Rwanda

Earlier in November, Rach and I went to Rwanda for a few days to see the genocide memorial and sites. Arriving to Rwanda was like arriving to the inverse of Kampala. Where Kampala is dirty, Kigali was clean; where traffic is at a standstill, Kigali traffic flowed easily; when crossing the street in Kampala you should pray first because it might be the last thing you ever do, in Kigali, the drivers stop for you, use turn signals and are generally well-mannered and disciplined; in Kampala boda-boda drivers harass you night and day, in Kigali, they ask if you would like a ride and if you say no, they thank you! In addition to this, Kigali has fountains, tree-lined streets and park-like areas where there is vegetation and a breath of fresh air. Kampala in comparison is a series of ditches and trash heaps… It was an awakening as to how many things grate on me in Kampala, and how I felt like I could breathe in Kigali. It is not as if I am not happy in Kampala, but some things drive me crazy.

As Rachel and I arrived, everything was closed for a community work day. Apparently the last Sunday of every month, from 7 am until noon nothing is open for people to do community enhancement projects: digging ditches, cleaning up rubbish, trimming hedges, etc. What a fantastic idea! I think this should be replicated in all communities: it instills responsibility for shared space and builds relationships at the same time…fantastic approach!

What was eerie about Kigali was that if you didn’t already know about the genocide, there were few traces of it to be seen anywhere. I am sure that is different in the communities where the gacaca was working, where neighbors killed neighbors, where families walk past the one who killed their loved ones…But in Kigali you had to look for genocide sites and traces. It almost seems as if any place that is not overtly a memorial has had all traces of it washed away. One example, we tried to stay at this place called St. Paul’s of the Pastoralist (or something like that), but it was booked, so we walked past a large church called St. Famille and to another little church that had a guesthouse. When we got to the official memorial, we found out that at St. Famille, the priest, Fr. Wenceslas, had cooperated with the Interahamwe and thousands of people were killed inside the church. And that at St. Paul’s, the priest who just two years before was head of St. Famille had refused entry to the Interahamwe saving thousands…And we were sleeping in between these two places. After that we went back to look more closely, but there was nothing commemorating either the heroic actions of St. Paul’s or the betrayal of St. Famille. What is more, there were people worshiping in St. Famille. I think I would have a hard time praying in a church where thousands were massacred. I mean I guess you would want to reclaim that space, but it seems to me that after a church openly cooperates with evil people would be having a crisis of faith. I suppose this has happened throughout history: the church being on both sides. Perhaps that is how people sustain their faith despite horror stories.

Part of what draws me about this is the idea of memorialization. As I am reading for my thesis about art and healing, memorializing and commemorating play a fairly consistent role. But neither of these churches had even a commemorative inscription on a plaque. I guess I am searching for the right balance between remembering and forgetting. I know some work has been done on that in South Africa, but what about Rwanda? It strikes me that there is something unfinished, something hovering under the surface. There is still that unresolved tension there, and that is evident in Kigali. The city is too quiet, too orderly, too well patrolled. I am certain that things are not as they should be, but I had only a taste to try to understand what has taken decades to create…

Then we went to the official genocide memorial in the center of Kigali, which is incredibly well done. It is a good mix of history: the ugly and the hopeful. My favorite part of the exhibit was a section on everyday heroes—people who saved five, eleven or twenty-two, not thousands. They saved them by digging ditches and planting crops over the ditch so people had cover and food. They saved them by lifting up their bed a few more inches so someone could have space underneath. They saved them by telling the soldiers not to enter the shrine or evil spirits would take them. They were just ordinary people who did good in the face of evil. It is inspiring to read about people like that and remember that not every peacebuilder is a Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela. The hardest part of the memorial wasn’t the section on the actual genocide where they had video footage of one of the roadblocks that the Interahamwe set up—I have seen gruesome stuff like that in my research for Verdeja’s genocide class. The most heart-wrenching part was a section devoted only to children. They did their research and found out an interesting fact about each kid, like what their favorite food was, who their best friend was, their favorite present from their last birthday…They put that, their name, their age and how they were killed below an 8×10 (or larger) picture. Somehow for me, it is always the children that get my heart…

