Northern Uganda

This started as the on-line journal of Africa Anonymous while she was an Graduate Fellow researching and working in Northern Uganda. You gotta be good. You gotta be strong. You gotta be 2,000 places at once.

Sunday, September 19, 2004

Back to the Mzungu life

After a wonderful two months of traveling to California, Colorado, DC, NYC, Rome, Amsterdam, and of course Breda, it is strange to find myself back in such familiar surroundings in Kampala. I arrived bright and early on Friday, pleased to find that all my luggage made the journey successfully (in addition to my problems in Europe, I was a little concerned when switching planes in Nairobi, as there were hundreds of suitcases strewn about the tarmac). I was also pleased to find a nice taxi man waiting for me with a Kelly Fish sign in hand. I thought we had my name down, but good old James the Taxi Man kept calling me Kerry – a problem that I frequently encountered in Rwanda and with Ethiopian Airlines. Try as I might to be Kelly, I will probably surrender to Kerry (which of course is a lovely name, Kerri). After less than 5 minutes, Taxi Man and I digressed into the American election discussion, where as usual, foreigners seem to know more about our political system than the average American. I also discussed Bushy in length in Europe (in Holland they have pins that say tell an American to vote). The world over has a stake in what happens in the US elections – I am sorry to plug political participation and responsibility, but I am confronted by it so regularly that I can’t help myself. I personally have my eye on socially progressive Holland for political asylum should the election go the way I fear (Anke, I am hoping you can be my sponsor).

Back to Uganda. Just on the drive to Kampala from the airport, I am reminded of how much there is always to take in on a daily basis - the beautiful banana trees, the smell of burning (of what, I do not know), the man in a nice suit attempting to haul a huge load of clothes on his bike, the children playing with tire wheels, the shack for charging car batteries, the bored looking woman manning a solitary phone booth… As comfortable as I instantly felt back in Kampala, I was not ready to take on the mzungo identity again. For those of you rusty on your Kiswahili, mzungo is the arbitrary term used for all white people. Fight as I did against this identity in Rwanda, it was truly in vain. Some have tried to convince me that it does not have a negative connotation, but I am not yet persuaded.

So I am hanging out in my mzungo hostel, swatting mosquitos, and devising my next step and taking care of some logistics. On my first night I took a walk to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant. I was the only female patron (and only mzungo, but I think that is a given), as several men were gathered, drinking Bell Lager, and taking turns at pool. I sat at a table enjoying the people watching opportunities, as a cute little girl tried to woo me with her dance routine. The waitress kindly informed me that the girl wanted me to take her with me. I asked where to, but got no response. The girl’s father appeared to want to send her off with me too – he kept whispering for her to come to my table and shake my hand. After a number of dances and handshakes, the girl eventually left with her dad. I waited a good hour for my rice and chicken to appear, but I was happy with good old African beer – now that’s the good life I had missed.

On Saturday, I met with Sasha (and his girlfriend), with whom I have been in email contact with for a few months. It was a gorgeous day and I wanted to take in the sights on the way to our meeting place (Blue Mango for those of you familiar with Kampala), so I hopped on a boda boda or motorcycle taxi. I know this isn’t the safest mode of transportation, but couldn’t resist (especially after a man on the street dared to threaten my pride by insinuating that I should take a regular taxi instead of the boda boda). I bargained the driver to 3000 Ugandan shillings, less than $2. What I didn’t realize is that I was going to a destination much farther than I had anticipated – but it was nice to see more of the city and I am still impressed with how Kampala towers over Kigali (and of course I tipped the driver extra). So Sasha is in Gulu frequently, as his organization is partnering with CMPS at the University of Gulu (where I am based) – the best part is that they will be setting up an office with high speed internet that I will attempt to exploit. After a light dinner, I joined Sasha and two others to the cultural center where we watched some African dance troops. In African style, there was a power outage (there was a generator, but apparently not a big enough one for the lighting effects), so the show got a late start (or in African time, the show started early), but was interesting nonetheless. A Ugandan troop opened for an award-winning Nigerian troop. I was expecting your traditional run of the mill African dancing (which I love), but encountered interpretive dance sans music with the Ugandan troop. If you are going to be interpreting (and I do my own interpretive dance from time to time, as many of you have witnessed), I still need to hear some music – especially as the show started with four male dancers zipped up in large shopping bags. Really. These men danced all bunched up in these shopping bags for a good ten minutes. And there was just silence. It was difficult to hide my grin and I looked around me to feel out others reactions. Thankfully the Nigerian troop managed to redeem the cultural experience. Nonetheless, a nice Saturday evening.

A lazy Sunday, making some calls to Gulu to see if I can secure a place to stay and then off to a resort swimming pool on Lake Victoria with my new Dutch friend (though there is no replacing Anke). For whatever reason, I thought I would be able to spontaneously show up in Gulu and find a nice little guesthouse. Well, it so happens that there is a big conference this week for International Peace Day. This is good, as it will give me a great opportunity to acquaint myself with Gulu, the conflict, and what’s being done, but it also is drawing in many others meaning there is a real room scarcity. Ummm…a soon to be colleague from the University (Lina) gave me a call this evening and it looks like she just might have secured me a room.

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