A little expedition south

Last week our group went on a little 3-day excursion to Butare, a region in Southern Rwanda that borders Burundi. Butare (the town) is a mid-sized university town that suffered some of the worst atrocities during the 100-days of the genocide. We didn't have the opportunity to visit any of the sites down there, as we spent most of our time at the Center for Conflict Management at the University, hearing a rather interesting "reinterpretation" of Rwanda's role in the geopolitics of the Great Lakes region. In order to vent some of our frustrations about the blame shifting/evasion tactics/blatant lies we heard at the Center, we decided to go on a nice long drive South. It was possibly the most beautiful drive I have ever been on, zooming along the roads that wind through the hills, revealing jawdropping views at each turn and breathing in the fresh mountain air. Along the roads, women in brightly colored wraps walked along, swaying gracefully under the impossibly large loads they balanced on their heads; schoolchildren waved and chased after our van screaming "bazungu!!" (plurual of muzungu); and men laboriously tried to navigate their rickety bicycles up and down the hills, sometimes latching on the back of our van to get themselves pulled along.
The hour drive went by in an instant, and suddenly we were at the border of Burundi. A couple of us (yeah, including me) didn't have our passports, so we just sort of snuck into Burundi illegally... and then promptly turned around because after a few minutes the border guards somehow noticed 3 white kids tiptoeing around. But anyway, I just feel pretty badass having illegally snuck across an international border. It also just reinforced my feelings about the absurdity of some of these borders in the region. In the actual area where we crossed, the border between Rwanda and Burundi is just a narrow little stream, maximum 6 feet across and 3 feet deep--one side Rwanda, one side Burundi.
Anyway, after about an hour of sketchily hanging around the border area, we drove back up to Butare, and then onward back to Kigali the next day...

Dust to dust....

In the first week of my stay in Rwanda, I visited 3 important sites: the Gisozi Genocide Memorial in Kigali, and 2 churches outside Kigali where massacres took place during the genocide: Ntarama and Nyamata.
Gisozi feels very much like a glossy modern Western-style monument, and actually it is, having been sponsored by the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation and the Belgian Government (I literally *gagged* when I saw that--talk about guilt $$). The interior musuem is small, and the core is crammed full of pictures, explanative texts, a chronology of the genocide, and interactive displays (including video interviews with genocide survivors), and artefacts from the genocide (yes I'm taking about machetes, clubs, torn bloodied clothing, burned ID cards, and bones). After being thoroughly horrified by that, you go upstairs for "Genocide 101," a 20th century history of genocide (Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Yugoslavia) which concludes, as always, with the slogan "Never Again."
Saved for last, the most tragic area was the Children's Hall, where blown up pictures of smiling kids where superimposed with the date and means by which they were killed (i.e Sarah, age 3, killed April 13 1994, hacked to death with machetes; Denis, age 10 months, killed April 20 1994, thrown against a wall)... My stomach heaved and my throat was clenched as I blinked back tears and walked out of the final hall and into the garden.
The beautifully landscaped hillside gardens are meant for remembrance and contemplation... and I just sat there, stunned and numb, unable to even formulate clear thoughts. As you walk out of the gardens, you pass the core of Gisozi: the 11 large crypts, mass graves where 256,000 people are interred.
In silence, we left Gisozi and drove out of the city towards the churches. Ntarama was our first stop, a Catholic Church where thousands sought refuge, and were slaughtered, during the genocide. Over 5,000 people where killed there after a siege on the church by the Interhamwe militia. Most of the remains of the bodies were left as they fell--left in situ almost as a "dark warning for future generations." Only the skulls have been neatly aligned on wooden shelves at the back of the Church so that the dead could be counted. As I walked in, I immediately took a step back as the strong musty smell of death and decay filled my nostils. All my senses were totally overwhelmed and I had to step outside. I sat on the steps on the Church- steps that people walked on everyday for years to come and worship with their family and community, steps that people walked over seeking refuge- and I started to cry. I couldn't decide whether or not I was strong enough to go fully inside and see for myself, but I realized that part of me needed to see, needed to witness, and needed to pay my respects.
Bones, decaying clothes, plastic rosaries, and children's school books lie scattered between the pews. A dusty light filters through the bullet holes and grenade blasts that have not been plastered over. Flies and mosquitos hover in the air around you and bats nap in the rafters. Only a token metal roof covers the Church and surrounding buildings so that during the rainy season, water doesn't leak in through shrapnel holes in the roof. Walking along the pews, trying not to step on bones, I realized that the thick layer of grimey dust on the floor was human remains, slowly crumbling back to ashes and dust.
Feeling intensely hurt and sick from the sights and smells, I left the Church to walk around the grounds. A small monument was erected on the property, just a garden patch and a long and low concrete wall where the names of the deceased are etched for eternity.

