Sunday’s are what I imagine Sunday’s in the United States must have been like in the day of my parents. Everyone enjoys a full two extra hours of sleep, meaning they awaken somewhere around nine in the morning. Next we have a large breakfast, complete with an omelet, bread and tea. This starkly contrasts breakfast during the rest of the week, which includes bread on which is spread some sort of butter substitute known only as “blue band”, and a cup of African Tea (which I’m pretty sure is just British tea, that is tea with milk and sugar). From here we go to church. My home-stay family is Pentecostal, which means church is much more like a Sunday morning concert than a prayer service. While I regret to inform you that I have yet to witness anyone speaking in tongues, everyone sings along and dances to the music (some people, the youth in particular get very into the music, running up and down the isles etc). Suffice it to say although it is a two hour service, it is quite the experience, and is rarely dull. After church everyone returns home and the family has a large noontime meal, complete with all the fixin’s, rice, beef stew, g-nut sauce, matoke, and even (as far as I can tell the only source of fiber in the African diet) a mysterious vegetable known only as “greens”. After lunch people spend the rest of the day at their leisure, often attending weddings or introduction ceremonies (which are lengthy processions in which a man and a woman of an arranged marriage are officially introduced) some times enjoying a cold beer on the shores of Lake Victoria.

This particular Sunday I offered to cook breakfast for my family, both as a chance to show my appreciation for all they have done for me and show them some western style food, as well as a chance for myself to have a little home-style breakfast. I brought home milk to add to the omelets, bacon, and all the tropical fruit I could find at the market. I’ve noticed that fruit is considered a treat, and is normally reserved for Sunday afternoons, in relatively small doses. As a treat, I mixed up a huge fruit salad of pineapple, mango, orange, baby banana (like bananas only smaller, I don’t know if they have them in the states but I’ve never seem them), and kiwi. To my surprise they have never seen nor heard of kiwi, but they all seemed to love it. Next I fried up the bacon and fried some eggs in the grease. I did not worry about how this particularly unhealthy method of cooking would be received as people here have absolutely no concerns about cholesterol or fat, in fact men with bellies are considered healthy (and in truth they probably are generally healthier than those without bellies). I also made some omelets and French toast. All in all I think it was received well. The whole family kept remarking about how long it had been since they had had bacon, which I did not realize was such a luxury commodity (though I confess I did spend my whole week’s food stipend on this meal, but it was definitely worth it). They also devoured the fruit salad. I only hope they saw this as a display of my appreciation and not as an allusion that the food they have provided me has not been sufficiently to my liking.

To address Bradley’s claim that the food here is no good, I would contend that, to the contrary, the food here is quite good, but Ugandan’s have a very different concept of food. Every meal includes some staple, be it rice (strangely, though African rice was domesticated independently on the continent, all the rice seems to be Asian white rice, this is most likely because Asian rice is a much more cost effective cash crop), matoke (which is a rather flavorless paste made of smashed up plantains) cassava (a rather dense chewy tuber), posha (I have no idea what this is but I think it has flour and always come is semi-gelatinous squares), millet (served as a paste which has the color of mud, and the consistency of sand) occasionally Irish potatoes, or sweet potatoes (these taste very similar to the sweet potatoes we are familiar with in the states, but have a slightly denser consistency and are not orange, but are normally white, and sometimes a very light yellow). If you haven’t guess, all the staple foods here are almost entirely without flavor. What makes Ugandan food good is the sauces they put on it, usually beef stew, chicken stew, groundnut sauce (groundnuts are the African term for peanuts, and g-nut stew, I recently learned, is simply ground up peanuts with tomato and onions and a few other ingredients mixed in), and beans (just like Mexican beans!!). These stews if prepared correctly are extremely flavorful and make an otherwise bland staple pretty delicious. However, Africans seem to be fairly unaware that their main source of food is totally flavorless, and it is not uncommon to hear an African comment that they cannot wait until their next matoke (my friend Brendan lamentingly commented that his family had returned home from a wedding this weekend and ecstatically told him that they had brought back a weeks worth of the stuff as leftovers, and so this is all they would be having for the next week and a half or so). Most likely because these staples are such a high calorie commodity, Ugandans also don’t seem to consider food a meal unless it is supplemented with one of these. Just last week Mama took me and my home stay brother Joseph out for some chicken at a local pub. After we had eaten our fill we returned home. To my surprise, Mama pushed a plate of potatoes and beans in front of me and asked why I was not taking supper. Apparently the half a chicken we had eaten at the pub simply didn’t count. I have found that stews in my household are normally reserved for the weekend, and so most meals at home normally consist of beans over rice or potatoes. This I am fine with since the beans here are almost identical to the kind we make at home, sometimes we even have chapatti, which is essentially a doughier version of a tortilla. This makes it seem just like home. So in response to the assertion that the food here is no good, I would say that it is good, if mixed properly (the staples by themselves are quite tasteless), but, there is definitely a lack of variety, (I’ve literally just listed for you everything on the Ugandan diet). But this is true of almost all food traditions arising out of impoverished areas (I’m reminded of Jim Gaffigan’s assertion that all Mexican food is some combination of beans, meat, tortilla, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion).

