Remember

As I prepare to leave Uganda to return to the States, I thought I would look back on this semester and record some of the more memorable times.

5 Not-so-Happy

5. Apallon's speech: My assistant director Apallon gave us a lecture on the politics of memory and memorializing the genocide. He designed many of the major genocide memorials in Rwanda, including Gisozi and Murambi (both below). Everyday for three weeks before the lecture we had seen him, hung out with him, joked with him. Before his lecture, he gave us his testimony. We knew he had lost some family in the genocide, but we never knew to what extent. He saw the death of his father, the death of his mother by the hands of his good childhood friend, the death of his brother, sister-in-law, and their unborn baby, as well as the death of his brother’s killer. It was surreal to see this normally strong, laughing man shaking and emotional.

4. Gisozi: Gisozi is the main national genocide memorial and museum center in Rwanda. It is the memorial that honors and houses the dead of Kigali during the genocide. It also serves as an informative museum. It reminds me of the Holocaust museum in DC except more graphic and intentionally more emotional. It has one section that takes visitors through the history of the Rwanda genocide, a section that informs visitors about other noteworhty genocides and ethnic cleansings of the 20th century, and a section on the children who died in the genocide. It is moving, horrible, informative, and beautiful.

3. My Rwandan family's story: My Rwandan family was deeply affected by the genocide as were most families in Rwanda. While I do not want to tell my family's personal story in a side note in a blog, I will tell anyone who asks in person. My family has asked me to share their story. They were attacked, lost members of their family, and finished 1994 as refugees. I will remember my relationship with them, the strength of my family, and their story of how hate leads to unnecessary pain.

2. Child Soldier: The lawyer who heads the Amnesty Department for former child soldiers gave us a lecture. He brought with him a former child soldier to tell her story as an example for why child soldiers deserve amnesty. As she began to tell her story, she started stumbling over her words and crying. The lawyer urged her to continue beyond her quiet tremors. He allowed her to take a break. When she began again, she started to talk about how a 16 year-old boy was killed in front of her eyes. When she got to the part about how her friend couldn't keep up with the group she trailed off before she could say that her friend was murdered. She is trying to keep herself in check, but she's sobbing silently and can't get any more words out. And what does the laywer who is paid to defend her do? He yells at her to continue. And when she can't, no matter how much he berates her, he turns to us and says, "You see what she is? This is called traumatization. She is traumatized." Most disgusting thing I have ever, ever seen. Finally our director stands up and tells the lawyer to move on. That she was forced to tell a story that retraumatized her in front of a bunch of white people while her lawyer yelled at her for crying, it still makes me nauseous.

1. Murambi: Murambi is a memorial site where 50,000 people were killed within three days of the genocide. The families of the deceased have decided to preserve some of the bodies and display them for visitors as a visually shocking "Never again" statement. It was a technical school on top of a hill where the Tutsis were told by their mayor to seek refuge. When you visit the memorial, you walk through classroom after classroom where hundreds of bodies are on display. They are frozen in the positions that they died. You can see sawed off limbs, evidence of sadistic torture before the final end, mothers and children killed together, mouths silently screaming for mercy, and smashed babies. It is utterly, devastatingly, violently hell on earth. A hell I will never, ever, in all of my nightmares and in all of my days, forget.

Because this semester was not all doom and gloom, I want to finish my final blog and my semester with my happy memories.

5 Happy

5. The scenery: The most beautiful places I have ever seen. I have been so fortunate to travel to these places, see landscapes other people only dream about, and have the familiarity to take advantage of it. I try to appreciate it for everything it is, but I don’t think I will fully recognize how lucky I am until I return to the States. Here’s to hoping Senegal is as beautiful!

4. The discovery of what I want to do: Because of what I have seen and done here, this program affirmed my future aspirations. I have officially decided to pursue a career in peace and conflict studies. While I do not have a job picked out because that’s too limiting, it is nice to have a grad degree picked out and possible internships to consider.

3. That nothing is unbearable: Living in these two war torn countries, hearing stories of terror and horror, you accept that humanity is capable of great evil. There is no denying it. But beyond the fear, beyond the pain, beyond the loss, lies another adage: Humanity is capable of great strength. This strength might show itself through the story of a hero who steps in front of fire to save a fellow human being. But more commonly, it surfaces in the story of the survivor. The survivor who survived something no one should survive. And while it’s awful to hear these stories, it’s painful, and disgusting, after so many stories you start to recognize the power of humanity to live. Through the physical and psychocosial ailments, the body and the spirit heal. Maybe not as good as before, but enough to go on living, to make a new life beyond the conflict. As odd as it sounds, it’s comforting to know we can bear the unbearable. Life does go on.

2. The strength of Rwanda and my Rwandan family: There’s nothing like being in Rwanda and seeing what it’s become. Sure there are problems and there is leftover animosity, but what that country has done, what it’s people have done, is mind-blowing, it’s unfathomable. It is all due to the character of the people and to its leaders. While the mistakes should not be overlooked, the virtues are not praised enough. Victims living next to perpetrators, forgiveness, strength, heart, surviving, life. My family was the perfect example. My mother is such a strong, gracious, beautiful soul. She cared for her family when times were impossible, she searched the world for her children, healed when there was little reason to live, and believes in unity, peace, and forgiveness in spite of everything. Living with that character taught me about what it means to live for God and for your family and for life itself.

1. I will never forget the amazing people I met this semester. They are: Waleed, Metia, Yasmin, Dean, Peace, Godfrey, my Rwandan mommy, David, Nadine, Confiance, Enzo, Doudou, Thammika, Tomomi, Kai, Taylor, and Danielle. All my love.

And so I conclude my amazing, life-altering semester.

Cheers to Egypt, Uganda, and Rwanda!!!

Dumb Things Nancy has Done or Said in Africa: Part Two

5. Money at Night: Simple mistake. I bargained 500 for a moto, which is about a dollar, reached into my wallet and pulled out of a 500 bill. Or what I thought, in the dark of night, looked like a 500 franc bill. What I actually pulled out was a 5,000 franc bill, which roughly equals $10. That’s right. I paid $10 for a ten minute ride on a motorcycle.

4. Laughing at Gisozi: We’d already been to so many memorials and we’re only human. We went to the national genocide museum, which also happens to be the memorial site for all of the people who died in Kigali during the genocide. My friend was having a mental freakout about something ridiculous that had happened on the bus ride over and we were making fun of her. We were laughing. People were mourning about 20 yards away from us. We were stupid and we stopped the second we realized. But I still feel bad about it.

3. Yelling and a Kid: This kid came up to us selling peanuts. My friend and I bought some, even though we knew they were slightly overpriced. But the kid was polite, spoke great English, and didn’t bother us too much. As we walked away, a neighborhood woman greeted him cheerfully. Twenty seconds later, the kid came running back to us saying, “I am sorry. I forgot to tell you I am hungry. I need money. Please help me.” I don’t know what happened to me. It was the combination of the number of times kids have done this to me before, the knowledge that this woman had told him to do this even though he is clearly not wanting, and the culture of begging that adults are instilling in these kids – I just blew up. I gave a frustrated, aggressive, explosive shriek. “What are they teaching these kids!?!” I didn’t yell at the kid per se, but I yelled in his vicinity. He backed away from me, apologizing profusely. He gave me the look you would give an unstable person having an episode. I calmed down and apologized right away. But I still feel like shit when I think about it.

2. Public discussion of the genocide: I was in a public internet café when my friend leaned over and softly read me an email about a prominent post-genocide figure. I responded by telling her what this figure had said in an interview I had read. Basically, I loudly and publicly declared that this famous person denied that it was a genocide of the Tutsis and insinuated it was actually a genocide of Hutus. The problem is not that I talked about this person. The problem is that 1) I used the ethnic terms, which no one really discusses anymore; and 2) that I even said the phrases “not a Tutsi genocide,” “genocide against Hutus.” The people in the internet café had complete right to hate me and try to kick me out. That I even dared to talk about their lives in such an easy way, in public no less. No one seemed horribly upset but I could tell people definitely noticed. I was a fool and so unaware of my surroundings.

1. April Birthdays: The genocide began in April. The majority of the people died in April and at the beginning of May. All of the major massacres happened in April and any family member I know of who died, died in April. So my brother Confiance and I are visiting my brother-in-law Darius. My brother is asking questions to get to know me. He asks me when my birthday is and I tell him April 8. Darius tells me his birthday is in April too. April 12th. Confiance’s birthday is also in April, April 24. I love people with April birthdays. And me being me, I forgot that I was in Rwanda and said the dumbest, worst thing I have ever said. “April is the best month, isn’t it!” Right after the words came out of my mouth I realized what I said. I actually buried my head in my hands. Darius was sweet about it. He ruefully replied, “Well, not in Rwanda.” He knew I knew I had made a mistake so it wasn’t too bad. I apologized and he just nodded his head half amused, half sad, and changed the topic. But considering he had probably lost family in April, I felt awful. Just so, so awful.

