lugbara friends and families

So, I had my first boda-boda accident. It was a bicycle boda and not a motor boda, but an accident that yielded a broken rib (maybe…) a ripped pant leg, banged up knee and a handful of scattered bruises (as my rib cage smashed into the right side of the handle bars and my right knee into the right side view mirror). This was my first time taking a non-motorized ride (I ride home from work with “my boda driver” Asiku, who pulls his motorcycle up to the gate as soon as he sees me exiting the compound, and who incessantly beeps and texts me after I made the mistake of giving him my number…), while going with my housemate to visit our guard Patrick’s new baby, Godwin, in a village 10 km outside of town.

We hired these boda drivers about a 5-minute walk from our front gate to drive us these 10 km outside of town. Lillian, are steadfast accompaniment (and regular house-girl), negotiated a price while Sarah negotiated introductions with some visiting missionaries (who I said looked like Sarah’s breed [of bible-thumpers] and she declared of my breed [ridiculous Americans]). The ride was a bit exhilarating – you’re paying someone to carry your ass outside of town on the back of his bike. For me, the whole thing conjures memories of “don’t ride on the handle bars of your best friend because the neighbor kid’s friend’s friend fell off and put a tooth through her lip,” sort of thing.

Lillian didn’t know exactly where we were to go and we round up riding around for a good bit (read: 2 hours on a hired bike-taxi, in sunny African bush country, asking where is Patrick’s village…) before finding someone that went to school with Patrick years back, who then offered to shuck the bike bodas and for us to hire him and his motorized boda that we proceeded to fit 3 riders onto to find our way to Patrick, 2.5 hours late.

At a house where we stopped and asked for directions, waiting for the boda to fuel up.



Me and Lillian on the motorized boda…smiling, laughing in the heat of the Aruan bush.


We arrived. Patrick’s young, really beautiful wife Helen ushered us into their compound and into their family’s quarters, where she had prepared a lovely meal for visitors. As is customary, she served us, stepped outside, and left us to dine on our own, before serving herself and other adults, and then passing remnants onto the children.

Patrick’s family (three kids from wife #1, and this new baby lived in one tukul (thatch hut); his parents, his younger brother, his other brother and family all stayed in their respective buildings. Shared bathing areas and shared latrines. His mother taught me how to grind cassava, and his brother climbed the biggest avocado tree I’ve ever seen to hurl a nice collection down for us to bring home for ourselves to enjoy.

Sarah and Patrick’s family


Patrick with his mother and father


Mama grinding Casava and teaching me the ropes



Avocado from heaven


Baby Godwin (very flattering photo…)


Small children and Patrick with a coloring book



Last Saturday I attended the funeral reception for a former MP (Member of Parliament). This highly respected man was the cousin-brother of my favorite Aruan/ friend Mary Nyadri. In what is an increasingly common explanation for passing, he fell sick and died in Mulago hospital, after being imprisoned for three months for being part of an opposition party, contracting TB, and subsequently pneumonia (Side note, Caroline told me that 90% of their TB patients are HIV positive, if that’s an additional indicator…). There were probably 800 people at this funeral. The man was apparently very well liked, a very smart, caring, and gifted person – a rasta in fact! – who had written a pretty popular song, started a dance hall, had a masters degree from Russia, and will apparently be greatly missed.

I got to meet Mary’s family, which for me was the positive outcome of the experience – Me, with Mary’s new granddaughter; Mary with her sister (who looks just like her!), daughter, sons, and neighbors.

Field Work

I’ve spent two weeks in the field, traveling from one sub-county head quarters to the next, meeting with local council members, head masters, farmer group leaders, students, and drop-outs. Traversing the three counties composing Arua district (Aiyvu, Maracha, and Terego), and their respective sub-counties, parishes, and villages, has really made my work delightful, helped improve my Lugbara, and made me feel like I’m contributing my skills effectively to CARE’s programming.

My task has been to make photographic and video documentation of the implementation of the government of Uganda’s central policies on education and agriculture (Universal Primary Education – UPE and the Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture – PMA). The photos speak louder than my words, but I’ve had a bandwidth nightmare since returning and haven’t had much success getting them all online. I think this one says it best, in so many ways: Uganda is in dynamic strungle of development. Struggle? Strangle? You decide - I think it’s both.