Saturday, we celebrated Patrick, one of our Swahili teacher’s, birthdays. We had actually bought a cake as a way to show our appreciation to the Swahili teachers, who left their homes and families in Kenya to come teach us for three weeks. However, that week we learned that Patrick did not know when his birthday was. I believe he was born to the Masaai, and they find this celebration rather pointless. Of course this did not sit well with us westerners who hold birthdays as the utmost of important holidays, the day were people give you gifts and you eat cake, and can even cry if you want to. So beneath the “Asante Sana” (Swahili for thank you very much) we added a “Happy Birthday Patrick” and decided that February 23^rd would from now on be Patrick’s birthday. This was about the happiest I have ever seen the man. He explained to us that he was born in a maize field to parents who did not know how to read or write, and so they never gave him a birthday. In fact he did not even know how old he was. He said he would have to check the records for his particular region in Kenya as he is told he was born the same year that they introduced millet to the area. He then said that upon returning to Kenya he would change his passport so that his birthday would read Feb. 23^rd. Though he did not seem to miss having a birthday before-hand, I think the idea that his trip to Kampala can forever be remembered as the time he was given a one, is something he really appreciated.

That’s all from me for now. After three solid weeks of four hours of Swahili a day, this weekend we have our final exams, which are 100% oral. Four hours a day (and three on Saturday) is a lot to have really sink in, and it seems the more I learn the more I want to substitute in Spanish in places I am unsure. So, I need to start studying for this test now. Wish me luck!

Mama, my week, and Ugandan Politics

It seems that every day I gain more respect for my home stay mother. Her husband was murdered and she was left alone in a third world country to raise her family. Her family is technically composed of three sons and two daughters, although because of the African tradition of extended support networks, and semi-patronage systems this seems to really include at least two other children, one housemaid, and two brothers who as far as I can tell have no jobs. One of her daughters became seriously ill at a young age at was left mentally handicapped. She is apparently now 25 and still attending a school for the mentally challenged. Instead of lamenting over the loss of her daughter’s mental capacity, Mama tells me only that she is the happiest girl she has ever met. Another one of her sons was lost at a young age. However, I have not pressed her for information about him. She herself has suffered a serious injury at the Taxi Park that doctors thought would cripple her for life, yet she has since made a full recovery. She supports her family as a cashier at a local pharmacy. Despite this limited income provided by her profession, she has managed to find a way to send all of her children to school. Her eldest son Joseph is attending University, while Andrew is attending his 5^th year of secondary school, which means he had to pass a test with sufficient marks after his 4^th year to continue schooling. On top of that it seems that all other youths within her extended support network are either in school or have graduated University. This is absolutely remarkable in a nation with a 2% University graduation rate. Most children do not make it past primary school. On top of this, though the family is of modest means, they by no means seem to struggle. Everyone is well fed (to be honest they seem to love trying to overfeed me, or at least make a habit of trying to feed me as often as possible; very often by surprising me with a bowl of stew I’ll will find suddenly sitting under my nose) and the bills all seem to get paid. What’s more she seems to be a much respected person in the community. All the children know and respect her, she has over fifty people who refer to her as Mama (a term of respect that may, though I am not sure of this, imply some patronage), and she belongs to a political club and frequents social facilities where she continually rubs elbows with the political elite of Uganda. On top of all this she also seems to be a very happy woman, she is always laughing, and always has an entertaining story, or perspective on things.

This week she did not fail to further gain my respect. Monday night I returned from enjoying a piece of chicken and an interesting conversation on the political situation in Uganda with Mama from a local bar down the street. As I was putting my clothes away and getting ready to shower (by shower I mean wash myself with a basin of cold water) I noticed that the zipper to the compartment where I had stored my cell phone from home was opened and the phone was missing. This was puzzling since my laptop had been in visible sight, and I had a few other things of higher value stored in various places around the room but only the phone was missing. After thoroughly searching the room several time to make sure I hadn’t just misplaced it, I told Mama what I had found. She likewise came in and searched the room vehemently. Earlier that week Andrew, her youngest son, had asked to see my phone. He had said he wanted to see it since he was himself planning on buying a flip phone and wanted to take a look at one. His eye had lit up as soon as he saw the phone and even asked if I would trade with him. I of course declined and tried to explain to him that American phones (especially ones w/o sim cards) would never work in Uganda, but I don’t think the message really settled in. At any rate, I delicately tried to convey this interaction to Mama without directly accusing Andrew. Here there is apparently a huge social stigma against thievery. We were told that if we were jacked on the street to make sure whatever was taken was really worth it before we yelled for help. This is because mob justice here is a common practice and those caught thieving are often killed or beaten right there on the street. If someone grabs your wallet full of 10000 shillings (the equivalent of about $6 American), you should probably just let it go. A story in the paper the other day seems to confirm the commonplace nature of mob justice here. A story yesterday told of a boda boda (motorcycle for hire) driver who had accidentally hit a girl. The girl was critically injured and rushed to the hospital where she recovered and was brought to a stable condition. However, those who had seen the accident formed a mob around the driver and stoned him to death. Similarly one of my friend’s on the program said that her home-stay family explained to her that the reason there are no thieves in their neighborhood is because the last one they caught was drenched in gasoline and burned alive. Suffice it to say I really didn’t want to falsely accuse someone (especially my host’s son) of something held as so disgraceful. Worse yet if he did turn out to be behind the whole thing I didn’t want his inevitably awful punishment on my hands (the older brother even said that when they found the one responsible they would throw him in jail for a week).

At any rate after two days of searching, she returned the phone to me. She explained that she had tracked it down to some boys up the street who were apparently friends of Andrews. I do not know whether or not he had anything to do with it, but he has returned to boarding school so I don’t believe it will be a problem. While I was overjoyed to have it back, I was more taken aback by at the realization both of how taxing the ordeal had been for Mama, and how much she had worked to help me. She had been making calls nonstop for the past two days, using all her connections in the neighborhood to track the phone down for me. When she gave it back she seemed extremely relieved and confessed that she had not slept for the past two nights worry about it. I have to believe that it was merely flattery when she told me that, on top of everything else she had been through, this was one of the most trying ordeals of her life. However, I do believe that, given the social stigma around thievery and the decorum of the host guest relationship in this culture, that she truly was burdened, and that she absolutely did everything she could to help me. I am incredibly grateful to have such a thoroughly caring person as my home-stay mother.