So there is the compilation of my dumbest moments in Africa so far. I was brutally honest and I hope you don’t judge me too much. I made some small mistakes and some huge mistakes. But I always knew right after that I had made a mistake. And I have learned from them.

Dumb Things Nancy has Done or Said in Africa: Part One

So I’ve said and done some pretty dumb things here and I thought, in all fairness, I should recount my mistakes as well as my triumphs. It’s part of the cultural experience, right?

From least dumb to dumbest:
10. 1st Time I Washed my Clothes By Hand: My sister stared in horror as I weakly scrubbed random parts of my shirt and then wrung the water out inch by inch. My brother’s 24 year-old friend fell out of his chair laughing. I pretended to ignore them, not in the mood to be patronized to. My brother’s friend told me I wasn’t getting the dirt out of my clothes that way and I retorted I was doing fine by myself. He disagreed and demonstrated, according to him, the “right” way to do it. I must admit that his way was better. Considering he’s been doing this all his life and I was just in a bad mood, I quickly adopted his methods and can now wash my clothes by hand. Kind of.

9. Walking in on My Brother in the Bathroom: Third day with my family, I went to the bathroom to shower. The bathroom door is always shut. I knocked but my brother said something from across the hall, trying to warn me to not open the door. My brother in the bathroom also said something. But people here don’t speak loudly ever, even in urgent situations like these, and with noise coming from both sides of me, I didn’t understand what was being said. I opened the door to the picturesque sight of my brother, who I have only known two days, sitting on the toilet. I backed out quickly and had to force myself to make eye contact with him at breakfast. What a great first impression to make on my family.

8. “Can I Take a Picture?”: We were warned to always ask people’s permission before we take a picture of them. My Ugandan brother Dean told me he gets mad when foreigners take pictures of him without asking. Well, 3 weeks into the homestay I cooked dinner for my family and wanted to record the event. I brought out the camera and asked Dean if I could take a picture of him, to be polite, you know? He burst out laughing. He said it’s fine to take pictures of people you know, family and friends. He shook his head at my fumbling, awkward question and I felt like an idiot.

7. Nakivale Refugees: On our last day in Uganda, on our way to Rwanda, we stopped at a refugee camp. We split into two groups. One group talked with a small group of Rwandan Hutu refugees, many of whom are suspected of being genocidaires. The other group talked to a large group of Congolese refugees. I was in the Congolese group and only heard about the Hutu group. Two days after the refugee camp, we met our Rwandan families for the first time. And on that first night, I mentioned I stopped in Mbarara and visited Nakivale. Don’t ask me why I felt the need to include this information. Really, I shouldn’t have. My brother David took the bait and asked if we talked to Hutu refugees. I told him part of our group had. He asked me what the refugees said about why they would not return to Rwanda. Now I knew I was in a tight spot – his voice was full of contempt. I told him the half truth: that the refugees were afraid to return because they thought the government would arrest them and torture them to admit to something they may or may not have done. My brother’s observant and judgmental smile, suggested volumes about his opinion. “Rwanda is safe. They should return. Rwanda is safe.” I had nothing to say to that so we sat in silence for a few seconds before Mommy was kind enough to change the topic.

6. C’est bien and c'est bon: C’est bon and c’est bien are not interchangeable in French, but it’s tricky to figure out when one is used instead of the other. I knew there were multiple instances for when you used c’est bon, but I came down with amnesia and just stuck to what I remembered: c’est bon is for food. But there were other times I would accidentally switch them up. My mommy is too sweet to correct my horrible, ridiculous, amaterurish mistakes (really, I learned this in French I). So for a month and a half I would make mistakes with the two before I started to clear up the instances when one is used instead of the other.

Daily Annoyances in Rwanda

I have a small confession - I don't love EVERY moment in Africa. Here is a small sample of my daily annoyances in Rwanda that I don't find joy in:

“Ssssssttttt! Sssst. Ssssssssssssttttttttt! Mazungu! Mazungu!” [I turn. They laugh]. I walk for 30 seconds down the road before I hear, “Ssst. Ssssssttt. Sssssssssssssstttttttttt! Mazungu! Mazungu! Mazungu!” [I turn. It’s new people. These new people laugh. And watch me walk away until I’m out of sight].

Walking up hills. Then walking down. Then walking up again. And, finally, when you think you are going to pass out in the middle of the street and beg for water, you reach your destination.

I just walked up and down and up a bunch of hills, on the side of the street no less, with cars whizzing by me. I am covered in sweat, dust, and car exhaust. I really need to take a shower. [I walk to the bathroom. I turn the shower faucet on. It wheezes, and shakes, like a Little Faucet that Could. Except that it can’t. After four drops leak out of the shower head and mockingly moisten my hand, the faucet shutters to a stop. Yelling to my roommates at the top of my lungs] “We’re out of water! Again.” [Three responding groans echo through the house. The Gods laugh.]

I’m reading a really good book. I’m on the edge of my seat, almost done. I won’t let myself go to bed before I know the ending. Right as I turn to the last page, the light of the world dies and darkness reigns. I sigh, exasperatedly, and sit in complete darkness, waiting. And waiting. And waiting some more. It’ll happen. You just have to be patient. So I wait. But I’m not a patient person. I scramble in the pitch black for my phone. I accidentally knock it off the table and my cheap phone shatters on the hard floor. I fall to my knees and grope in the darkness for the pieces. I find them and clumsily piece my phone back together. I push the power on, reset the time, pretend to know the date, and turn the phone’s flashlight on. As I sit back down, shining my phone’s brightness on the book’s last page, the darkness flickers once, twice, and then God shines light once again upon me. I turn off the flashlight and finish my book and go to bed.

I’m in a rush. I don’t have time for a bus (called a taxi here). I flag down a moto (a motorcycle) and tell them my location. “Karibu.” “Karibu?” “Karibu.” At the moto driver’s confused look, I question, “Tu connais?” He lifts his eyebrows, which signifies ‘Sure, why not.’ I ask, “N’agahe?” “1500.” My mental Hah! escapes my lips in a snort. “Ni menshi. Gabanya, gabanya. 500.” Now it’s the driver’s turn to snort. He looks away, looks back at me, and says “1000.” I manage to keep my laugh suppressed but shake my head with a smile. “C’est très chère. No mazungu price. 500.” He laughs but shakes his head. But I can tell I’m winning him over. “I know it is 500. Je connais.” He looks away, looks back at me, studies me a moment. “700.” “500.” “700.” I pause, frustrated, knowing the price is 500 but also remembering I’m in a hurry. With a small stamp of my foot, I resign. “600.” He nods quickly, obviously waiting for me to say that price. He hands me the helmet, I snap the loose chin straps, straddle the seat, and away we go!

21st Birthdays

Last night we celebrated my friend’s 21st birthday. We went to an Indian restaurant, drank beer, and had a spongy, kind-of-tasteless, but icing-ed cake! Fun, random Tuesday night and Saturday we are going to Heaven to see The Nightmare Before Christmas and Julie and Julia during Happy Hour. Heaven, movies, and Happy Hour, what more could you ask for?

Heaven is an American restaurant that is crazy expensive but has good happy hour specials. On Saturday nights they show movies. They also offer unlimited free internet. Heaven’s pretty grand.

Speaking of 21st birthdays, mine is coming up! In four months. For those of you who haven’t heard, I have been accepted to the Dakar, Senegal study abroad program for next semester, which is where I will be celebrating my 21st. Guess where, according to the program’s schedule, I will be on my super important, once-in-a-lifetime, epic birthday. No, not the beautiful beaches Senegal is well-known for. Guess again. Nope, I won’t be hiking in the green hill country. Try again. A mazungu resort you say, for my week long Spring Break? No, my spring break is in March. My birthday is in April. You really need to work on your guessing skills.

My super important, once-in-a-lifetime, epic 21st birthday will take place during the ONLY week we are in our rural homestays, separate from everyone else in the group. Four days of the whole semester I will be staying in the middle of nowhere with people I don’t know and my super important, once-in-a-lifetime, epic 21st birthday just happens to fall within those four days.

At least it’s a super important, once-in-a-lifetime, epic story to tell my children. What other American has their 21st birthday in the middle of Nowhere, Africa? And because I don’t deserve your forthcoming pity, I must tell you that the day after my birthday we all return to Dakar and can celebrate then. So I get a super important, once-in-a-lifetime, epic story while also getting to do the traditional drinking and partying thing with my friends. Really, I get the best of both worlds. Only in Africa.

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving my friend Thammika and I went to this delicious (and expensive) pizza place. The restaurant was gorgeous, the atmosphere was relaxed, and the food was real – they had actual mozzarella! My friend had her first salad in three months and I had my first actual pizza in three months. I designed it myself! A dough base with marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, pili pili sausage (sausage cooked in chili sauce), green pepper, tomato, and basil. So good. I also ordered a juice concoction of pineapple juice, grenadine, passion fruit juice, and Smirnoff. Yummy.

Then Thammika and I re-enacted our lives in America, just chilling and chatting at the restaurant for a couple of hours. Then we got hit on by drunk older South African men (which does not happen in my American life), bailed, and went to the casino. Where we ran into the same South African guys, only they were drunker. But my night ended well: I won $41 dollars!!!

