Oh, Kampala. My new roommate and I were each in two different coffee shops (there are three) working, and on a whim I suggested we meet at the Chinese restaurant two steps from our house for dinner. (It's how I tell everyone to find our place, how could I never try it?) We arrived to find a party for the newly arrived Brazilian football team being hosted. We snuck glances all of dinner, as they gave speeches that lasted our whole meal (translating into Portuguese, English, and Chinese trebled them), plus a long, long prayer/preaching session. (They're here as an evangelical charity.) We felt awkward, but how could we leave without any pictures? So I forced my housemate over as they dispersed. Turns out they had two Texan members, one from Houston where she's from. They made buddies and we got invited to the game on the team bus.
After a lovely time sitting in breezy weather watching the match we weaseled our way into a free dinner with them on the hotel roof. Thought the footballers didn't mix much, we made good friends with a group of Danes on mission, and bonded over post-dessert line dancing with the traditional dance troupe performers under the stars. Another magical evening in K'la.
http://www.goal.com/en/news/89/africa/2009/07/20/1392844/brazilian-football-team-arrives-for-east-african-charity
The title is "Jesus <3 You" in Portuguese, and it's what was on the undershirts revealed when the players doffed their jerseys. (Apparently they can't wear them anymore in FIFA tournaments -- avoiding potential coercion/perceived endorsement or suppression of freedom of religion? Hint: My religious studies major roommate and I differ.)
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Hot, dirty, and bored: a day at Oruchinga refugee camp
After a series of false starts, I finally went on the trip to a refugee camp I've been trying to plan since June. I had hoped to tag-along on a mission, but each one planned fell through. So I ended up going on my own, guiltily absorbing resources in what was honestly mostly a tourist trip motivated by my own curiosity. So, I'm trying to spread the wealth of my experience by sharing it?
I headed out in a UN van to Mbarara suboffice in the west, where there are several refugee camps. I went to Oruchinga, a nearly 100% Rwandese settlement, because there was a food distribution going on that day.
I went with the nominal project of finding out if refugees were given adequate land to practice livelihoods, as national policy says they should be. That line of survey fell through pretty quickly since the Office of the Prime Minister's official policy in the camp has been to arrest anyone who tries to start cultivating (from the mouth of the OPM rep at the camp, as well as the refugees' experience). The reason for the policy is the Rwandan and Ugandan governments came to an agreement that all Rwandese refugees in Uganda should be repatriated by July 31st of this year. As in next week. (The refugees' contract ends, as it turns out, the same day as mine.)
Looking around the camp, this seemed like a fantasy, and it probably is. No one we spoke to wanted to leave, or seemed like they could be encouraged to outside of actual force. On the other hand, no one said their reluctance was due to fear about violence or unfair trials when they returned (as some here have suggested is a major reason. To be fair though, I can see how if there were refugees who did fear trial they wouldn't immediately tell a random UN worker that they were concerned there was reason they might be considered a genocidaire).
The major reason at any rate seems to be that there is a land shortage in Rwanda, and the refugees want to keep the land they've been granted here. None expected to find the homes, land, and property they left 15 years ago. No one could tell me how they knew their land was taken, but to be fair it seems like a safe assumption. This brings into conflict two basic principles in international refugee law (based on my very limited knowledge): 1) return of refugees must be voluntary, and 2) "economic refugees" do not qualify for refugee status. (eg the US is not flouting international law by turning away poor immigrants). So Uganda can't kick out legitimate Rwandan refugees, but they can't claim refugee status if they are only here because it is easier to make a living.
Legal theory issues aside, the government's have an interest in returning the refugees, for Rwanda to show its stability (it is bad press in an obvious way for a country to still have citizens abroad because they supposedly fear for their lives at home) and for Uganda's relationship with Rwanda (similarly, hard to act amicably with a country when you are in effect acknowleging by hosting refugees that it cannot institute law and order), as well as to reclaim resources. And probably at least most of the refugees should return, as UNHCR has agreed with the two countries.
What this will mean in practice is unclear. I met students who have to stay in Uganda (with permission) to finish their exams in October. Those finishing secondary school don't remember Rwanda, some were orphaned by the conflict, what will they do when they arrive? I talked to people who plan to hide from the officials returning them, people who plan to try to get out to other parts of the country (international law: they must be allowed to leave camps at anytime. Uandan law: not so.)
So politically interesting, but not as relevant to my work as I had hoped. I did get to see a food distribution, sacks of rice and all, (they happen about every six weeks) which seems like something anyone working for WFP should see at some point. As progressive as WFP and WFP Uganda is becoming, this still looked like old-style food aid to me. I stupidly came with a dead camera, so description will have to serve. A photo I desperately wanted to take was tin cans of USA Refined Vegetable Oil VITAMIN A FORTIFIED in stacked rows, with a young Rwandan man facing them, back to the camera, in an shirt with OBAMA embroidered across the shoulders, next to the half-emptied truck draped in UN blue, the WFP logo half obscured by the red dust acquired on the trip from the warehouse in Kampala.
Along with the US oil, there were boxes of US "corn soya blend,"and the white rice was "A Gift from the People of Japan" complete with a little Japanese flag logo. The 25 kg sacks of maize kernels and beans were of unspecified origin. The corn looked yellow, though, and Ugandan corn is white. The whole of it, except for the beans, was pretty colorless and nutritionally weak. Still, these refugees almost all seemed decently well off (relatively speakign) and well fed, which our surveys confirm.
