Time out from the top ten to share some randomness:
WHITE ANTS: Bugs, that look like giant ants with big, white wings. They only come out after the rain, and – raw or cooked – they’re a delicacy. Some of the braver group members tried some with mixed responses. I pulled the vegetarian card on this one.
HELP, THERE’S A SNAKE IN THE BATHROOM: Screamed by Morgan a few nights ago in the parish. We, idiots that we are, grabbed cameras and ran into the bathroom to take pictures. Paul, our Acholi friend who works at the parish, came in after hearing the screams, picked the snake up by the tail, carried it outside, and stepped on its head. After careful analysis by Paul and the fathers, it was determined that our visitor was a baby cobra. Do mosquito nets double as snake nets?
SPORTS BRAS NOT JUST FOR SPORTS: We’ve taken to wearing them on the hour long drive to and from Anaka. Seriously.
HITCHIKERS GUIDE TO AFRICA: On the way back from the rhino trip, with our already-full mutatu, we stopped to pick up a friend of the driver’s halfway into the drive. Only no one told us what was going on; the mutatu just stopped and a random guy smooshed himself into a row already bursting with passengers. Cozy.
WISHING I HAD AN AUTOGRAPH BOOK: Because so far, we’ve met Nelson Mandela, Tony Blair, Richard Nixon, and Black Jesus. (And, we are their teachers.)
SOLITARE: Not just a time-waster in offices across America. We have four computers at Anaka Secondary School. And at any given time, a secretary or teacher is playing solitaire. Why not? We have typewriters for actual typing...
WELCOME TO ANAKA. COME SEE OUR… HOSPITAL?: This was a weird one. Nelson Mandela, one of our awesome students, offered to take us on a tour on the afternoon of our first day in Anaka. The highlight: the hospital. He took us inside the gates, which we thought was weird enough (especially as it smelled of cow dung), and then proceeded to take us inside, to the reception area, and then into EACH OF THE WARDS. Without going into too much detail (I’ll tell you later if you really want to know) it was one of the most awkward and uncomfortable experiences thus far. And I really, really hope I don’t get sick here…
HOW MANY ARMY GUYS: Can you fit in the back of a pickup truck? Answer: a whole heck of a lot. And with their AK-47s, bags of gear, etc… it’s impressive, and a little freaky.
Top 10: #6 - Rhinos!
After our first week of teaching, our entire group excursioned to a rhinoceros sanctuary about three hours south-ish of Gulu. Seventeen people with overnight bags piled into a mutatu, a vehicle slightly larger than a minivan. Needless to say, the ride there – hot, crowded, bumpy – was the least enjoyable part of the trip. But boy, did the rest make up for the journey!
The sanctuary is about 18 square miles of fenced-in grassland and is home to 7 rhinos from all over the world: Four are from Kenya and other parts of Africa; 2 were shipped from Disney’s Animal Kingdom (yes, Kim!) when they were not handling the environment there well, and one was born just three weeks ago in the sanctuary. (In case you’re wondering, the ex-pat rhinos were shipped from Florida to Entebbe via plane, and then from Entebbe to the sanctuary in a very large truck.)
The place itself was truly a haven. Brit (my original roommate at Elephant Graceland) and I shacked up in a clean, quiet room in the thatched-roofed guesthouse and our Anaka group (separately) took our first (luke)warm showers in over a week.
After a late lunch, we set out to do some rhino-ing. Three park rangers armed with AK-47’s and walkie-talkies set out on bodas (little motorcycles) in different directions to track down the rhinos and report to the fourth ranger, the one with our group and a truck, the location of the herd. We piled onto/into/around two rows of benches in the back of a pickup-truck-on-steroids and set off on a (yes, you guessed it) bumpy, red clay road in search of rhinos. On the way, our driver stopped to point out several other animals that I can’t for the life of me remember what they were called… a few long-legged birds, small African deer things, larger horned African deer things, and some monkeys. Good thing I’m not a zoologist.
We drove about 2-3 miles into the bush with only two incidents of driving into ditches and thinking the truck was going to flip onto its side and squash its passengers. At the end of the roads, our armed rhino-tracking rangers met us and we climbed down from the truck. They decided to take us in two groups to see the rhinos as a group as large as ours might scare or anger the big beasts. When it was our group’s turn, we walked in single file through African grass nearly as tall as us until we were maybe 20 yards from three grazing rhinos. It was amazing. Bella, brought from Kenya (I think) is pregnant, and expecting in December. One of the other females was pregnant as well, but not as far along. The male in the group seemed significantly more interested in his food than his women, but I guess his work with them for the time being was done.
At one point, Bella raised her enormous head and started walking towards us, but gave an annoyed sigh and turned around and walked away when Robert, one of the rangers, raised his hand and said, “Back, Bella.” Apparently, before letting the rhinos loose in the compound, the rangers spend 6 months training them in a smaller, more confined area: getting them used to being around humans and then teaching them several commands – important, I suppose, if you’re going to bring groups of clueless visitors within feet of the animals and their really, really big horns.
When the rhinos had enough of our company, they lazily turned and walked away from us and disappeared into the thick African bush. Robert told us on our walk back to the truck that we were “closer to the rhinos that any group he can remember… we were dangerously close.” I’m glad he saved that piece of information for when we had made it safely back onto the truck!
