wearing pink, some orange – pink means you’re still awaiting trial, orange means you’ve been convicted. And here we are, a huge group of white American kids standing around awkwardly while the prisoners stare at us in amusement. We finally go in to meet with the director of the prison and she talks to us for awhile, clearly lying through her teeth about how absolutely wonderful the prison is and how happy the prisoners are to be there. It felt like she was trying to promote the prison; like we were going to return home and testify to the condition of Rwandan prisons and the treatment of prisoners. I think what was hardest for most of us to reconcile in our minds was the crime these people had committed, on the one hand, and the seeming lack of punishment (other than merely being locked up) they’re receiving. From what I’ve read about the American criminal justice system, I know that our model isn’t exactly ideal, but still….I can’t help but feel like these genocidaires are being let off too easy. But then, I have no idea what goes on behind the closed doors of the prison, what the director didn’t tell us.

So we finish talking to the director and then she leads us to this high-school-gymnasium-looking place. We’re seated on a stage with at least 500 prisoners seated in front of us. They begin performing for us – dancing, singing, doing sack races (wtf?), etc. Then a few of them come up to the microphone and tell their stories about what they did in the genocide, with one man saying explicitly that he was involved in the massacres at the churches we visited the day before, and also that he’s being released from prison in a few months. The whole thing is really surreal, we’re roasting to death in the auditorium, and I’m pretty much ready to be done. Things seem to be winding up when suddenly, one of the dancing prisoners comes up to the stage and pulls one of the girls off and begins dancing with her. We’re all shocked and confused and praying to GOD that she’s the only victim, but before we know, we are ALL down there, engaged in a spontaneous dance party WITH GENOCIDAIRES. WTF!?!?!?!?!?!? The whole thing happened so fast that there was no time to resist or to even comprehend what was going on. It lasted for about 20 minutes and it was SO SURREAL. One girl was even pressed cheek to cheek with the man who confessed to having been involved in the massacres at the memorial site. And what was especially weird was the fact that a number of people in my group didn’t even flinch; they LOVED it and it didn’t seem like they were even fazed by the fact that they were having a grand old time with mass murderers. I understand that the point of the prison visit was to show us that these people are human too, that there’s two sides to the story, etc. – but I didn’t need to dance with them to figure that out. Apparently groups in the past actually got to have direct conversations with prisoners, which would have been really cool and much more educational (though I guess dancing with genocidaires is its own form of education).

Okay, there’s SO MUCH MORE that I could say but this post has gone on long enough and if I keep writing I’ll never finish. Thanks for bearing with me!!!!

P.S. Snichols I got your letter(s) today – you are AMAZING and you blow my mind.

is this really happening?

so i'm at a dinky internet cafe down the street from the hotel we've been quarantined in for days. i don't have much time but i just wanted to let everyone know that i'm safe and well. i'm sure many of you have heard what's going on in kampala. things aren't good. i don't really have time to go into detail right now, but i think american news has started to cover it, and if not, check bbc and/or the uganda newspapers ("daily monitor" and "new vision"). in a nutshell, there's been rioting in kampala for the past few days over the kabaka (king) of the buganda kingdom's impending visit to another region. we're currently staying in a hotel outside of the city, a few miles from the airpot, just in case. luckily we're scheduled to leave for rwanda tomorrow and we'll be gone for a week, so hopefully things will have settled down by the time we return. if they haven't, i really don't know what the plan is. our academic directors aren't being incredibly open and informative; i don't know if it's because they don't want to scare us or what, but it's making the whole thing even harder. everything's very surreal -- not just the fact of the violence, but also the fact that we've been whisked away and placed under "hotel arrest," hearing only the occasional gunshot from afar without really knowing what's going on. i have a more extensive, detailed post that i typed up on my laptop and i'm going to post it next week when i have access to wireless again, even though it'll be outdated. i love you all so much and i'm fine and i'll be in touch with mom and dad regularly, so don't hesitate to contact them for updates.

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Obviously this post is a little outdated, but I wrote it on 9/11 so I could get everything down while it was still fresh in my mind. Needless to say, things changed quite drastically in the hours after I posted on the 10th. Perhaps you’ve heard, in the news, from mom, etc., but I’ll do a recap here anyway.