At Nyamata, the 2nd Church we visited, the remains were removed from the Church interor. Over 10,000 people were killed there, and their remains were placed in long white tile underground crypts. Where whole bodies where identifiable, they were placed in coffins. Others were dismembered and scattered--either by the militiamen or by the scavenging dogs and rats that picked at the bodies for months after the massacre-- and the remains are lined up on huge metal shelves in the crypts. I couldn't manage to walk down into the crypts, and just stood at the top of the steps, peering down...
My heart and soul ached as I left the Church, and I was silent again on the drive back to Kigali. One magnificiant ability we as humans are endowed with is our capacity for imagination... Unfortunately, we cannot control our imagination, and with images of death fresh in my mind's eye, I saw the roads littered with bodies as we drove through the countryside. Every puddle on the roadside became a pool of blood, every farmer cutting back overgrowth with a machete became a militiaman, every child's laugh became a scream of terror...

I felt totally overwhelmed, insignificant, helpless, powerless, and useless... and to some extent I suppose that I still do. What can one individual do in the face of genocide? Yes, there were many many heros whose individual contributions helped save countless lives during the genocide. But overall, one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were still slaughtered as the world stood by and watched. We're happy to come in and help clean up the mess after the fact, and we give lots of "never again" speeches and apologize and regret our inaction... But Rwanda is not a unique case study, just scan your eyes a little higher on that map of Africa, and you'll come across the Sudan. God forbid that we actually get our hands dirty and try to stop the ultimate crimes against humanity while they are happening. Instead, we argue over definitions, issues of sovereignty and money as innocent human beings die. Again. And again. And again.

Paved in guilt

I arrived in Rwanda last Tuesday, after a long slow drive south over the Equator from Uganda. Crossing the border by road, as opposed to the sanitized version you get in intl airports, was a rare and interesting event... I think that border crossings reveal so much, not only about the countries you are crossing between, but also about the general concept of borders in general. The border guards and customs & immigration bureaucrats on both sides were almost comedically serious about passport stamping and making sure our forms were perfectly filled out. As we stood in those impossibly long lines, I watched as villagers on the distant hillsides calmly walked across the porous artificial borders along centuries-old dirt paths.
After a very long day of driving, we finally pulled into downtown Kigali. Similarly to Kampala, Kigali (pronounced Chi-gali in Kinyarwanda) is spread out over about 10 of the thousand hills of Rwanda. And that's pretty much where the similarities with Uganda end. While Kampala was grimy, bustling, and effusively friendly, downtown Kigali is cleaner, cooler, prettier and quieter. But the quiet here doesn't feel calm, it feels like the quiet of someone holding their breath... Generally Kigali feels a bit more closed, and ever so slightly more hostile, especially towards muzungus--totally fair game considering how badly we fucked up here. However, the city has very low crime rates and feels totally safe--one of the few perks of being in a police state/military dictatorship (I'll get back to you on the others). Indeed, I'm not as harassed by street kids and beggars because the police round them up and illegally hold them in deplorable conditions in detention centers in the city (well documented by HRW).
Otherwise, the people here are welcoming once you crack the surface a little-knowing a little Kinyarwanda really helps and often elicits endless giggling. Unfortunately, it's a really tricky tonal language. Example? Someone told me that at a genocide memorial event a little while ago, a pastor who was giving a speech spent a lot of time practicing the phrase "we will remember forever," because a slight slip of the tongue would have produced the phrase "we will revenge forever," not exactly the message he wanted to convey...
Anyway Kigali is a beautiful city and is really Westernized and luxurious after Kampala. No no no, there's no hot water from the taps, but there is a continuous electricity supply. Well, almost continuous. It blinks out for a couple of seconds once a day, but that's nirvanic next the consecutive days without power in Kampala. Plus the city is just generally very well-maintained, with beautiful landscaping and roads with fewer potholes than NYC--as many say, paved with Western guilt money. Also, it's relatively easy to get around on the moto-taxis that zip up and down the hills around town. Ok, they are kinda dangerous, but I always wear a helmet and it's really the only way to get around if you don't have private transport!