The sanctuary is about 18 square miles of fenced-in grassland and is home to 7 rhinos from all over the world: Four are from Kenya and other parts of Africa; 2 were shipped from Disney’s Animal Kingdom (yes, Kim!) when they were not handling the environment there well, and one was born just three weeks ago in the sanctuary. (In case you’re wondering, the ex-pat rhinos were shipped from Florida to Entebbe via plane, and then from Entebbe to the sanctuary in a very large truck.)
The place itself was truly a haven. Brit (my original roommate at Elephant Graceland) and I shacked up in a clean, quiet room in the thatched-roofed guesthouse and our Anaka group (separately) took our first (luke)warm showers in over a week.
After a late lunch, we set out to do some rhino-ing. Three park rangers armed with AK-47’s and walkie-talkies set out on bodas (little motorcycles) in different directions to track down the rhinos and report to the fourth ranger, the one with our group and a truck, the location of the herd. We piled onto/into/around two rows of benches in the back of a pickup-truck-on-steroids and set off on a (yes, you guessed it) bumpy, red clay road in search of rhinos. On the way, our driver stopped to point out several other animals that I can’t for the life of me remember what they were called… a few long-legged birds, small African deer things, larger horned African deer things, and some monkeys. Good thing I’m not a zoologist.
We drove about 2-3 miles into the bush with only two incidents of driving into ditches and thinking the truck was going to flip onto its side and squash its passengers. At the end of the roads, our armed rhino-tracking rangers met us and we climbed down from the truck. They decided to take us in two groups to see the rhinos as a group as large as ours might scare or anger the big beasts. When it was our group’s turn, we walked in single file through African grass nearly as tall as us until we were maybe 20 yards from three grazing rhinos. It was amazing. Bella, brought from Kenya (I think) is pregnant, and expecting in December. One of the other females was pregnant as well, but not as far along. The male in the group seemed significantly more interested in his food than his women, but I guess his work with them for the time being was done.
At one point, Bella raised her enormous head and started walking towards us, but gave an annoyed sigh and turned around and walked away when Robert, one of the rangers, raised his hand and said, “Back, Bella.” Apparently, before letting the rhinos loose in the compound, the rangers spend 6 months training them in a smaller, more confined area: getting them used to being around humans and then teaching them several commands – important, I suppose, if you’re going to bring groups of clueless visitors within feet of the animals and their really, really big horns.
When the rhinos had enough of our company, they lazily turned and walked away from us and disappeared into the thick African bush. Robert told us on our walk back to the truck that we were “closer to the rhinos that any group he can remember… we were dangerously close.” I’m glad he saved that piece of information for when we had made it safely back onto the truck!
Top 10: #5 - Visiting Nancy
Flashback to Gulu, before our group moved to Anaka and that’ll take us to #5 on the list. They day after we met our teachers at the Invisible Children Educator’s Conference (about a week into our trip), Kelley’s teacher Nancy invited the Anaka group to visit her family in their village on the outskirts of Gulu. After a week of non-stop traveling around and meeting with educators and speakers and embassies and schools, we were a bit overwhelmed and felt quite removed from the actual people, so needless to say we jumped at the invitation. It has since become one of the best experiences since arriving in Uganda.
We walked to Nancy’s village from the Acoli Inn, taking a back road past a hospital and the “weather station” that was literally a metal pole stuck in the ground behind a barbed wire fence. We walked out of Gulu and into the Africa that I had pictured in my head before my arrival – round, thatched-roofed huts, jerry cans full of water, women carrying babies on their backs and bundles on their heads, kids in ragged clothing smiling and playing and happy. We walked through a cluster of huts while their inhabitants looked on, interested, and arrived at Nancy’s, a hut so identical to those we had passed that I would not have been differentiate it from the others around it.
We were introduced to Nancy’s very-pregnant sister and then ushered into the “guesthouse” – a circular hut petitioned inside into two halves by several hanging sheets suspended by cording from nails in the walls of the hut. The section into which we entered was sparse but inviting; we sat at a handful of chairs arranged in a semi circle in front of a bookshelf; a wooden table with four plastic chairs sat opposite the doorway. The tin door squeaked on its hinges and several sets of chocolate eyes peered through the opening: Nancy’s young nieces, nephews, and neighbors had arrived to check out the pale visitors. Nancy went out to find her 18 month-old son, but when she brought him back in, he had little interest in these weird-looking newcomers and hid his face in the crook of his mother’s arm. Nancy’s nearly year-old nephew, David, was braver than his cousin, and happily sat with (and drooled all over) Morgan.
There’s little differentiation between blood-relatives and just-plain-village-children, so I’m not sure who was actually a relative of Nancy’s, but here, that doesn’t really matter, as the attitude is that everyone of an age to look out for the children has a responsibility to do so. As we sat in the hut, a handful of children came in at Nancy’s urging to “introduce themselves.” In a fashion more organized than most anything I’ve seen in Uganda thus far, the kids entered the room and shyly paraded around to each of us, practicing some of the English they have learned in primary school: “Hello, my name is…” Some were painfully quiet and Nancy had to translate the whispers of most of them after their introductions, but she also explained that many of them had never seen a muzungo before, let alone had one sitting in a hut in the middle of their village. Despite their shyness they wanted to stay around. One little girl in a lacey pink dress came and sat beside me, never looking me in the eye. Instead, she focused on the light hairs on my arm, stroking my arm like a new pet.