In the extreme, sugar isn't a standard ration but Extremely Vulnerable Individuals (HIV/AIDS affected, elderly, etc.) get a portion. I got a white-ringed grin from a kid happily eating a fistful. A lot of the small kids were very into the mzungu, but unbelieving that I did not speak their language. My sign language didn't work out well; think they just concluded I was stupid. They were really into my photo ID, though. Also got to speak to a few older people who still knew some French. It helped make a connection even with those who spoke better English, and was gratifying to get some justification for part of my namby pamby liberal arts education.
One small irony was that there was nowhere for us to get lunch. The other WFP staffperson there ended up buying us bananas from the refugee's school. (He ate about 7.) I felt a little profane suffering from peckishness there, but what can you do? You get used to it, I guess.
I headed out in a UN van to Mbarara suboffice in the west, where there are several refugee camps. I went to Oruchinga, a nearly 100% Rwandese settlement, because there was a food distribution going on that day.
I went with the nominal project of finding out if refugees were given adequate land to practice livelihoods, as national policy says they should be. That line of survey fell through pretty quickly since the Office of the Prime Minister's official policy in the camp has been to arrest anyone who tries to start cultivating (from the mouth of the OPM rep at the camp, as well as the refugees' experience). The reason for the policy is the Rwandan and Ugandan governments came to an agreement that all Rwandese refugees in Uganda should be repatriated by July 31st of this year. As in next week. (The refugees' contract ends, as it turns out, the same day as mine.)
Looking around the camp, this seemed like a fantasy, and it probably is. No one we spoke to wanted to leave, or seemed like they could be encouraged to outside of actual force. On the other hand, no one said their reluctance was due to fear about violence or unfair trials when they returned (as some here have suggested is a major reason. To be fair though, I can see how if there were refugees who did fear trial they wouldn't immediately tell a random UN worker that they were concerned there was reason they might be considered a genocidaire).
The major reason at any rate seems to be that there is a land shortage in Rwanda, and the refugees want to keep the land they've been granted here. None expected to find the homes, land, and property they left 15 years ago. No one could tell me how they knew their land was taken, but to be fair it seems like a safe assumption. This brings into conflict two basic principles in international refugee law (based on my very limited knowledge): 1) return of refugees must be voluntary, and 2) "economic refugees" do not qualify for refugee status. (eg the US is not flouting international law by turning away poor immigrants). So Uganda can't kick out legitimate Rwandan refugees, but they can't claim refugee status if they are only here because it is easier to make a living.
Legal theory issues aside, the government's have an interest in returning the refugees, for Rwanda to show its stability (it is bad press in an obvious way for a country to still have citizens abroad because they supposedly fear for their lives at home) and for Uganda's relationship with Rwanda (similarly, hard to act amicably with a country when you are in effect acknowleging by hosting refugees that it cannot institute law and order), as well as to reclaim resources. And probably at least most of the refugees should return, as UNHCR has agreed with the two countries.
What this will mean in practice is unclear. I met students who have to stay in Uganda (with permission) to finish their exams in October. Those finishing secondary school don't remember Rwanda, some were orphaned by the conflict, what will they do when they arrive? I talked to people who plan to hide from the officials returning them, people who plan to try to get out to other parts of the country (international law: they must be allowed to leave camps at anytime. Uandan law: not so.)
So politically interesting, but not as relevant to my work as I had hoped. I did get to see a food distribution, sacks of rice and all, (they happen about every six weeks) which seems like something anyone working for WFP should see at some point. As progressive as WFP and WFP Uganda is becoming, this still looked like old-style food aid to me. I stupidly came with a dead camera, so description will have to serve. A photo I desperately wanted to take was tin cans of USA Refined Vegetable Oil VITAMIN A FORTIFIED in stacked rows, with a young Rwandan man facing them, back to the camera, in an shirt with OBAMA embroidered across the shoulders, next to the half-emptied truck draped in UN blue, the WFP logo half obscured by the red dust acquired on the trip from the warehouse in Kampala.
Along with the US oil, there were boxes of US "corn soya blend,"and the white rice was "A Gift from the People of Japan" complete with a little Japanese flag logo. The 25 kg sacks of maize kernels and beans were of unspecified origin. The corn looked yellow, though, and Ugandan corn is white. The whole of it, except for the beans, was pretty colorless and nutritionally weak. Still, these refugees almost all seemed decently well off (relatively speakign) and well fed, which our surveys confirm.
In the extreme, sugar isn't a standard ration but Extremely Vulnerable Individuals (HIV/AIDS affected, elderly, etc.) get a portion. I got a white-ringed grin from a kid happily eating a fistful. A lot of the small kids were very into the mzungu, but unbelieving that I did not speak their language. My sign language didn't work out well; think they just concluded I was stupid. They were really into my photo ID, though. Also got to speak to a few older people who still knew some French. It helped make a connection even with those who spoke better English, and was gratifying to get some justification for part of my namby pamby liberal arts education.