As I said earlier, Monday night I was out with Mama and Joseph (her oldest son), and pressed them about their political views. Due to the checker history of Ugandan politics, all the way up until the present, it is normally considered impolite to discuss politics in public, but given Mama’s apparent interest in the subject, I decided to risk it. The payoff was worth the risk. I learned that they believe the current President, Musevini stays in power largely because of the civil war with the Lord’s Resistance Army in Northern Uganda. While he has managed to keep this controversial group at bay (in the United States we are taught that they are radical group of child enslaving power mongers but the views on the LRA here are decidedly more varied, and though no one denies that their methods are horrifically brutal their demands are apparently more legitimate than most give them credit… but I’m not about to go into there here), he has a vested interest in not coming to the negotiation table (once again the west normally blames the LRA for refusing peace talks). He is now generally universally viewed as a poor president (probably thought less of than Bush is in America) but because he is known to keep political stability he manages to stay in office. As they say, the evil you know is better than the evil you don’t, and while war has been the norm in the north for over twenty years now, the south has been kept in relative peace (especially compared to the Uganda of previous rulers). So long as the war continues in the north, people will be afraid to try to change power. Uganda, unlike the United States, has absolutely no history of free elections or peaceful transitions of power, every single leader from Abote and Amin, to Musevini has gained power either through military coups or rigged elections. Musevini himself originally took the presidency by waging guerilla war against the existing government. When you think about it, it is pretty remarkable how smoothly our transition of power every four to eight years goes. The developing world fears elections as time for revolution (as Kenya is now demonstrating), but absolutely no one in America harbors any fear of a bloody power struggle in ’09.

At any rate, both Mama and Joseph believe that the only way Musevini will ever leave power is through a military takeover or revolution. They furthermore have no doubt that this bloody strife will occur after the 2011 Ugandan presidential elections. Musevini has won by a smaller and smaller margin each election, and if he really does lose (although most people here believe he will simply change the constitution before the election to ensure his victory) the north will probably invade as a means of testing the new ruler. If he does win, they seem to think that Ugandan’s won’t stand for it anyway.

While the term tribalism gets thrown around a lot in western media as a way to explain the complex political and social interactions within Africa, the term is not entirely inaccurate. What is bad about the term is that it reduces all conflict down to ancient hatreds between people who have always hated each other and probably always will for reasons we, as outsiders, will never fully understand. When this viewpoint is analyzed with any degree of scrutiny its utter ridiculousness becomes apparent. However, it is true that in Africa conflicts often fall along tribal lines. In the case of Uganda this is because President Musevini’s tribe controls the military, the politics, and most of the industry in the country. Getting a good job here is all about who you know, and tribes tend to look after themselves if for no other reason than the people you grew up with are the people you know, and the people you grew up with are the people in your tribe. Mama pointed out to me that nearly everyone fortunate enough to live and work in Kampala, and appreciate a minimally good standard of living is from the West where Musevini’s tribe is located. She herself is a Bugandan, a native to the area around Kampala.

This so called tribalism is important to understand in order to fully appreciate the people’s grievances with the government. It helps to explain why the change in power seems to by necessity be bloody. Musevini leaving means one that the military will not be loyal to the next ruler since the military in primarily of Musevini’s (which btw is written M7 in the papers because it is phonetically similar) tribe. Furthermore it helps explain why the Kikuyus are now being targeted in the ensuing electoral fallout in Kenya. They were the privileged members of the ruling parties tribe, and now regardless of whether or not an individual Kikuyu has taken advantage of that, all are under siege.

Taken aback by this grim outlook for these people’s own nation I began to inquire how others felt about the upcoming elections. It seems that other student’s home-stay parents feel about the same, and that even our lectors, most of whom are or have been politically active in Uganda also share the same pessimistic outlook. Furthermore, the U.S. is apparently already looking into the 2011 Ugandan elections to help ensure that it isn’t a repeat of Kenya. This, however, does not imply that Uganda will necessarily have a free election. The United States has openly supported M7 since he began his reign, since he has managed to keep relative stability in the country.

What shocked me is how willing my own home-stay family seemed to accept this inevitable fate. Once I established that they would be more surprised if there wasn’t a bloody coup in 2010, I asked them what preventative measures they would take to keep themselves safe. Mama simply shook her head and replied in her strangely eloquent Ugandan accent “For me, I cannot leave my home. I will stay here and fight.” Joseph nodded his head in agreement. Despite all the pessimism and the grim reality of just how far Uganda has to go before it can be considered a developed nation with all the perks thereof, this seems to me remarkably optimistic of them. They believe in the fate of their own country despite their realization of the lack of hope in the immediate situation, they are willing to accept the bloodshed in the hope that it may bring something better. Whether this hope is misguided or not, I can’t say. But as I said, each day my respect for Mama grows.