One at a time, some of the braver kids ‘performed’ for us, first a verse of the Ugandan national anthem, then the song of Ugandan school children – more acquired knowledge from their nursery or primary school experiences. The best part was that the kids had absolutely no idea what they were singing, nor what the actual words should sound like in English. (Kind of like the joke that Grandma tells about “Hose, Can you See?”) It wasn’t until we arrived at Anaka that I learned the real words to the two songs, but the jumbled English made the kids at Nancy’s all the more precious.
After the 11th or 12th child had sung his or her version of the anthems, we decided to return the favor (and get some fresh air!). We took the kids outside and taught them the Hokey Pokey and the Chicken Dance; they thought the muzungus hopping and flailing around outside of their huts were side-splittingly hilarious, and our group of 12 kids quickly turned into more than twenty, with another handful of kids peering out from behind or between huts. When we ran out of children’s songs we grabbed a stick and drew a game of hopscotch on the red clay ground between some huts and taught the kids how to play. With Nancy as translator, they then taught us their version of hopscotch, a more squarely-shaped ‘board’ with the same general idea of throwing a rock and not stepping on any of the lines.
When the kids lost interest in their hopscotch (because the lines got so scuffed you could no longer see the board) they decided to show us a game they invented called “kick the bottle.” We – the American teachers, Nancy, and Nancy’s sister, sat in plastic chairs outside of the huts as the kids set up for the game and a young girl from a neighboring hut brought us juice boxes on a plastic tray. The oldest boy, probably around 10, took an empty Coke bottle and set it on the ground between where we were sitting and the hut about 15 yards away. He then made a blindfold out of an old scarf and proceeded to tie it over the eyes of another boy, maybe 6 years old, and pointed the little one in our direction. We pictured the blindfolded child soccer-kicking the glass bottle projectile-style at our heads, and expressed our concern to Nancy, who told us not to worry. The premise of the game is simple: Blindfolded, you walk towards the bottle on the ground and try to kick it over – in reality, much more difficult than it sounds, especially when they start spinning the participants in circles before setting them off to kick. Our kids have laptops, Wiis, and other toys that blink and beep and whir. But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a group of kids have as much fun as these kids playing a game they invented in a remote village in Africa. And it’s been even longer since I’ve seen mothers enjoying themselves as much as Nancy and her sister were, simply watching their children play.
One of the neatest things about watching the kids was their interaction with one another; the little kids idolized the older ones, and the older ones took an almost parental role of the younger ones, picking them up when they fell, carrying them around when they were tired, reminding them to play nice and take turns. The oldest boy organized all of the little ones so that each had a turn to ‘kick the bottle’ and did not take a turn himself until the others had all successfully knocked the bottle over or gave up trying. When the rest of the group had all had had turns, the little ones – who clearly idolized that oldest boy – watched and laughed and cheered as he took his turn. Another interesting thing is the lack of tears – these kids don’t cry. They don’t complain, there are no tantrums. The little ones can entertain themselves, and any issues between the slightly older children are sorted out on their own, generally quickly and without much of a scene. We mentioned this to Nancy and she found our observations surprising, saying, “They only really cry when they are sick.” There’s a lesson here, I think?
After ‘Kick the Bottle,’ the children wanted to show us some of their traditional dancing, and the scarf used in the game quickly became a waist-wrap for one of the older girls. The boys scavenged up props: several long poles for spears, and some shorter sticks and tin can lids for drums. The boys’ dance was clearly demonstrative of a hunt; they ‘stalked their prey’ in two rhythmic lines that jumped and stepped to the beat on the tin can lids, and when they got closer to their seated audience, they yelled in an attack that quickly erupted into giggles and disarray. David, the littlest member of the dance troupe, drooled and laughed and jumped around with the older boys, round belly protruding from under his t-shirt and skinny legs caked with layers of red dust.
After the children’s dancing, we walked across the street to see Gulu’s traveling dance troupe’s daily rehearsal; the majority of the village was already there, spread out on bamboo mats or in patches of grass on the hill beside the worn-down dirt ‘dance floor.’ The children were all with us, hanging onto our arms and legs protectively. We were ‘their’ muzungus and they were not going to share us with any of the other children from the village! The dance we saw was a courtship dance; women formed one half of a circle and men the other while three men played drums of various sizes in the middle of the circle. The women wore bells on their right ankles and added to the intensity and rhythm of the dance with every step. At one point, one of the women separated from the group and danced among the men to ‘choose a husband,’ and cheers and laughter rose up from the audience when she singled out one of the men as her choice.
Behind the dancing, we watched as a group of 20-30 children played in an empty pickup truck at the top of the short hill. One of the children put the truck into neutral and the rest got behind it and pushed, sending it rolling – slowly at first, then picking up speed – down the hill. The children chased it as it rolled, some jumping onto the running boards or into the bed, until it came to a stop when the ground flattened out. They then got in front of it and pushed it back up the hill, only to repeat the ‘game’ when they again reached the top. I think I can speak from the other Americans with me when I say we were picturing the worst – a small child getting pushed under a tire or hammered by the truck’s front bumper – but none of the African adults seemed concerned in the slightest, and the children did seem to be enjoying themselves…
When dance rehearsal was over, we made our way back to the village where we briefly met Nancy’s mother and brother-in-law who invited us to stay for dinner. We had our Invisible Children kick-off dinner to attend with our Ugandan partner teachers that evening so we couldn’t stay, but we promised to return on one of our weekends in Gulu – I’ll be sure to let you know when we return!
