Diary of a super important legal intern

I sincerely apologize for the rather long interruption in my regular stream of updates. Here are some long overdue snapshots from my *new life* as a Legal Intern in the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) at the UN Intl Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania:

Scene 1:
I'm settling into the pace in the overcrowded intern office on the 7th floor at the ICTR . There's a lovely view of Mt. Meru out of our panoramic window, not that I can see the view because I got stuck at the desk near the door. There are 12 people in my office, representing 11 different nationalities, usually chattering back and forth in a mix of the two official languages here, French and English.
It's day 3 at work and I finally get my computer, a nice Dell Pentium 4. Unfortunately I need a surge protector/extension cord to be able to plug it in. After 20 minutes of asking various people, calling around different offices, and promptly being handed off to others, I finally get the correct extension and am able to speak to a guy at the Building Management Services office (BMS).
-Hi, I'm Eve, a new intern in OTP. I would like a request an extension cord for my office computer.

-Ok, have you filled out a request?

-Um, no. That's why I'm calling.

-No no no no no, you cannot simply call the office. You must fill out the online request form.

-Right, but I can't get online because I can't plug in my computer yet.

-Yes, but you must complete the special form online and have it signed by your supervisor.

After a full 5 minutes of this verbal circumnavigation, I sigh and hang up the phone. But no, I am not yet defeated by the complex absurdity of UN bureaucracy. I march down to the BMS office, conveniently located down the block, outside the UN compound, and I find my telephonic interlocutor. After a 10-minute conversation about his family, health, kids etc, he hands me an extension cord! Victory is mine!
I happily trot back to my office, plug in the computer, start everything up, click on Internet Explorer and then… realize my Internet connection is not working…

Scene 2:
It's the end of my first week at the ICTR. After several days of translation work, photocopying and other tedious assignments, I am called down to the courtroom during an afternoon session. I try to conceal my excitement as I put on my suit jacket, smooth my hair, kick off my flip-flops (office norm) and slip on my heels. I grab my shiny new security ID badge and proceed down to Trial Chamber 1 where my case, Military 1, is being heard. I scan my ID and the light switches from red to green as the door clicks open. I push past the heavy curtain, appropriately colored "UN blue," and pause by the simultaneous interpreters' booths to bow to the judges. I pull up a chair next to Kartik, the assistant legal officer, and he hands me a stack of important confidential documents. I look eagerly down at the papers, waiting for my assignment. And then Kartik asks me to make 15 collated copies so we can distribute them as exhibits in court. Oh, more photocopying… Yay.

Scene 3:
Late afternoon on Friday, the end of my second week at the Tribunal. I'm already here much later than most people on Friday, a half-day of work here. Dressed in jeans and a button-down shirt (it's casual Friday, aka "cultural attire" day at the UN), I walk down the clinical hallway to the office of Rashid, one of the trial attorneys. I hand him a thick witness binder, containing confidential protected witness information and certain background searches I had performed as preparation for this witness taking the stand the following week. As I walk back down the hall, gearing up to leave, I pop into the office of Greg, another trial attorney on the Military 1 case, just to wish him a nice weekend etc. We get to talking and he asks what I'm working on…

What I'm thinking: I'm working on finally getting out of here so I can go meet my friends for happy hour.
What I say: I just finished preparing the Higaniro binder for Rashid.

Greg: Oh so you're done? How would you like to work on one of my witnesses?

What I'm thinking: Cool beans, I'd love to do some more substantive work. Let's talk about in on Monday cuz I need to get outta here.
What I say: Sure, no problem.

Greg (passing me a huge thick binder): Oh great. Here's all the info. Go ahead and read through the documents, do an analysis of his statements, translate the Belgian immigration documents, and draft some questions for cross-examination.

What I'm thinking: Oh my God, I am totally unqualified for this job. I'm just going to back out of this door s-l-o-w-l-y.
What I say: Yup, I got it.

Greg: Oh and it'd be great if I could get this by 10pm tonight before I leave for Nairobi.

What I'm thinking: 10pm?! Are you nuts? It's already past 4pm on FRIDAY, aka 3 hours after everyone else has already gone home! Find some other sucker buddy, I'm outta here!
What I say: No worries, I'll get started on that ASAP.