So we’re sitting in class at Makerere University on the afternoon of 9/10. (I’m making this sound so foreboding, right?) Partway through the most interesting lecture we’ve had yet we start hearing gunshots outside and seeing plumes of smoke rising around the city. Come to find out, riots were breaking out around Kampala due to a situation that, technically, has been brewing for many, many years. Essentially, in this particular case, the kabaka (king) of Buganda, the largest and most powerful kingdom in Uganda (let me break it down: the Baganda people live in Buganda, a kingdom in Uganda, and speak Luganda), who holds no official political power but possesses a great deal of unofficial “cultural” influence, has been planning to visit Kayunga region on Saturday, 9/12. Yesterday (9/10), however, the Prime Minister of the Buganda kingdom went ahead of the kabaka to prepare the way. We were initially told that the Prime Minister was kidnapped, but I think in reality he was just barred from entering the region. (We haven’t really had a lot of access to the news other than the occasional broadcasts in Luganda that they’re airing here at the hotel, so some of my facts might be incorrect.) Anyway, the government doesn’t want the Kabaka to travel to this other region for fear that he’ll stir up animosity toward Museveni’s regime, and as a result, many Baganda people in Kampala began rioting to protest this. (As our academic directors explained, though, this particular incident just happened to be the catalyst for expressing a discontent that is much more deeply-rooted than might appear on the surface.) As the riots began to get out of control yesterday, the police called in the military and unleashed tear gas and bullets on the rioters, who were burning things (esp. tires) all over the city and looting. I believe the death-count has reached 8 by now, but rumor has it that some of these were the result of trampling and weren’t directly at the hands of the police.

So as all of this is unfolding, they put the University on lockdown and won’t allow anyone to leave. So here we are, a bunch of confused and restless American kids, locked in a classroom for about 4 hours waiting for an opportunity to get out. Initially, the academic directors thought that we’d be able to go back to our homestays, but as time passed it became obvious that most of the routes to our homes were dangerous and impassable. So finally they brought us to where we are now, Naigara Hotel, which is aways outside of Kampala and very close to the airport, just in case.

This whole thing is so, so surreal – especially the fact that we’re locked on the premises of this hotel while we hear gunshots all over the city. Driving to the hotel last night was pretty sobering. Tons of people were streaming down the streets, forced to walk home as most public transportation wasn’t running (most of the riots occurred at the taxi parks). That and the fact that a bunch of the kids in my group were acting like stupid Americans, laughing and joking about how exciting this whole thing was. I can’t stop thinking about what I’ve heard about foreigners at the start of the Rwanda genocide. Obviously what’s happening here doesn’t even begin to compare to what happened there, but I know that, in the first few hours of the genocide, all of the foreigners (read: white people) except for a few were immediately shipped safely out of the country while Rwandans begged to be let onboard. The fact that we, who in all likelihood weren’t in any actual danger, were immediately loaded into vans and driven out of the city and into safety while passing hundreds of people who had to walk home in the dark in the midst of riots . . . it was sobering and it’s haunting me.

Tomorrow is the day that the kabaka’s actually supposed to visit Kayunga, so it remains to be seen what the day will bring. I’m not scared, and I haven’t been scared at all (I have my ticket to safety [a.k.a. my U.S. passport] firmly in hand, right?) I suppose this is probably the most valuable learning experience I could be having, eh? Though being locked in a hotel is getting a little tiresome. Anyway, they sent drivers to various parts of the city today to pick up our things from our homestays (again, we’re nestled in safety while others risk their lives for our materialism….is my cynicism getting nauseating yet?), so we’ll have our stuff soon. Also, we’re leaving for the West and Rwanda on Sunday, so we’ll be out of the country and hopefully things will settle down by the time we return.

OMG INTERNET OMG

we're at makerere university for lectures today, and i finally managed to bring my computer AND check out an ethernet cord and OH MY GOD INTERNET. it's not actually that fast but being here sure does teach you that "fast" is a relative term. i don't really have anything to say but i thought i'd post anyway just to celebrate my internet access.

so last night the power was out at my house. it was dark and my mother was outside cooking so it was just me and jethro hanging out inside. so i decided to teach him rock/paper/scissors. and we played for HOURS. now everytime he sees me he starts up with it. he's SO CUTE. also i gave him 2 beanie baby bears, and IMMEDIATELY, without even thinking about it, he named them michelle and obama. LOL.

i guess now would be a good place to include some responses to your responses, since i know i've been super bad about that. so let's see what i can remember:

*anna -- you are BRILLIANT. cohenialism? BRILLIANT. just submit that alone to the iowa creative writing program and you'll be IN.