Foreign Thoughts

So it is Monday and the beginning of the second week of classes. Many of the other people on the program seem to think that culture shock is finally beginning to take hold. This means they are irritable and frustrated at the cultural and lifestyle differences in the country that had first interested and amused them (the first stage of culture shock is initially euphoria). I however do not think I’ve yet reached the second stage, I still find virtually everything about this place fascinatingly interesting. Also, I’m beginning to feel at home both at my home-stay house and around Kampala. Kampala is a very crowded city, full of dust, people, pollution, and humidity. The first week the city felt suffocating, but now I’m becoming acclimated, and even the taxi park, while still the bane of my existence, is less taxing on my spirit.
I believe I’ve said before that it is a miracle that more accidents do not occur both on the streets of Kampala, and in the Taxi Park. The other day my home-stay mother informed me that she did in fact have a very bad accident at the taxi park. A few years back, she was looking for a taxi, and passed in between the front of one taxi and the back of another. There is often hardly enough room to pass through but in order to negotiate your way around the park it is both necessary and frequent to do this. Though there are constantly people moving in between the taxis like this, the drivers seem to detest the practice. It seems as though when people are in a line, the closer they physically are to the front the better they feel. Perhaps this is an embodiment of that principle. Although letting people pass through the taxi’s while they are waiting for those taxi’s in front to move does not actually delay the taxi’s at all they always make a point of leaving as little room in between each other as possible so as to feel comforted that they are as physically close to the end of their wait as possible. I have personally been boxed in and had to wait for the line to move and a space to open up on several occasions. When this happens you are left with no other choice but to scurry through the space before it closes up again and you find yourself trapped. At any rate, on this particular occasion the driver moved too close and sandwiched Mama in between the two taxis. I gather that at this point she was physically unhurt, only stuck. However, the driver, fearing that he had hurt her panicked and hastily tried to put the van in reverse. Unfortunately, in his haste, he mistakenly floored it into first gear and crushed Mama in between the two vans, completely shattering her pelvic bone. After this she was never expected to walk again. Thankfully, however, she has since made a full recovery and shows no signs of any permanent damage.
This anecdote is somewhat telling of people’s attitudes towards danger here. The lack of sufficient infrastructure means that people here are forced to accept much more danger as part of their day-to-day life. From dealing with the taxi park (the main form of public transportation in Kampala, interestingly they apparently tried to build a subway system several years back but lost funding, so occasionally you will come across a stairway leading down to no where) to driving on the roads (especially on the boda boda’s which are motorcycles that can be hired, though they are dangerous they are able to weave in and out of traffic, and are therefore immune to the citywide epidemic of traffic jams.) I was talking with my home stay uncle the other day, which was educated in America, and has therefore seen American infrastructure. He commented that if the taxi park was merely ordered into columns, with a platform for the people to stand and walk from one taxi to another (something analogous to the bus station at the port authority in NYC) instead simply an open lot with conductors yelling to tell people which taxi is going where and taxi’s trapped in between one another, that it would be a much safer and more effective system. Though this is true, Uganda lacks public funding for such projects. As a result people accept the danger of simply driving to work, walking in a dirty city, and a million other risks people in America would be outraged to be subject to as simply a part of life.
I must confess that in seeing the problems Uganda has to overcome, it at times seems like there is almost no hope whatsoever. To Professor Stone, who taught my Africa: Peoples and Cultures class, and largely argued that the western media lens often makes Africa out to be a place much worse place than it actually is, I would ask if he has ever been to Uganda. There is a civil war between the Lords Resistance Army, and the current government. The strife has been constant since 1986 and it seems that they no longer even remember why they are fighting, but show no signs of stopping any time soon. The LRA is known to kidnap small children, using the girls as sex slaves and the boys as child soldiers. There are northern refugees all over Uganda. What’s more President Musevini has coincidentally been in power since 1986 as well. Last Friday he was quoted saying that he has “killed the animal” and will therefore “not give up the carcass”. Basically saying that since he has made Uganda, and so why should he be expected to turn over power? Corruption within government runs rampant, it was explained to me that unlike the United States where only the rich have the resources to become politicians, in Uganda people become politicians as a means of social mobility. It is commonly known, therefore, that politicians almost always have their own interests in mind. On top of the political issues, Uganda is extremely poor. There are street children everywhere, and something like 30% of the population lives on less than 1 USD per day, with a majority of people living on less than 2 USD/day. There is no manufacturing of finished goods, so while many argue that engaging in trade will help Uganda to develop, they can export only raw material at a very cheap price, to be made into finished goods later, the finished good are in turn returned to Uganda and sold for exponentially more than the purchase price of the raw goods. Because of the poverty Uganda is heavily indebted both to the World Bank, IMF, donor nations and NGO’s. Though they are a very poor country they are in the top 50 countries with the highest debt. Unlike the US, who is number one on the list, however, Uganda continually defaults on its debt, and has no way to generate the revenue needed to pay the debt off. This debt prevents the government from doing things necessary to allow for developmental growth, such as the building of an infrastructure, or even the implementation of safe environment in areas such as the north. In part because of poverty, public health is a huge problem as well. Though Uganda, compared to the rest of Africa, is not as plagued by HIV/AIDS, it is still a fairly prevalent problem. Everywhere there are billboards warning against “sugar daddies”, who are men of means who offer money and protection to unmarried women in return for sexual favors. Naturally these promiscuous men commonly carry the virus, but for struggling mothers this can often be easily overlooked when the opportunity to properly raise their family is presented. The other day, my friend told me she had overheard her home-stay sister’s friend breaking up with her boyfriend via phone. The boyfriend had apparently caught the girl cheating. The argument, however, was not as you might expect that she had betrayed his trust and hurt him etc. It was instead that though he still loves her, he is afraid she will give him HIV if she continues to sleep around. Though this is a very legitimate reason to call it quits, such a conversation would seem very odd in the States.
People in Uganda continually talk of the problems of the country. However, this often makes for very uncomfortable situations, as it seems to me that this is a little bit like trash talking your family. It is okay for you to do it, but no one else had better say anything about “yo’ mama”. However, the problems are quite apparent, and when someone mentions to you that the roads are quite bad in this country, it is so apparent that you cannot deny it, and since there seems to be little hope of this changing it is hard to find something encouraging to say. Normally I find myself simply nodding in agreement.
Strangely, Ugandans seem to bear no ill will towards Americans. You would think that a country so undeveloped, in large part due directly to its exploitation by the west, would be bitter about their position in the world and resentful of more successful nations. Instead, Ugandans generally seem fascinated by the U.S.’s success. They are enamored of how effectively our democracy works, how our constitution has held for over 200 years with only a handful of changes, while their own has only existed since ’86 and changes whenever it suites a politicians needs. They seem to admire everything from the roads to the pop culture of the U.S. It is kind of refreshing to know that we are not hated by the entire developing world, and living here does make you realize that though we are certainly without our issues, all in all we have done pretty well for ourselves.
The only thing Ugandan’s do not admire about our culture is our relative acceptance of homosexuality. Never before have I seen such a vehement distain for all things homosexual. They are absolutely bewildered that a nation that seems so successful can take, what they consider to be, such a backward stance on the issue. Furthermore, the issue seems always on their mind. They seem bring it up with Americans every chance they get. The practice is against the law here and the prevalent religious institutions (mostly Catholic or Protestant but some Muslim as well) all take a hard stance against it. It seems that everyone on the program has had the home stay family pick their brain about why the United States would tolerate such a practice, and so far no one has seemed to make any progress in explaining why. Of course since so much of their opinion is simply dogmatic and religiously motivated, there is little reason to even try. However, in talking to my family I found that part of the reason they hate homosexuality so much is because they equate the practice with rape and pedophilia. My home stay brother asked me if, since gays were allowed to be open in the US, I had ever been molested or hassled by one. He was shocked to learn that I had not, and did not seem receptive to my suggestion that sexual harassment and sexual preference were two completely unrelated issues. There is a lesbian couple in our program, and though for the purposes of fitting in with local custom, they have been pretty quite about it, I can only imagine how uncomfortable they must feel at times.
Interestingly, polygamy is a legal and quite common practice here. Though my family is a single mother household, many others on my program live with mothers, while the fathers only show up once or twice a week. The rest of the week they are rotating between different wives. I bring this up because it supplements the best (and by that I mean most ridiculous) explanation I’ve heard so far for Uganda’s complete fascination with a gay tolerant culture.
During orientation week the Kampala chief of police came to give our program a talk about the laws and safety in the city. Even he, in the middle of his presentation, could not resist the urge to press a group of muzungus about the gay issue. He asked if we really did allow such things in the states, and quickly informed us that it illegal in Uganda. He went on say that even if it weren’t it would not be a problem in Uganda. A mischievous smile swept across his face and, completely misjudging his audience (remember 15 out of 17 of the people in the room were girls), said triumphantly “Why would a man marry another man when he can marry TEN women?” Apparently this “solution” to the “problem” was sufficient enough for him. At any rate I just find it fascinating how they (and a large portion of the world) seem to be obsessed with an issue that to me doesn’t even seem to be an issue (especially in a country like Uganda where there are a million other legitimate, life threatening issues for people to worry about).
Anyway, I had about a million other things to say, but perhaps fortunately for those who made it this far down the post, they have escaped my head for the moment. Kwaherini, until next time.