Welcome to my life :-)

"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens"

These are a few of my favorite things...
I thought I’d share my summer reading list in case any of you are interested in learning more about any of the issues I’ve mentioned over the past three months. I won't bore you with the list of fiction that I've read to keep me relatively sane. Besides, I haven't really read much non-fiction at all because, as you know, once I’m in something, I tend to just keep digging deeper and deeper... Anyway, over the past few months, I’ve mostly been reading Africa/development/conflict related non-fiction, in this order:

1- Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux—famous novelist travels overland from Cairo to Cape Town; great descriptions of the continent and interesting insight (though I don't 100% agree with his conclusions)

2- Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda by Gen. Roméo Dallaire—memoirs of the UN force commander in Rwanda during the genocide; sometimes a little too "I talked to him, then to him, then I went here, then I went there..." but terribly informative and a great insider's perspective

3- We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch—journalist’s investigation in Rwanda one year after the genocide, heart-breaking stories and terrific insight

4- The Zanzibar Chest: Life, Love and Death in Foreign Lands by Aidan Hartley—young journalist working in African war zones intertwines his narrative with a family history; prose is a little heavy at times, but a great read

5- Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone by Heidi Postlewait, Kenneth Cain, and Andrew Thomson-- 3 UN workers share stories from Cambodia, Somalia, Haiti, and Rwanda; interesting and fun read

6- Guns, Germs, and Steel: A Short History of Everybody for the Past 13,000 years by Jared Diamond—the Ultimate history book, the researcher explains scientifically why human societies ended up so differently on the various continents; loooong and a little dense at times, but fascinating thesis and v. well demonstrated

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Additionally, I've seen several films (mostly documentaries) that are relevant to the above issues... All are highly recommended:

1- Invisible Children, 3 young Americans travel to Uganda, and almost by accident make a documentary about the war-affected internally displaced children in Northern Uganda

2- Soldier Child, about the abduction and indoctrination of child soldiers in the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda

3- Sometimes in April, fictional film about the Rwandan genocide--better than Hotel Rwanda

4- Ghosts of Rwanda, PBS documentary about the genocide and Western inaction

5- Life and Debt, case study of Jamaica and the noxious effects of the World Bank policies on its development; great interviews, music, camera angles etc... beautiful example of documentary film-making at its best

Back on the banks of Lake Victoria

Just a quick "jambo" from Kisumu on the banks of Lake Victoria in western Kenya. I'm settling here for the next couple of weeks to help out at Africa Now, the NGO I interned for last summer in the UK. Despite being exhausted after my first long day in the field, I wanted to share some sad news with you guys: unfortunately, I somehow managed to sweet talk my way into an internship at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which means that I'll be going back to Arusha, Tanzania in a couple of weeks and staying there until XMas. (*pausing here to give you all a moment to grieve my prolonged absence*)
But, in all seriousness, I am psyched about this opportunity to intern at the Office of the Prosecutor and help work to put the big bad masterminds of the genocide away in some desolate jail cell forever and ever and ever. I've already been in contact with most of the other incoming interns and they seem like a really interesting, multicultural, international group of people... So more good times ahead for Eve in Africa!
Anyway, to keep your minds off of your imminent depression, I finally took some time to upload some more pics! So scroll back to past posts and check out my links :-)

Masai on the beach and other tales from Zanzibar

Last time I had a chance to sit down and devote some time to an update, I was in Arusha, Tanzania sitting under beautiful Mt. Meru (spitting distance from Mt. Kilimanjaro) and doing research at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). I'll write more about Arusha some other time (For now, the pics are here: http://smith.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010862&l=339a4&id=5902101 ). They seem very distant from me now as I sit in this small internet cafe hearing the evening call to prayer echo through the streets of Stone Town on the island of Zanzibar.

