gulu bound

hey hey hey.

first of all, a belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMA. i couldn't post yesterday cause i was out and about all day, but i know you wouldn't have read it anyways since you're out wandering in the woods somewhere.

i'm pretty much recovered malaria-wise. i still feel pretty fatigued, but i think it's because i didn't really rest enough and i've heard the meds really wipe you out. though i've come to the conclusion that i have a pretty badass strong body, because i had the most mild malaria ever, and i had no side effects from the meds (almost everyone else has been debilitated by nausea and stomach cramps from the meds). [if you need further proof of said bodily strength, let me remind you of that one time i fell off of a three story building.]

i'm heading to gulu tomorrow morning. i'll be staying in a hotel with 3 other girls. it's only 10,000 shillings a night (about $5) and includes breakfast, so it'll be good. i'm going to be working through an organization called Empowering Hands, which is (so i hear) a coalition of smaller women's organizations based in Gulu. i'm going to be researching the extent to which security council resolution 1325 has been implemented in the peace, recovery, and development plan (PRDP) for northern uganda. from the people i've talked to in kampala, consensus seems to be that it hasn't been implemented at all and that the prdp is totally gender-blind. we'll see what i find.

i want to give you a glimpse into our dinner table conversation last night because it was AWESOME/AWKWARD. the characters in this scene are me (obvs), mommy, jethro, and andrew the carpenter. (i'm told he's a carpenter and he claims to be building chairs and a wardrobe for my mother, but i've yet to see said chairs or wardrobe and everytime i see him he's either sleeping on the couch or watching tv, so....) this was pretty much the first time we've eaten at the dinner table since i've been here, because we're always crowded around the tv watching TERRIBLE (but addicting, i'll admit) spanish soap operas dubbed in english. i think the reason we ate at the table was because andrew prepared the beans for dinner....? so here's the conversation: (the parts in brackets are the things i was thinking but not saying aloud)

Jethro: i'm not eating this matooke because it looks like poop.
Ashley: [trying SO DAMN HARD not to laugh hysterically]
Mommy: JETHRO! how dare you say such a thing at the dinner table! if you said that in the village you would be caned! [damn]
Jethro: [looking at Ashley because he knows he said something funny and Ashley wants to laugh]
Mommy: Ashley, what would have happened if you had said something like that at the dinner table when you were growing up?
Ashley: um....we were pretty....free.....to talk about what we wanted at the dinner table [did we ever talk about anything BUT poop at the dinner table...?]
Mommy: but what would your parents have said?
Ashley: um. [dad was usually the instigator and encourager of poop talk at the dinner table....]
Andrew: [staring at Ashley in confusion? judgement? disgust?]
Mommy: [says something to Andrew in Luganda; i hear the word "Americans" in there a few times] we would never want to be as free as you Americans.
Ashley: okay.

btw, whenever jethro is doing something bad, my mother always tells him he's turning into an american. i don't think she has a very good opinion of americans.