Ugandan national anthem:
Oh, Uganda,
May God uphold thee,
We lay our future in thy hands.
United, free, for liberty,
Together, we always stand.
School Song:
We young women and men of Uganda,
Marching on the path of education,
Singing, and dancing, we join together,
Uniting for a better Uganda.
We walked to Nancy’s village from the Acoli Inn, taking a back road past a hospital and the “weather station” that was literally a metal pole stuck in the ground behind a barbed wire fence. We walked out of Gulu and into the Africa that I had pictured in my head before my arrival – round, thatched-roofed huts, jerry cans full of water, women carrying babies on their backs and bundles on their heads, kids in ragged clothing smiling and playing and happy. We walked through a cluster of huts while their inhabitants looked on, interested, and arrived at Nancy’s, a hut so identical to those we had passed that I would not have been differentiate it from the others around it.
We were introduced to Nancy’s very-pregnant sister and then ushered into the “guesthouse” – a circular hut petitioned inside into two halves by several hanging sheets suspended by cording from nails in the walls of the hut. The section into which we entered was sparse but inviting; we sat at a handful of chairs arranged in a semi circle in front of a bookshelf; a wooden table with four plastic chairs sat opposite the doorway. The tin door squeaked on its hinges and several sets of chocolate eyes peered through the opening: Nancy’s young nieces, nephews, and neighbors had arrived to check out the pale visitors. Nancy went out to find her 18 month-old son, but when she brought him back in, he had little interest in these weird-looking newcomers and hid his face in the crook of his mother’s arm. Nancy’s nearly year-old nephew, David, was braver than his cousin, and happily sat with (and drooled all over) Morgan.
There’s little differentiation between blood-relatives and just-plain-village-children, so I’m not sure who was actually a relative of Nancy’s, but here, that doesn’t really matter, as the attitude is that everyone of an age to look out for the children has a responsibility to do so. As we sat in the hut, a handful of children came in at Nancy’s urging to “introduce themselves.” In a fashion more organized than most anything I’ve seen in Uganda thus far, the kids entered the room and shyly paraded around to each of us, practicing some of the English they have learned in primary school: “Hello, my name is…” Some were painfully quiet and Nancy had to translate the whispers of most of them after their introductions, but she also explained that many of them had never seen a muzungo before, let alone had one sitting in a hut in the middle of their village. Despite their shyness they wanted to stay around. One little girl in a lacey pink dress came and sat beside me, never looking me in the eye. Instead, she focused on the light hairs on my arm, stroking my arm like a new pet.
One at a time, some of the braver kids ‘performed’ for us, first a verse of the Ugandan national anthem, then the song of Ugandan school children – more acquired knowledge from their nursery or primary school experiences. The best part was that the kids had absolutely no idea what they were singing, nor what the actual words should sound like in English. (Kind of like the joke that Grandma tells about “Hose, Can you See?”) It wasn’t until we arrived at Anaka that I learned the real words to the two songs, but the jumbled English made the kids at Nancy’s all the more precious.
After the 11th or 12th child had sung his or her version of the anthems, we decided to return the favor (and get some fresh air!). We took the kids outside and taught them the Hokey Pokey and the Chicken Dance; they thought the muzungus hopping and flailing around outside of their huts were side-splittingly hilarious, and our group of 12 kids quickly turned into more than twenty, with another handful of kids peering out from behind or between huts. When we ran out of children’s songs we grabbed a stick and drew a game of hopscotch on the red clay ground between some huts and taught the kids how to play. With Nancy as translator, they then taught us their version of hopscotch, a more squarely-shaped ‘board’ with the same general idea of throwing a rock and not stepping on any of the lines.
When the kids lost interest in their hopscotch (because the lines got so scuffed you could no longer see the board) they decided to show us a game they invented called “kick the bottle.” We – the American teachers, Nancy, and Nancy’s sister, sat in plastic chairs outside of the huts as the kids set up for the game and a young girl from a neighboring hut brought us juice boxes on a plastic tray. The oldest boy, probably around 10, took an empty Coke bottle and set it on the ground between where we were sitting and the hut about 15 yards away. He then made a blindfold out of an old scarf and proceeded to tie it over the eyes of another boy, maybe 6 years old, and pointed the little one in our direction. We pictured the blindfolded child soccer-kicking the glass bottle projectile-style at our heads, and expressed our concern to Nancy, who told us not to worry. The premise of the game is simple: Blindfolded, you walk towards the bottle on the ground and try to kick it over – in reality, much more difficult than it sounds, especially when they start spinning the participants in circles before setting them off to kick. Our kids have laptops, Wiis, and other toys that blink and beep and whir. But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a group of kids have as much fun as these kids playing a game they invented in a remote village in Africa. And it’s been even longer since I’ve seen mothers enjoying themselves as much as Nancy and her sister were, simply watching their children play.
