Kyoto Maybe Later

When you enter Kampala your olfactory and respiratory organs are attacked by the thick layer of exhaust from the taxis and tidal waves of dust and effluviums. The vehicles definitely do not have to pass smog checks. And my lungs and nasal passages are made to suffer as I hack up strange black stuff.

I can only guess that when it comes to any concerns for global warming, Uganda signed the revised version of the Kyoto Protocol Amendment. They signed the Kyoto Were a Developing Country So Lay off Treaty. I thought the Los Angeles air was terrible, but compared to Kampala, that air is like a nice hike up a mountain during the springtime.

If the smog does not bother you than surely the visible build up of trash will. When I recently cleaned the apartment, I went to dump the trash and looked around for an outside trashcan. I was instructed to just dump the trash in front and we would burn it later. Wh-wh-wh-what? (I did a cartoonish double-take) Burn trash?!!! This was not just a suggestion because we’re too lazy to buy a trashcan. No, everyone here burns their trash. They have to burn it because there is no trash pick up. You burn everything. Plastic. Toxic cans. Everything. And when the trash refuses to burn you become a pyromaniac and sit there with your match until it does burn.

Growing up in Alabama, we had this Auntie Litter cartoon on television. She had litterbugs merrily dance and sing to educate children to think twice before rolling down your car window and chucking out your juice box. So needless to say, I was conditioned. When I finished a piece of candy here I held onto the wrapper for three days, because I had no place to throw it away.

No one has a place to throw away their trash . The streets build with clutter and the remnants get picked at by marabou storks. If there was an Ark, these birds should have definitely been left off of it. What pigeons are to Americans, the marabou storks are to Ugandans. Think giant-sized hunchback Jim Hensen muppet pigeons with wrinkly bald heads and googly eyes and you have an idea of these creatures.

Going to Gulu

This week has been long, so I apologize because this blog entry is lengthy and scattered. It will not be my best. Anyway, the beginning of the week we went to a Mango orphanage in Kampala that housed several children from the Gulu area, a northern district in Uganda. When we met the director of the orphanage, he warned us that these children come from a war-torn area and they have to deal with the psychological consequences. The children have a lot of anger, fear and confusion. The orphanage focuses the children’s energies towards something positive and healing, like song and dance. The kids sang songs pleading for the war’s end, “Enough is Enough, No More War, Bring Peace on Earth.” After we left the orphanage we scheduled a trip to visit the Gulu area and see for ourselves the devastating effects that the LRA rebels have had on Uganda.

Who are the LRA and what war am I talking about? Brief background: The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is a rebel group that refused to recognize the Ugandan government and have committed atrocities by kidnapping, raping, and maiming civilians, primarily children. In the northern districts of Gulu and Kitgum, the LRA kidnap children and recruit them for their guerilla army. Their young captive recruits undergo abominable rites of passage into their army. They force these traumatized children to kill or be killed. Some children are made to drink and bathe in blood, and others are used for target practice. The LRA direct their violent wrath on children to underscore the government’s weakness in protecting the Ugandan people. In response to the attacks the government created displacement camps, and relocated over 500,000 people to these guarded areas.

We wanted to see these camps and what programs were at work to aid these children. So, we left behind the packed streets of Kampala and were entering the open fields of northern Uganda. Ah, Africa. Goodbye crumbling shacks, hello mud huts with straw roofs. In the back of my head I had a flashing image of a passage I read in a Fodor’s’ Travel Guide to Uganda…it read something like, “It is strongly advised that you avoid travel to Northern Uganda.” That message was now neon-red and screaming at me. What was I doing going to Gulu!? I guess it’s too late to turn back now. (I know that you have figured out that if I am writing this now I am most likely still alive. I was trying to create an element of suspense, people. Sigh. I don't think it worked)

When we arrived in Gulu we first met with some non-profits in the area that were to be our escorts through the camps. These local organizations had hesitations in showing us around. The camps had opened up to white visitors before; white people who made empty promises. They were referring to the students that came and filmed Invisible Children. I reassured them I was only going to be filming their programs. I was interested in the ground organizations at work and not to exploit some child’s sob story to fulfill my aspirations of appearing on Oprah.