The First Week with Homestay Family

Hamjambo friends. It is now Wednesday, and I have been living with my home-stay family since Sunday afternoon. Classes officially began on Monday, and I am just now beginning to get settled into my routine. When I met my home-stay family I was directed to a table where my home-stay mother, who prefers that I call her Mama, and three boys were sitting ranging in age from 17-30. This was unexpected because the home-stay questionnaire I had received the previous day had said that Mama had four daughters all of whom were over 18 and no sons. After light conversation with mama and the three boys, the relations of which is still something of mystery to me, we returned home. This pattern has continued, and it seems that everyday I meet someone new who is ambiguously affiliated with the family. Since they refer to everyone as uncle if they are older, or brother if they are of a similar age and parent if they are under someone’s care, actual relationships are never made entirely clear. While it is confusing to an outsider, I very much like this notion of family, as everyone stays much closer, both spatially and figuratively, and family bonds and the relationship that accompanies them are extended to many more people.

During the week of orientation we learned that home stays were chosen from all economic brackets of Ugandan society, this means that some students would live with very well to do families and others would live with lower income families. There was naturally much talk and anxiety about who would get to live with which. Upon arrival at my home stay, I realized that my family is of modest means. While many students had their fingers crossed that they would land excessively rich parents (in Uganda there is no moderate upper middle class, only very rich and everyone else), I was fairly ambivalent. Both curious to see what the day-to-day life of the average Ugandan was like, and allured by the possible luxuries of running water, electricity, and working toilets. Though I do not know on what scale Ugandans measure wealth, I would say that my family is about average. In the United States they would definitely be considered of the lower income bracket but judging by how much they seem to love feeding me, they certainly manage to put food on the table. More importantly while I am still adjusting to their customs, and have been tiptoeing around so as not to unintentionally offend anyone, they have been extremely nice, welcoming, and have done a good job of making me feel at home.