The first week in the Rwanda was emotionally trying, intellectually challenging, and physically exhausting because we visited several genocide memorial sites (more on that to come). For that reason, we have a lot more free time to relax and explore the city on our own. Last weekend a few of us just spent all day lounging by the pool at the Hotel Milles Collines (feat. in Hotel Rwanda), drinking beer, and watching the World Cup (OMG FRANCE IS IN THE FINALS!! ALLEZ LES BLEUS!!)...
More to come on Rwanda soon... In the meantime, scroll back to some older updates and check out the new links to some of my pics from the trip thus far! (there are also some pics from Rwanda on the link below, but I must warn you that they may be disturbing)

Le Pays des Milles Collines

Last Sunday I said goodbye to Kampala and my wonderful huge host family, and our group headed off on a long bumpy roadtrip south to Rwanda. On our drive down, we stopped over in Mbarara (say that 5x fast) for a couple of days in order to visit a Rwandan refugee settlement.
The Orchinga Refugee Settlement was originally founded by Tutsi refugees fleeing the revolution in Rwanda in 1959. It was pretty much a Tutsi settlement through the genocide in 1994, when there was a demographic reversal: Hutu refugees fled Rwanda and Tutsi returned home. At its peak in '94-'95, Orchinga had over 7,000 inhabitants. As of now, there are around 2,000 refugees living in the settlement--notice that I did not say "camp." Orchinga covers several square miles and looks like your standard African rural village. In fact, the settlement is very much a part of the area, fully integrated with the local economy and surrounding villages.
However, they are still refugees, thus "protected" under international laws and conventions and catered to by many well-meaning international NGOs. I think you can sense a little cynicism on my part concerning international refugee law and the UN refugee policies, in particular the forced encampment policy. In my humble opinion, forcing refugees to stay in camps near the border illegally restricts their movements, makes them totally dependent on outside aid, just so they (they= the host goverment, UNHCR, and a plethora of NGOs) can a) keep track of them and b) take pictures of them so they can guilt Western donors into supporting what is essentially an unsustainable and dehumanizing system. Ok, so that's my blurb on intl refugee policies...
Anyway, that is not to dismiss the situation of the Rwandan refugees in Uganda. They have been living at the settlement for over 10 years and are still afraid to return to Rwanda, where they fear retribution simply because they are Hutu and will be assumed to be "genocidaires." The ones I spoke to decried their innocence, but cited ongoing incidents of violence against Hutus. They get information about these incidents from other Hutu refugees, some are new arrivals and others tried to return home but came right back. They emphasized that security was their primary concern, but it became clear over the course of the conversation that they are also very concerned about their property. Many of them lost their land by fleeing and they don't really want to return and deal with that, when they can just stay at the settlement on the plot of land they were given. In fact, most of them said that they had no real desire to return to Rwanda at all!
In addition, many of the refugees talked about the problems with Gacaca, a traditional justice system that the Rwandan government revamped to deal with genocide-related crimes (in the regular system, trials for all those accused would have been backlogged for over a hundred years). The refugees complained that many people were forced into false confessions, and that others give false testimony if they have a grudge against someone... The Hutu refugees
have no faith in the current justice system, especially since it doesn't take into account crimes committed by the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) against Hutus during the civil war. In addition, they fear the current government under President Kagame (who headed the RPF and essentially stopped the genocide) because they believe he wants to eliminate all Hutus and that he will continue to manipulate the political system until he does (Kagame won the elections in 2003 with 95% of the vote... Suspicious much?).
Anyway I was pretty suspicious of most of the refugees claims, especially their claims of continued mass killings and raids on villages. They seemed rather savvy about the international system and even specifically requested that we send Human Rights Watch (by name!) to come interview them so that the truth could be told. I'm sure that some of the stories are true, but it also seems like their stories have been hyperbolized and perfected to appeal to the international community, so they can continue to get support from UNHCR and NGOs. I mulled over this on the very bumpy ride back into Mbarara, 40km that took 2 hours... And continued to think about their stories the following day as we drove the long and winding mountainous road into the country of the thousand hills...