One of the neatest things about watching the kids was their interaction with one another; the little kids idolized the older ones, and the older ones took an almost parental role of the younger ones, picking them up when they fell, carrying them around when they were tired, reminding them to play nice and take turns. The oldest boy organized all of the little ones so that each had a turn to ‘kick the bottle’ and did not take a turn himself until the others had all successfully knocked the bottle over or gave up trying. When the rest of the group had all had had turns, the little ones – who clearly idolized that oldest boy – watched and laughed and cheered as he took his turn. Another interesting thing is the lack of tears – these kids don’t cry. They don’t complain, there are no tantrums. The little ones can entertain themselves, and any issues between the slightly older children are sorted out on their own, generally quickly and without much of a scene. We mentioned this to Nancy and she found our observations surprising, saying, “They only really cry when they are sick.” There’s a lesson here, I think?
After ‘Kick the Bottle,’ the children wanted to show us some of their traditional dancing, and the scarf used in the game quickly became a waist-wrap for one of the older girls. The boys scavenged up props: several long poles for spears, and some shorter sticks and tin can lids for drums. The boys’ dance was clearly demonstrative of a hunt; they ‘stalked their prey’ in two rhythmic lines that jumped and stepped to the beat on the tin can lids, and when they got closer to their seated audience, they yelled in an attack that quickly erupted into giggles and disarray. David, the littlest member of the dance troupe, drooled and laughed and jumped around with the older boys, round belly protruding from under his t-shirt and skinny legs caked with layers of red dust.
After the children’s dancing, we walked across the street to see Gulu’s traveling dance troupe’s daily rehearsal; the majority of the village was already there, spread out on bamboo mats or in patches of grass on the hill beside the worn-down dirt ‘dance floor.’ The children were all with us, hanging onto our arms and legs protectively. We were ‘their’ muzungus and they were not going to share us with any of the other children from the village! The dance we saw was a courtship dance; women formed one half of a circle and men the other while three men played drums of various sizes in the middle of the circle. The women wore bells on their right ankles and added to the intensity and rhythm of the dance with every step. At one point, one of the women separated from the group and danced among the men to ‘choose a husband,’ and cheers and laughter rose up from the audience when she singled out one of the men as her choice.
Behind the dancing, we watched as a group of 20-30 children played in an empty pickup truck at the top of the short hill. One of the children put the truck into neutral and the rest got behind it and pushed, sending it rolling – slowly at first, then picking up speed – down the hill. The children chased it as it rolled, some jumping onto the running boards or into the bed, until it came to a stop when the ground flattened out. They then got in front of it and pushed it back up the hill, only to repeat the ‘game’ when they again reached the top. I think I can speak from the other Americans with me when I say we were picturing the worst – a small child getting pushed under a tire or hammered by the truck’s front bumper – but none of the African adults seemed concerned in the slightest, and the children did seem to be enjoying themselves…
When dance rehearsal was over, we made our way back to the village where we briefly met Nancy’s mother and brother-in-law who invited us to stay for dinner. We had our Invisible Children kick-off dinner to attend with our Ugandan partner teachers that evening so we couldn’t stay, but we promised to return on one of our weekends in Gulu – I’ll be sure to let you know when we return!
Ugandan national anthem:
Oh, Uganda,
May God uphold thee,
We lay our future in thy hands.
United, free, for liberty,
Together, we always stand.
School Song:
We young women and men of Uganda,
Marching on the path of education,
Singing, and dancing, we join together,
Uniting for a better Uganda.
PICTURES!
Walking to school; sunrise over boy's dorm.
Back of the rhino truck!
Bella, the pregnant rhino.
Wouldn't want to be a poacher with THIS GUY around.
At the Kampala craft market.
Mosquito nets!
"Traffic" on the road to Gulu.
Dinner our first night in Gulu. From left to right: Brit, Michelle, me, Eric, Jill, Melody, and Raysa.
Some of the art on the walls at the Bavubuka house.
Teaching the Chicken Dance to the children at Nancy's village.
With Brian, director of the Bavabuka House in Kampala.
Morgan making friends at Nancy's village.
Huts in the Anaka IDP camp.
The road to Gulu.
Africa Top Ten: #4 - St. Francis Parish
Originally, our Anaka group was going to stay at a guesthouse belonging to the Anaka hospital, a 15-20 minute walk from Pope Paul IV SS Anaka, our school. After our very awkward hospital tour with Nelson Mandela (will explain later – wait for it, it’s a good one), we became eternally grateful to whichever Invisible Children Teacher Exchange coordinator vetoed that plan and sent us to our current accommodations at the St. Francis Parish.
I’ve written a little about the parish, but being here another week has bumped it up significantly on my list of Seriously Awesome African Stuff.
The Catholic parish is located adjacent to the primary school and just up the hill from the secondary school where my colleagues and I are located – we can grab a morning ‘donut’ or cob of corn (yes, seriously), walk out the door at 7:27, and make it in time for the 7:30 morning assembly. (Usually significantly early, as on Uganda time, the assembly doesn’t usually start until 7:50 or so… wouldn’t want to rush anything!)