*annie -- i don't really have access to facebook because by the time my internet allows me access to email it's been 5 hours, so i think if i typed facebook into the url box my computer would LAUGH at me. also i have not come CLOSE to mastering luganda, so yes my family speaks english.

*snichols -- thank you so much for your offers but i think at this point my u.s. withdrawl isn't too bad! i've been making sure to get regular doses of chocolate and peanut butter, which is definitely helping. thank you so much for all your advice and corroborations, though...i love hearing your perspective on everything!

*jared -- i know you haven't posted and i don't even know if you're reading, but in case you are, or in case anna feels kind enough to pass along this message, i want you to know that the other night when i was recovering from my sickness i watched "v for vendetta" and it made me feel SO MUCH BETTER. don't laugh.

*sarah b -- you scoot scoot through my dreams EVERY NIGHT ;-)

ALSO who commented that the picture of my brothers and sister and i looks like it could be of savannah, ali, emily and i? LOL. it took me awhile to get it (or maybe i'm thinking too far into it.....) but i got it.

i'm going to try to take pics of my house tonight so ya'll can see it, but i don't know if we're coming to the university again before we leave for rwanda, so i might not be able to post them for another week or so.

ALSO OMG hearing about smith starting is making me SO HOMESICK. i want to hear all about it and i also don't want to hear about it. but if you're reading and you have any anecdotes, PLEASE GIVE THEM TO ME. tell me about gillett, about classes, about any mschu sightings, about convocation, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum. AND since i am very rarely able to access my smith account, could you maybe keep me updated on registration deadlines and stuff? i saw the email SVD sent about changes in SWG requirements -- YES.

love love love!

long time no post

and Heyyyyy! It’s been a long time, I know, and now I feel like I’ve forgotten a bunch of little things that’ve happened along the way. I’ll try to remember as much as I can for this post.

So it finally happened. I thought I was homefree, but I guess I jinxed myself. I got sick the other night. It sucked. I didn’t go to class yesterday, which especially sucked because it was the “gender” day and we were going to visit some women’s NGOs working in Kampala slums. But instead I slept all day and recovered from my horrific night. But all’s well now (I hope).

I suppose I’ll write about my weekend, since that’s been pretty much the only thing out of the ordinary lately. We had class all day Saturday, so that didn’t really count, but Sunday we had all day with our families. Just as I was starting to get desperate about my hair, my brother pulls out a pair of clippers to cut his and Jethro’s hair! And they were GOOD clippers, too. So he cut my hair and it was SO GOOD. The picture I posted is actually immediately post-cut for all of us, so we’re all freshly bald. Sunday was also the day that Kenneth and Zerrida went back to school, so I drove with them, Jethro, Aunt Becky, their father, and 2 mysterious other kids (maybe from the father’s other marriage….?) to drop them off. Their schools were like 3 hours away, so it was quite a drive, but it was nice to be able to see the countryside. Also, since their father works in Parliament, he has a really nice car and a special government license plate that tends to make other cars yield to him, or keeps random people from demanding a bribe when passing through certain areas.

Apparently the schools here are SUPER strict. They’re pretty much literally locked into the school premises for the duration of the semester, allowed approx. 5 phone calls a semester, allowed 1-2 visits, not allowed phones, ipods, sweets, etc. They get up at 4:30 am to start studying until classes begin at 8 or 9, then have another study period from the end of class until about 10 pm. And they study like 15 subjects….even the elementary school kids. It’s really impressive, and it seems like it makes them value their education much more than a lot of U.S. kids.

I can’t think of anything else to write right now. :-( We’re leaving for Western Uganda and Rwanda this Sunday and we’ll be there an entire week, so hopefully I’ll have loads to write about once I return. I probably won’t be bringing my computer with me, and likely not my cell phone either, but we’ll see.

Also, I think today might be something for Smithies...move-in day? first day of classes? I can't remember and I can't get on the Smith website. So if you're a Smithie and you're reading this and today is of Smith-related significance, good luck and I'm thinking of you!!

I love you all so, so much.

most attractive family EVER

i'll post more later!

you knew it was coming.....

....the inevitable Leonard Cohen post, that is.

so my brother’s favorite music includes jay-z, beyonce, kanye west . . . you get the point. i think he's kind of disappointed that i don't listen to that stuff.

BUT last night i got him to listen to Leonard Cohen. and he kind of liked it.