Then I motorcycled home because it’s the cheapest way to travel at night. And the funnest. Talked to a good majority of my fam at home, which was super nice. It sucks I had to miss the holiday with them and the best meal of the year.

That was my first African Thanksgiving! I’m sure it won’t be the last, but it was epic all the same. Hope y’all had a Happy Thanksgiving!

How to Live in Africa with No Money - No, Seriously, Tell Me How.

So my research time has started. No more long lectures (2 hours! 3 lectures a day! German program director!) No more excursions. No more students – about ¾ went back to Uganda. I decided to do my research in Rwanda, considering it’s the reason I chose this program.

During our research time we are on our own. We’re handed some money and sent off into Africa. That money is very slim because, you see, everywhere in Africa is cheap. Africa is not developed. They can not compete in the world market. You can buy a meal for a dollar no matter where you go. Or so the SIT office in America thinks, an office which clearly does not hire anyone who has actually been to Africa.

Before coming to Rwanda I had heard that it was expensive. I, foolishly, interpreted that to mean expensive compared to Uganda and not expensive compared to the US. I was wrong. While many things are cheaper than in the US, things are definitely more expensive than I budgeted for. And everyday things that we don’t really think about in the US are crazy expensive here. Housing (Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa – land is hard to come by, especially in the capital), internet ($1 an hour – add up the amount of time you spend on internet a day and think about a college budget and then feel very, very sorry for me), and airtime (I spend about 10-15 dollars a week on phone calls because I have to call so many people about interviews). Basically, SIT sucks and is trying to steal our money. And I am the lone white person begging on the streets of Rwanda for the 20 cents that will get me 10 minutes of research time on the internet.

With all of the necessary costs that come along with research, housing was a joke. There was just no way to feed myself and to live in a student hostel all within the money SIT gave us. So I started searching for cheap places to stay in Rwanda back when I was in Uganda. I went on couchsurfers, an awesome website where people around the world let you stay on their couches for free while you travel the world. I posted a message asking if anyone knew of a cheap place and this Congolese guy responded saying he was going to Canada for the month and my friends and I could stay at his place. I met up with him here. He is an NGO worker who is starting a new program to combine soccer and forum theatre with kids as a form of informal peace education. He is super nice, speaks several languages, and offered to let me and my friends stay free of charge. We only have to pay for electricity and gas (a gas stove – I didn’t know those existed in Rwanda).

So now I have moved in with three other friends. And we definitely have the best living situation of all the people in the program. Sure sometimes our water runs out for days at a time and we live off the charity of our neighbors; and sometimes we slide down the driveway to our house and curse the person who decided making a driveway out of rocks in a country where it rains everyday was a good idea; and sure sometimes we accidentally tear our mosquito nets from the ceiling and aren’t tall enough to replace them. But overall I am having an amazing month in my gorgeously decorated, gate-enclosed, comfortable house in Rwanda. Life is good.

Except research is hard. And having no money while doing it is even harder.

Holiday and Halloween

It’s happy post time! I thought I would divide my posts into happy and unhappy posts because otherwise I might get bogged down posting about the “unhappy” and you might get the impression I am not having a fantastic time here (which I am).

To de-stress from all of the genocide memorials, my directors took us to the village of Kibuye to relax. How is a village relaxing, you ask? Well this particular village happens to be the home to a resort on Lake Kivu near the Congo border. And it is gorgeous. And I had one of the most relaxing times in my life there. I swam in the lake surrounded by islands, watched fun movies (as opposed to genocide movies, which we also watched but I’m pretending we didn’t), read fun books (as opposed to genocide books), hiked, ate a cheeseburger (a big treat here), and just gazed at my beautiful surroundings. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. My sanity, after all of the genocide, was restored. And when most of the students returned to Kigali, a few friends and I stayed for the weekend (for $6 a night!). Best weekend this semester by far.

Another happy event was Halloween. My director threw a party at our school and invited a bunch of her foreign friends; it was a nice change to talk to non-Africans and non-Americans. After the party a group of us went to the Kigali Casino. I walked away with money, which took care of my gambling debt from Kampala. We left the casino at closing time (5 am) and because none of us wanted to wake our families up, we decided to sleep in the lobby. During the two hours that we slept on the lobby couch not one hotel employee approached us to tell us to either pay for a room or leave. My theory is that when we do stupid stuff like this, that no one here would ever do, not even the youth, they honestly have no idea how to react. So they don’t react. Which means that you can pretty much get away with anything you want.
After our public sleeping, we bused it to town for a mazungu (white person) breakfast. Best omelet I have ever had. And the most expensive. Then I took my to-go coffee cup (so rare) to gacaca. Gacaca is a traditional justice system implemented post-genocide to prosecute genocide perpetrators. It is widely viewed as a productive and efficient traditional justice system, one of the best in the world. I have waited to attend a session for several years now. I will definitely write a separate post on the gacaca because I think it was relevant to understanding post-conflict justice.
Overall, awesome Halloween.

Yay for happiness!

Genocide Sucks

So I just wanted to give everyone a taste of where I'm at right now in Rwanda.

It's been hard. We've been doing all the memorials at the end of last week and today and tomorrow. We will get a break for three days at apparently this gorgeous location of Lake Kivu to process everything we've seen. To top it all off, my family decided this past weekend was the perfect time to tell me their story from the genocide.

I don't know. It's been hard. We saw a memorial at the national university on Thursday. Wednesday we saw a horrible, horrible memorial where you see all the bodies. And I still haven't fully processed it. And then today we went to the Kigali memorial, which is where my "Rwandan father" is probably buried. And the memorial was very much like the Holocaust museum, but even worse. You see so many awful pictures of mutilated people and streets covered in bodies. This museum also had an exhibit of other genocides that have happened throughout the world and the thing about Rwanda is that they want to tell you it like it is. The pictures were all graphic and I started to get a headache. I'm so tired of seeing dead bodies and people screaming in death and being surrounded by survivors who have horrible stories to tell me.

The last exhibit is an exhibit about the children of the genocide: the orphans and the ones that died. And they know where it hurts. They show these big, beautiful blown-up pictures of children and then have display boards giving you small facts about the children.

Name: Claudine
Age: 9
Favorite food: rice and sauce
Favorite drink: Fanta orange.
Favorite hobby: walking with her dad.
Characteristics: gregarious
Death: Machete to the head

Fuck the world and the people in it.

Sorry. It's just I feel like I'm surrounded by this all the time. Tomorrow I will go to 2 sites, one which is a church where thousands of people were massacred by the very priest that promised to protect them. And I don't get a break at home. I constantly imagine my family on the night they were dragged out of their house to be killed.

I'm just having a hard time right now. I just feel like there's death. Everywhere. I'm surrounded by an awful history of people in pain and I don't quite understand how everyone walks around like everything is okay.

Kigali: An African Anomaly

So I have been in Rwanda for about a week now. I've been a little behind on my Uganda posts so I haven't gotten a chance to post about Rwanda yet.

Kigali is fantastic. It's big and super developed and there are street lights everywhere and the buildings are really nice. The whole city was rebuilt after the genocide so it's basically brand new. Downside to all of that: Kigali's crazy development = American/European prices. No joke. In a "developping" country. So didn't count on that in my budget.

I have a new family! I have a Mamma, a 25 year-old sister named Nadine, a 21 year-old brother named David (pronounced Da-vide - it's French), and an 18 year-old brother named Confiance. They're all really nice. My mother speaks no English, just Kinyarwanda and French. My sister speaks little English, but my brother David's English is better than my French. They all speak fluent French. Confiance is learning both English and French. It's nice to be able to use my French but the language barrier is definitely much harder here than in Uganda.

The country changed it's national language from French to English about a year ago. It's a decision in a long line of decisions to disassociate Rwanda from France, who played a large role in supporting the genocide (a role which is ignored by the ICC). So now you have this country where everyone speaks Kinyarwanda and French, but no English. And in two years time, it will be impossible to get a job without knowing English. Enter me. Who speaks English. And can help my family start to learn. But my Mamma still wants me to speak French, which is nice.

I just wanted to give a quick recap of my Kigali life. Basically, it's awesome!

Acholi: Shakin' that Thang

So, yes, this is a long post. I'm horrible at editing my life. But it is a good life :)

It also has a very different tone than the last post (my days tend to do that here). Just be aware of that.

My last Sunday in Gulu was an interesting and amazing day. I started it with a community, born-again church service. When I say community, I mean a rectangular hut 2.5 kilometers outside of town serving the 30 surrounding families. About 15 adults and 20 children showed up. And me, the only white person to grace the doorless entrance. The service combined stereotypical traditional African religious elements with Western born-again practices. There was a dichotomy that blended into a new religious dimension that, seen from a looking glass, would be viewed as humorous, primitive, and otherworldly. But as a participant, it felt natural, sensible, and fun.