I have also been very lucky in that the house has both running water and electrical power (sometimes). We have a toilet with no seat, but this is certainly better than a pit latrine. Though we have running water we do not have any in the shower, and so I have been getting used to bathing by pouring water from a large bucket over myself. I was also amused to learn that some of my friends who live in the more well to do families, who have cars, big screen TVs, and housemaids do not have toilets and so must resort to squatting over a pit latrine. I guess the importance of a clean, fresh toilet is not quite the same in Ugandan culture as it is in the United States.

I mentioned above that I have yet to meet everyone that I live with. In the actual building, I live with Mama, Andrew, her seventeen-year-old son, and I believe Joseph her slightly older son. I am not actually sure if Joseph actually lives there as I have only seen him around once. There is a surprisingly high premium on privacy in this culture, and so I often do not know if he or Andrew is even home if their doors are closed. The property however, has several buildings on it, in which dwell other family members. In the building next to ours lives the oldest brother (once again I use the terms brother and son loosely, Mama has told me that she has only two biological sons, I do not know who is who) and his family. Though he is unmarried he seems to be in charge of an uncertain number of children (I want to say maybe 4). It is apparently customary that the oldest son move out of the house and next door, but since this is a much smaller building (only a living room and a bed room) living conditions are a bit cramped. In a room off to the side of our house only accessible from outside lives Pius, who was introduced to me as my uncle. He seems to have no children or wife of his own, and every time I’ve seen him so far he has been intoxicated. He occasionally meanders into the house asks me a few questions about America and then proceeds into lengthy explanations about how nice Ugandans are. Another figure in the house, though she does not live there, is the house maid. She is a young girl who appears to be about 16 (athough as mentioned in a previous post I have proven to be a very bad judge of the age of Africans, a pattern that surfaced on several other accounts). I believe she works for them in return for a part in the family. I believe she would also be considered a daughter of Mama, who is the clear matriarch of the household. She does most of the chores around the house, and in return is given membership to the family, albeit subordinate to other members. She speaks very little English, and avoids eye contact with me. Every day I tell her good morning and ask her how she is doing, but any further attempt at communication usually results in her thinking I am telling her to do something. This normally results in her doing random chores in an attempt to fulfill my supposed wish (last time I tried to ask her if she liked what was on the television, resulting in her getting up and turning up the volume despite the fact that I was right next to the television and she was across the room). Because of this I have given up further attempts at communication. There are also random, unexplained children constantly running around the courtyard. They clearly have some relation to the family, but since the only one who I was introduced to ran away crying (I think she had never seen a white person before) I have no idea who exactly they are.

My day begins at 6:30 in the morning. There are a number of reasons for this, but I suppose the most convincing one is because that is about when the sun rises here. My family has several chickens and one rooster. As soon as the sun comes up the rooster crows. I had always thought that they did this maybe once, just to announce the arrival of the sun. This is untrue. The rooster crows at the first sight of the sun and every five seconds thereafter until he is absolutely sure that nothing within a one mile radius can possibly still be asleep. I also awake because Mama insists that I take a shower every morning (a practice I dislike greatly since she also insists I take one every evening and for that one usually heats the water for me). Then after taking a breakfast of tea with milk and occasionally “coffee soya” which you mix in with the tea and tastes vaguely like sweetened coffee and buttered bread, we board the taxi (here called matatu) and head into the city.

I mentioned in an earlier post that the taxi system here is completely different than the taxi system in America. This is a good time to expand upon that. The taxi’s here are much more like a small bus system. Taxi’s are actually large vans, sort of like the Ford Econoline. On it there is a driver, a conductor who handles the money and ensures that passengers board and unload at the right time, and also haggles people to board. The taxi runs a particular route, making stops to pick up and unload passengers along the way. Most taxis from outside of downtown go to the taxi park. The taxi park is what I imagine the bastard child of Hell and the DMV would look like. There is almost no room to walk, there are so many taxies. There are conductors everywhere, yelling at you to board their taxi (which doesn’t make much sense because if they aren’t going where you want, you won’t go no matter how much they yell and if you are you’ll get on even if they don’t). Weaving in between these large vans, spaced literally inches apart are street vendors trying to sell anything from snacks for the taxi ride, to fake Rolexes to people late for an interview trying to look sharp. Once you board the taxi and are sufficiently packed in like a can of sardines you inevitably spend 20 minutes just trying to get out of the park, which is littered with other taxis and apparently has no governing traffic rules other than try to force your way through without getting hit. If there is any part about living in Uganda that I truly and vehemently dislike it is the taxi park.

After arriving here I see Mama off to her work. She is a cashier (or maybe a pharmacist I am unsure as people do not talk much about work here) at a pharmacy in the city. After that, I make my way to the SIT resource building where we are given two hours of Kiswahili class. After that we are bused over to Makereri University for a lecture on Development, Health, or Society (all the lecturers have been as distinguished and politically active as the one I mentioned in my earlier post, which makes me feel very honored). From here we are given an hour to eat lunch and walk the mile and a half (maybe two) back to the SIT house for two more hours of Kiswahili. To be honest I haven’t worked anywhere near as hard, or kept as busy a schedule as this since high school. On the bright side unlike high school we aren’t given any nightly assignments, and have only a few big ones due periodically throughout the semester.

