this week...

this has been a busy week. on monday and tuesday, i visited some women and continued taping their stories and rolling beads and stringing necklaces. i look forward to sitting with the women individually and in small groups. getting to know them is sometimes very easy: i ask them if they would like to be videotaped and 40 minutes later i have heard about their home village near kitgum or pader, how they used to plant food and go to the river for water, how they had to leave because of the rebels, continue to struggle in jinja years later, and have hope beyond hope that they will be allowed to return to thier homeland with their family. Sometimes communication is not so straightforward: i will ask if i can sit and roll beads. a plate of beads and string is set in front of me and we may sit in silence for one hour. i will ask a question and get a shy smile or "i am fine." i imagine in those situations that actions speak louder than words and being there is being there and not being anywhere else.

On Wednesday, I went to literacy class #2. Twenty women were sitting in the Suubi building chatting. I arrived in typical dusty, sweaty, child parading fashion. We sat in a large circle and introduced ourselves. Two of the women had a firm grasp of english and translated for me. I handed out spiral notebooks and pens (thanks for all the pens!) We explored the concept of the clicky pen. (for some women it was their first time) and wrote our names in the front of the book. Some women did not know how to write their name, so we dotted out their first name for them to trace. We practiced our alphabet and had our first challenge of going around the circle and doing the whole alphabet together. We then wrote capital letter in the notebook and drew them in the air with our arms. Women kept arriving as the class went on and more and more children were clinging to the outside of the walls. By the end, I think we may have had more than 25. Most of the women were practicing intently, especially on writing letters. When the woman next to me asked if i could check her work, every single other woman held up their paper for me to approve.

We will continue with our alphabet this week and move on to numbers and colors in the following weeks. I am excited that they are invested in learning and practicing and hope the same women continue to attend. I think juice and cookies are good motivators. I know progress will be slow as this is probably the only time they practice speaking and writing english, but we will continue on.

I'm looking forward to going to the market tomorrow and buying paper. Later in the afternoon, I'm going to find Joyce, who sang and place the drums at our super fun african booty shaking dance-fest yesterday. she seems like a pretty cool lady to hang out with.

new blogs

So... a new blog space for a new blog.

I have been in Uganda for 2 weeks and everything is going well. Recently, I have been visiting Suubi women (both old and new) in their homes to chat and assist them with rolling beads and making necklaces. Yesterday, I walked with Melissa to visit "fat baby Christine." (if you saw the baby, you would understand... also fat is a complement in this country) We chatted with Christine's husband and his brother, David, who offered to escort me to visit their mother, Nikolina because Christine was not rolling beads that day. We chatted more and walked to David and Nikolina's house with my usual "mzungu!" parade behind me. David, Nikolina, and I sat on the floor of her house stringing necklaces. David translated for Nikolina, as she only speaks Acholi Luo. With me, I brought a video camera that was brought from the US to film the buying meetings and other Suubi-esque stuff. I asked Nikolina and David if I could film them talking about their lives and telling their stories. They agreed. We spent the next 40 minutes talking about stories and songs Acholi people used to sing around the fire at night, Nikolina's move from Pader. Sorry..time's up...will continue tomorrow.

OK...it's Wednesday now. I'm at the Peace and Love and Hope Internet cafe. Not as fast as yesterday's. Let's see if this works. Where was I? David, fat baby Christine’s brother in law, escorted me past Margaret and Florence drying their varnished beads on a line strung between two buildings. I waved and told them that I’d return later on to help them roll more beads. We continued on to Nikolina’s house with my ever-present parade of children. I sat in her front room with her two sons, David and Joseph, stringing necklaces. I explained to Nikolina, via David’s translation, that I would like to videotape her conversation to be sent to Dave in the US to use to tell the stories behind the beads. Nikolina agreed and we began talking about her village in the district of Pader. She explained that she and her children had left Pader in the 90s when the rebels had killed people in her village. She has been living in Jinja ever since and explained how some of her older children have chosen to return to Pader, but are unable to find work. Nikolina now cares for 5 of her children and 2 of her grandchildren who had been living with her daughter's in Pader. Her husband went to Sudan 5 years ago for work and used to send back money, but she has not heard from him in 1 year. She is not sure if he is alive. Nikolina explained that she uses the money she makes from Suubi to pay her rent and buy food, but frequently does not have enough money to pay for school fees. She said that she pays for the younger children’s school fees first, but does not have enough to pay for David's university fees. She told me that she would like to return to her village because she has land there and it is the Acholi home, but she is certain that she could not feed her children and send them to school there. She expressed her gratitude for Suubi and explained that she would not be able to have a home if not for the weekly buying.