Kony Update

So after nearly 20 years, the enigmatic Kony granted BBC an interview (see link) and claims he's not guilty of any war crimes. Riiiight. All those kids made up their stories and they all secretely work for the Museveni regime.
Anyway, looks like the International Criminal Court (ICC) indictments have made Kony and his followers a little nervous--now the LRA is requesting peace talks and Kony is decrying his innocence. This interesting shift in the rhetoric and dynamics of the conflict was initiated in April when the government of Southern Sudan decided to intervene more directly and mediate some peace talks, not only between the Sudan and the LRA (who you will remember often use the Sudan as a training ground, raiding local villages and disturbing the fragile peace there along the way), but also between the LRA and the Ugandan government. While most people don't necessarily think of the Sudanese as the best people to be mediating conflict (*cough* Darfur *cough*), it seems to me that this is the closest Uganda has ever come to a peaceful resolution of the conflict. I guess I should have prefaced that by saying that I personally don't think that a military solution is viable in this case. While an Angola-style assassination of Kony and the rest of the LRA commanders seems like a great idea, it's just not that simple... Anyway, I think this whole situation needs to be handled very carefully and with minimal outside intervention. Yes the ICC indictment has been helpful, but it's not going to end the conflict on its own, and further Western meddling will probably just aggravate the situation (esp since the ICC is such a political and controversial institution).
Ok, enough political rambling from me... But if you're interested, please do read up on the situation and feel free to challenge me on any of my opinions :)

Lukewarm beer and ice-cold showers

Oh yes, warm beer... You see, the power supply is so sporadic and inconsistent in Uganda that no matter how long your beer is sitting in the fridge, it's likely never to get really cold. Then again, it seems like some people here enjoy drinking beer at room temperature, since oftentimes you have to specify whether you want a warm or cold (aka lukewarm) beverage. Oh well, it's still bubbly and refreshing--and at least it's safe to drink, unlike the water.
And as for the water, well water heaters require electricity, right? So I haven't had a proper hot shower in nearly a month. Yes, even when I was staying with the MP (the Hon. Charles Angiro) and his family, there was no hot water. It's ok though because I have now perfected the art of the 3-minute shower, which is quite a feat (as those of you who have lived with me know). Not that it matters much, since we just smell like "Eau de Mosquito Repellent" all the time.
Anyway, despite ice-cold showers at my homestay, I was lucky to have a shower and a flush-toilet (a real luxury here). In other homestays, some of my colleagues were stuck with washing buckets and pit latrines. I also got lucky in other aspects of my homestay as well. The family was so warm and welcoming, it was impossible not to feel instantly at home. The huge meals also eased me right in :) Just like in South Africa, being "fat" is a good thing in Uganda. Clearly, I was not "fat" enough and was constantly urged to reserve myself huge portions of the carb-rich meals--think potatoes, mashed plantain (called matoke), and rice, with a side of beans and pasta. However, this dinner took place at around 10pm, and was preceded by "tea" at around 8pm, which consisted of bread, some more bread, and African tea. Yes, in Uganda, most people tend to eat 4 big meals a day, but most of people look tall and thin. The new South Beach diet? Not exactly...
Anyway, the World Cup fervor also helped with the homestay family bonding. I was staying with a huge family of mostly boys, and the TV was constantly showing either games or highlights of previous games (at least when the power was working). Since I mentioned that the family was so big, maybe I should explain a little bit. You see, Charles and his wife Helen (who lives in Kampala only part-time bc of business) have 9 children of their own. However, all of their kids are grown up and living on their own, though a couple are settled in the neighborhood. Since their house was empty, they have opened it up, taking the African traditionally extended family to a whole new level. So now, instead of having their own kids at home, they have the children of distant cousins staying with them (actually some of the kids are not even relatives at all). Most of the kids were affected by the conflict and some were staying in the IDPCs until Charles basically rescued them, so they could be safe and go to school in Kampala. While I was staying at the house, there were 14 children (4 girls, 10 boys) staying there are well, aged between 3-22... and apparently this number fluctuates regularly, as we had 2 additional people just sort of randomly appear one afternoon. It was a great vibe, but at first a lot of the kids were really shy around me. The skin color/language barrier was quickly overcome though when I brought home a soccer ball and kicked it around with them in the yard, telling them to practice a lot so that one day Uganda could make it to the World Cup Finals.
So the lesson learned here? As many people have said before me, football in general, and the World Cup in particular, is truly a way to bring the world together (except in the USA, but we're too cool for that, right?). Oh le oh le oh le oh le!!