The location is only at the bottom of the list of Things That Are Awesome About our Accommodation. Also on the list: Grace and Maureen, the amazing and beautiful Acoli women who cook breakfast and dinner for us during the week. Grace speaks very little English, but gets a kick out of our attempts to thank her in Lwo. (Rabbit, Grace, Rabbit.) Maureen’s English is stronger than Grace’s, and she’s been nothing but sweet to us when we are screaming about snakes and cockroaches, or freaking out about the possibility of lighting ourselves on fire with the propane stove. (What they must be saying about us behind our backs, I can only imagine, but it’s all deserved and justified!)
Also on the list are Father Martin and Father Leoncio, the two priests who run the parish. They’re both fairly young, in their late twenties or early thirties, and are perhaps two of the nicest men you will ever meet. When they are around, we sit down with them for nightly meals, and spend an hour or so swapping stories. When they’re not around, it’s because they’re attending a conference, visiting the sick, working on something for the parishes’ health clinic, teaching, studying, or doing some other incredibly worthwhile task. When they’re around, they’re super-willing to let us pick their brains about anything related to the culture, the people, the war, etc… and they’ve turned out to be two people here whose opinions we’ve come to trust immensely. When the caning incident happened, they were the first people we wanted to talk to, and they were able to explain the cultural significance of the act as well as dialogue about the problems that it creates in terms of the Ugandan educational system. Wise, wise men.
They’re also a blast. I’m Catholic, and my father’s uncle is a priest – Hi, Father Don! – so I’ve grown up knowing that “priests can be cool people too.” But these guys are some of the coolest I’ve met. Last weekend, two newly ordained deacons who were originally from Anaka were hanging around the parish for some celebrations, and so on Monday night, we had dinner and drank beers with a parish full of priests. They wanted to know if we had any “traditional American dances” (they were telling us how some of the children performed Acoli dancing for their ordinations) so we taught them the Electric Slide. Seriously. We then sat outside until way after dark, sharing stories and looking at the stars. It was Eric who reminded us at one point that we were sitting in Africa, at a parish, drinking beer with some seriously awesome priests… quite the reality check!
And if Catherine and Amy, the IC TEX program directors, have been our parents away from home, Father Martin and Father Leoncio have been our “parents-away-from-parents-away-from-home.” They’re always asking if things are ok and if our days went well, they make sure we’ve had enough to eat, they ask us to call about when we’ll return to them after the weekends so they won’t worry, and when they’re away on business, they always call to check up. Being an hour away from the rest of the IC group, it has really been a blessing to have these two amazing men looking out for us. (Yes, Eric, you have been wonderful too… but seriously, dude, if a lizard or bug or snake wandered into my room, I’m calling on the fathers before I call on you, buddy…)
The place itself is wonderfully simple, but so homey and comfortable. The girls share a room with four beds, a desk, and a sink (and very colorful mosquito netting) and we have plenty of space. Eric has his own room except for when there’s a priest overflow, and then he ends up with a roommate. There’s a kitchen with a table for 8 where Grace and Maureen keep us well fed. And the sitting room has continued to be our evening haven.
The IC house is fun on the weekends, especially since we get to catch up with the Gulu part of the group, but in terms of places to spend the week while teaching, we couldn’t have asked for anything better!
I’ve written a little about the parish, but being here another week has bumped it up significantly on my list of Seriously Awesome African Stuff.
The Catholic parish is located adjacent to the primary school and just up the hill from the secondary school where my colleagues and I are located – we can grab a morning ‘donut’ or cob of corn (yes, seriously), walk out the door at 7:27, and make it in time for the 7:30 morning assembly. (Usually significantly early, as on Uganda time, the assembly doesn’t usually start until 7:50 or so… wouldn’t want to rush anything!)
The location is only at the bottom of the list of Things That Are Awesome About our Accommodation. Also on the list: Grace and Maureen, the amazing and beautiful Acoli women who cook breakfast and dinner for us during the week. Grace speaks very little English, but gets a kick out of our attempts to thank her in Lwo. (Rabbit, Grace, Rabbit.) Maureen’s English is stronger than Grace’s, and she’s been nothing but sweet to us when we are screaming about snakes and cockroaches, or freaking out about the possibility of lighting ourselves on fire with the propane stove. (What they must be saying about us behind our backs, I can only imagine, but it’s all deserved and justified!)
Also on the list are Father Martin and Father Leoncio, the two priests who run the parish. They’re both fairly young, in their late twenties or early thirties, and are perhaps two of the nicest men you will ever meet. When they are around, we sit down with them for nightly meals, and spend an hour or so swapping stories. When they’re not around, it’s because they’re attending a conference, visiting the sick, working on something for the parishes’ health clinic, teaching, studying, or doing some other incredibly worthwhile task. When they’re around, they’re super-willing to let us pick their brains about anything related to the culture, the people, the war, etc… and they’ve turned out to be two people here whose opinions we’ve come to trust immensely. When the caning incident happened, they were the first people we wanted to talk to, and they were able to explain the cultural significance of the act as well as dialogue about the problems that it creates in terms of the Ugandan educational system. Wise, wise men.