The next day, Rach and I decided to go to the churches. They are about 40 km outside of Kigali. We took a taxi out to Nyamata, the first church where once the bodies had been removed to mass graves in the back of the church, nothing else was touched. There were machetes on the floor mingled with the clothes of the dead. There were shoes overturned and notches in the tree out front from cuts by machetes. Down in the area where I assume baptisms used to take place, there are about 100 skulls, some of them labeled with people’s names, and a casket that contains a mother and child. The woman was given her own casket because in the past she was on display to show the brutality of the Interahamwe (who speared her and the baby on her back, intersecting them so the spears formed a cross), but people found it so visually disturbing that they decided to put her in a casket. Unlike in the US, the skulls and bones were not behind glass or behind a rope. There was no distance between you and this person who had been murdered. I could have reached out and touched his or her skull, felt the indentation where the skull cracked after a wicked blow. There were 10,000 people murdered in the church and surrounding courtyard, all in the course of three days. We were lucky, when we got there, one of the seven survivors was there telling his story. Charles. He must have been my age, making him about 10 when the genocide happened. He walked around with us, showing us where different people he knew were killed, where the Interahamwe stood, where he hid…He did a good job of never calling them “the Hutu” he always referred to them as the perpetrators or the Interahamwe.

Rach and I wrote down his story afterward, as much as we could remember. I will try to transcribe it soon so I don’t forget. He took us to the mass graves that are at the back of the church, but he left us there and said that he would meet us out front when we were ready. Rach and I spent close to two hours there, not because we wanted to, but because we felt compelled to. I took many pictures, hoping somehow to be able to capture this devastation for someone who has never seen it. It was like being in Austria again when I went to the concentration camp. I felt compelled to take pictures and sick at the same time… Perhaps part of it too was that there was no barrier, no separation from it, and so I needed the camera to give me some kind of distance through the lens. Maybe it was safer for me that way, maybe I didn’t have to be there in the moment as much. But I am haunted by it. Which is what it is designed to do… I felt silly taking pictures.

At Nyamata, we ran into a group of East Africans in Kigali for a conference on water preservation. We struck up a conversation with one man from Kenya, Joe. He reminded me very much of another Kenyan Joe, from the LLMs last year. His group was going to the next church, so we hitched a ride rather than taking public transport. As we left, Rachel and I got split into two different vehicles and I was sandwiched between a man from Burundi and a woman from Tanzania. We talked the 25 minutes to the other church about the memorial and what we were doing here. The second church—Ntarama—was for some reason even more difficult to see than the first one. I think at the first one the clothes and the bones and everything that was there was untouched, but they were things I expected to see. At this church, people hid out and lived there for two weeks before the Interahamwe finally came. And so the remains that were left were those of lives interrupted—mattresses rolled up and stacked in the corner, teapots set over a fire pit, children’s toys, rosaries, broken glasses, forks and plates, bullet casings, bloody machetes, a book that looked like a diary… While the clothes were a reminder that there were real people who were massacred here, it was the everyday things that really hit hard. I began to think about the fact that I had seen the bones and graves of over 20,000 people in one day. I mean how do I comprehend that? 20,000 people? That is bigger than the student population of Notre Dame. And that was only a fraction of the people who were killed. I don’t know how to make that real. I have no concept of 1 million people killed by machetes. I don’t know how to make sense of it either.

Nymata Church, genocide memorial: There were 6,800 people massacred inside the church alone. Their bodies have been removed, but their clothes remain. Another 4,000 people were killed on the ground outside the church because there was no room inside. The tree outside the church has notches on it from where machetes were embedded in the trunk. It smells musty inside and is so still. The thick walls give a false sense of security. The two men at the front are two of only seven survivors… At the back of the church are the mass graves. The coffins are stacked floor to ceiling and in each coffin are the remains of 10-30 people, often times entire families if they could be identified by their killersà I killed that one over there, this is the daughter of him who I killed…In the church on the lower level is a coffin which contains the remains of a Tutsi woman who refused the marriage proposal of a Hutu man. She married another Tutsi and had a three-month-old baby on her back when she sought refuge in the church. The Interahamwe found her and decided to teach her not to refuse a Hutu man. They put a spear through her vagina through her skull and another through her chest impaling her child as well. After the genocide, everything was intact, clearly showing what had happened, her crucifixion. Only recently did they put her in a coffin because so many visitors—foreigners and natives alike—were disturbed.

The story told to me and Rachel on 1 November 2009 at Nymata Church outside of Kigali by one of the seven survivors, Charles.