20,000 living victims

As difficult as it was to be in the IDPC and witness the everyday struggles for life in Northern Uganda, the camp was nothing compared to my experience yesterday, when we went to a rehabilitation center for former child soldiers.
The worst part about the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is their use of child soldiers. Kids as young as 5 have been abducted, indoctrinated, and forced to commit the most horrific atrocities you can imagine. When we first met the group of 53 children at the center, we spent a lot of time introducing ourselves, explaining what we were doing, and answering questions about the USA (such as: are there green people there? is Tupac still alive? how many clans are there in America? is it true that you put your old people away and then burn their bodies when they die?--yes retirement homes and cremation do sound weird when put that way). Afterwards, having set up a comfortable space (though unfortunately working through translators, most of the kids only speak Acholi), some of them shared their stories with us, and I feel it my duty to share them with you...
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Felix is now 16 years old. He was abducted from his home at age 12 in the middle of the night, along with his brother and several other children from his village. He was tied to the other other children with a thick rope and they were marched at gunpoint through the bush in the dark. That first day, Felix was forced to beat his own brother to death with a large stick. Later on, he was also forced to cut off the ears and lips of other boys who tried to escape. Sometimes, they made him puncture boys' lips and put a lock through their mouths, to make sure they literally kept their mouths shut about their experience of abduction. The LRA commanders made him carry extremely heavy loads over long distances. He didn't have shoes and the soles of his feet were cut up and bloodied. Once, they made him kill a man, cut up the dead body, and cook an eat part of it. After 7 months in captivity, Felix managed to escape. He is now the head boy at the rehabilitation center.
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Bosco is only 14 years old. He was abducted at age 10 and forced to kill many people. He was treated mercilessly and was marched to the Sudan to receive training. Many times on that walk, the rebels threatened to kill him because he kept collapsing from lack of water, food, and sleep. He was abandoned in the bush on one of those walks. He drank his own urine to survive. The boy he was with died a few days later, but Bosco survived. He was recaptured by the rebels and kept for over 3 years, and only escaped because a Ugandan soldier shot him in the leg and the rebels abandoned him. He has permanent nerve damage to his leg and will have a limp for the rest of his life...
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David was abducted at age 10, having escaped from 7 other attempted abductions. He was kept for 10 years, 6 of which were in the Sudan. He raided local villages for food and supplies, helped abduct other children, killed countless people, attacked refugee camps, and was promoted several times. A few months ago, he was caught in an ambush, got shot in the right leg, and was also abandoned... He left his right leg out there in the bush, but managed to survive the injury and crawl to freedom.
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Margaret is a 20 yr old woman who was abducted at age 10, and used as a virginal sex slave for the LRA commanders. Early on, she was forced to kill a man with a group of other girl captives. They made her march hundreds of miles and almost died of hunger several times. Her clothes were worn to shreds and she was forced walked around naked for a while. She raped countless times by many LRA commanders. Now, she has a 2 year old son, Onek, and she is pregnant with her second child. She escaped only 2 months ago.
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And these are only samples, little tibits from the lucky ones who managed to escape... It is estimated that over 20,000 children have been abducted by the LRA over the years.
...So while Joseph Kony may be insane, he is also extremely smart. He targets young, malleable kids, destroys their social ties by forcing them to commit atrocities against their own family members, terrorizes them so much they fear to escape, nearly starves them so they are completely dependent on the LRA's mercy, and brainwashes them with harsh military training in a foreign country (mainly the Sudan). I'm sure many of you are horrified by the above stories. But they are not just stories, these are the lives and real experiences of CHILDREN. Though many may also be thinking, "I could never do those things," how can we so easily deny these children their humanity? They are victims, they were forced, they were tortured. If any of us were in that situation at that age, we would have done the same thing. In any case, the Rachele rehabilitation center does an absolutely amazing job (cehck it out: http://www.childsoldiers.net/xcms/lang__en/4656/default.aspx), and these kids are the definition of resilience. After our looong talking session, we spent about an hour playing volleyball and soccer with the children... And guess what? They were kids all over again. They weren't victims, or murderers, or soldiers, or suvivors. They were just kids, squealing and laughing, kicking a ball around in the red dust.
(see link below for pics)