I, of course, got sat next to the screamer. Think your standard African war cry, but less intimidating, and you have the sound I heard throughout the service. It blended well with the small African drums and booming African voices singing to African religious songs. The children danced in front, facing the congregation. The leader, a young father, would continuously change the dance moves, creatively improvising rhythmic combinations, challenging the children to copy him. They were obviously enjoying themselves and I was too. I was mesmerized by the man, the most inventive, charismatic, and talented dancer I have ever seen. I was also mesmerized by the music and, after awhile, danced with the best of them. It was a 2 ½ hour service, but half of that was dancing and singing. The sermon was about sin and love and dedicating your life to Christ, like any born-again service, but it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting (my sister translated bits and pieces for me). In the middle of the service, there was an auction for a bucket of potatoes that one of the women in the congregation was selling. My family outbid everyone because they knew I liked potatoes. Everyone was very nice and I knew the pastor pretty well – he had come over periodically to my house to make sure I was learning “everything Acholi.”

Church was followed by a lazy Sunday afternoon talking with my brother about the upcoming election in 2011. It’s a big deal and a not big deal all at the same time. Right now no one thinks anything will change and after 23 years of having the same president and unfair elections, who can blame them. But I suspect that as the elections come closer and with the addition of Otunna, a former UN ambassador, on the possible candidate scene, things will get violent. My brother joked that he would come stay with me in America during the election months because he wanted to be anywhere other than Kampala. It’s weird to think that in two years time I’m going to think about his safety and read about the riots, hoping he’s okay. He said he doesn’t plan to participate in the riots – he doesn’t see the point at getting shot at for something that will never change. But he told me he had been in two previous riots where he was shot at and people were screaming and hitting the ground. It’s scary. Particularly considering the riots that happened in Kampala a couple of weeks ago. The other SIT study abroad group was on lockdown.

My brother told me he didn’t plan on voting this year. He said he didn’t see the point. Nothing would change; the election would be unfair. He would have to risk his life to vote for something that wouldn’t make a difference. Because it’s unlikely that something would happen to him at the polls in Kampala, I insisted he should vote. I tried to instill my American ideals about democracy onto him. I even compared Otunnu’s arrival as similar to what people were saying about Obama at the beginning. My brother just laughed and shook his head. He is so disillusioned with the system that he doesn’t even bother trying anymore. I told him I would email him on the day of elections to tell him to vote for me. He said he would be on lockdown at that point – but he would read my email if he had internet in his apartment.

When we finished our discussion, my brother, me, and the rest of the family trekked to the Homestay Farwell Party. It was fantastic. All you can eat and drink, including beer. When the students got up and introduced ourselves, our families screeched for us (that scream I told you about earlier). Then we had traditional Acholi dances performed for us and we all got up and joined in. My sister’s cousin is the Gulu representative for Acholi dancing and she taught me the moves. My sister, who is usually a badass Acholi woman, refused to perform the dance because she’s shy. But, once I had gone up there with her friends, she came up too. My brother took pictures and then joined in the boy’s line. I even learned how to screech. Really. It was a very in-the-moment, once-in-a-lifetime, one of the best days of my life kind of time. All inhibitions were dropped, everyone couldn’t stop laughing, and I shook my hips like an Acholi woman. It was fantastic.

When the traditional music stopped, they started playing modern Ugandan music and everyone came out and danced together, children and teenagers. I danced with my sister and played soccer with my younger brother, with whom my relationship had been previously stale due to the language barrier.

Two days later I said goodbye to my family. I brought out my gifts: a soccer ball, juice, a DC t-shirt, a book about Texas, and UNO cards. They genuinely loved them all and I was really pleased. We played UNO for about 2 hours and they read the Texas book and we played football, and my brother loved hearing about the places in DC and where they are all situated. They told me that they only say goodbye to the dead in Acholi culture so they told me they would see me later. My brother is planning to be in Kampala in December so I should see him again. My grandmamma sends her love and greetings to my American family.

Gulu was amazing and I loved my family. I will miss them and I do hope I see them again.

Difficult Decisions and their Impact

In previous posts, I have indicated Gulu’s violent history, a history I knew before I came. But being here adds a whole new level of understanding. I know I can never understand the lives of the people here, but there’s something about being here, about being in a place where such systematic and despicable evil has taken place, that makes one feel closer to the terror felt in the land.

When I’m lying in my bed, staring into the pitch blackness, unable to see three feet in front of me, I think of how my only recourse would be to hide under my bed if the LRA rebels were banging on my door. When I move through the tall, dense grass, I can see how the LRA could sneak through the bush undetected. When I’m in a car that’s driving through that tall, dense grass, my heart stops, waiting for the landmine explosion, rationally knowing they have all been removed. When I wake in the middle of the night to deafening thunder and barking dogs, I instinctively think that the rebels are returning and the thunder is their warning gunshots.

The majority of these thoughts are not rational. The landmines have been removed. The rebels are in the DRC and, if they did return to Uganda, we would know about it before they ever reached Gulu. We would have plenty of time to reach safety in Kampala. But rational thought has nothing to do with experiencing Gulu and its people.

I don’t know fear. I have no true concept of pain. But being in a place where people do, where they lived with fear and pain for 15 years, hearing their stories, brings me closer to the conflict. While I’ve heard many stories and seen many things during my time in Gulu, I want to share one story that hit me on a personal level. This is a story as told to me by my friend, as told to her by her homestay mother.

In 2005, right before the Juba Peace Talks, all but one of the seven kids in the family were kidnapped by the LRA and taken as child soldiers and child brides. On that awful, awful night the LRA came to the Gulu area. The mother woke in the middle of the night to loud banging, demanding she unlock the door. She knew who it was; she knew they would take her children; she knew her children would be forced to kill. She opened the door. She had no choice – they threatened to throw a grenade through the window if she didn’t.

This part of the story freaks me out. She told this very dead, very matter-of-fact. “I opened the door.” No explanation, no excuses. Just acceptance. To open the door, comprehending that the act would destroy your children, would annihilate their soul, must have been the hardest decision she had ever made. Her children’s death or the worst life a child could lead. She allowed her children to be kidnapped. She opened the door.

They were all taken, all but the baby on her hip. The LRA worried the baby might cry and alert the Ugandan army. In one night, she lost six children. This loss was amplified by the questions of whether they were alive, whether they had been forced to kill, whether they had been tortured or raped.

All but one of the kidnapped children have escaped and returned home. They are in school, continuing with their lives, all the while living with the horrors they saw in the bush. The parents claim that the girl who did not return is dead. They didn’t give details on her death or how they knew this.

The part of the story that strikes me is the return of the children. It is an amazing thing that most of them returned, particularly with the children so young – they ranged from 7-15. They returned from oldest to youngest. The older siblings left their younger siblings behind.

As the oldest of four, it is disconcerting, even disturbing, to imagine my family in the same situation. It is difficult to imagine me leaving behind my sisters and brother in such a despicable life, while I, who am old enough to plan a probable escape plan, flee to safety. It is difficult to imagine, but not impossible. In that situation, theoretically, you take any chance you get to escape because another may not come again for several years.

Escape is uncommon and dangerous. If you are caught, you will be killed, usually by another child soldier. The younger you are, the less likely you will escape successfully. It must have been difficult to decide to escape for the two oldest children (they escaped together). They left behind their brothers and sisters who were less able to escape. But it’s understandable, particularly considering they had probably been separated from their siblings for weeks. They had to get away.

That people were forced to do things that doomed their family or to abandon them makes me uncomfortable. Because those are the decisions, the acts that would drive me mad. The human brain can process many horrible acts, thoughts, or sights. But the personal element, the participation in a loved one’s destruction, is too awful for processing or comprehension. The human heart and the human brain are not built to handle the onslaught of that intensity of psychological violence.

I don’t know if I could do it. If I could unlock the door and watch my family walk into the night to live in hell. But I would.

I don’t know if I could flee to a better life, leaving behind my younger, more fragile, more incapable siblings to live in that hell. But I would (have to).

I don’t know if I could handle the guilt of the consequences of my decisions. I don’t think I could.

Thank God that most of the children returned and after less than a year in the bush. Thank God they escaped successfully. Thank God they have managed to continue with their lives.

The Food of Uganda: The Dilemma of a Full Stomach or Taste

Ugandans like their food salty and, if they can’t have it salty, they like it tasteless. Their diet consists of starch, starch, protein, and more starch.

Posho: This is their basic food. It’s corn ground into a powder, then mixed with water, until it’s a sticky, bread-like texture. It tastes like nothing. And it’s served with everything. Rice is the only substitute, but because rice is expensive and posho is super cheap, rice is hardly ever served. My family serves posho every night with either beans, a vegetable, or meat. It takes up the most space on the plate, is meant to be combined with the other dinner item, and is the main thing that fills you up. I didn’t mind it at first, but now I have to force it down. It’s aggravating that it’s tasteless and so heavy. I’m done with posho.

Beans: The beans here are phenomenal. I could eat just them day and night. I don’t know why they taste better here. It may be because they are one of the few things that have any taste, and a good taste at that.