One small irony was that there was nowhere for us to get lunch. The other WFP staffperson there ended up buying us bananas from the refugee's school. (He ate about 7.) I felt a little profane suffering from peckishness there, but what can you do? You get used to it, I guess.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Jebale from Kampala! Installment Two
May have learned another word in Luganda, but it could be wrong. You'd think "hello" would come up more often...either way, hi all! How are you? (This part of the greeting -How are you? -- is absolutely required here. And the answer is always, always, "Fine." Maybe, "I am fine." Sometimes the how are you's go back and forth a few times, but never skipped.) I'm doing well still, and feeling rather at home. The tenor of my first couple of weeks was definitely an odd feeling mixture of equal parts bored and terrified, but both have generally receded (exception: rafting. See infra Part Two) and left me almost shamefully comfortable here in the capital city of the Pearl of Africa. Happy to be sending off another massive missive to you all, and I loved, loved, loved hearing responses. I've found high-tech old-fashioned correspondence is surprisingly rewarding. Of course it helps that I know so many well-spoken/well-travelled/high-living people. Wishing you all your share of the high life, here is some more from K'la: (if you have only an attention span for bullets, skip to favorite things)
First a few notes on travel writing: To be perfectly honest, I kind of hate ‘travelogues’ as a genre. Oddly enough, writing about new, different and exciting outer surroundings usually leads to the inward-focussed, narcissistic material.It’s a phenomenon I see in people other than myself, too, that when you are in an uncertain situation where you are not very sure of things, sometimes one compensates by speaking with false authority – looking over my last entry, that’s definitely true. So this is just a reminder, I guess, that my perspective is necessarily very personal and limited, and I’m really trying not to sound like an expert on Uganda, Kampala, WFP, or anything else – I just don’t have enough data to work off of. Just as an example, true, I don’t feel like I can walk around at night alone, nor does anyone else (well, any other mzungu girls) I know here, but you would probably be fine, and Greg reminds me that not everyone feels that way. So, you know, grain of salt etc. etc. Anyway, I wanted to talk a bit about my job here (which I love – shocker!), and what else I’ve been up to.
WFP
To evangelise briefly, WFP – and especially WFP Uganda – is probably the world’s best organisation. Seriously. Although as a good little economist, I have always had a major beef with food aid, I am 100% bought into in WFP’s new strategy. They have just transitioned from being an “aid” to an “assistance” agency focussed on “hunger” rather than “food,” and the difference seems genuinely more than semantic. The idea is to get at the “underlying causes of hunger”, for example building water catchments rather than just throwing sacks of rice at droughts, so there is a new focus on development activities, especially encouraging local farmers from whom WFP can then purchase food to distribute. Good cycle, no? They’ve also gotten smarter in other ways, for example targeting chronic hunger, of the kind that doesn’t cause starvation but does stunt growth, particularly mental growth. The difference mentally between a child wellnourished from in utero to age two or so and one that has been malnourished is heartbreaking, especially when you think about trying to break the cycle of poverty. They are also trying to do better on providing nutrition, rather than just calories – many people we serve getting adequate calories still show stunting, for example, so there is a real effort to get more nutrients in there. The amount of good they can and will do is staggering -- their reach is huge.And it is really gratifying to see such a powerful, established institution really reexamine itself, and seem willing to try out new practices, reevaluate, and improve -- mechanisms for learning from past projects and implementing changes are now being institutionalized at every level of WFP, which is really exciting.
The best part, though, is that the brains behind the big changes that happened in WFP Headquarters in Rome is now the Country Director for Uganda, where he was sent to pilot the new direction, so this office is on the cutting edge of the fantastic new work WFP is doing. More on him/unbelievably small world: Though he is Zimbabwean and has lived there for some of his career and was born there, he grew up mainly in Newton, Massachusetts. He went to Newton South! Unbelievable! And, even better, he eventually went to Stanford Law. Totally crazy coincidences.
Anyway, it’s cool to work for an org you believe in (if not their petty supplies procurement policies). Also awesome for the cred it gives you. “What did you do with your summer? I was feeding starving orphans in Africa. You?” (At least I hope some of my work has a net positive if small in absolute value effect on food security in the region.) Prompting the question, what is my work? It is a little strange, since there are no JDs about here (besides the Director, who is too high up and busy for the likes of me generally) or anyone specifically responsible for me to guide me. I have a supervisor who I can ask general questions of, but my work is a collection of projects ostensibly “law” or “policy” related that have come up for the office. That means I’m on the fringe attention of a group of people, half of whom are usually on leave or in the field, so it’s largely research type stuff on my own, often on topics I am patently ill-prepared to work on. For example, one of my major projects is a comparison of international and Ugandan human rights of refugee law. Hm. Maybe I should have taken some international human rights classes…ever…I’m meeting with someone outside the org who hopefully can share advice/a clue. Can’t help thinking of all the folks at school who actually know things about this/have worked in the field/for many years and feeling embarrassed. But hey, I’m a law student! Good enough! Also working on a project on what is the best method for establishing strategic grain reserves. Hm, I was an econ major under grad – good enough! If my internship were a song, it would be Dayyenu. (I’m sorry, that was terrible, but a contingent of present Passover-sharers are reading.) But I do find the projects engaging, I don't mind the long hours, and the people I work closely with are bright, dedicated, and kind.
A sidenote – My office is nice, airy, modern, big window in our room with a view of marabou storks dangling about on a hilly backdrop. The building is newish and spotlessly clean, and free bottled water (cold AND hot) flows like, well, water. So I was pretty surprised to find it is very close to impossible to get office supplies here - here as in my office, not Uganda. There seems to be no crippling shortage of staples on the national market, but at WFP they may as well be made of platinum. Anyway, yesterday evening it was like Christmas - a whole little box of random supplies: pens (blue only) pencils(unsharpened, no sharpener), stapler (no staples), tape & glue (i'm using the tape rolls as a pencil cup) , whiteboard markers (no whiteboard), and...highlighters! Pink and green, so now my documents are all Lily Pulitzered. Ahh, I feel like a law student again.