I further restored their confidence in my intentions by offering to include their organizations on my website. Most of the small non-profits in Gulu do not have websites and they all desperately need money. I told them I could put videos on my Project Suubi website illustrating their programs and include their contact information for prospective donors, networking their names in the States. These promises I know I can keep. I cannot promise money; I cannot financially provide. Sometimes they look at me and they see white, but what they really see is green. They think they smell money, but what they really smell is my body odor from sweating so much in this friggin country. I have to remind them I don’t have a job.

The Gulu non-profits were excited at the networking prospects and willingly took us to the first camp. They pointed out current projects happening and I absorbed all information. As we walked through the camp, a labyrinth of mud huts, I looked over my shoulder and realized the number of children following behind me was increasing. I had become a pied piper with my own personal parade. I turned around and greeted them, “Hey.” “Hey,” they all repeated. Wow, what a friendly bunch. Then it dawned on me that they didn’t understand a word I was saying. They were just happily repeating in unison. “Copycats,” I shouted, testing them. “Copycats,” they repeated again. A mischevious smile spread across my face at the possibilities of my new discovery. “Lauren is Queen.” “Lauren is Queen,” they shouted back. “Kelli stinks.” “Kelli stinks,” they yelled louder, loud enough for Kelli to pop her head around a hut corner and shake her head at me.

That wasn’t the only fun game I played with the kids. There’s the one where I swing my arms around violently and sporadically, while dancing in place. Most of them fall to the ground laughing at that. But little do they know that’s not a dance, I am just swatting at flies and mosquitoes hovering around me. Another personal favorite game of mine is the one where I try to inconspicuously hide my digital camera after it’s been spotted in my hand. They love having their picture taken and their relentless enthusiasm for being my next photographic subjects always wears my batteries out faster than my cameras.

While we were touring around the camp with the children, an older man saw that I was filming and came over and grabbed me by the arm. He led me to a muddy fountain area that is the camp’s drinking supply. It’s a water source that also is not constantly available. He looked down at the water and looked up at me. He was trying to communicate that he wanted me to film this insanitary condition. This camp had the hardest of living conditions, but there were improvements being made here. The Dream Center, one non-profit, had installed bread ovens and was teaching camp women how to sew and sell clothes. Another organization had donated dairy cows. The wheels toward self-sustainability were a turnin’!

We left Gulu today and returned to Kampala. I was leaving Gulu knowing there was progress happening. Good hardworking people were making a difference. I came and left Gulu at a period of time when they are waiting to exhale. The LRA have agreed to peace talks, but peace has not been discussed yet. And as the bus drove further and further into southern Uganda, I could finally exhale. I will wait along with the rest of the country to see if this war will end and the people of Gulu can finally return to their homes.

P.S. I really wanted to write a lot more right now, like about how the guy in front of me on the bus ride back pulled a live chicken out from overhead storage and ended up dumping an entire box of chicken feed on a passenger’s head below. Or about how a group of pickpockets stole James’s wallet and almost stole mine. But alas, my attention is waning. I am now too distracted by the kaleidoscope of sunburn lines that the previous days have left on my arm. I would kill for aloe vera! That and maybe a bath tub filled with Purell Anti-bacterial hand gel.

Clean up on aisle 1 at the Jesus Saves Supermarket

My first sunday here I attended a church service at the Calvery Chapel, only because it was sort of an obligation. (Mom- I know you are jumping up and down with joy at this admittance.) It's the first time I have attended a service in maybe a good decade. But I was quickly reminded why I took such a long sabbatical. I think I woke up an hour later when pastor Brian, a young white guy probably from someplace like Kentucky, was warning his congregation about the impeding threat the mormons have on Ugandan souls if their lies aren't combatted.

When I stepped out of the chapel I yawned. And then I yawned again. I did get a satisfaction in seeing Ugandans come together in a organized fashion for the service. Finally, some organization. Something was accomplished. Why can't that same energy be focused on other things, say, street sanitation or medical care?