Cassava: Ugandans are also addicted to cassava. Cassava is like a potato, but softer and slightly sweeter. I like cassava but my family serves it all the time. It’s not good enough to eat every day. I miss my Irish potatoes. They have Irish potatoes here, but I think my family looks down on them. According to my family, cassava is clearly better than potatoes. My family made me cassava French fries and, instead of specifying them as cassava chips, they just call them chips. One of the greatest disappointments of my life was when I bit into that fry, expecting potato-y goodness and instead got cassava okay-ness.

Vegetables: Most of the vegetables my family serves me are local vegetables that don’t exist in America. One looks like peas in their pod, but it’s a bean. The other three look like spinach leaves, but aren’t spinach. All of them only have a little flavor and the flavor they do have is not that pleasant. But it’s eatable for a short amount of time. But I’m starting to reach my limit.

Maloqoin: It’s a clump of green paste, which is considered their best dish. It has taste. This is the only dish they eat with potatoes. The first two times I had maloqoin, I ate it by itself and hated it. The third time I ate it with the potatoes and actually thought it was alright.

Matoke: Boiled plantains. I suspect they like this dish is because boiling plantains takes the flavor out of them. If they add onions and tomatoes to flavor it, it’s actually not bad.

Groundnut sauce: peanut butter but liquid-ier. It’s delicious.

Avocado: They eat avocado with anything. But they eat it by itself (with salt of course!). They think it’s strange that when we eat it, it’s in something. I once got served avocado with spaghetti. And also fries. I don’t love avocado, but I eat it. I like the taste of nutrition, a rare taste here.

Cabbage: Also something I’ve started eating here. I’m obsessed. Why haven’t my parents ever served me it? I made some cabbage for my family, because they can’t afford it, and we seasoned it with mushroom powder, onions, and tomatoes. If we hadn’t eaten it with posho, the meal would have been fantastic.

Fish: First time I’ve ever had to stare at the fish’s face as I ate it. No de-boning before serving here.

Breakfast for Dinner: I tried to explain some American food to my family. I made them “pancakes” and scrambled eggs, but it didn’t quite turn out American. But they seemed to like it okay.

Mashed potatoes: I also tried to explain mashed potatoes to them, a staple in my American home. They reacted with revulsion and swore they would never eat it. I was shocked and angry. Eventually, after my temperature rose a few notches, I realized their disgust stemmed from their worry about digestion. The idea of milk and potatoes together doesn’t sit right with their stomachs. I also found out later that most Ugandans are lactose intolerant, just because they’re not use to milk or cheese – no refrigeration. I calmed myself with the thought that I know they would love mashed potatoes and they can digest them just fine. They don’t know what they’re missing.

Bats, Geckos, and Chickens, Oh My!

- There was a bat in my house.

As I am walking into my house one night, my brother Dean asks me, “Nancy, you’re not afraid of bats, are you?” I immediately ducked down and ran outside. Dean followed, laughing, and begged me to come back inside. When I refused, he pulled out the time-old, “Come on, be a strong Acholi woman.” My “fuck you” in response was perhaps strong, but warranted. He tried to comfort me by saying the bat was just trying to escape the rain. It rains everyday. I was not comforted. Then he tried to convince me that I would be safe underneath the mosquito net. Because I could see no other option, other than sleeping under the rain outside or on the floor in the bug-infested hut, I told my brother to unlock my door and I would race to my bed. Thankfully, before this desperate action could be carried out, the bat flew out the open door into the night, leaving behind a relieved, but still shaky 20 year-old American girl.

- There are geckos in my pit latrine.

My pit latrine is roach infested by night and gecko infested by day. While I don’t even bother befriending the roaches, I have no choice during the day. I can’t go outside because people can see. These geckos are big, annoying, and gross. Fortunately, I think they’re scared of me. When I open the door and make noise, they crawl away. Then I quickly go in, do my business, and get out, all the while ignoring the sounds of crawling geckos plotting to ambush me. If you don’t think about it and you keep your eyes down, then geckos don’t exist. That is, until they crawl out of the hole, around your feet, and up the wall right in front of your face.

- My family tried to get me to slaughter a chicken.

I laughed in their faces.

- I was attacked by a goat.

Well, really it popped out of the grass at my feet and I thought it was a rampaging cow so I jumped two feet back. But it sounds cooler to say the goat attacked me.

These are just a few of my many interactions with the animals I come into contact with everyday. I’ve grown to have a fondness for the neighbor’s roosters bobbing around in my living room while also imagining slaughtering them every morning when they crow right outside my window. African animals and I have a dynamic love-hate relationship.

Cultural Differences

Dirt: No matter how hard you scrub, no matter how thorough you think you are, your feet will never be clean again.

Mud: It sucks. My pants are permanently rolled up to my calves. My legs are usually spattered in wet dirt. Rainy season go away!

African time: It's slow and untimely. It's relaxing at times, but frustrating at others. You can be 45 minutes late for something and people won't bat an eye.

Handshake: They have the coolest handshake. It has three parts: 1)You greet someone and grab their hand, as if to shake it the American way, although you don't move the hands up and down, you keep them still; 2) both parties move their hands up the hands to semi-clasp thumbs; 3) both parties fluidly move their hands back into the original position for a final clasp. They do it as if it's no big deal and it's really awesome. You feel very smooth and gangsta when you do it.

Talk: Ugandans talk in African time. They also have a policy to never, EVER be direct. Questions are not to be answered, they are to be naviagted. Random stories must be told, illogical leaps taken, phrases must be repeated. Answers must also include an interjected "what" in the middle of your sentence. For example: "You add the tea leaves, you spoon sugar, and then you - what? - you mix." Or: "You step on the egg and tell the truth. Then you have done - what?" Pause for response. Me: ". . . a traditional ceremony ?" Them (without reacting to my answer) "reintegrated into society." Then you mentally scream because how in the hell were you suppose to guess that exact combination of words? You are not a mind reader! Why couldn't they have just finished their damn sentence.

African English: "English started in Britain, went to Asia and got sick, got even sicker in America, and died in Africa."

Sorry: When you trip or hurt yourself, they say "Sorry, sorry."

Not so much: It means "I don't know," not "No." As in "Has your NGO fed any other rebel groups?" Response: "Not so much."

Already: It means nothing. Example: "We are already in Kitgum." The 3 hour ride to Kitgum was long and arduous and this is how our arrival is announced. He means: "We are in Kitgum." The phrase brings much-needed, unintended humor to an aggravating arrival.

Satisfied: They ask if you are satisfied all the time to make sure you've had enough to eat or aren't too cold or don't want more water for a shower.

Somehow: They say this a lot when they mean somewhat. As in, "Do you speak Acholi?" "Somehow."

Thick-headed: Women who oppose the brideprice because they think they are being sold are called "thick-headed." It has no direct translation in American English, but many connotations, including stubborn, foolish, unlikeable, unattractive, stupid, untraditional, and dense.

Fed up?: Are you full?

Are you with me? Are we together?: Our lecturers say this all the time, the exact same phrase, the exact same way.

Take: instead of "eat." As in "Did you take enough?"

Eat, eat!: They command you to do things when they really mean, "Please, eat." They don't mean it to sound aggressive, but it does.

Yes: They give abrupt answers to questions that actually require explanations. For example: "Did you buy anything in town today?" Response: "Yes." Then they trun their back and start a new activity without telling you what they bought.

Smart: Sharp. Example: "You look smart today." Translation: "You are dressed sharply today - you look very nice."

You're welcome: They only have the concept of "you're welcome" as in "You are welcome to my home or my shop or to Gulu." When they say "thank you" and I respond with "You're welcome," they look at you like you're crazy and say thank you.

Pedatoi (spelling most definitely wrong): "Not so much." Understanding this Acholi phrase took me awhile. This is their response to "Affoyo," which means thank you in Acholi. When I asked for translation, incorrectly thinking it meant "You're welcome," they told me it meant "Not so much." When I asked what that meant in the context of the thanking situation, they couldn't clarify for me. I asked three different people who all translated it as "not so much" before I got more of an explanation. It does not mean "No big deal" or "Don't worry about it" as I originally suspected. It means, very loosely interpreted, "Thank you for thanking me, but it is not as big a deal as you are making it, though your thanks was necessary and appreciated." They are kind of giving a level of meaning to "thank you" and saying that thanks should be given, but not at the high level you are giving it.

Mingle - mix. As in "Mingle the rice." When I was first told to mingle, I thoguht it meant I had been talkign with my brother too long and should talk with the other 2 people in the room. I kind of felt offended and chastised, but fortunately I asked for clarification instead of following my instincts and going to sit on the ground with my grandmamma, who speaks 3 words of English.

Greetings: The Acholi have tons of greetings. Tons. We spent our first 2 Acholi lessons (out of 6) learning just the greetings. And it's really confusing because you don't just say one greeting and go on your way. You say at least 2 or three, which require particular responses. But you can't just mix and match the greetings at random - there is a method. Which I have yet to master. I still get laughed about half the times I greet someone in Acholi because I say the wrong response or accidently say "good night" in the place I was suppose to say "how did you sleep?" But it's kind of nice that they spend so much time greeting each other. I have never realized how limiting "hello" is to forming and cementing relationships until I've seen how the Acholi (and many other African cultures) spend on seeing how the other person is. We say "hi," the other person says "hi," and you part. Here you say "Copango," they say "copey," you say icimabe," they say "eyo," you say "affoyo," they say "affoyo." Then you shake hands and can then ask how the other person is, etc.