Life not in work
I just had a really dreamy month-plus here during which I spent my social time largely with the inhabitants of Living Situations #1 and #2. Group #1 was great, they had an entire social life built up over two years that I just glommed onto, and met lots of great people, went to fun barbecues (people have some sweet living situations here), parties, and outings, without having to do any of my own footwork. Then, they all left. To go to law school. YLS, no less. Irony? Anyway, I got along with them immediately because they were amazingly bright and open to adopting me even as they were spending their last days in town, and I hope we’ll stay in touch. One awesome activity was rafting the Nile weekend before last. I kinda had to go after everyone I knew emailed me that “Wild on the Nile in Uganda” article from the Times, besides, the government’s building a (probably foolhardy) dam that will flood half the rapids, so once in a lifetime experience! Even though I dislike thrill seeking activities (I like ferris wheels. That’s about my limit) about as much as being cold and wet. I was sold by the barbecue and beer at the end. As luck was to have it, I became the bad luck charm of the good ship captained by Davey the Scotsman, who visited on the way home from a 4 year stint rafting in Zambia, and landing here for another 4 and counting. He had an unnerving tic of following (in a washed out Scottish burl) each description of the next rapid with, “Dead simple, dead easy!” which he may or may not have intended to be cute. Anyway, it became decidedly more foreboding after my first bloody nose. (I took a paddle grip to the face on Silverback. Apparently I looked like an extra in a horror film when I popped up next to an unsuspecting raftmate after our boat flipped. It looked a lot more dramatic than it felt, and happy day, we bought the DVD, so I’ll have access to the even in Technicolor – apparently the filming guy loved it and got plenty of footage.) The rest of the trip was fun and less remarkable, punctuated by a second bleeder when I got my head in position to be smacked by my friend’s lifevest in front of me, and a rearending accident in Davey’s mutatu on the way home which he naturally ascribed to my bad totemage, (confirmed when my next visit began with me giving myself a healthy slice on the finger with a safety razor.)
Group #2 is very different; the Canadian woman whose house (well, she’s on the lease) I’m living in works for UNICEF here, she’s in her early thirties and single and has lived here for 2 and a half years. The other housemate (also in her early 30s) left last week, and was just here for 6 weeks from Denmark, where she lives with her husband who she met in her native Brazil. Denmark does not, we would say politely, suit her. She is a definite partier and a great terrible influence. (Her stories of Carnival, New Years, etc. in Rio are the stuff of fantasy.) The two of them were a great combination, because she would make us go out, and our house hostess would know where to go and who would be there (and be the best & most eager dancer on the floor, bar none). We went out to bars or dinner(it’s fine to go out at night, just not alone on foot), or just opened beers at home in front of Studio 60. A highlight was a fancy Bollywood-themed party their boss threw – shopping for costumes in the giant market was about as fun as the party, where we were bindi-ed and henna-ed and catered and given an outdoor fog-machined dance floor (which, sadly, caused the power to crash for the slot-machines rented for the occasion.) It was an older crowd, but still a heck of a party.
Anyway, I’m now grasping about a bit for friends since Group #1 has left, Miss Brasil has left, and my other housemate goes on vacation next week and won’t be back till the day after I’ve left. I’m sure I’ll stay in contact with at least five new great people, though, which is a real gift, so I’ve decided it is probably on balance worth a few weeks of hanging out with undergrad interns/folks met at the Irish pub/etc to have gotten a good stretch of time with the others.
Favorite things roundup-
First a few notes on travel writing: To be perfectly honest, I kind of hate ‘travelogues’ as a genre. Oddly enough, writing about new, different and exciting outer surroundings usually leads to the inward-focussed, narcissistic material.It’s a phenomenon I see in people other than myself, too, that when you are in an uncertain situation where you are not very sure of things, sometimes one compensates by speaking with false authority – looking over my last entry, that’s definitely true. So this is just a reminder, I guess, that my perspective is necessarily very personal and limited, and I’m really trying not to sound like an expert on Uganda, Kampala, WFP, or anything else – I just don’t have enough data to work off of. Just as an example, true, I don’t feel like I can walk around at night alone, nor does anyone else (well, any other mzungu girls) I know here, but you would probably be fine, and Greg reminds me that not everyone feels that way. So, you know, grain of salt etc. etc. Anyway, I wanted to talk a bit about my job here (which I love – shocker!), and what else I’ve been up to.
WFP
To evangelise briefly, WFP – and especially WFP Uganda – is probably the world’s best organisation. Seriously. Although as a good little economist, I have always had a major beef with food aid, I am 100% bought into in WFP’s new strategy. They have just transitioned from being an “aid” to an “assistance” agency focussed on “hunger” rather than “food,” and the difference seems genuinely more than semantic. The idea is to get at the “underlying causes of hunger”, for example building water catchments rather than just throwing sacks of rice at droughts, so there is a new focus on development activities, especially encouraging local farmers from whom WFP can then purchase food to distribute. Good cycle, no? They’ve also gotten smarter in other ways, for example targeting chronic hunger, of the kind that doesn’t cause starvation but does stunt growth, particularly mental growth. The difference mentally between a child wellnourished from in utero to age two or so and one that has been malnourished is heartbreaking, especially when you think about trying to break the cycle of poverty. They are also trying to do better on providing nutrition, rather than just calories – many people we serve getting adequate calories still show stunting, for example, so there is a real effort to get more nutrients in there. The amount of good they can and will do is staggering -- their reach is huge.And it is really gratifying to see such a powerful, established institution really reexamine itself, and seem willing to try out new practices, reevaluate, and improve -- mechanisms for learning from past projects and implementing changes are now being institutionalized at every level of WFP, which is really exciting.
The best part, though, is that the brains behind the big changes that happened in WFP Headquarters in Rome is now the Country Director for Uganda, where he was sent to pilot the new direction, so this office is on the cutting edge of the fantastic new work WFP is doing. More on him/unbelievably small world: Though he is Zimbabwean and has lived there for some of his career and was born there, he grew up mainly in Newton, Massachusetts. He went to Newton South! Unbelievable! And, even better, he eventually went to Stanford Law. Totally crazy coincidences.