After returning home around six, each night has been very different. The first day, Mama offered to take me to a beach on Lake Victoria and enjoy a drink before dinner. I soon learned that Africans take full liberty of their Sundays off. After a drink at the beach she said we should stop by another place she liked, where she liked to go discuss political issues with the local community heads, and then return home for dinner. At this place we had another drink, and then took one more for the road. I must I confess that I was looking forward very much to getting home. I was very tired, still slightly jetlagged, and had bit of an upset stomach which I think was just a byproduct of adjusting to the local food. On top of all this, getting to know someone you’ve just met, while trying not to accidentally offend them through your ignorance of their culture, especially at a place they frequent, all while drinking, can be slightly uncomfortable. It should be noted that this bar was unlike any I had ever been to before. When I walked in I saw a small countertop. Other than this the small 10x15’ room had walls lined with chairs, and a few people sitting around and discussing things in Luganda, the local tongue. At this point I became engaged in a conversation with a local. I was trying to prove to him that left handed people, such as myself, did not need to turn our paper sideways to write (although I am unsure what offense he took to this) and that we should therefore not be reprimanded for writing with our left hand in school. I proved this by writing “Hello, my name is Mike” on a napkin kept perfectly perpendicular to my body. At this he laughed and said that he was convinced and that since his own son’s name was Mike that I was now like a son to him. To prove this, he bought me several more drink, all of which showed up and were opened before I could refuse. I finally said I had had enough, thanked them and we returned home. At any rate I thought the difference in the cultural norms was worth noting.

Tuesday I returned home to find a brother (in the loose sense of the term) who I had yet to actually meet waiting for me. He asked me to attend his rotary meeting with him. Though I was pretty wiped out (as I am everyday after classes) I did not want to be rude and consented to go. I later learned that his name was Kevin, and that he too is attending University and studying economics. Though my Dad is a Rotarian at home, I have never been to a meeting and therefore know very little about what meetings in the states are like. But here they had a fairly relaxed jovial attitude, couched in a very formally structured meeting. It went smoothly until for some reason the president asked me to present a member with a congratulatory card everyone had signed. This was embarrassing, as I first had to ask her what she had done.

I bring up the rotary meeting because I think Dad would be interested to hear that the reason Kevin is so active in Rotary at such a young age is because they have agreed to pay all his college expenses. I know that local clubs in the states have agreed to help out with college fees, but in Uganda, to offer someone the chance to go to school is to offer then an entirely different life. They and their children are freed from the underclass to which they would otherwise forever be ensnared. There is no option for most Ugandan’s to pay for school. Our lecturer today informed us that the average income per capita for Uganda is 65 cents/day. As a result I believe that only something like five percent of Ugandan’s ever graduate college. Anyway I was touched, and thought Dad would be touched that an organization with which he is involved in making a real difference for real people in an area of the world that needs it about as much as anyone.

So I have fallen into a routine, and am living the busy life of a Ugandan University student. Though this is somewhat tiring, I am learning more than I ever would have back at school (mostly outside of the classroom, though I suppose a little inside as well). If you’ve noticed no further comments about Uganda’s extreme natural beauty this is because I have not left the city, which is a dusty eyesore, since my last post. Though I am enjoying myself very much, I am also looking forward greatly to our excursions out into rural Uganda. Well, that’s pretty much everything for now. Until next time, Kwaheri…. I think that’s the right way to say goodbye everyone…..

First Impressions

The following is actually two posts written on different days but because of the limited internet access I have posted together.

2/6/08

So I’m finally posting my first official blog. Internet is much less readily available than previously thought. Although Internet cafés are plentiful in downtown Kampala I have had next to no free time between orientation programs and trying to overcome jetlag. I imagine once I set into a routine and move in with my homestay family I will find a set amount of time a week to spend in communication with home.

For those of you trying to find Kampala on a map now would probably be a good time to note that despite the title of this blog “mykenyaexperience” I am actually in the capital city of Uganda. The program was moved because SIT decided that the situation in Kenya was far more volatile than previously thought. By the looks of it, they seem to have been right.

Uganda is a beautiful country; it is far more luscious than Kenya (at least what I saw of Kenya from the air and while laying over in Nairobi) and was apparently dubbed the “pearl of Africa” by Winston Churchill for its beauty. I had always assumed that accounts of the extreme friendliness of Uganda people was a gross generalization, but all that I’ve come into contact with so far have been without exception inexplicably nice. Strangers will approach you on the street, instantly setting you on your guard, but they seem to genuinely want nothing more than to say hello and find out what brings you to their city. I think that since this is a relatively unfrequented tourist destination, the people have not yet become savvy to the many ways in which they can take advantage of unsuspecting foreigners. They are also just plain nice people.

The attitude of the people creates a feeling of safety I was not expecting. Even street vendors back off once you show that you are uninterested. Though there are armed guards scattered around the city at various street corners, they also share the friendly Uganda spirit. We noted that they were not to be intimidated by as we drove by the Parliament building on our city tour the other day, and saw a group of guards, rifles slung over their shoulders, enjoying their afternoon by gardening in the flower beds in front of the building.

The trip over was very long but was also interesting since we were traveling in a large group. An entire weekend of navigating foreign airports is probably the best icebreaker we could have had. With the exception of missing our final flight from Nairobi to the Ugandan airport at Entebbe the trip went smoothly. However it was still very tiring, we left early Saturday morning and did not arrive in Uganda until after midnight on Sunday, all without a full night’s sleep in between. Sleep depravation also proved to be a fairly effective icebreaker.

All the people in my group seem cool so far. There are 17 students in all, 15 girls myself and one other boy. It strikes me as strange that women are so over represented in study abroad, but I suppose they are also overrepresented in the social sciences upon which this program is based. I have gotten to know the one other boy, Brendan, fairly well, since he is my de facto roommate whenever the group is staying in one place. Though he is very soft spoken, he seems pretty easy going and I imagine that as the only two boys on the trip we will become pretty good friends. All the girls are also very nice, and everyone seems to get along with each other pretty well. Everyone became friends with each other astonishingly quickly.