Affoyo: It is the slang, more commonly used term for "thank you" It also means hello, goodbye, let's fill greeting time in a polite way, let's say it for everything and anything even if it doesn't completely make sense, etc

So here are my thoughts and observations so far. Hope you enjoyed them! And gave you a small taste of the aggravations and pleasures I get on a daily basis.

-Nancy

So a few days ago, in Kitgum, we drove 2 hours out to some random district to meet some random people. Though I never understood the point of the excursion, it did raise up some interesting issues I don't think our program director intended.

These were the poorest and least powerful people we have encountered yet. Like any other northern district, they have been destroyed by the war. But because they are not close to any towns, they do not receive the NGO support that the people in Gulu do. We were given the task of splitting up into groups and talking with them. We had 7 students in my group and 30 locals. They started off telling us about all of their problems, some of which were beyond their control and some which they could address themselves. The majority of their children were abducted as child soldiers and child wives. Education came to a halt during the war. Now, as their children escape and return, there are no schools for them. The community, this extremely poor community, paid to build a primary school (elementary) because the government could care less about northern education systems. But they don't have a secondary school (high school) and they can''t afford to build one. All of their clothes were in tatters with many holes. One man was wearing a "Clark Family Reunion" shirt from Jackson, Mississippi, a representation of the many West/Africa dynamics within their world.

Also, as the children return from the rebels, there are no resources to reintegrate them back into society. In Gulu there are tons of IGOs (intergovernmental organizations) and NGOs (non-government organizations) that offer couseling and rehabilitation after the prolonged trauma of war. But nobody bothers to set anything up for these people. The area has one health center for thousands of people and the health care isn't cheap. There are no good teachers because they all choose posts in town; the people are happy if they can find teachers who can read and write. A bordering tribe keeps raiding their cattle, burning their houses, and raping their women. They also have enmity within themselves.

After they had vented to us, my director said the discussion was too one-sided and told the crowd to ask us a question. They ask us,

"Do you have any advice for us? What should we do?" A wave of surreality and heaviness moved through my body and I just stared at them.They stared right back, expectant, hopeful. We had the answers to solve their problems.But we didn't. And we tried to explain to them that at we didn't know, that we were only learning about their issues today, that we couldn't help them. And they didn't really accept that response. So they moved onto the next question. "So if you don't have the answers, what are you going to do for us? How are you going to get us money?" Huge awkward turtle moment. Fortunately, before anyone could pull out the hands, our director explained to them that we are only students, that we don't have money, and we don't have connections. Later, when we get jobs, we could send NGO funds to them, but not now. The best we can manage is to write our congressmen and congresswomen about their struggle. I don't think they really believed him. We're American. We must have money. It's like one of our lecturers, a well-educated man, a professor here, who could not believe that there are poor people in America. His jaw literally dropped. Where he reacted with shock and amazement, these people reacted with disbelief and bitterness. We have money, we have connections, we're just refusing to offer them.

The two questions bothered me for different reasons. The first because there is an assumed hierarchy inherent in the question. They know their problems better than we do and they know the solutions to those problems better than we do. But because the West has told them for a 100 years now that they are stupid, that they cause their own problems, and that the West is smarter than Africa, they believe that I am smarter than them in the matter of their lives. It's a disturbing and uncomfortable position to be in. I wanted to laugh and cry and yell at people. Laugh because I'm not smarter than them, cry because they shouldn't be made to think they are less than anyone, and yell because it is cruel that Westerners get off on telling powerless people that only Westerners know the answers to African problems, when really they don't even understand what the problems are. It just felt really awful to be on the receiving end of that assumption, particularly because my Western system is the cause of their hope and I am not the answer to their prayers.

The second question irked me for different reasons, but it stemmed from the same systemic issues. The West has formulated a relationship where Africa is completely dependent on the West. It's a one-sided relationship that the West, pinpointing an opportunity to feel superior, has encouraged. In the past 50 years, since African independence, the West has forced its opinions and its policies on Africa, even inhibiting African ideas and solutions at times to continue its agenda. It has created what many anthropologists call the Culture of Aid. Africans expect aid and some have even been made to believe by Western powers that they can do nothing without money from the West. And for those of you back home who agree, you are wrong. Africa has the capabilities of being great and systenmic problems are holding them back. One of those problems is the Culture of Aid.

When we tried to explain to these people that they had the power to change their lives, that they needed to take agency in these issues, they thought we were trying to weasel out of helping them. They didn't really believe they could do anything, partly because they don't have resources and partly because they have been told for so long that only NGOs can help them. It is a problem that we couldn't fix with one blanket statement or a one day visit. Anthropologists call it the culture of aid because it is so entrenched into the mindset, so common within the people, so pervasive within society, that it is not something that will change easily. Only through time, intelligent economic decisions, and moral political practices will Africans realize they can control their own destiny of stability and power.

So I left that particular excursion feeling pretty blah about the day. So I wanted to share my blahness with the world. Hope you enjoyed it!

Destiny? Sure, why not?

Hey all,

So right now I'm in Kitgum for a couple of days. Kitgum is smaller and less developed than Gulu. It's also closer to the Sudanese border (less than 2 hour drive away), which means it has seen even more devastation than Gulu.

So far my exceptionally epic experiences in Africa have been great, although different than I expected. I have wanted to come to Africa for about 10 years now; I expected it to feel "right" when I got here and that every day I would walk around blissful. Idealic and unrealistic? Sure. But I expected a less consistent version of that dream to happen. But none of it did. I don't walk around feeling as if this is the most amazing thing ever. And I struggled with that for a few days, thinking maybe I had been mistaken all of my life. And I started to reconsider Senegal for next semester just because this semester has already worn me down so much (Africa is tiring). And then I started to think about going back to GW next semester. And that's when it hit me. I can't really remember my old life very much. Africa occupies most of my waking thoughts. And I realized that my life in America is kind of boring compared to this. The reason I don't realize how amazing this experience is that everything I do here that's different from America, that's more interesting from America, is just my day to day life. I feel normal here.Nothing feels novel here, even when it is, because I just accept it as my life. And when I thought about going back to GW I realized that I won't truly recognize how amazing this experience is until I'm away and can look back on it.

When my Ugandan family asked me how Africa had changed me, I couldn't tell them. Even though it's only been 5 weeks, I don't remember American me. I remember the people in my life, but not really me. I feel like I'm almost fresh here. So I won't know how I have changed until I get back to the States and re-enter my old life. Then maybe I will realize how I have changed. Maybe I haven't at all. But all my being is consumed by my day-to-day activities here, my life here, Everything from America (besides the people) are a blur.

Maybe every moment doesn't feel "right" here, but I do think I'm right where I want to be. I can't imagine doing anything else or being anywhere else right now. So in that sense, Africa is "right."

-Nancy

Rural Hardships and Tribal Experiences

So I’ve been in Gulu for almost a week now. Classes have started, I’m in my homestay, and I am experiencing rural “Africa.”

Gulu is the central city for the Acholi people in Uganda. Gulu itself is not very developed as it has been war torn for the past twenty years and the president pockets any international money given to develop northern Uganda. Driving here, you could see the difference between the north and central Uganda. Right after you cross the Nile (which is beautiful - way better than I expected), the roads change from graveled, smooth roads to dirt paved, uneven, potholed monstrosities. Gulu often has to run on generators because the water supply or electricity supply will just stop for a few days. But with all of its limitations, the city is full of people happy to be home.

I have been living with my homestay family for four days now. In my house I have a grandmamma, an aunt named Rosemary, a 13 year-old sister named Peace, a 7 year-old brother named Eric, a 24 year-old brother named Dean, a friend of my brother, and a 40-something brother named Walter, who is the SIT homestay coordinator. They all call me sister, even though they are not all siblings. Only two of them are immediately related. It took me a couple of days to figure out the relations - I had to ask my sister to clarify for me. Grandmamma and Eric do not speak English; the rest speak English amazingly well so I’m super thankful. They’re nice and opinionated and open so I’ve already learned a lot about the conflict and the political situation in Uganda. I can ask them pretty much anything and they won’t get offended.

The family is really poor. They have only the necessary items for living and sanitation. They’re farmers who were displaced by the war. All of my brothers and sisters are well-educated, but they haven’t been able to do much with their degrees. I have two parents working in Kampala as professors and 10 brothers and sisters scattered around central and northern Uganda.