In 1992 there was a practice for the genocide in the village. Thousands came to the church to hide. An Italian nun brought food and water and tried to alert the world media to the situation. She was killed for her outspokenness, but no one who took refuge in the church was killed. So in 1994, when the genocide started, people came to the church on the 7th of April because they had been safe there before. It was so packed that there was no room to sit, only stand. They decided to put the children in the back area of the church where they could be protected. It got so crowded that the church was completely full and the people filled up the courtyard (there was no fence then). The Interahamwe came and surrounded on three sides, singing, playing drums and chanting, “We shall kill the cockroaches, we shall kill the snakes!” The two trucks of soldiers came [government soldiers] and put a fence around us so no one could escape. They put bayonets on the end of their guns and jabbed at people. Soldiers went around the village and brought more people in. The general gave the order to the Interahamwe, “Hutus, do your work.” They swarmed in an began to kill everyone in the courtyard. As they were killing people in the courtyard, the priest was baptizing people inside so they could be sure to go to heaven. It took six hours. Then the Interahamwe tried to break down the door of the church, it held. They shot the door, still it held. They threw a grenade at the door and were able to enter then. They took six from the side room and put them against the other door that was not yet open. They cut off their arms and heads and then used the arms to wave to those of us inside, saying, “See how we kill the cockroaches?” Then they found six educated people—the priest, a doctor, the headmistress in the primary school and three others. They tied them to the pillars and used hammers to break their skulls. When the bodies fell dead, the Interahamwe taunted them, “You intellectuals, use your brains and stand up.” There had been three priests in the church previously who had come for baptisms—a Spaniard who fled when the genocide started, a Hutu who also fled to Kigali, and the one whose skull was smashed.

My research/Art and Healing as Underutilized Tools in Peacebuilding

Recently I attended an interesting performance, it was a collaboration between an NGO, Invisible Children—that helps rehabilitate child soldiers, and the Uganda National Contemporary Ballet. They showed a documentary, “The Rescue of Joseph Kony’s Child Soldiers,” and then had a 45 minute interpretive dance performance based on stories and testimonies from the formerly abducted. Additionally, they brought a former night commuter and child soldier who escaped from the LRA to give his testimony as well. The documentary was simplistic, but probably perfect for the American audience it was intended for, it reminded me of John Prendergast’s presentation last year: compelling and canned at the same time…It was made by three kids from Southern Cali who decided after seeing the night commuters to try to contact Kony and open a different channel of dialogue. Of course they failed miserably, as everyone who has attempted to get Kony to sign a peace agreement has. But the film was about their journey and motivations. After the film, Innocent, the formerly abducted night commuter gave his testimony, telling how he was taken, how he escaped, how he lived and still lives in fear that he will be taken again. That he has changed schools four times so he is not ever in one place too long, but he still managed to graduate senior secondary in six years. He did a great job with his testimony, was cool, calm, confident. He has definitely had a good public speaking coach. But more than that, he seems to be driven by a genuine desire to tell the world his story and the story of those whose voices are silenced. I find that incredibly inspiring.

The dance performance was interesting in many ways: it was an interpretation through dance of several stories of formerly abducted told to the director of the dance company in interviews. It was divided into several scenes: Kill or be killed, Nightmares, Girl soldiers, Our childhood is destroyed, Life goes on. I was struck by something one of the performers said: (it was something like this) In a world where brutality is the norm, life becomes a violent gift that keeps on giving and war becomes a way of life. This, to me, is the power art has to heal, to bring people together, to untie them in a common cause, to refuse to accept the previous statement.

Moving On

I have to get back to working on my paper now, but I wanted to write a lot since it has been so long! I miss you all and hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. I’ve put up a few random pics, enjoy! I’ll be home in less than a month, crazy!

Gertrude and I are super close, I spent some time last week with her. She has yet to make it to my house for lunch, but I have no doubt that someday it will work out… Getu is 28 and has a 1-year-old daughter, Shibera, who is still not sure she wants to be my friend… Hahaha. Anyway, she and I are pretty much inseparable when I am at work, I have helped her apply for a cool position in Amsterdam where they are looking for a young female positive who is open about her status and has experience working with children. This description fits Gertrude to a T… She is nervous that her husband won’t like it, but I think largely due to someone encouraging her she has decided to apply anyway! She loves to hang out and chat and joke around. She is the life of the party and just really likes people. When I talked to her about why she wanted to join the drama group she said that the drama group is what keeps her going when things don’t work out the way she wants them to. That coming together with other people to laugh, sing, dance, do skits, talk and share meals and tea is the best way to spend her time. That sometimes she feels down or sad, but coming together with these people helps her forget her troubles and feel good about life. I couldn’t have said it better, that is exactly the role the drama group plays for me as well. They are inspiring, fun, exciting, caring and nurturing group to be around. They take care of me, and I them. I am awed by their commitment and dedication to preventing the spread of HIV and appreciate their talent and desire to make the world a better place. The language of music and drama resonates with me as a way to bring people together and approach difficult issues. I wish I had used it more with my kids when I was at Sandhill….