Uganda is developed when it comes to faith. When the first missionaries came into Uganda in 1875, the Kingdom of Buganda and their beliefs in a benign creator made it easy for Christianity to carve its territory. Uganda was the first country to declare itself a Christian nation at the turn of the 19th century.

Today, Jesus is everywhere. Literally. Even the stores and markets share his name. The "Jesus Saves Supermarket", "God is Great Minibus", "God is Able Household Items"(even though they weren't able to provide me any one of the items I needed) . If Jesus is not on storefront awnings or signs then Jesus is on the tip of everyones' tongue. I have been interrogated on many occasions and usually it takes me by surprise. "Are you born again?" strangers ask me. Sometimes I pretend I didn't hear the question or avoid it by getting distracted by something visually interesting in the distance. I'd do anything to bypass that question and the slew of others that are to follow no matter if my answer is yes or no.

The vigorous faith of people here perplexes me so much that I decided to attend another service. This time at a different place, next to the Kijaansi children's center. Nothing but locals there. It's a tiny open brick chapel with nothing but dirt floors and wooden benches for seating, but I would advise caution on seating the benches tend to collapse. The chapel was filled with mainly children and the service was spoken completely in Lugandan. So...I didn't understand a word. Three young women stood and walked to the front and began to sing. Everyone joined in. A man on large drums kept the beat. One older girl, who I will call Beth because it will drive me crazy to keep calling her older girl, began to sing a solo.

The song was long, like close to an hour long. But the children in the front rows danced in place and turned and laughed at me, the silly white girl trying to sing in Lugandan. A girl crawled on her stomach into the chapel, like I said the chapel is open and has no doors, her legs were swollen and she was unable to walk. She propelled herself forward using her hands and pulled herself onto a bench and joined in the song, not missing a beat.

The shouts and claps grew louder. "Higher, higher," were the only english words I could decipher. Beth, the soloist, dropped to her knees on the dirt floor and closed her eyes while singing. Clap, Clap. "Higher, Higher". The room was shaking with voices. Beth then stopped singing and abruptly turned away from us. She put her face to the brick wall, hiding it, too overcome with emotion. One of the other singers stepped in for her. The drum beats softened and our voices went into a decresendo and then silence.

Beth has severe untreated asthma and had been hospitalized three times for near-fatal attacks. And here she was, she had sung joyfully at the top of her lungs for over an hour. I looked down at my hands they were throbbing and red from the clapping. But the pain was nice. It reminded me that I had my hands and that they work. I was thankful right then. And I think Beth was too. Then at that moment, a toddler on the first row, barely old enough to walk, stumbled over to Beth and patted the dirt off Beth's knees. It was a very strange gesture for someone so young. Beth, turned back around, wiped her tears, grabbed the little one's hand and they both returned to their seat.

I could say, that for a moment, it all made perfect sense.

We piled in to a dinky Japanese minivan and set off for Jinja. These van taxis are the other major form of transportation here in Uganda. You slide back the van door to a jungle of plastic covered leopard print. They are only supposed to seat 12 but they defy the laws of physics and shovel 17 people in there. I tend to introduce myself to the person next to me because as they pick people up along the road I end up in that strangers lap. And when I say masaw, which means "stop here" , everyone in the taxi laughs at my butchering of the Lugandan language.

We arrived in Jinja, a town an hour east of Kampala, and it is a garden of Eden. The grass is greener. The trees are larger. The Nile is...nileier? We made our way down to the source of the Nile! I really wanted to breath it all in and enjoy it's beauty but the malaria pill I had taken this morning was taking its toll on my stomach. I also was nervous because this Nile guide-man had my video camera and was not giving it back. I originally gave it to him because he offered to videotape us. I though it was a nice gesture at first, but now he had taken it around some rock corner and was hunched down whispering into it like Gollum.

Two of the people in our group bent down to the nile and scooped up the water and slurped it up. They looked at me to follow suit. I stepped down and leaned forward and smelled algae. I can't go for that. Nooo-OOO-oo. No can do. A hand dipping would have to suffice.

We went further down to Bulgali falls.There are crazy men there that will swim the falls with no life vests. I taped one guy swim down, all the while thinking that if he drowns my footage was guaranteed to be featured on YouTube.