My first night went better than I expected but I did have a couple of hardships. I live WAY out in the middle of nowhere - it’s a 40 minute walk to school every morning - so I don’t get electricity or running water. It gets dark at about 7 pm. We then start a fire and sit outside around it and talk until bedtime, broken only by dinner at about 8:30. Well, the 1^st night I went to the pit latrine (oh, Africa) after dark to go to the bathroom only to discover the walls covered with bugs, including huge cockroaches. I could not make myself get into the tiny, dark hole with all of the insects so I hid behind the women’s hut (yes, a hut) and went outside. Fun times. Then I became super paranoid that the house, which has plenty of crannies for bugs to get inside, would be crawling with roaches. I ran to my room and crawled under the mosquito net, praying I wouldn’t wake up with a roach chillin’ above my head on the net. I didn’t (Thank God!).

I can handle no electricity, no internet, and no running water. What I can’t handle is roaches (or snakes, but those aren’t a huge issue in this area, or so I have been reassured). The next day I was followed by the image of a mosquito net covered with roaches. I politely and indirectly brought up the topic with my brother. He assuaged my fears - he fumigated the house this year. There should be no roaches in the house and he freaked out when he thought I had seen one. So I have decided that I will just have to try and go to bathroom during the day and at school (which has beautiful, glorious, rare toilets) and, if I absolutely must pee at night, just go outside. The trials of Nancy in the Middle of Africa.

Last night we went to talk to the head Acholi Chief and the head of the elders. They talked to us about traditional justice and gave us a pamphlet with the laws of the Acholi people written out and the punishments that fit the crime, which was cool. Afterwards, we got to see traditional Acholi dances. The drums were amazing and the dances were intensely athletic. Our Gulu program director, who is Acholi, started dancing and then the Chief got up to play the drums. When our program assistant started dancing and encouraged us to join, I jumped in along with a few other people in my program. The music had attracted the locals, including tons of children, and everyone started laughing and clapping when the mizungus (white people) got up to dance. I was dancing next to the girl dance director and she kept instructing me, even leading me over to dance with one of the men playing the drum. She kept telling me, “Harder, harder” when I was trying to copy her steps. Apparently, mizungus are not athletic enough for girls who carry 20 liters of water on their head (no joke). The locals kept wanting more mizungu dancing so they kept playing traditional music. We danced for about 20-30 minutes straight. I was sweaty and gross afterwards, but it was so much fun! All of the kids came up to shake our hands and greet the mizungus who danced the Acholi dances. The Chief even complimented us.

So those are my accounts of my first adventures in Africa. I’m sure there will be many more to come. This Saturday my family plans to show me how an Acholi family cooks, cleans, and shops so I’m sure I will have tons to tell. Until next time,

Love,

Faux-Acholi Nancy

2nd week in Cairo

Finally I can post my last Cairo entry:

My time in Cairo never quite matches the intensity of that first day, but I did have a great last week in Cairo.

Culture Shock: I start to experience a slight case of culture shock at the beginning of the program. This, combined with a beautiful apartment, no Arabic-speaking Dani to hold my hand, and a small illness, cause me to stay in for a few days. I quickly diagnose myself with vitamin deficiency and quickly prescribe myself supplements, solving the problem. After three days I become disgusted with myself and force myself out of the apartment to go to the Egyptian Museum.

Khan-el-Kallili: This is the famous tourist market. I practice bargaining, buy a few trinkets, and meet an Egyptian family who love that Dani speaks Arabic (and that we bought several items from them). They insist we sit down with them, meet the whole family, play with their semi-adopted kittens (so cute!), drink tea, and transcribe spices in English for them to write for their stand. We talk with them for an hour and receive a bunch of random, free stuff. We even get ourselves invited to iphtar (Ramadan breaking of the fast meal). When we leave, I try to buy some tea leaves off them to make up for the free stuff they kept heaping on us, but they refuse my money. Super nice and all around good day.

Egyptian Museum: This is the 1^st time I branch out on my own. I have a couple of slight mishaps, which includes being lured into an Egyptian shop and guilted to buy perfume. But, other than these instances, I do fine. I get lost for a little while, but use my Arabic skills to get directions. I crossed the wide street in front of the museum with ease (yes, I am proud of myself - crossing the street in Egypt is like a game of Frogger).

The Egyptian Museum is overflowing with interesting artifacts, but they don’t allow you to take pictures. The museum itself is highway robbery for Egypt - even with my student card I spent $25. A family could easily visit the museum and spend over $100. That’s a lot in Egyptian pounds. I liked the Royal Mummy Room the best - you get to see the mummified bodies of some of the most famous Egyptian pharaohs and queens. It’s gross and awesome at the same time. It’s also unbelievable how well they’ve been preserved for 4,000 years. You can still see hair and teeth. Just crazy.

Concert: I go to this concert of a self-proclaimed “contemporary Egyptian jazz” band. They are awesome - they combine all of these traditional and modern instruments to create a fusion of different sounds that are creative and beautiful together. The instruments they play included oods (traditional Middle Eastern guitar-like instrument), guitars, Indian drums, Spanich drums, African drums, etc. My favorite was Ghiza, a drum player. What I love so much about him is that he doesn’t play to notes, he plays to the feel of the music. He played the African way - his musicality was brilliant and you could tell he loved every moment he was playing.

Pyramids: A little overrated, but they’re cool to go inside. You go down a tiny passage about 3 feet high. Then you go up a tunnel of the same size to reach an empty, undecorated tomb room. It’s mind-blowing imagining the people excavating the pyramids - they had to do all of this crawling into the unknown in the dark. But the tomb room is anticlimactic and you think “Really? All that work for this?” To think, they built the large pyramid for that tiny, unmemorable room. But the blocked off passageways looked cool.

Camel: I ride a camel. I’m a little afraid. I clutched onto Dani, particularly when the camel was standing and sitting (you’re at a 45 degree angle!). I may have earned myself a reputation as the camel squealer among Dani’s program group, but they are nice about it. Dani wasn’t as nice, though. She took a video of me on my light-headed “what if I die” trip and made a point of showing everyone who would watch.

So that was my 2^nd and final week in Cairo.

Love,

Nancy

Uganda

Hey you guys!

Right now I am in Kamapala. Y'all should ignore my first post on my schedcule for this semester - they've changed it all around. I am going to Gulu tomorrow and will be with my homestay family on Monday. Internet is super slow here and I won't have much access so I won't post too often and when I do I will post a lot at once.

So far I am LOVING the program. The people are great - they are all interested in the same thing I am, which is new and nice. Right now it kind of feels like a vacation. We all think they're spoiling us and spending money on us now because the program will get really intense next week. But I'm worried that it will be such a drastic change that it will be all the harder.

We are staying 3 weeks in Gulu. Gulu is where the civil war began and it is where, until 3 years ago, the violence was centered. We will be meeting many people who have lost people in the conflict, who have had children kidnapped to be soldiers or wives, and children who are escaped child soldiers and child wives. We will see images and maybe even meet people who have been dismembered or who have had their face disfigured (often times the rebel army, the LRA, cut off people's lips and noses of the people in the area). It is an area that has experienced violence for 23 years now and, until 3 years ago, was unsafe to travel to.

Up until today, we have only referenced the intensity of this particular program (there are no other programs like it). This morning we discussed what we will see and coping methods to deal with that. All of the students seem very respectful of the material and of each other. We understand that people may react differently. So I feel comfortable with the people in my group. Before the program I was really nervous that I might not be able to handle the constant horrible material, but now that I'm here I think that it will be hard, but that I can do it. Particularly because everyone will be dealing with the difficult material as well.

Gulu is a rural area with many NGOs. The majority of the people have to farm to feed themselves. We are expected to participate in the chores and learn how they do things so it will be hard work, but should be fun and interesting.

Kampala is noisy and crowded and a lot of fun. Ugandan people are very friendly and curious. They are not use to white people so we hear muzungu ("white person") a lot, but I haven't experienced any dislike. My program director says that, since Obama was elected, Ugandans are much more accepting and welcoming of Americans. It was the same in Cairo. The developing world loves Obama. We have to be very careful with our stuff - thievery is common here. Already two people have lost their cell phones. So I'm very paranoid about that aspect but, if I'm careful, it should be okay.

So I think that's it for now. I want to post once more on Egypt and I have the post typed, but the computer is giving me problems with downloading it, so it might be a little while. I'll get it up when I get a chance. Also, if you want to contact me in any way, please email me at nbarry@gwmail.gwu.edu or leave a comment on this blog. Facebook takes forever to download here and every time I try to click to see a comment, it's another minute or two wasted that I am paying for. My email and blog come up pretty quickly.

Well, I will write as soon as I can once I'm in Gulu.

Until then,
Nancy

Week 1 in Cairo

I went to Cairo to visit my friend Dani, who is studying there for the semester. That, and because Cairo's cool. So here are the accounts of my 1st week in Cairo.