Last week, Gertrude’s landlord sold her house and didn’t bother to alert the new landlord that he had tenants…so she had 24 hours to move from her house…Needless to say she was pretty bent out of shape and worried…I helped her pack up her stuff and move to her new house. It was quite an experience. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you about the neighborhood and the situation. Gertrude as a member of the drama group, which is almost a full time position gets paid next to nothing. For rehearsal days (Mon and Weds) she is given a lunch stipend and a travel stipend that maybe total 7,000 Ugandan Schillings (about $3.50). On days of performances, she is given the stipend plus whatever her share of the performance fee is: usually about 12,000 Ugx total (or a little less than $6). Needless to say, even if there were a performance every day (which there is not), she would make about $30 per week… In her neighborhood complex, the houses are usually limited to one or two rooms: a living room and a bedroom. Almost no one has a kitchen or bathroom in their houses. People cook outside over coals in metal pots, and have shared outhouses/latrines. To bathe, most of them heat water (or not) and take bucket baths. In her old house, she was at the bottom of a large hill and so when it rained mud, garbage and even raw sewage leaked in…Like all big cities, in Kampala the rich live on the hills and he poor live down…Her new house is about a ten minute walk from her old one, but is behind a gate so that Shibera can run around the complex without Getu worrying that she will get out. Her house is built slightly up on a concrete slab so it would have to rain quite a bit for there to be any flooding in the house. Still no running water or a kitchen for her, but she makes do without.

The incredible thing about Getu is that despite the fact that her life is not easy, she is always wearing neat, freshly ironed clothes (though she has power only from 6 at night until about 8 am), she looks well put together and takes a lot of pride in her appearance. She has been accepted at the university (though was unable to attend because the donor fell through…), speaks nearly perfect English, passed her A Levels with flying colors, and is the life of the party. We are doing computer/typing lessons whenever we get a few minutes so that she is beginning to develop computer literacy, which here is a HUGE asset. I helped her open an email address and she has become quite adept at checking her email without any help. Pretty impressive since the first time she ever touched a computer was less than two months ago. We had to go through all the basics, things I never even thought about, like how to click the mouse, what opening a window means, how to turn on the computer, what I mean when I say a ‘button,’ and how to use the arrow keys…But she is eager to learn and for me it is a good excuse for me to spend more time with her. We joke and laugh and have a good time. She tries to feed me more food than I could eat in a week and then laughs when I don’t finish…She has questions about my travels and the strange customs in the US (like a husband and wife being able to sleep at the wife’s parents house over the holidays, or that I had never eaten matooke before coming here…) And she teaches me Luganda and customs so I do not offend people (like not greeting someone when they are eating—which made people’s actions SOOOOOOO much clearer when she explained, I thought people were ignoring me….). She has learned to use my digital camera and has a lot of fun snapping candid photos of her friends. She is affectionate and warm, always wrapping me in a big hug when she sees me and preferring to walk arm in arm or sit close, which I of course love. I am going to miss her dearly when I have to leave in December….too bad it is illegal to smuggle people in your suitcase.

Last weekend, Rachel and I walked around Kampala with our cameras and pretended to be tourists. We took photos, went to the craft market and ate pizza and ice cream…it was a fun day, a real day off that I think both of us merited and needed. And funny to be tourists. One woman stopped and asked us if we needed help. We thanked her for her kindness, but we knew EXACTLY where we were! I often do not think of myself as a tourist since I am living and working here, though I guess I am more often than not seen as one… So I have included some photos I have taken of just regular average everyday life here. Some of these things are very very common, and some still make me laugh. Before looking, I just have to tell you, anything, and I mean ANYTHING can go on the back of a bicycle here. I wish I had my camera the day a man with about 400 stuffed animals tied to a 10 foot pole rode by…Alas, it will just have to be a funny memory. More often, you see large jugs or branches of green bananas, sometimes a large mattress rolled and tied or three and even four people on one bike…Here in Uganda, everything is possible.