The formal academic program ended about 10 days ago and since then I've had some much needed vacation time. Last week I was in Nairobi with my Kenyan friend Muthoni from Oxford. She showed me around town a bit--and by town, I mean the suburbs, since downtown Nairobi is notoriously crime-ridden, thus the moniker "Nairobbery." We quickly got tired of the dreary weather and decided to head to the coast. Transport in Kenya, as in most of the continent, is quite challenging, but we decided to brave the roads and go from Nairobi to Mombasa by bus... The bus wasn't exactly your air-conditioned Greyhound, but at least there weren't any goats or chickens in it. I was, as usual, the only mzungu on the bus, which the gaggle of veiled women thought was just about the funniest and strangest thing they had ever seen.

The 500km over the bumpy pot-hole ridden highway through the Kenyan plains only took 9.5 hours, which includes the fact that a) we left 30min late, b) had a 45min rest stop, and c) stopped for another 45min to change a punctured tire. For most of the ride, I napped and between dosing enjoyed the beautiful scenery... Lots of little villages, really just glorified groups of shops and street vendors, squatted along the highway in the ever-changing scenery of hills, sharp escarpments, and plains dotted with cattle and their young Masai herders. As I sat there thinking about the Kenyan landscape and the artificial and imperialist creation of the national park systems, I saw some zebra along the side of the road... Who needs national parks, which just dispossess local populations, when the whole country is basically a big national park? Oh goodness, my last semester of college is haunting me (thanks Prof Newbury).
Anyway, we finally got to Mombasa and installed ourselves at Muthoni's flat at the Tamarind on the North coast, about 15min from the city centre. Sitting on the balcony, in the evening warmth, hearing the soft laping of the Indian Ocean below me, I was in absolute heaven--except for the mosquitoes which quickly smelled out their sweet new prey. After a couple of nights in Mombasa, we flew back to Tanzania down to Zanzibar to meet up with Page, an American friend from the academic program.

Zanzibar is an island in the Indian Ocean that historically served as an important trading centre between Africa and the Middle East. For hundreds of years, ivory and African slaves sailed one way on the monsoon winds, and spices and silk went the other. In the meantime, lots of Arabs settled in the Zanzibar archipelago (including, rather famously, the sultan of Oman who decided to relocate his capital here in 1832) and intermarriage between Arabs and Africans ensued, which gave rise to a coastal community with distinctive features, and a unique hybrid language derived in part from Arabic and the local Bantu dialect... That language is now known as Swahili, a name which comes from the Arab word sawahil which means 'coast'.
Skip forward a hundred years or so: Zanzibar finally gained its independance in 1964 and together with the mainland (Tanganyika) formed the nation we know as Tanzania (look at that clever little word melding ;-) ).

Anyway, sorry for that historical digression, but the history is absolutely fascinating and still very visible, most notably in the architecture and the predominantly Muslim population (97%). When I arrived, the light cloud cover over Stone Town could not mask the beauty of this UNESCO World Heritage Site... Traditional dhow boats float on the bright blue harbour waters that suround the bustling little bazaars, cobblestone streets, narrow alleys, and white-washed houses with dark wood carved doors--oh just see for yourself: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=zanzibar%20stone%20town&sa=N&tab=wi
After an overnight in Stone Town, we drove out to the south east coast to Paje, a miniscule fishing village on one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. The quiet palm tree-lined beach extends for miles; silky soft white sands trims the Indian Ocean; and the sun glistens in gold and silver flecks on the surface of the warm and shallow turquoise waters. We just tanned, read (I'm rather appropriately in the middle of the Zanzibar Chest), ate freshly caught seafood, got pekoe (black henna) tattoos, watched fishermen come in with the daily catch, dodged some tiny jelly fish, did a little souvenir shopping (with the random local Masai who roamed the beach), and went for long walks down the deserted beaches. We must have been among only 50 or 60 other tourists (mostly Italians and some Brits), and we felt like we had the place to ourselves as we lay comatose on the beach for 4 days.
But that mini-escape from reality is over, as I'm back in Stone Town this evening before flying back to Mombasa early tomorrow mornaing. I have about 5 more days of holiday before moving out to Kisumu in Western Kenya to do some volunteer work with Africa Now, the NGO I worked for last summer.
Anyway I'm off to enjoy my last evening in this little island paradise (I seriously recommend it--check out the link to my pics)...

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!!