Last stop in Jinja was Bethesda International. The second orphanage we are to be staying at. When the gate to Bethesda opened to us I was immediately tackled by little boy who squeezed me with a hug. In the corner of my eye I noticed a row of turkeys on the lawn, making a conga line underneath a tree branch. The orphanage was out of a story book, a huge mansion, Victorian almost. There are 55 kids that live there with two foster parents. They have a school that is nearby that is almost finished. The older kids are making the bricks to complete it. We made arrangements for our volunteer stay. Exciting. I wouldn't mind making some bricks. I need to work on my triceps anyway.

Tips for Haggling in Kampala

My tips for haggling. Pay attention. Heed my warnings. Take my advice.

1. Send someone who is not a muzungu in to haggle. Once they see my face the price inevitably is tripled.

2. If you don't have anyone good to haggle for you then at least come in firm with your offer. Firm, I tell you. I try to keep my voice in my lower register when I make my offer. It's my serious business voice.

3. If they don't accept your firm offer act like the merchandise smells funny or is slightly slimy and then pretend to walk away. That technique is guaranteed to knock off 1/3 of the price.

4. If all else fails hold an unannouced staring contest with the vendor. Say nothing. When they ask, "What's wrong with you?"...keep staring...and then flare your nostrils really wide and wet your pants. They will then most likely give you the merchandise for free. It worked for me.

Project Suubiless: Confusion and Corruption

Money. Oh, how it makes the world go around. The currency here is Ugandan shillings and at the airport they gave me millions of them. The exchange rate is 2,000 UGshillings for every dollar. I don't care, anything over four zeros immediately adopts the value of monopoly money to me. I want to throw it up in the air like confetti. Why not ten zeros or a billion? So needless to say when a motel clerk asks me for 40,000 shillings a night for a week's stay, there is a lot of stress to compute that into dollars and find out how badly he is trying to hoodwink me. I also try not to look incredibly dorky counting on my fingers.

Now, when I mention motel clerk that shouldn't imply we are living in the lap of luxury. In fact, our pad of the week has no electricity, warm water, and the mice tell me my bedtime stories. We probably would have had a much finer time at the place we were SUPPOSED to be staying. The Lweza Training Center, sweet sweet sanctuary amongst a canopy of trees. I has previously wired a downpayment to secure our reservation and on arrival was told they were booked. I popped into Lweza to get my $150 dollars back. The lady at the desk gave me her best Ugandan attitude and told me no money had ever been put down in my name. "You must be confused. A man named Anthony placed it in my name," I retorted. "No, if so, then he should have a receipt," she replied. I had a sinking feeling Anthony might have kept that money. When I mentioned it to Anthony alone, he didn't have the reciept. I didn't press the issue. I cut my losses and looked at it as though I was paying for a really good tour guide. The sinking feeling persits in my stomach.

Moving on. I made the suggestion that we really should get internet set up for our personal use. If OCA is at a standstill until we get more funds (9,000 to finish the children's center and 9,000 to finish the computer training center) then we better start looking up grants. Grant searching takes up a LOT of internet time and the only internet access available here are in internet cafes. Side note: The internet cafes are everywhere. One on every corner. And if you want to see what a girl looks like screaming at a computer come find me in one of these cafes, where they use dial-up and it takes forty minutes to open up the homepage.
We began our search at the main internet/cellphone service providers in Uganda. All the quotes were the same around $1100 for intial start up!!! *@###$%FF!! Sorry, mom. BUT WHAT? Something crazy is going on here. In America, it costs like $180 for inital start up and like $20 bucks a month, not $170. Who is paying off who to make sure that people never get connected? I guess if people could afford it, the major business of these internet cafes would go under.

I was frustrated when we drove out of Kampala. We came to a stoplight, one of the first, if the only one I think I have seen here. James informed me that this stoplight along with several large hotels were quickly built for the arrival of the Queen and a Commonwealth meeting. Sadly, these hotels were turn into dilapidated castles because no one will be able to afford to stay there. What a waste. And as for the stoplight...everyone drives through it. But if the traffic patrol were to stop someone, don't worry, they can easily be bribed. Where are the rules? The code of ethics has given way to an every man for himself mentality.