Nikolina's front door faces the bush: a patch of undeveloped land. David explained that his ancestors used to be able to walk in the bush and hunt animals. His ancestors used to sit around the fire in the compound and tell stories about hunting and growing food. David was surprised to learn that I have a home that faces the bush and my friends and I sit around fires while fishing.

I am slightly disturbed by my lack of strong emotions since arriving in Uganda. I listen to womens’ stories of being taken from their homes at the point of a machete and forced to walk for miles carrying heavy loads with no food or water. While this is going on, I tend to focus on the beads at hand and look up occasionally to nod or say “So bad, so bad.” I am followed by children wearing crusty remnants of clothing who motion to their mouths with the international symbol for “give me food.” I do the “I’m-being-followed-by-a-bum/leaflet-distributor/police officer-so-I’m-going-to-frown-and-stare-5-feet-in-front-of-me” routine. Yesterday, a 20 year old told me that he got straight A’s all through primary and secondary school, enrolled in University, and is now unable to take the final exams for the courses he has taken this semester because his school fees have not been paid by the pastor from his church who promised at the beginning of the semester to pay. My first thought is “Is he bullshitting me for money?”

I’m not sure what to do without my emotions; I have been cultivating them, it is a shame that I lost them between there and here. These emotions and their corresponding nuances became things that I could rely on and access as needed.

I believe in the power of primary sources. First person accounts relate much more than I could every summarize. I will tell the stories any way that I can. I am happy to have the video camera to assign a concrete reason to my inquiries. When the “Do you have a husband?” question is fired, it could ricochet in any direction and hit any number of people in the vicinity.

old blogs

Here are two blogs that I wrote during the past two weeks...

greetings from jinja
hello,i have arrived in jinja, uganda, my base of operations for the next three months or so. the plane trip was good: lots of food and hot towels and movies (sex and the city was good, dark knight not so much...quite the opposite of what i expected.) so i landed in entebbe at 9pm on Wednesday after a little more than 24 hours of flying. i got through customs ok and dragged my 150 lbs of stuff out of the terminal, began sweating profusely, and found a man holding a sign with my name (spelled Umberelle Reyes) We drove to the Airport Guest House Entebbe with a Swedish organic produce distributor and two Dutch on holiday where, much to my surprise and enjoyment, i discovered that both my cell phone and the oscillating fan functioned very well.(mom, can you check online to see how much that phone call cost?) I pulled back the mozzie net, turned out the light, and fell asleep. (it was very very very dark) I awoke and indeterminite number of hours later to (what I believed was) the sound of the oscillating fan being tortured. I got up and realized that the fan was fine and the noise was coming from outside. Later I learned that the screeching, squeaky wheel noise comes from what I believe is some kind of fowl, perhaps a guinea hen? (it is large, black and white speckled, maybe 20lbs, 2 feet long from beak to tail feather and has a black beak with a red nose thing) What ever it was, it was very excited that it was morning and there were bugs or it was very terrified because there was a hawk in a nearby tree...I'm not quite sure. After a lovely (warm) shower I ate breakfast with the organic swede who recommended both rafting in the nile and going to see the gorillas. he also informed me of a mexican restaurant located in a hotel in jinja that also has an outdoor pool. i informed him that both outdoor swimming and good mexican food are two things that i don't find very often, nevermind together. i vow to find it and try both, maybe at the same time. Afterward, I changed some money, (i was only cut in front of twice before i realized that i needed to stand within breathing distance of the person in front of me) and purchased a cell phone. (Conversation between me and the 2 women in the pink cell phone shack: Me: I'd like to buy a cell phone. Woman 1 & 2 together: Great! Me: How much are they? Woman 1: Where are you from! Woman 2: You are so big! Me: America, yeah they make us big. Woman 1: Where in America! Woman 2: (looking me up and down) Where did you get your hair! Me: Uh, Alaska, its next to Canada; i grew it myself. Woman 1 & 2 together: Ohhhhhhhh! the conversation continued in the same vein for about 20 minutes, but I did get a phone) Later, I drove with Abdullah 35 km to Kampala, a big, crazy, dirty city with equal numbers of big vans full of cursing commuters, tiny motor bikes (boda-bodas) with one cursing commuter, and people standing amidst selling sugar cane and newspapers. We made it through without incident and continued on 65 km more to Jinja. I was greeted by the other volunteers (i believe there average age is 20.75) and walked to "the village" to meet the women and children. We took the shortcut along paths next to the train tracks where i was happy to receive my first "Mzungu!" "whiteperson!" We entered the village, many hotel style cement shacks, with 5 or so two room "apartments" none of which have running water and share one room with electricity. We quickly gathered a following of "mzungu!" yelling children and wandered around the red-clay labyrinth to find the Suubi women. I was introduced to a few and ended up in a grassy yard in front of a block of houses with 25 kids from infants to adolescents. They all grabbed hands and started singing "Make a circle, Make a circle." We played games for the next 2 hours including: the African version of red rover (we make 2 lines, walk toward each other while singing something in luganda, pick 2 people to try to yank the other across the center line to their team); the African version of duck duck goose (some one is outside the circle and starts a call and response song and grabs one person out of the circle they run around singing, pick another person out of the circle and repeat) and i attempted the African version of the hokey pokey (we stick our arms in, we stick our arms out, we do the hokey pokey and turn around and that's what its all about) I sweated and laughed. They sang a song about my butt being good and taught me some clapping games. The highlight was the game that involved opening your eyes very wide and rolling your eyeballs, resulting in my (only) right contact falling to the ground. I bent over and started searching the grass; so did all of the kids. Afraid they would move it away, I said "stop!" They said "stop!" (this sounded like a fun game) After a few minutes I determined that it was gone when a little girl?/boy? next to me said "shiny and blue!" S/he found it. I was shocked. We did a quick lesson on eyeball anatomy and 20th century optical appliances and resumed playing. We eventually called a boda-boda and i enjoyed my first, very bumpy, ride on an African motorbike. All in all Day 1 gets a 10 out of 10. Tomorrow we go to Massesse, the poor side of town, to feed people chappati (flat bread) beans (pink and watery) and oranges (very orange) and go back for more games.