Anyway, it’s cool to work for an org you believe in (if not their petty supplies procurement policies). Also awesome for the cred it gives you. “What did you do with your summer? I was feeding starving orphans in Africa. You?” (At least I hope some of my work has a net positive if small in absolute value effect on food security in the region.) Prompting the question, what is my work? It is a little strange, since there are no JDs about here (besides the Director, who is too high up and busy for the likes of me generally) or anyone specifically responsible for me to guide me. I have a supervisor who I can ask general questions of, but my work is a collection of projects ostensibly “law” or “policy” related that have come up for the office. That means I’m on the fringe attention of a group of people, half of whom are usually on leave or in the field, so it’s largely research type stuff on my own, often on topics I am patently ill-prepared to work on. For example, one of my major projects is a comparison of international and Ugandan human rights of refugee law. Hm. Maybe I should have taken some international human rights classes…ever…I’m meeting with someone outside the org who hopefully can share advice/a clue. Can’t help thinking of all the folks at school who actually know things about this/have worked in the field/for many years and feeling embarrassed. But hey, I’m a law student! Good enough! Also working on a project on what is the best method for establishing strategic grain reserves. Hm, I was an econ major under grad – good enough! If my internship were a song, it would be Dayyenu. (I’m sorry, that was terrible, but a contingent of present Passover-sharers are reading.) But I do find the projects engaging, I don't mind the long hours, and the people I work closely with are bright, dedicated, and kind.
A sidenote – My office is nice, airy, modern, big window in our room with a view of marabou storks dangling about on a hilly backdrop. The building is newish and spotlessly clean, and free bottled water (cold AND hot) flows like, well, water. So I was pretty surprised to find it is very close to impossible to get office supplies here - here as in my office, not Uganda. There seems to be no crippling shortage of staples on the national market, but at WFP they may as well be made of platinum. Anyway, yesterday evening it was like Christmas - a whole little box of random supplies: pens (blue only) pencils(unsharpened, no sharpener), stapler (no staples), tape & glue (i'm using the tape rolls as a pencil cup) , whiteboard markers (no whiteboard), and...highlighters! Pink and green, so now my documents are all Lily Pulitzered. Ahh, I feel like a law student again.
Life not in work
I just had a really dreamy month-plus here during which I spent my social time largely with the inhabitants of Living Situations #1 and #2. Group #1 was great, they had an entire social life built up over two years that I just glommed onto, and met lots of great people, went to fun barbecues (people have some sweet living situations here), parties, and outings, without having to do any of my own footwork. Then, they all left. To go to law school. YLS, no less. Irony? Anyway, I got along with them immediately because they were amazingly bright and open to adopting me even as they were spending their last days in town, and I hope we’ll stay in touch. One awesome activity was rafting the Nile weekend before last. I kinda had to go after everyone I knew emailed me that “Wild on the Nile in Uganda” article from the Times, besides, the government’s building a (probably foolhardy) dam that will flood half the rapids, so once in a lifetime experience! Even though I dislike thrill seeking activities (I like ferris wheels. That’s about my limit) about as much as being cold and wet. I was sold by the barbecue and beer at the end. As luck was to have it, I became the bad luck charm of the good ship captained by Davey the Scotsman, who visited on the way home from a 4 year stint rafting in Zambia, and landing here for another 4 and counting. He had an unnerving tic of following (in a washed out Scottish burl) each description of the next rapid with, “Dead simple, dead easy!” which he may or may not have intended to be cute. Anyway, it became decidedly more foreboding after my first bloody nose. (I took a paddle grip to the face on Silverback. Apparently I looked like an extra in a horror film when I popped up next to an unsuspecting raftmate after our boat flipped. It looked a lot more dramatic than it felt, and happy day, we bought the DVD, so I’ll have access to the even in Technicolor – apparently the filming guy loved it and got plenty of footage.) The rest of the trip was fun and less remarkable, punctuated by a second bleeder when I got my head in position to be smacked by my friend’s lifevest in front of me, and a rearending accident in Davey’s mutatu on the way home which he naturally ascribed to my bad totemage, (confirmed when my next visit began with me giving myself a healthy slice on the finger with a safety razor.)
Group #2 is very different; the Canadian woman whose house (well, she’s on the lease) I’m living in works for UNICEF here, she’s in her early thirties and single and has lived here for 2 and a half years. The other housemate (also in her early 30s) left last week, and was just here for 6 weeks from Denmark, where she lives with her husband who she met in her native Brazil. Denmark does not, we would say politely, suit her. She is a definite partier and a great terrible influence. (Her stories of Carnival, New Years, etc. in Rio are the stuff of fantasy.) The two of them were a great combination, because she would make us go out, and our house hostess would know where to go and who would be there (and be the best & most eager dancer on the floor, bar none). We went out to bars or dinner(it’s fine to go out at night, just not alone on foot), or just opened beers at home in front of Studio 60. A highlight was a fancy Bollywood-themed party their boss threw – shopping for costumes in the giant market was about as fun as the party, where we were bindi-ed and henna-ed and catered and given an outdoor fog-machined dance floor (which, sadly, caused the power to crash for the slot-machines rented for the occasion.) It was an older crowd, but still a heck of a party.
Anyway, I’m now grasping about a bit for friends since Group #1 has left, Miss Brasil has left, and my other housemate goes on vacation next week and won’t be back till the day after I’ve left. I’m sure I’ll stay in contact with at least five new great people, though, which is a real gift, so I’ve decided it is probably on balance worth a few weeks of hanging out with undergrad interns/folks met at the Irish pub/etc to have gotten a good stretch of time with the others.