It's hard to work with that way of thinking. Did you ever play Sim City, Empire, or Civilization? The game where you try to build a city and your decisions will make it grow and flourish into larger cities. Well, I'd like to see if you could build anything if the city is already established, there's a 80% unemployment rate, and the government only embezzles. Hey game programmers, make that version. Ugandan Sim City.

Chances are that version would never work. What good can I really do here or anyone really do? I understand why most volunteers stay two weeks. The "hug-and-gos" as I like to call them. Maybe they have the right idea. Maybe I will just take the rest of my money and treat a bunch of kids to a nice dinner like goat kabobs (what I actually had for dinner last night) and then call it a day and go home. Or if I can't trust anyone I should just do it all myself. Like Oprah. Start my own school or orphanage. Unlike Oprah, I don't need forty million to do it. I could swing it with $20,000...or 87 kajabazillion shillings.

DAY 1

So much has happened that I do not think I have the energy to go over all of it. We woke up early. REALLY early. Thanks jet lag. We were going to take our first day easy. You know, spend some time unpacking and getting aquainted with our surroundings. Instead we decided to go straight to the children's center and check out the site that is to be the fruit of all our efforts.

Anthony Onyango (the orphanage director) and James (the Austrailian volunteer) arrived with four boda-bodas, which are dinky motobike taxis from hell. They are one of the major forms of transportation around here. I find that the experience of riding on the back of one these must be similar to skydiving with your own handmade parachute. Meaning: there is a large chance of death. The boda drivers are speed demons down rocky roads. I prayed that I wouldn't die on my very first day.

While getting closer to god on these bodas, I also managed to finally take in my surroundings. When we first arrived we came in at night, so my imagination filled in what I could not see of Entebbe and Kampala. My first glimpse of Uganda and my words here will not do my images justice: Chaos. Shacks. Packed Streets. Hills. Goats, bulls, chickens running amuck. Children. So many children. Little girl kicking kitten. Little naked baby crawling across the street with no guardian in sight. Hanging carcasses. And tons of eyes. All eyes staring at three white people on bodas driving by. "Mzungu, Mzungu," white girl white girl, they would shout.

We arrived to the Kijjansi Chidren's center and I was astonished. It is comprised of three brick dormitories that will eventually sleep thirty-two children a piece. That is, when they finally have doors and flooring and running water...yeah, it's basically a brick fortress right now. There is one school room/church and office. Anthony's office consists of an open room and stack of a few folders that sit in a dusty corner. This orphanage is far from complete. It is more like a foster care placement program as of now.

I don't see how they keep up with all these kids. I sat on the field next to the school room and children seemed to appear and dissappear with each breath. And the kids were fascinated with us. I answered questions of the ones that spoke reasonably good english. The little little ones wanted to hold my hand and glued themselves to my legs. The 8-10 year olds wanted to touch and braid my hair. The older children wanted to re-braid my hair properly.

The stares continued when we finally left. I was starting to wonder where all the white people were. I know they are here somewhere. I saw a bunch of them on the plane and in the airport. Where were they all hiding?

Answer: The mall. We went to lunch at a rather large and impressively developed mall. When you go to the foodcourt, I learned that the food comes to you. Here, you sit down and are bombarded by people and menus. I buckled under the pressure of one aggressive guy and ordered humus. The end.

Finally, because I have to end this soon, we planned out what all four of us will be doing over the next couple of weeks. Here it goes:

1) Trip to Mango (another orphanage located in city of Kampala)
2) Trip to Jinja (Southeast Uganda. Source of the nile. Check out several orphanages there)
3) Trip to Gulu (Northern Uganda. War torn area. Please don't panic mom)
4) Trip to Tororro district (I thought Kampala was rural. Tororro is what the Ugandans consider rural. Oh, boy.)

These trips will help us gather information on how everyone else is running their programs. Hopefully, we can learn a lot because we are starting from scratch with OCA. I am overwhelmed.