That man, Joseph Kony

Kony is insane; Kony thinks he's the Messiah; Kony has 100 wives; Kony is a cannibal; Kony wants to free Acholi-Land; Kony is a homicidal maniac; Kony wants to create a govt based on the 10 Commandements... There are many rumors about this elusive and mysterious man, Joseph Kony, the rebel leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) that has wreaked havoc across Northern Uganda for 20 years. The product of a historical divide between Northern and Southern Uganda, ethnic rivalries, and tumultuous post-colonial politics (wow, way to reduce decades of history and a complex geopolitical situation to 3 clauses), the LRA was formed some 20 years ago in an effort to overthrow the new government of Yoweri Museveni (he came to power in '86 and is still the current president... way to go "democracy"!). However, what began as a political movement with some strong religious overtones (originally founded by Alice Lakwena and called the Holy Spirit Mvt) morphed over the years into a rebel movement of unspeakable violence and brutality. This conflict has raged on for 2 decades, with little to no attention from the international community, despite displacing nearly 2 million people, causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, stoking conflict in neighboring countries, and causing general regional instability.

I have just returned from a week in Lira, a district in the conflict zone in Northern Uganda... What I saw and heard over the past few days has not only changed my views of the conflict and the possible ways forward, but also of how I view conflict in general. For the first time in my life, I visited an Internally Displaced Persons camp (IDPC). IDPs are basically refugees, but since they do not cross intl borders, they do not have the same rights, privileges, and protection as refugees. While the UN did pass a special protocol for IDPs, they still do not get the same kind of attention and support that they need. Indeed, the situation in Northern Uganda was called the most neglected humanitarian crisis in the world by the UN Head of Humanitarian Affairs, Jan Egeland. I visited the Barr camp, which has nearly 50,000 people living in it. It did not look like the kind of refugee camp you see on CNN. Rather, it looked like a terribly congested rural village, with thousands of small mud huts squeezed together. The settlement is almost semi-permanent since most people have been there for 4 years. Yeah, 4 years. And this is a recent camp, the product of the conflict surging again in 2002/2003. Many camps further North have housed displaced people for over a decade.
I had the opportunity to speak to many people, and sat down and interviewed a group of women in the camp, many of them single heads of households with several dependants, including vulnerables such a infants, sick people, and elderly family members. They struggle for food every day, and can barely access basic necessities like water, clothing, sanitary towels etc... Rats eat their medicine, and they don't have any farming equipment to grow their own small crops. Diseases like cholera and malaria are common, and fires can quickly sweep across the camp, destroying the few possessions they have left.
Yes, of course there are many NGOs operating in the camp, such as the World Food Program and the Christian Children's Fund, but all the NGOs are gradually phasing down their activities in the camp, due to funding constraints (aka donor fatigue) and the belief that people should begin returning to their villages because it is "safer" now. (Actually I'm totally rethinking the role/usefulness/wisdom of NGO relief work... Seems like sometimes they just perpetuate the problems... More on that later) Anyway it is indeed safer now, especially in the Lira District, but people are scared to go home, terrified of being killed or abducted. Even though many people have gradually begun returning home, their villages have been destroyed, torched and looted by rebels and the military alike. Even once people settle back home, they are extremely fearful of nighttime raids and attacks... Rumors spread quickly about "that man, Kony," and one accidental gunshot can send everyone fleeing back to the protected camps. So as long as peace and security cannot be guaranteed, these people will still be homeless and stranded within their own country, ignored by their government and forgotten by the rest of the world...

If you want more basic information about the conflict, check out the BBC link below...

From the dusty streets of Kampala

Seems like there's so much to say about Uganda, and so much I want to try to share with you all... Unfortunately, I thought I knew what I was getting into from reading, documentaries, etc, but nothing can actually prepare you for what it's like on the ground in a poor, developing country like Uganda that has been struggling with civil and regional conflict and under quasi-dictatorial rule for about 20 years.