Favorite things roundup-
- Walking from work to the patio of a bar and drinking Coke Light while reading submissions to the Food Policy issue of our journal
- Reading on the back patio of the house on cushions, looking out over the garden, under the guava tree.
- Making dinner with housemate and settling down in front of West Wing, Studio 60, or the Practice
- Hanging out with every foreigner in Kampala at biweekly quiz nights at Bubbles
- Lounging outside on white couches at an ex-colonial palatial hotel/restaurant Emin Pasha hearing crazy stories of women who were deployed in Sudan, Kosovo, etc., overlooking city lights on the hills after sunset, ugandan band playing
- Eating barbecue after an exhausting day of rafting on a porch overlooking the Nile
- Walking home amid the lush gardens overflowing the walls in my fancy neighborhood of closed compounds
- Being put to shame on the dance floor with the roommates to a mix of new american pop, forgotten american pop, and pretty awful Ugandan pop with a mix of expats, interns and locals
- Small accomplishments (getting to a meeting, getting a midday peanut snack, bargaining down a taxi price) as adventures
- Making surprising connections with all kinds of people on buses, in cars, in line, at work, etc.
- Planning upcoming travel and daydreaming about future travel in Africa (and beyond?)
Aw, man, another novel -- and I haven’t even talked about my new p(a)lace! Ah well, hopefully many adventures to relate as time here winds up. If you can't tell, I'm (mainly) loving it here, wishing I could stay longer, and trying to figure out how the international scene will fit into my future life -- I just feel more alive with all the learning that goes on continuously and continually, and, not to be preachy, the problems one can work on here feel more real and demanding of attention. That said -- I'm at the same time dreading and dying to come home.
The Internet here is not good enough for Skype, so the best way so far seems to be SkypeOut to my local number - +256 0791 365 333. I’ll pay you back! Or maybe you owe me a birthday gift or something? Otherwise, I will see you folks on email and when I'm back Stateside in August.
Sending much love and good wishes in all kinds of directions,
Loren
PS- Sorry about the Briticisms, but the spell checker here is on English English, and I hate seeing wavy red lines. Also, for repeat reader’s he’s just British. Guinness for export in Africa, much to my disappointment, is emphatically NOT Guinness. Blecch. Light and bitter. And there is no word for “cheers” here, you just look eachother in the eye. Ideally at Iguana Bar: rough hewn, open air, dance floor and seating atmosphere bar, popular with Ugandans and foreign undergrads alike. Outstanding mysteries to be solved next time – why are mangoes good for your teeth? Why is the *&%! cat named Pipes? Hint: It's apt. And more, should you have the stamina.
Friday, June 26, 2009
It's dry, but you can drink it.
I am embarassed how much I enjoy Savanna Dry Cider (South African, not sure how widely available outside Africa, not hugely easy to find in Kampala). Maybe better than any beverage, alcoholic or not.
It is definitely objectively tasty, but I'm not sure it deserves my new ironclad loyalty. I am unambiguous, however, in my enjoyment of the website. Priceless, and even worth waiting for it to load here: http://www.savanna.co.za/ I really may need to make Savanna Bread sometime.
(the title is the company's tagline - golden!)
It is definitely objectively tasty, but I'm not sure it deserves my new ironclad loyalty. I am unambiguous, however, in my enjoyment of the website. Priceless, and even worth waiting for it to load here: http://www.savanna.co.za/ I really may need to make Savanna Bread sometime.
(the title is the company's tagline - golden!)
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
[Not a] Hero's Day
Yesterday Moses -- "my driver" -- and I sailed to work in five minutes at 7:40 am. This is normally in the peak rush hour zone, jammed to walking pace woven with dodging bodas through an exhaust fog, but today it was all calm and clear air. It was like London in 28 days later. But no, no zombie coup: random holiday the UN does not recognize. Not sure who the heroes were, but they gave me the gift of no traffic.
I celebrated the holiday by being very much not a hero of the workplace, wasting space much of the morning and using a long lunch break to buy beer for my roommates and try out a new food court (I can now say that though there is nor S-bucks nor even McDonalds here, there is no country I've been to that doner kebab has not reached.)
I did try to use the afternoon productively, but I needed to cut and paste to go forward with what I was working on. Word 2000 decided it had enough of this pasting business. Cutting, copying, fine, but once cut, gone.
My rational and grown up response was to play Space Cadet pinball in spite. (One of the things I admit I miss about switching to Mac.)
I celebrated the holiday by being very much not a hero of the workplace, wasting space much of the morning and using a long lunch break to buy beer for my roommates and try out a new food court (I can now say that though there is nor S-bucks nor even McDonalds here, there is no country I've been to that doner kebab has not reached.)
I did try to use the afternoon productively, but I needed to cut and paste to go forward with what I was working on. Word 2000 decided it had enough of this pasting business. Cutting, copying, fine, but once cut, gone.
My rational and grown up response was to play Space Cadet pinball in spite. (One of the things I admit I miss about switching to Mac.)
Hello from Kampala!
To my dear Friends, Family, and Closer Acquaintances,
I hope this reaches you in a good place, especially anyone settling into something new for the summer. Keep in touch! I’m feeling rather far away right now, and I’d love to hear some friendly voices. I’m sending this email because I’m assuming you would, too; because some of you were curious about Kampala/Africa/International orgs/food aid/etc.; and because I’m selfishly using it as a vehicle to record some first impressions I can laugh at later. Also, some of you I haven't been in touch with for a long time, and this is a kinda lame way to finally make contact, but hope we talk more personally soon.