The work made me think of this great quote about the unadulterated joy of being alive, despite the fact that I was seeing many of the pains that come along with being alive. It was something of a defining moment, riding along in the four-door truck, with Anthony pointing out areas of key significance, of what I had always hoped my work here to be like. I learned a lot from and about Anthony over the course of these weeks. He told me about the death of his mother, about fleeing to Congo, and describing what buildings were what before the ravages of war left them standing as bare, crumbling, overgrown structures. For a good while I thought these “buildings” were just half finished projects, whose owners never had enough money/time/initiative to complete the skeletal brick frames. How could I have been so naïve?

I fell in love with West Nile during this week and a half, despite its pock-marked roads and violent history, dating back far before Amin and Colonialism, to the frontier land days of Western/Southern Equatoria. Witnessing the misguided “good intentions” of development/donor-money and government funding on the other hand, made my heart break at times. We traveled quickly, with a few bags of g-nuts, sunglasses, water, and multiple cameras. We traveled from end to end, Nile river and into Congo - well, at least I put my feet inside the border long enough for Anthony to photograph me. I met children who had never met a Caucasian (and accordingly, I scared the shit out of them).

I even found a theme song for the experience – everyday at 4:13 on Nile FM, at the beginning of my favorite radio show, “Lugbara Lady,” there is an utterly ridiculous and fantastic intro song, that is a crazy Lingala meets Mortal Kombat meets 90s Techno mash-up, that perfectly set the pace for my adventure.

Anyway, enough talk.

PMA Findings
Cattle inputs and Ox-Plow Trainings greatly improved the operating capacity of farmers, yet often beneficiaries found the procurement policies restrictive and the inputs of bad quality; a farmer in Maracha shows the photos from his training, the equipment stored inside his home, guides us to see the sick cows he received, and then shows me his land.

Through PMA inputs and funding, Draru Rasil has been able to develop the Andifeku Women’s Apiary Project; West Nile’s honey industry is strengthened and women are empowered.

A greater number of farmers are now growing fruit-bearing trees, thanks to improved seed variety dissemination. In Aroi Village, farmers are growing a wide variety of fruits, including the Zabib fruit (which is now my favorite fruit ever, a subtle blend of vanilla, pear, apple, and peach):


In Kijomoro, hybrid mangos (the size of a human head) are growing and farmers are beginning to export products, including seedlings.



The problem of proper information dissemination remains. Many potential beneficiaries are still unaware of the PMA programs and benefits for which they qualify. These non-beneficiaries remain dependent upon small-(land)holder, subsistence farming, and as a result are not able to sell their product in bulk, risk higher competition, and remain financially insecure.


Government funds were used to construct a new bridge at this junction, a project that failed to recognize that bridges should not be built to stand in mud, nor within the lowest point of a valley that floods. Six months later, the bridge is more of a Malaria breeding ground than a service to the community.


UPE Findings:
At Muni Primary, the Headmaster describes the challenges of maintaining enrollment, specifically of girls, but acknowledge that through UPE funds the school library facilities have been greatly improved.


Also at Muni Primary, UPE funds have been used to construct new latrines, to replace overgrown and unsatisfactory facilities. The new latrines, however, suffer from shoddy construction and are unfit and unsanitary.
Old:

New:



Many primary schools suffer from low enrollment because the facilities are so poor, often because UPE funds have not been received or because of mishandled money, or faulty construction. In cases where UPE funds have been received, the issues are particularly disheartening: classroom blocks whose roofs have "blown off " or whose classrooms have been neglected in order to finance new teachers' quarters. Alternatively, when there is no UPE funding, all efforts are on the shoulders of parents.





Conversely, there are many cases of overcrowding in schools, like at Aroi Primary and Endrici Primary where up to six children share one desk:



The problems of the "girl-child" are significant; at the majority of schools enrollment of girls decreases by half annually. This is due to many factors, including discrimination, the need to complete household chores, and early pregnancy. This woman of 18, a student of P6 when she became pregnant, now remains at home since delivering her baby last month.