23 October 2009

Well I never got to post this because the internet was down, and then I got sick…sick sick. I was running a fever of 104 and throwing up for about twelve hours straight…It was awful. I am definitely on the upswing now, keeping food down and craving pizza desperately. (Why pizza? I dunno, just am, ok?) But I am taking it slowly and easily as I can. I have not been into work since Tuesday morning, when I left two hours after I got there after throwing up three times in the bathroom you see pictured below…yuck. Rachel had the same thing last week and now MH is also sick. I think it is going around, a lot of people have been falling sick. Some sort of viral infection affecting everyone…I also got stung by a bee in the market the other day. Luckily I was with Rach who used to keep bees, so she removed the stinger without any hesitation. It hurt like hell though and swelled up larger than the bee stings I have gotten previously in my life…But no terrifying hordes of African Killer Bees like in the movies, just one little, painful sting. My play has begun, and indeed is almost over. I have only tonight and tomorrow and then thankfully Sunday I can rest allllll day long. Not that there has been any shortage of resting since I have been sick. In fact I have barely seen the outside of my house except to go to perform and then come back. Rest, rest, rest, all day long. So needless to say it has not been a good week, for any of us.

The play has been a hassle and I am reminded of the value of having understudies…haha. Despite the fact that I was sick, I managed to get through my lines and perform pretty well. In fact, I think I was the only one who did not miss any lines either Weds or Thurs…Tonight I am hoping will be great, James who plays opposite me did a really great job last night, the best since we went off book. So I am hopeful that tonight will be even better. We had over 150 people last night, which is pretty impressive for a little dinner theatre. Tonight is another sold-out show and Saturday is looking like it will be close to sold out as well. I am looking forward to having my drama group friends there. And also to closing the show and getting back to normal life. This has been fun, but I will be happy to have my evenings back again.

(Sorry that the pics haven’t loaded, I will load them when the internet is faster!!! They are great!)

It has been a long time since I have managed to update. Mainly because I have been unable to stay late after work on Thursdays for the past several weeks, which is when I usually make my post. Right now, I am sitting in the local Irish pub, Bubbles O’Leary’s which could be in Boston or London or Kampala…It is definitely one of the big muzungu (foreigner) hangouts. For us we only come for pub trivia, preferring places that are not primarily foreigners most of the time…But pub trivia, it’s fun. Tonight is the first time we have been since we hosted the quiz a month ago. And there is a new strategy: Don’t win. Win a round? Yes. You get a free round of drinks. But to write and deliver the quiz is quite a burden. I loved writing the questions personally. But people were angry when they heard them…But whatever, it’s TRIVIA folks, not called Common Knowledge Night…

I have managed to travel around Uganda a bit. A few weeks ago I went on a trip with my organization to visit two other centers in the West in Mbarara and Rukungiri. Let me tell you, the hills were BEAUTIFUL! I have some pictures that I will try to post. It looked like a postcard. And everything was so lush and green…Plus it was cooler, which I always like. I sleep better at night when it is cool rather than warm, definitely my dad in me. Kampala overall has a very nice temperature. Even though it is quite close to the Equator (which I drove over by the way just outside of Masaka!), the elevation is high enough that it is reasonably temperate all year round. I find it slightly too warm for me, but my mom and Sarah could easily be here wearing a sweatshirt and never be cold…

Tomorrow I am taking a day off from everything. I am ready to sleep in a bit (even though I will be woken up by the multiple calls to prayer from the mosques around our house), and have a bit of a lazy day. I still have some things I want to get done, but I might not get out of bed until 10 or so, which is a complete luxury! It has been a long week for some reason, for all of us I think. Part of it is that we had a school assignment due, so our evenings were mostly devoted to catching up on that instead of decompressing and hanging out. But some of it is just the wear and tear of working life. My boss and I had a hard time earlier this week. I have never had a working relationship like this one, so hot and cold…Normally I feel pretty good about my direct supervisor. And I like her, I really do. But I wish she could be a bit more direct in communication so I knew what she wanted before she was angry with me for not completing it…Oh well, I am learning a lot about organizational culture and the importance of good communication!