So the moral of the story is read if you like, skim if you like, delete guilt-free. (But live knowing you will never find out why I think Elvis was a reincarnated Ugandan.) Lawyerly disclaimer aside, some longwinded thoughts on my first week (okay two weeks now) in Kampala:
If you don't know this already, I am spending my summer after my first year at Stanford Law School as an intern in the UN World Food Programme. So far, the work is mostly interesting and the people great, and I'm getting settled in the city. WFP Uganda is in the middle of a transition to really innovative action that is moving them away from (critiqued and critiquable) food aid to food "assistance", becoming a "hunger" rather than a food agency. WFP is huge, the world's largest buyer of food I think, and the UN leader on logistics and ground presence. Doesn't have a hell of a lot to do with being a lawyer, but so far that has been one of many great reasons to be here. I'll write more about the job in a later installment, should you want one, but for now some day to day things.
Comforts of home
My nutshell version of life in Kampala so far is, nothing’s impossible here, but nothing’s easy.
Take getting a key copied. This isn’t a great example, because I suspect this is a pain in the ass at home, but it’s illustrative. So my roommate lost her keys and enlisted me (another story) to make copies so I could get in the house. Other roommates have vague impression there are key copiers near the big market, Owino (no Yellowpages equivalent that I’ve found here). To get there you start walking in that direction and look for mutatus with open seats and try to wave them over, asking for “old taxi park?” (nothing on the van indicates where its going) and getting a series of exasperated head shakes until one finally nods at you and you cram in. It doesn’t want to go all the way there because of a jam, so you are dropped somewhere nearby, paying 500Ush(about $.25)Wander around until someone helpfully points you in the right direction. Look for key shaped signs and hope you are not getting screwed on the price, and sit for 45 min while a man hand chisels a copy (this was actually pretty cool to watch), while trying to get your mobile number because you are mzungu. Get home (after getting trapped in the downpour half an hour) discover only one of the copied keys works. Repeat.
What can’t you get here? So I’ve thought about this, and really, as long as food, water, clothing, shelter and company are available in some basic form, at a sufficient level of generality, you have everything you need. It just depends what you are picky about. So, can you get, say, deodorant? Yes…but weird crappy roll-on kinds. (Thanks for warning me, Greg; I brought my own.) Can you get Internet? Yes, at work, usually, but very slow, and not good enough for Skype. Clothes shopping? New stuff: very limited and mostly tacky-licious. Second-hand: abundant and totally overwhelming.
Okay, let’s be real, when I think ‘comforts of home,’ I mean food. I could be happy dirty and dressed in a sack for ten weeks if I was well fed. And so far, I’m very happy with the food, if getting a bit bored. We have a canteen on the roof at work which is incredibly convenient and incredibly cheap; they have kabocha squash-like pumpkin (!) every day, and a rotation of ‘greens’, and beans which I can get for 2500 Ush – just over a dollar. They also have the stuff you seem to get at any Ugandan food place, lots of them lunch buffets. The most notable staple is matooke , a dry mashed squash texture thing made out of a variety of green bananas. It grows on you. Served with g-nut sauce (g-nut = ground nut = peanut, very very common here). [NB: Banana + peanut butter redux. Elvis must have been Ugandan in a previous life. Also, there is an Elvis in my office. Coincidence…?]
Other staples are cassava, something white and starchy made out of corn, sweet potatoes (!), and stewed meat or chicken on the bone . Breakfast foods seem to be mainly doughnut looking things or other fried simple pastries, and I also see guys eating corn on the cob on the way to work, sold by the many women on the roadside. For non-Ugandan fancy food, there are some good but a short list of options.
Not to dwell on what’s missing, here are some of the great things I’ve found so far:
Things that are easy:
- Living cheap. Seriously, not hard to live for a week on what I spend at home in a day, if you don’t mind changing the way you do some things. Just started keeping track of expenses out of curiosity, so more on this later.
- Relatedly, getting cheap services of any kind. Guards, pedicures, massage, yoga class, housekeeping, all very affordable for my demographic. Ex: I don’t really have to do dishes here. I’m going to repeat that: I don’t have to do dishes. Wha??? Actually, this makes me pretty uncomfortable, but may as well enjoy it. More on the housekeeper situation later.
- Having a personal driver. The cabs here usually try to give you their number, and then will come on demand, know where your place is, etc., and don’t charge extra for the service.
- Getting sweet potato, pumpkin, and beans – three of my favorite staples.
- Getting mango, teeny bananas, passionfruit, pineapple, and green Ugandan ‘tangerines’ – some of my new staples.
- Getting Cadbury chocolate – thank you, colonialism. Also for the tea, Digestives, and Weetabix (ads everywhere). (Have yet to see dark chocolate though.)
- Find good coffee. This was a pleasant surprise. Turns out it’s Uganda’s largest export. Anybody who is more of a connaisseur seen Ugandan coffee on the US market?
- Running into acquaintances. This town is small, and so is the global UN network. Eating dinner alone a member of parliament at the next table made buddies. Saw same MP days later at a Danish NGO’s photo exhibition, to his significant and satisfying surprise. My roommate has known someone at almost every place I’ve been with her, and half the people in my office (she’s at UNICEF).
- Related: Meeting people with crazy/amazing lives and histories. After all, they ended up here, and many are way fun to try to get stories out of. My ignorance of world geography is a serious conversational liability, though. Try not to ask where Juba (sp?) is in this community... Also, meeting passionate, sincere, dedicated people with an unfamiliar lack of irony and apathy.