Thursday, November 13, 2008
So...last Friday we (5 volunteers) got into our rattly van, drove to central market, picked up 70 green oranges and 100 hot chappatis, and drove to Masese. As we drove down the road, I noticed many, many children running away from us. We parked, carried our tub of oranges and chappatis, and walked between two mud buildings into an open area surrounded by mud huts on all sides. This dusty yard was filled with 400 children holding plates or cups scrambling into a line-like mass. As we set down the tubs on a bench under a tree two ladies brought a giant steaming cauldron of beans and a ladle. And it began. The Candadian boy-volunteers organized the line and let 5 kids walk up to us at a time to get one chappati, one cup of beans, and one orange. My role was to distribute 1/2 a chappati and make sure each kid had 2 mokonos (hands) on their plate. Most of the kids were yelling and pushing on the line, but transformed to wide-eyed deaf-mutes as soon as they approached the food. Children who tried to cut the line were sent to the back. Older children were told they couldn't get any. The line lasted for 3 hours until everything was gone.On Saturday we had the Suubi necklace buying meeting for the "newer" ladies and on Sunday for the "experienced" ones. Both days began with the volunteers sitting at the back of the Suubi building (a roof with three walls and a cement floor) behind a coffee table. Many ladies were already sitting on large, colorful woven mats when we arrived. They asked us to lead a prayer, and then the buying began. The "new" ladies made 2 necklaces which they turned into Julie to be checked to ensure tightness, correct clasps, and for "no design." (the magazine beads are strung between seed beads randomly) If they were good, they were passed to Josh who measured them for correct length. If they did not pass, Julie (with Daisy's translation into Luganda and Acholi Luo) explained how they should be fixed. Julie then paid each woman for each necklace. I clasped the necklaces, placed them in a bag, and gave each woman new clasps for the next week. While this was going on in the back, the ladies were sitting, chatting, and beading. They gave each other feedback ("too many red ones" "no design!") and the more skilled ladies tie off the clasps tightly to ensure they are correct. After 3 hours, a lady brought us sodas. (nasty, nasty sweet and purple) I choked down 1/2 the bottle. I had to finish it a)because it was polite and b)because the lady needed the bottle back to get her deposit. I went outside and got some kids to drink it. On Monday, I walked to the giant central market. It sells any manner of fruit, vegetable, fresh and dried beans, flour, clothing, shoes, newspapers, live poultry, spices, intestines, hardware, kitchen utensils, and electronics. The other volunteers told me what the mzungu (white person) prices were: 500 for a mug of beans, 600 for a 1/2 kilo of rice, 150 for 3 tomatoes. Unfortunately, familiar mzungu prices are not the same for new mzungus. I could not bargain below 1000 for a mug of beans, 1000 for a 1/2 kilo of rice, and 100 per tomato. I was sweaty and irritated that I was arguing about less than a dollar. But I persisted, found some reasonably priced cabbages, and paid way too much for rice and tomatoes. On the way home I debated just paying high mzungu prices (1700 Ugandan shillings = $1 US) but determined that it was not good practice to allow people to rip me off with my knowledge and consent. Getting something for nothing helps no one.Right now it is dark and there is a small, naked Ugandan child spinning with his?her? towel outside of the internet cafe. I am sweating and my forearms are sticking to the wooden desk. But it is dark and breezy, so the walk home should be nice. I am enjoying each day and new experience. My plan is to return to the market each day and become a "regular" so I will get not so expensive mzungu prices.I hope your day to day is going well and you do not have sweaty forearms.