Kampala is a bustling city to say the least... Endless swarms of people around, who endlessly stare at a muzungu like me. It's absolutely not threatening, in fact Kampala in many ways feels safer than parts of Cape Town. You don't see the same kind of polarized wealth that is so prevalent in South Africa... In Uganda, everyone is poor. Yes, there are definitely degrees of poverty, but I'm staying with a member of Parliament, and let me just say that a US senator would not last 5 minutes in his house (more on that to follow, but it's just been 24 hours so I need some more time to process all this).
Anyway, back to Kampala. The city is actually quite lovely in terms of climate and the location on Lake Victoria, but it's crumbling--not that it was ever really properly built. Most of the roads in the city center are paved, but there are potholes the size of lunar craters every other meter, and the streets are totally lawless. Traffic laws don't really seem to exist, and there are no traffic lights and few street signs. Minibus taxis jockey for the best positions on the main roads and little 'boda boda' motorcycles precariously weave through traffic, picking up passengers along the way. Others load up their bicycles with goods and sometimes kids, and try to make their way over the 14 hills that Kampala spreads over. Pedestrians must wait for traffic--not the other way around, and as I explained earlier, crossing the street is a long process. I've adjusted by crossing with the locals, who seem to have an innate sense of how not to die when scrambling across these busy streets. Also remember to watch for open manholes and barbed wire along the way ;)
Otherwise the streets of Kampala are busy with commerce. There's a panoply of storefronts selling seemingly unrelated wares like irons, shoes, wooden furniture, second-hand refridgerators, and "African" crafts. Private security guards sit in front of many stores, casually sitting in the shade with assault rifles across their laps. The guns wouldn't creep me out so much if the guards weren't younger than me and seemingly napping in shade during the hot afternoon hours. Yeah, exactly. Between security guards, the streets are lined with homeless people and street children, most of them refugees from the North, where the conflict still flares. Some of them try to make a little money selling newspapers and cigarettes on the sidewalk, but others are so desperate and sick that they can't do much more than lie there... It's impossible to not feel for them, but we were told that we shouldn't give them money. This is probably the biggest challenge I have faced-- how can I walk by a baby and her young mother when you realize, after a brief glance, that the mother's leg was chopped off? Or an old man with no hands?
But I guess that's why I'm here, studying peace and conflict in this context... The program is about experiential learning, and the academic part really just puts everything in context so we understand what we're seeing and experiencing everyday. Plus I feel like I'm actually contributing to something since we will be working with various NGOs in the different places we travel to as a group...
Anyway I'm going to head back to the "compound" now to share the evening with my new (huge) Ugandan family... and to shower. The soil here is a fine red clay, and during the dry season, red dust covers everything. All the Africans look prim and proper, but us muzungus, with our pale skin, definitely look more disheveled. You don't really feel or look dirty (actually I thought I was tan) until you bathe and the drain water is brown. Lovely, I know.

(For a visual of the above descriptions, check out my pics from Uganda at the link below, or check out this gorgeous photo gallery of Kampala and the surrounding region: http://www.pbase.com/danfung/uganda)

Greetings from Uganda

Hey everyone!
I'll have to keep this one short, bc electrical problems make a constant power supply impossible in Uganda... Ah, feels like Zimbabwe all over again :)
So anyway, hello from Kampala! I'm sitting at a tiny internet cafe, where I paid about 800 Ugandan shillings for an hour of internet (about 50c). Nearly as overpriced as my $1 beers last night. Crazy.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know that I'm alive and well and enjoying my time in Uganda so far... It's only been 3 days, but I already feel like my 3 weeks here are short-changing this vibrant, bustling, humid, dusty city, where everytime you cross the street your life literally flashes before your eyes. But it's ok, because there are probably about 200,000 people also crossing the street with you, so the minibus drivers and motorcycles have a lower chance of hitting me. There are about 2 million people in Kampala, and they ALL are always out wandering the streets it seems.
Anyway, even though I clearly stand out as white, a "muzungu," and get many stares and hellos from the locals, they are possibly the warmest friendliest people I have ever encountered. When you ask for directions, they don't bother giving you verbal directions, they actually walk you where you need to go. Yeah, try that on Madison Ave.
Anyway I'm off to further adventures in the city, more from me soon-ish...