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 5th year of secondary school, which means he had to pass a test with sufficient marks after his 4th 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.
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