They’re also a blast. I’m Catholic, and my father’s uncle is a priest – Hi, Father Don! – so I’ve grown up knowing that “priests can be cool people too.” But these guys are some of the coolest I’ve met. Last weekend, two newly ordained deacons who were originally from Anaka were hanging around the parish for some celebrations, and so on Monday night, we had dinner and drank beers with a parish full of priests. They wanted to know if we had any “traditional American dances” (they were telling us how some of the children performed Acoli dancing for their ordinations) so we taught them the Electric Slide. Seriously. We then sat outside until way after dark, sharing stories and looking at the stars. It was Eric who reminded us at one point that we were sitting in Africa, at a parish, drinking beer with some seriously awesome priests… quite the reality check!
And if Catherine and Amy, the IC TEX program directors, have been our parents away from home, Father Martin and Father Leoncio have been our “parents-away-from-parents-away-from-home.” They’re always asking if things are ok and if our days went well, they make sure we’ve had enough to eat, they ask us to call about when we’ll return to them after the weekends so they won’t worry, and when they’re away on business, they always call to check up. Being an hour away from the rest of the IC group, it has really been a blessing to have these two amazing men looking out for us. (Yes, Eric, you have been wonderful too… but seriously, dude, if a lizard or bug or snake wandered into my room, I’m calling on the fathers before I call on you, buddy…)
The place itself is wonderfully simple, but so homey and comfortable. The girls share a room with four beds, a desk, and a sink (and very colorful mosquito netting) and we have plenty of space. Eric has his own room except for when there’s a priest overflow, and then he ends up with a roommate. There’s a kitchen with a table for 8 where Grace and Maureen keep us well fed. And the sitting room has continued to be our evening haven.
The IC house is fun on the weekends, especially since we get to catch up with the Gulu part of the group, but in terms of places to spend the week while teaching, we couldn’t have asked for anything better!
Africa Top Ten: #3 - Handshakes
Here’s one that seems pretty simple, but it’s kind of a big cultural deal: The handshake. Anytime you see anyone, you greet with a handshake. In the morning, when you enter the staffroom, you walk around, say hello to, and shake hands with everyone. When you are on your way to class and see someone, you shake hands. When you are trying to find the head teacher to ask about a meeting, and you go look for him in his office, you shake hands with each secretary, and any teachers/parents/students/randoms who may be also in the office. When there is a baby cobra snake in your bathroom, and you want to kill it so it doesn’t bite you and you are left seeking treatment in the horror-film-scene hospital down the street, you first shake its hand and say hello. It’s the right thing to do.
There are two kinds of handshakes you encounter here, and I’ve yet to figure out what the rhyme or reason is for which one to use and when. The first is your traditional “hey, nice to meet you” American handshake with a twist: the lingering finger hold. You go in for the shake like normal, but then right when you think you’re done, as palm slips from palm and you think it’s over, there’s the at-the-last-minute finger grab. Usually, the foreigner forgets about this, and it’s the Acoli who does the grab, and you stand for a few minutes with your partner gently holding a few of your fingers while he or she asks how you’re feeling or whether you slept okay the night before. It’s certainly awkward at first; the foreigner is like “ok, we shook, let’s move on with it.” But after a while, it kind of grows on you, especially since the person on the other end of the grab is really genuinely interested in finding out about your current state. It’s definitely reflective of the Acoli attitude that personal relationships are always more important than any sort of time schedule!
The second kind of handshake is my personal favorite: It’s a regular-handshake to a flip-it-up-thumb-grabby-thing, back to a regular handshake, sometimes finished off with a lingering finger hold. And I’ve just realized that it’s really hard to explain, so you’ll just have to wait and I’ll show you when I get home. Until I see you, just know that it’s pretty much awesome. And I think it’ll catch on in the states much faster than posho.
There are two kinds of handshakes you encounter here, and I’ve yet to figure out what the rhyme or reason is for which one to use and when. The first is your traditional “hey, nice to meet you” American handshake with a twist: the lingering finger hold. You go in for the shake like normal, but then right when you think you’re done, as palm slips from palm and you think it’s over, there’s the at-the-last-minute finger grab. Usually, the foreigner forgets about this, and it’s the Acoli who does the grab, and you stand for a few minutes with your partner gently holding a few of your fingers while he or she asks how you’re feeling or whether you slept okay the night before. It’s certainly awkward at first; the foreigner is like “ok, we shook, let’s move on with it.” But after a while, it kind of grows on you, especially since the person on the other end of the grab is really genuinely interested in finding out about your current state. It’s definitely reflective of the Acoli attitude that personal relationships are always more important than any sort of time schedule!
The second kind of handshake is my personal favorite: It’s a regular-handshake to a flip-it-up-thumb-grabby-thing, back to a regular handshake, sometimes finished off with a lingering finger hold. And I’ve just realized that it’s really hard to explain, so you’ll just have to wait and I’ll show you when I get home. Until I see you, just know that it’s pretty much awesome. And I think it’ll catch on in the states much faster than posho.
Africa Top 10: #2 - Invisible Children
Now might be a really good time to talk about Invisible Children, the American NGO with whom I am working here in Uganda. The longer I am a part of this organization, and the more I am familiarized with them, the more proud I am to be affiliated with them and the work that they do both at home in the States and here.
The group is young, founded a few years ago when three (then)-recent college grads decided to travel to Africa to “find an adventure” and put their new filmmaking degrees to the test. They met the night commuters and a woman named Jolly who opened their Coke bottles with her teeth and helped to tell the stories of the people in Northern Uganda. You can get the history of the organization on the website: www.invisiblechildren.com.