8 October 2009

MH and Rachel are doing well. MH has moved her focus at work and is now contributing to the project for reparations to torture victims. Rach spent most of last month in Apac in the North and has found good rapport there with partner organizations. She helped lead a training for local leaders on land laws and tenure rights in Uganda. Impressive! My public speaking training is going great with the drama group. This week we “workshopped” five people’s testimonies, so the entire group listened and gave them feedback on content, presentation, tone of voice, etc. I think they are picking up some useful skills, and can continue workshopping even after I am gone, which is great. I am also making a public speaking manual/guide for them to keep when I leave. Just so that I leave them something tangible.

This weekend is Uganda’s Independence Day, so no work on Friday! Yipee!!! MH and I are going to Jinja (the source of the Nile), and Rachel is meeting some friends on the Ssese Islands (the archipelago of 62 islands in the NW of Lake Victoria, the most famous of which is Kalangala). I am excited to see the source of the Nile, I missed it the last time I was in Jinja. We will also hopefully be going to Bujagali Falls, which are supposed to be absolutely BEAUTIFUL. Then Sunday, while MH stays in Entebbe, I am going to have one of my friends from the drama group over for dinner. We have been trying to plan it for weeks. We will make some yummy food, chat for a while, maybe watch a movie and probably make some jewelry. She calls beading her ‘business.’ So she teases me about having big business with all my beads. I am very very much looking forward to it.

I guess that is it from here. Hope all is well state side. Here are some more recent photos! Hugs and love, Laura

Breeds of Dogs (visual)
Latin America
Chemistry (visual)
Finish the Phrase (audio, music)
Rebel Groups
Word Games
Connections
History
Beers of the World
Geography
Sex

So Tom and Steve have taken the last five, and the girls are working on the others. It is kind of fun to put together, I must admit. Poor Rach and MH will be out of Kampala when we actually do the quiz, but they will definitely be there in spirit. The name of our winning team was “She Kisses Giraffes,” a clear nod to our recent trip.

In addition to that, Tom is chairman of a small theatre group and convinced me to audition for his upcoming one act play night. I ended up in the lead role of one of the plays, a melodramatic young widow who has a fiery temper; when the male protagonist pushes her too far, she challenges the man to a sword fight that ends in them falling in love. (Yes, it is supposed to be a comedy!) It is an adaptation of Chekov’s play “The Bear.” So that should be fun. It has been a while since I have done any plays, and the rehearsals are only once a week. We will perform mid-October dinner-theatre style at an Indian restaurant in town. Mmmm, Indian food! Anyway, I am looking forward to it.

Work continues to go well, not much to report on that front. tomorrow the drama group is performing for President Musevini, so I will be attending that function with them, which is also very exciting. I am hoping to have a bit of free time this weekend before my roomies take off for the next week. Sad. But I also have a lot of work to do, so I am certain I will not be bored.

I am going to try to put up some random pics from around, no theme, no order, just whatever uploads without a problem. Enjoy!

Love, Laura

Things here are going well, aside from a mishap with the bank stateside…I traveled with Maria Helena last weekend to Nairobi, Kenya to see our good friend Shamsia. It was EXCELLENT. Shamsia was a wonderful hostess and we had a lot of fun. We went to her cousin’s wedding reception, the Giraffe Orphanage (where both MH and I kissed a giraffe named Laura, haha), ate good food, and found DIET SODA! A true treat here…

The trip was grueling, 13 hours each way in a bus with no toilet…but well worth it. Kenya makes country #21 that I have visited in my life, which I think it pretty cool considering that I have now been to at least one country on every continent except Australia and Antarctica… I definitely need to do more traveling around Africa, Asia and South America though. You know me, can’t sit still for too long!

Work is going well, I traveled with the Drama Group to a community outreach on HIV/AIDS awareness where they were showing people how to use condoms. I am not sure I can describe the hilarity that ensued…But you should imagine people standing in front of many people putting condoms on wooden penises… The drama group continues to be the highlight of my week, so inspiring and passionate. I am excited to spend more time with them. My other work is going well, though not terribly exciting. I am working on a concept paper on how TASO’s work contributes to peace and then still the gender mainstreaming stuff…

My internet today seems to be pretty fast, so I am going to try to put up photos! (Click on the photos for a larger pic)

In other news, I am going for a weekend trip to Kenya to visit my friend Shamsia.  Shamsia is from Nairobi and has kindly extended an invitation ot her house this weekend to stay with her and meet her family.  I miss her dearly, so I am excited to go.  She gives the best hugs!  So Maria Helena and I will board a 10-hour bus (or so it is advertised, it is usually more like 13 hours I have heard…) tomorrow morning and arrive toorrow evening.  We are hoping to maybe go to the Giraffe Orphanage that is in Nairobi, and possibly a national park, though the fees are quite high.  I am looking forward to seeing Shamsia and meeting her family!