At Endru primary there is a wonderfully high number of female students in the P7 class.


(Thanks Wolfowitz!)


One of the biggest shortcomings of UPE is the lack of institutional support and/or proper facilities for people/students with disabilities. This boy of 20, in Aiivu county, is a non-beneficiary of UPE because on days when he is well enough to traverse the hour distance to school, the amenities do not accommodate for his condition.


And a few others:

Traditional Lugbara scarification:


Grinding sorghum, one of the dietary staples/cash crops of the area:


My view of hundreds of school children running up to, chasing after, and shouting "Che cheooowaaaa" (greetings! welcome!), as seen daily in the exact same scene for two weeks across 20 different schools. The only difference? The school uniforms.


When I asked, “What is a calvert bridge?” Anthony insisted upon taking my photo in front of one:


The students are Smurfs?


At Muni trading center there is a small women’s tailoring course:


One of the many mass graves within Arua, from an ambush on Oct. 15, 1980


Anthony’s family, in front of their compound:

expat party hardy

Last week my friend had a party - a steller party! This was in part due to her having a generator in the midst of the power outage across West Nile, but in greater part due to the good friends, funky tunes, and decent (catered! in Arua!) food.

The funniest photo I've ever taken, that shows just how white people can't dance.


more dancing hilarity:
Akemi and Moses//William and Martin


Caroline, Akemi, and me

Youth Art in Uganda

An organization in Atlanta, called the Youth Art Connection, is collaborating with International Paint Pals to organize a youth art exhibition for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China. The artworks will be created by children from around the world and are to be displayed as a collection that focuses on how sports and play foster friendship, community, leadership, and success.

I've recently been contacted by YAC and IPP to work with Ugandan youth and facilitate their involvement with the Beijing Project. I will also be working with displaced Sudanese at Rhino Refugee Settlement in the upcoming weeks.

These images are from an afternoon spent at NACWOLA, the Ugandan National Association of Women Living with HIV/AIDS. The mothers of these child participants are members of NACWOLA, where they participate in psychosocial support opportunities and some receive antiretroviral drug therapy, nutritious food, and additional services. Their children are also involved in after-school care and in special events/opportunities, like this. To learn more about NACWOLA, visit: http://www.designerswithoutborders.org/nacwola.html

This was a really fantastic experience for me and for these excellent artists, who displayed much more than their creativity; excitement, delight, and curiosity guided our workshop that began with exploration of self-portraits and continued into a discussion (thanks to my Lugbara translator!) about sports and fellowship and accordingly, complimentary visual depictions.

Working Hard:

Some self portraits:

Some "sports and community" pieces:

Those of you who know me well, know that this was to my complete and utter delight! The event was sporadically punctuated with laughs, but the majority of participants kept quite quiet as they poured themselves onto the paper. This is a striking contrast to the way children participated in the art/photography workshops I organized in the US, where often the only reason young boys participated was because soccer was cancelled. Without going into too much art-theory, the work was fascinating; the compositions, color choices, and specific depictions were particularly striking -- children posed themselves doing both their actual daily activities (carrying jerrycans, praying with family, going to school), but many took creative liberties and depicted wildly different realities -- for example, a girl with white skin and a Mohawk, a small boy speeding on a multi-colored motorcycle, wearing funny glasses, etc.

I also found it really interesting and somewhat endearing that, unlike students in the US who tend to gobble up all resources presented (I need glitter glue AND buttons AND watercolors AND pencils), the process of sharing and resource utilization was incredibly diplomatic. I didn't bring enough writing pencils for everyone, figuring that the bounty of markers, colored pencils, and crayons would suffice, however, I immediately recognized this mistake when all the students really wanted to use pencils before adding color. So we broke all the pencils in half, someone ran to the nearest kiosk to pick up some razor blades, and we whittled our pencils to twice the number. Students with erasers shared, students without waited. The resulting images were really meticulously crafted, and not the brown mess that I've become used to seeing elsewhere :)

I'll be returning in a few weeks for follow up image making - maybe collage? maybe painting? I love feeling that the possibilities, on my side and their side, are open and endless, and having a reem of paper awaiting manipulation only helps reiterate this.