I WILL SINGLEHANDEDLY BRING LEONARD COHEN TO AFRICA.

the fam

So I’m in the s.i.t. center on my lunch break. I went out yesterday and bought a loaf of bread and some jam, which should tide me over for awhile and allow me to use the wireless while the other hordes of people are out to lunch. Last night my family asked me what I ate for lunch yesterday and then laughed really hard when I told them I got bread and jam. Apparently eating bread and jam for anything other than teatime is NOT DONE here. Unfortunately, I’m pretty much subsisting on a diet composed entirely of starches, with a few pineapple bits thrown in for good measure. I guess the plan will be to become totally malnourished while I’m here and then eat nothing but salads when I get home. (don’t freak out mom, it’ll be fine.) also, fyi, the internet here at the s.i.t. center is no better, and often worse, than what I’ve been dealing with at the internet cafes, so if my posting and emailing gets even rarer, that’s why. :-(

So MY FAMILY. They’re great!! I have a mom, 4 brothers, and 1 sister. My brothers are Newton who’s in his late 20s, married, and doesn’t live at home anymore; Kenneth, who’s 18; Andrew, who’s 16; and Jethero, who’s 7 and the cutest thing EVER. My sister is 13 and her name is Zerrida. Like an idiot I forgot to address the “what should I call you” issue with my mother early on, so I had to awkwardly ask her last night, and she told me to call her “mommy,” which will take some getting used to.

So Newton, his wife, my mother (er, mommy), and Jethero picked me up on Sunday. I was a little unsure about my mother at first because she seemed very quiet, serious, and standoffish, but I’m sure she was just nervous. Once we all got into the car, the FIRST thing they asked me was if I voted for obama. (I plan on doing an entire post on uganda’s obsession with obama soon.) I live pretty far from the s.i.t. center; in fact, I think I’m the farthest of everyone. (which means they give me extra money to cover my travel costs for the week, and since i’m doing the cheap bread-and-jam thing, I’ll be making a profit!)

My brothers are SO. INCREDIBLY. SWEET. I was pretty nervous because, as you all know, I’ve never had to deal with brothers before, and I don’t come in contact with teenage boys all that often in my day to day life at home and school. they’ve been SO wonderful, though. I keep comparing them to how I imagine most teenage boys in the u.s. would act towards a random new person in the household, i.e., rude/standoffish/too-cool-for-school, and it makes me even more appreciative. They’re so kind and interested and open to all of my stupid questions, and my oldest brother rode the taxi with me to school yesterday and picked me up afterwards to make sure I knew how to do it. Jethero, the youngest, is so smart and hyper and adorable, and also provides nice distractions during awkward moments.

One of the things that’s surprised me most is the amount of tv people watch here. Obviously a lot of people can’t afford to have tvs, but most of the other students in my program are living with families that own tvs, and the consensus seems to be that sitting around the tv all night long is pretty much the norm. my family even eats dinner in front of the tv. Granted, most Ugandans don’t talk while they’re eating (something that’s proving to be VERY hard to get adjusted to, considering dinnertime in the u.s. is when most catching-up happens), but still….i was surprised. A really popular show most families have been watching is the African version of American Idol (I can’t remember what it’s called).

My mother is divorced – something which is VERY taboo in uganda. She didn’t tell me directly; my brothers did. I’m actually happy that I don’t have a homestay father, because that would’ve just been another sensitive situation that I’m glad I don’t have to worry about navigating. So I really want to talk to my mother about what it’s like being divorced in a culture where a divorced woman is so stigmatized, but obviously I need to wait for her to bring it up first. But then, last night, out of the blue, the father appears in the house (he was introduced to me as “andrew’s father”), sits down on the couch and has food brought to him, hardly saying a word to anyone. Apparently he works for the Ugandan parliament and travels a lot, but other than that I don’t know much. He asked me a few questions about the u.s. and then suddenly stood up and left. Hmm…..

Now I know you’re all wondering about the bathroom situation…. They have 1 flush toilet and a shower that doesn’t work, so I take bucket showers in the bathtub. The toilet is in my mother’s room, which means I have to go through her room to the bathroom if I need to go in the middle of the night. They have a pit latrine in the back, but I haven’t used it yet. They have a major garden in the backyard (as do most Ugandans) where they grow most of the food they eat, so even if I’m eating only starches, at least they’re hella fresh, right?

I apologize if this post wasn’t the most eloquent or well thought out; people are streaming back in and I’m feeling very ADD. I know I’m going to think of a million other things I should’ve included as soon as I finish, but this is going to be all for now. I’ll try to include pictures soon! Love you all!!!