I guess that is it for today, I am running out to door so I can get home and pack.  Hugs to you and lots of love from Kampala.

Laura and the Rhino...I felt like I could reach out and touch them they were so close!

Just a quick photo from the Entebbe Zoo.  Now I am really running.  Really.

I know that it has been some time since I have updated.  As I told my dad last night, the internet certainly leaves something to be desired…But I am going to post this update in hope that it will give you a bit of a picture of my life.

I have begun work, though it is not at all what I expected, I think it is good.  They are making good use of my skills and trying to find ways for me to enjoy the things I like as well…  I am currently working in headquarters on thier gender mainstreaming initiative, specifically looking at domestic violence.  They wanted to put me there specificaly because I am a peace studies student and that was the closest link they had to peace.  I am working on helping them see how thier work contributes to peace.  In addition to that, I have been designing the center level website (each center will link off of the main page once it is up and running), so I designed the Mulago site.  I am also working with the Drama Group once a week. My initial “in” is training them in public speaking when giving thier testimonies, but as I am developing relationships with them, I am becoming more and more interested in their style of outreach and education.  I am seriously considering designing my MA Thesis around how the arts can contribute to peace through deeper engagement and better education.  But that is still up in the air at this point.  I got to go to the National Drama Festival, which was incredible!  A lot of it was in Luganda, of which I still only know about 20 words…  But there were also many parts in English and the songs and dances needed no translation.  The drama group I work with (shadow at least, as of yet I am not working with them, only observing) performed a play, a song, a testimony and a dance.  I was proud to know them and impressed with the level of skill they have for a volunteer group!

Life other than work is good.  I have not yet travelled much because it has been quite the project getting settled.  I am certain that I will travel around Uganda (and hopefully beyond!).  Maria Helena and I went to Entebbe yesterday to the zoo, which was fun.  We are calling it our Seven Dollar Safari!  We saw lions, zebras, rhinos, warthogs, and chimps.  It was a lot of fun.  The rhinos were so close we could almost touch them!  Our apartment is great, such a nice place to come home to.  It has three bedrooms, two full bathrooms, a small balcony that overlooks the city, a large living room, a nice dining room and a good kitchen.  The kitchen is essential because all three of us LOVE to cook.  And while we a enjoying Ugandan food, it is nice to be able to cook what you want to eat when you come home.  We live very close to the largest market in Kampala, the Owino Market, so we get plenty of fresh veggies!  Uganda is also known for its g-nuts (ground peanuts), so there is yummy homemade peanut butter.  )  We finally tracked down a nice place to get good cheese, it is a bit out of the way, but for cheese I am willing to make the trip!

One of the hangouts for ex-pats is called Bubbles O’Leary’s, an Irish Pub that does trivia night twice a month.  I think we will probably be regulars.  We have gone twice and won a round each time.  When you win the round, you get a round of free drinks.  Last time we won the round on Japan…strangely enough, none of us really know anything about Japan!  But we got a bottle of South African wine for the table, and no one else must have known much about Japan either!  The week before we won the food round, go figure…  There is also (next door to Bubble’s) a nice Latin Club that plays music and is a great place to have a drink and relax.  There is a back room for dancing, but the front terrace is open and quite conducive to socializing.  Another thing we are enjoying a lot are the number of Indian restaurants, there are a huge number of Indian immigrants who returned after Idi Amin expelled them.  So their restaurants are delicious and mostly affordable.  There is also Ethiopian food and vegetable samosas that are available in many places.  Yummy!

I hope all is well with all of you.  Let me know how things are going!  I try to check email at least twice a week.  And I will try to get some more pics up soon.

Hugs and love from Kampala!

Laura

The Skyline of Kampala, Uganda (where I am living!!)

Hi all,

So as you may know, I am in Uganda for my Kroc internship with two dear, dear friends (Maria Helena and Rachel!) until December.  I am going to try to be a good person an update this as I can…We shall see.

Hugs and love, Laura

Map of Uganda

The Uganda Girls, before we knew we were the Uganda Girls

Though I have yet to do much traveling around Uganda, I do have a few photos to update people on my whereabouts!

Kasubi Tombs, one of the UN World Heritage Sites

MH, Laura, Rach and Martha at Kasubi Tombs