I have met with Jolly a number of times since my arrival in Gulu; in many ways she was the face of Northern Uganda in the original documentary, Invisible Children: The Rough Cut. She is now the Ugandan Country Director for the whole of Invisible Children. (IC is also the ONLY NGO in Gulu with a Ugandan, and not a muzungu, heading the Ugandan operations.)
Of the Invisible Children employees in Uganda, only 5 are international and the other 90 or so are Ugandan. The organization has genuine plans to place its programming into the hands of the Acoli people, and have said more than once that their ideal goal is “to put themselves out of a job.” The group also has exit strategies as final goals so they will know when it is time to pull themselves out of the country and give the responsibility
In the states, IC is mostly a media and funding based group. The original founders are still heavily involved with advocacy and making the nation aware of the situation in northern Uganda. A number of documentaries since The Rough Cut have been made, including the movies for the bracelet campaign tracing individual students, and The Rescue promoting the organization’s advocacy event held this past April. (April? May? Springtime.) One of the IC people here reminded us that even though Joseph Kony has moved out of Northern Uganda, he is still on the run, and there are still 10,000 Ugandan children who were abducted by the LRA who are unaccounted for.
Here in Uganda, however, is the real meat of the organization. IC has built latrines, water pumps and storage, and classroom blocks (there are three IC classroom buildings at Anaka alone) and has brought books, desks, chairs, and other materials to 11 Schools for Schools schools throughout Northern Uganda. Something HUGE that I appreciate about the organization’s involvement in providing “hardware” resources to these schools is that they are not merely donations. IC requires that each school put forth a small percentage of the materials IC is providing to guarantee their ownership and commitment to the program.
IC also sponsors several hundred students through their scholarship program, and in addition to paying school fees, provides each student with a Ugandan “mentor” who acts as a support and role model while the student works his or her way through school. The program works hard to select students who have the potential to be future leaders; these are students who have grown up not knowing peace, and they need the guidance to take the country in a peaceful direction.
In addition, IC does projects throughout the country with women’s groups, small-business start-up programs and micro-economic programs – all with the focus of long-term sustainability. IC is constantly trying to not only provide resources, but also skills that will empower Ugandans far beyond the organization’s involvement in the country.
This posting does not do any sort of justice to Invisible Children, but hopefully it at least clearly gets across the idea that I think very highly of the work that they do, and I am proud to be working with them this summer.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask, and I’ll try to answer them. Otherwise, check out the website. Or just take my word for it that they’re awesome.
The group is young, founded a few years ago when three (then)-recent college grads decided to travel to Africa to “find an adventure” and put their new filmmaking degrees to the test. They met the night commuters and a woman named Jolly who opened their Coke bottles with her teeth and helped to tell the stories of the people in Northern Uganda. You can get the history of the organization on the website: www.invisiblechildren.com.
I have met with Jolly a number of times since my arrival in Gulu; in many ways she was the face of Northern Uganda in the original documentary, Invisible Children: The Rough Cut. She is now the Ugandan Country Director for the whole of Invisible Children. (IC is also the ONLY NGO in Gulu with a Ugandan, and not a muzungu, heading the Ugandan operations.)
Of the Invisible Children employees in Uganda, only 5 are international and the other 90 or so are Ugandan. The organization has genuine plans to place its programming into the hands of the Acoli people, and have said more than once that their ideal goal is “to put themselves out of a job.” The group also has exit strategies as final goals so they will know when it is time to pull themselves out of the country and give the responsibility
In the states, IC is mostly a media and funding based group. The original founders are still heavily involved with advocacy and making the nation aware of the situation in northern Uganda. A number of documentaries since The Rough Cut have been made, including the movies for the bracelet campaign tracing individual students, and The Rescue promoting the organization’s advocacy event held this past April. (April? May? Springtime.) One of the IC people here reminded us that even though Joseph Kony has moved out of Northern Uganda, he is still on the run, and there are still 10,000 Ugandan children who were abducted by the LRA who are unaccounted for.
Here in Uganda, however, is the real meat of the organization. IC has built latrines, water pumps and storage, and classroom blocks (there are three IC classroom buildings at Anaka alone) and has brought books, desks, chairs, and other materials to 11 Schools for Schools schools throughout Northern Uganda. Something HUGE that I appreciate about the organization’s involvement in providing “hardware” resources to these schools is that they are not merely donations. IC requires that each school put forth a small percentage of the materials IC is providing to guarantee their ownership and commitment to the program.
IC also sponsors several hundred students through their scholarship program, and in addition to paying school fees, provides each student with a Ugandan “mentor” who acts as a support and role model while the student works his or her way through school. The program works hard to select students who have the potential to be future leaders; these are students who have grown up not knowing peace, and they need the guidance to take the country in a peaceful direction.
In addition, IC does projects throughout the country with women’s groups, small-business start-up programs and micro-economic programs – all with the focus of long-term sustainability. IC is constantly trying to not only provide resources, but also skills that will empower Ugandans far beyond the organization’s involvement in the country.
This posting does not do any sort of justice to Invisible Children, but hopefully it at least clearly gets across the idea that I think very highly of the work that they do, and I am proud to be working with them this summer.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask, and I’ll try to answer them. Otherwise, check out the website. Or just take my word for it that they’re awesome.
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