We have two program directors, Jamal and Odoch, both of whom go by their first names, and are very relaxed. While it is apparent that the teacher student relationship is quite different in Africa, it is hard to imagine that they will be our classroom instructors in the upcoming weeks. Both are from the Kenya program and are therefore often as lost as we are in Uganda. Odoch is originally from the North of Uganda, but has not lived there in over 40 years. Jamal is from Mombassa, and is completely unfamiliar with Uganda. He is very reserved, and seems fairly disappointed that the program was not in Kenya. Despite this, once you talk to him a little bit he both helpful and very entertaining. Odoch is a very interesting person. He always has interesting stories, but tells them in such a way that you don’t understand why they are interesting until the final sentence. His history is something of a mystery, but he seems ambiguously more accomplished than one would first assume. He has apparently played for the national Ugandan cricket team, and has also professionally coached teams. He also seems to have been an important figure in politics at one time. He told us a story about how he was dissatisfied with something the minister of agriculture was doing, so he decided to go have a talk with him to express his displeasure. He did not seem to think this personal relationship with high political figures seemed uncommon for a study abroad professor. It also struck me as strange that he had done so much in such a short lifetime, by the looks of him he could be no older than 55. The group could also not understand why Jamal continually referred to him as “mzee” or old man. We were surprised to learn that he is in fact upwards of 70. We learned this directly after he had hung up the phone with his parents. People here strangely seem to age much slower. We were shocked to learn that our bus driver who looks to be about 27 is actually 43. They swear that Africans eat only the freshest food, and that this helps them to preserve their youth. I don’t know if this is true, but for the moment I think I’m going to try to stay away from any high fructose corn syrup.

There is so much more to write about. So much has happened in just four days of being here. However, even if I said everything, it wouldn’t come close to describing what it is like here. In the interest of preserving my audience I think I’ll drop it off for today and pick up with something a little more specific in my next post. Until then I hope everyone is enjoying the states, or wherever you may be this semester.

2/8/08

Today we had our first two official lectures today. We were joined up with the original SIT Uganda program (I suppose we are still officially the SIT Kenya program). We had met a few of these fellow muzungus (Lugandan term for white) both on the street; we are kind of easy to pick out since muzungus stick out like a sore thumb. We also met a few others at our hotel yesterday where they came to take class since the Makerere University was momentarily on strike. It seems as though everywhere we go we bring bad luck. Luckily, however, the strike seems to have ended and we had our lectures at the University today, and this was the first time we’ve met all the students from the Ugandan program, 29 in all. They have been here a week longer than us, and so every time we’ve met our encounters have chiefly been us asking them questions about the upcoming week, such as what their homestay’s are like and how classes have gone etc. They all pretty nice and helpful but they strangely seem like a much different group than our own. Perhaps this is because they are both a big enough group to effectively have cliques, and they’ve been in the program long enough to begin to break off and do their own thing. Nonetheless they have been friendly and welcoming, and we are trying to plan something with them tonight.

The lectures were very interesting. They were basically to give us a brief history of Uganda and the development problems in the country and Africa in general. Dr. Frank Nabwiso gave the development speech. He is not only a distinguished scholar in East African development but was also a member of the Ugandan parliament from 2001-2006 and a political dissenter who had spent ten years in exile in Kenya during Uganda’s one party system in the 90s. It seems as though African place high value on scholarship, and many cross over from the academic world into politics, something that seems fairly uncommon in US politics and I think should be admired. Anyway his talk was impassioned only slightly polemic, and extremely informative.

My first impressions of the school are that it feels a little bit like Hogwarts. I say that because, like I said, it seems that many of the professors are also important political figures who are very active in the region. Also since until recently Makerere is the oldest and I would assume largest University in East Africa it has an interesting history and many important figures passed through it, including the current alleged President of Kenya, Kibaki. Dr. Nabwiso also mentioned the time when Ede Amin’s (the guy from The Last King of Scotland) son enrolled at the University during the 70s. He was allowed arm himself with pistols, walk around with body guards, and apparently take any female student he pleased, and the University was helpless. This seemed a little bit like what would have happened if Voldemorte had enrolled a son at Hogwarts at some point in the seventh book.

In contrast to a day of classroom lectures, yesterday our assignment was to go out into the city and find our way around. We were broken into groups of two or three and given specific things to find information on, market places, schools, medicine, entertainment, etc. Our group was charged with finding information on how the group could entertain themselves while in Kampala. To this end we searched the city for theatres, clubs, restaurants and anything else of interest. Using what little Lugandan we knew we asked around for places negotiated the taxi system (which is very different from the taxi system in America) and most importantly overcame our fear of crossing the street. While this sounds strange and vaguely Mitch-like, the streets here are far more congested than any I’ve seen in the states, there are apparently no traffic rules, when traffic is especially crowded cars will even go onto the sidewalk, mopeds and motorcycles continually weave in and out of traffic, they drive on the other side of the road, and apparently no one has ever heard of the pedestrian rite of way.

This experience overall served to reinforce my original notion that the people here are extremely friendly and eager to help foreigners. When looking around we asked a group of police officer, who as aforementioned are armed with anything from billy clubs, to tommy guns, shotgun and rifles. Despite this intimidating display, and allegations from the people that the police are notoriously corrupt, an officer from the group smiled at us, applauded our efforts at the native language, and proceeded to tell us in broken English to walk down the street, stop and the nearest traffic circle, and from there to ask someone else. Even though he wasn’t much help, you got to give it to the guy for trying.

That’s all for today, I’ve got to go get ready to go out, hopefully meet up with the kids from the Ugandan program, and get to know some more fellow muzungus.