Living situation: Apartment 1
I’m going to paint out some of the downsides of this place, so if you read on to next week you can appreciate my new place as much as I did. First, full disclosure: The roommates here are very, very cool people who I got along with right away, more than make up for the digs, and I'm sorry most of them are leaving soon - mostly for law school randomly though, so I hope to cross paths with them sometime. Shower: Binary water temperature – hot water on or off. Thank goodness they picked a reasonably comfortable 'hot' temp. Kitchen: Ants amass on anything arguably edible and exposed. Hot water for dishes is permanently broken. (Roommates unbothered, but my faith in the cleanliness of cold washing with grayed sponge and watery soap is wobbly.) Stove and oven light with a match; we use Baby brand wax safety matches (Wax safety matches, oxymoron? Discuss amongst yourselves). Bathroom: Six people (four bedrooms), one sink, one shower. Bedroom - totally spare, but decently clean for that reason. I will miss my Mickey Mouse eurofoam made in Uganda three inch thick mattress a bit I confess.
I was super pumped about this location though anyway, because it is a fifteen-minute walk from work, and I really didn’t want to be on the roads knowing how dangerous they are. Then I realized that walking is on the road, because there are few sidewalks, and because where they are sidewalks bodas use them as roads. Each road crossing is a gantlet. It doesn’t help that they drive on the left. I’ve by now memorized that I should walk on the right, and haven’t tried to get into the driver’s seat in a while, but I still sometimes get startled to see a precocious baby sitting where the driver ought to be. Mainly, though, the problem is you NEVER have right of way. Not even when you think you must, e.g. the car didn't signal that it was turning from the other side into a driveway, you had better jump out of the way. The crosswalks (I’ve seen two) seem to serve only to accumulate critical mass of crossers and a single point. You just have to hope and wait for a break, and then run. Often these are long coming, because traffic is unbelievably bad here. (My roommate took an hour to go 3k yesterday, not wholly unusual.) Someone has paused to let me go exactly once, but usually they won’t even move towards the middle if you’re walking on the side of the road; you’d best hop up on the grass. I don’t think they’ll intentionally head towards you in general though, or at least I’ve only seen that once.
Transport/safety
Transport has been the most frustrating thing here. I’m used to being very independent in new cities, walking and figuring out the public transport with the maps, etc. But there is no public transport here. And I can’t walk after dark, pretty much categorically; even people here years don’t go out alone after dark, even in nice neighborhoods. It gives me cabin fever at night.
Plus, the roads seem to be the real danger you face here; I’ve heard of some muggings, pickpocketing, and amoebas, but I’m willing to accept the loss of money or a few sick days as cost of doing business here. Traffic accidents, not so much.
There are three ways to get around when you’re not on foot: Boda bodas, mutatus, and special hires. Bodas are motorbike taxis that holler at you at every corner and as they zip by to give you a ride. They are super super cheap, and super super dangerous. I am admittedly extra paranoid because one of my first connections to Kampala was from a girl who had worked in my office who was in the states and able to talk to me because she’d been forced to come home with a broken leg from a boda boda accident, still waiting to walk 5 surgeries later. But their record is objectively bad. That said – they are way faster than anything else because they maneuver around the jams, and way cheap. And … they’re kinda fun.
Bodas make me think of some Mad Max world, all these beat up bikes, no two the same, a handful of drivers with a helmet, usually with some part of it broken, and they hang out in crowds, chatting in Luganda. The best is when one doesn’t know where some place is (see my whining about cabs below) and he’ll pull over to a knot of bodas and they’ll consult, yelling back and forth over shoulders, and then he zips away. Once got stuck in a sudden dumping downpour, had to take refuge by the pumps of a gas station that was also sheltering a pack of bodas, chatting, tuning pieces of their bikes, and waiting for the rain to clear. (Kampala treats rain like DC treats snow.) Bonus: Apparently boda boda comes from ‘border border’ – not sure which one, Sudan and somewhere? – that they were the only way across. Anyone with better knowledge of world affairs or Africa know? I think the word is the same, wherever you go ( right, Jaimie? Any other Africa travellers?).
Mutatus – little minibus/van things that work kinda like a private bus service, with established routes and everything, but they are unmarked and you have to hope one going the right direction passes you and has seats, and that you can negotiate a decent price. They are even more supercheap, about 500 Ush/25 cents a ride (but you’re out of luck, as most places here, if you don’t have the right change.)
Special hires – normal cabs, easy to get and safest option, but oddly, don’t seem to know where anything is. Or at least no street names. Landmarks, hotels, yes – but I don’t get it. This city is small, and the parts that people who take cabs go to is even smaller. Not so bad now I know my way around, but maddening when I was brand new. (The ten minute ride home has taken close to an hour as a cab driver pulled over to ask random pedestrians the way no less than six times.) And they cost almost the same price as home, which compared to everything else is annoying. A mystery I have about cab drivers, and I guess this reflects on employment here in general, is how well-educated they are. One driver I use is an electrician for the US Embassy some weekends with a masters, another has a masters in computers (a woman, actually, a rarity for cabs) – where are the electrician and computer jobs here? And if they aren’t there, why go to school? It’s not cheap here. Strange, and not a sign of health of the economy and labor markets, no?
Okay, that was massive, and I'm even leaving lots out - so stay tuned for another overlong mailing with the answers to such thrilling mysteries as, When is a Guinness not a Guinness? When is English not English? How do you toast if you find yourself at Iguana Bar? and other titillating tidbits from life of an overcautious expat in Kampala.
Sending warm wishes and hope to hear from you soon; take care of yourselves.
Ciao,
Loren
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