Day 1: Arrive at airport to Dani's friend Jacqueline and 5 random Egyptian guys as Dani looks for me elsewhere. Drive to Dani's apartment (which is huge and super nice with free wireless and a washing machine) in Egyptian guys' car. Decide to not sleep and go on a boat along the Nile at 8 am. Jacqueline, Dani, and I go to the boat place to find out they don't sell tickets until 9:30 am. Go get breakfast, return at 9:30, buy tickets, and then wait for 30 minutes to be let onto the boat. Then wait an 1 1/2 hours before the boat leaves. The boat finally starts at 11:30 am and we enjoy our journey along the Nile. We went on this boat because it's not meant for tourists, is cheaper , and goes farther up the Nile. We weren't sure how long it was - Jacqueline said either 1 1/2 hours or 1 1/2 hours there and 1 1/2 hours back. I take a 20 minute nap and am awoken by five adult Egyptian men surrounding me. We find out from them that the trip is actually 3 hours there and 3 hours back. And we're landing in some random village for a couple of hours (but the time wasn't specified - we leave whenever people show back up). When we get to the random city, we're swarmed by taxi drivers, carriage drivers, and people leading horses. We also witness Fight #1. Two men screaming and fighting. One of them was a horse driver and had a whip. He hit the other guy with it a few times. It was legit and scary. But no worries. My survival instincts kick in and I move away from the fight.

Once the fight breaks up, we set off on foot to find a train station, ignoring the men trying to get us to take their transportation into town. Most of them finally give up on us except this guy offering his ONE horse for the THREE of us. He follows us for TWENTY minutes and he won't listen to our protestations. He disappears once we run into an army guy. The army guy says he thinks the train station is near but taxi drivers around us start to argue that it's 2 hours away. Figuring they just want to take us to the middle of nowhere to charge us a ton, we listen to the more credible and trustworthy army guy. Those survival instincts again.

We trek on, run into a guy who offers to take us to a minibus. The first minibus driver refuses to drive us; he didn't want to take Americans. So we get on another minibus and some random guy pays for us but then harasses Jacqueline for her email. Ah, the hidden agendas in Cairo.

Once in Cairo we go home and nap. That night we meet Waleed, one of the Egyptian friends Dani made, at a soccer game. A police man wanted to upgrade us to the upper class section because he said the police were trying to set a secret trap for the rowdy crowd, which often times can get violent. Dani, who has no survival instincts, insisted we sit in the crowd area. Waleed suggests a compromise: we sit in the stands above the crowd. We agree and sit down. A random spectator comes up to us and warns us about the "secret" police plans. We thank him and he sits next to Dani. Then this random guy with a walkie-talkie sitting in a chair near us asks us how we're doing. He says he's been planted to watch over us. While he's talking to us, he gets called over by the police in uniform and reprimanded for blowing his "cover."

The game is exciting. It's between the national team of Egypt and the police force team (perhaps the motivation for the "secret" plan to arrest the crowd, hmmm?) We see Fight #2. It happens 6 feet in front of us. This time a guy pulled out his belt. Our "secret" policeman went "mysteriously" missing. Fight eventually got separated by men in the crowd and not the hundred policemen in the area.

The crowd never got rowdy during the game. Although Dani, Jacqueline, and I did attract a lot of attention. It's rare for women to go to a soccer game and even rarer for American women to go to a soccer game (especially ones who got their faces painted in the national team's colors). But people just crowd around us after the game and nicely ask to take their picture with us. I feel like a celebrity.

End of Day 1 in Cairo.

Day 2: Sleep 11 hours. See Fight #3 on my second day, at the airport, when we went to drop Jacqueline off. This one goes on forever. A man pushes another man into a woman. Woman gets angry, takes off her shoes, and starts to hit the men. Fight is really loud and yet aiport security never come. In fact, some are even in sight of the fight and don't do anything. One security man does come over and, instead of breaking up the fight, pulls aside a nervous American couple and sits them down, assuring them everything will be alright. Egyptian police take pride in their competence and thoughtfulness towards foreigners.

Rest of the week I just go out to eat with Dani's Egyptian friends and meet them all. They're super nice and all play in a band. Go to band practice with them at the most famous Egyptian music studio. I don't see anymore fights.

Ramadan starts. Our neighborhood gets quiet for a day or two and then picks back up.

End of week 1.

Amsterdam

Hi! I will be posting pictures soon, in the next day or so, I promise. I'll post a link on the blog.

Here are 25 thoughts about my time in Amsterdam, all 9 hours that I spent there.

25. I love Amsterdam.

24. The Anne Frank house is a lot bigger than I imagined.

23. Amsterdam, considering how much of a tourist city it is, does not have a very good system set up for transporting or directing tourists. I waited in a 45 minute line to be told that I could take any tram to the center of town (except 26) or that I could walk. Then, when I noticed there were no signs pointing me in the direction for me to walk, I paid 2.50 euros for the tram ride just to find out where I wanted to go was around the corner and then a 5 minute straight walk.

22. Bikes are huuuuggggeeee in Amsterdam. And they don't stop for pedestrians. As I am not fond of bikes in general, this is not a practice I condone.

21. The canal water is refreshed and replaced every 3 days, which is why Amsterdam doesn't smell.

20. Amsterdam is built in an onion shape. This means that the roads are either really short or long and curved.

19. I went on a free 3-hour walking tour in Amsterdam. The tour company Sandeman offers it. The tour guides really know their stuff and have a lot of personality. They know exactly what toursists want to see and hear. Sandeman also offers free tours in Berlin, Brussels, Dublin, Edinburgh, Hamburg, London, Jerusalem, Madrid, Munich, Paris, Prague, and Tel Aviv. If you are in these cities anywhere in the near future, you should definitely check them out. They are for people of all ages. The tour guides work on a tips-only basis so tip well!

18. Amsterdam is definitely a city to be taken on foot.

17. To get into the Amsterdam airport through customs and security with a trasfer is super easy. A guy glances at your passport and lets you through. There is no security.

18. Europe is expensive.

17. Almost everybody smokes and drinks and sleeps around. A lot.

16. For this reason, it's a great party city.

15. For this reason, it's also a place where it seems like people don't go anywhere with their lives.

14. I traveled alone pretty well for my 1st time.

13. The Dutch have a lousy sense of humor (meaning practically nonexistent).

12. I fell asleep on the train on my way to the airport from Amsterdam (hey, 3 hours of sleep in 2 1/2 days people!) . I woke up at a stop and the ONLY time I ran into someone who didn't speak English was when I frantically asked the people around me, "What stop are we at?" "Stop?" the teenage boy next to me asked with a quizzical and skeptical brow, as if I spoke not a foreign language, but a nonexistent one. I ended up getting off just to see a sign for a station I did NOT want. So I ran right back on. Turns out that the sign told of the next stop and that I had been in the right place. And then I preceeded to take the longest 10 minute ride out of a city of my life. I kept praying it would stop but the train chugged on. I passed windmills, cows, and a house here or there, but no city with a train stop. Finally it let out and I got on the next train back. Made it to the aiport with a little time to spare.

11. My lunch was relatively cheap. Mozzarella cheese, tomato, cucumber, and lettuce on a wheat baguette. Light, but filling and delicious. Along with my meal I had my first legal Heineken.

10. Amsterdam is located on marshy, inhabitable ground. The reason people moved there and made it a big city is to see The Magic Bread. This bread kicks all other breads' asses. This bread refused to be digested. And that is the wonder of The Magic Bread.

9. If your house leans backwards, that's bad. It means its foundation isn't built right. Waterfront houses naturally lean to the side so that's alright. And it's very Amsterdam to have your house built foward. In the 1700s and 1800s Amsterdam had a problem with flooding and people would try to store their food at the top of their house. So people built a pole at the roof to hoist supplies up because it was too dangerous to carry heavy boxes up tiny stairs. But the boxes kept hitting the side of the house on it's way up to the roof and breaking. So the people of Amsterdam built their houses leaning forward so this wouldn't happen. It took them a 100 years to realize that, if they built houses with longer poles that stuck out farther from the houses, the supplies would be safe. But that's the Dutch for you. Creative, resourceful people, but they always go the difficult route (they did settle in swampy unlivable land and developed it into a modern metropolitan city, now didn't they?)

8. My tour guide had the strongest Irish accent I've ever heard in real life. It was awesome! Less awesome - she preferred Amsterdam to Ireland.

7. A shockingly large number of Spanish speakers visit Amsterdam.

6. In 2006 it was declared illegal to sell both pot and alcohol in coffehouses. The mixture kept making people throw up in the streets.

5. It is common for drunk or high people to throw random people's bikes into the canal. There is even a special magnetic machine that goes around and picks up the bikes on a regular basis.

4. As much as people ride bikes in Amsterdam, you would think they would consider that their biggest luxury and buy really expensive, nice bikes. Nope. I would say about 1/3 were nice, 1/3 were average/relatively inexpensive, and 1/3 rusty and old.

3. Taxes use to be based on the width of the front of your house. So people built their houses really small so they wouldn't have to pay as much. They also didn't have to pay taxes on unfinished buildings so many houses in Amsterdam don't have roofs.

The bright pink house in the middle of the two other buildings in the picture is the thinnest building in Amsterdam.

2. The red light district is insane. It's like another world. Prostitutes chilling in windows, men openly propositioning them. Tourists unapologetically staring wonderingly at this process. Women strolling along with their 5 year-old daughters past the prostitutes as if there was nothing wrong with the picture. That part freaked me out a little bit - I'm old fashioned and think children should not walk around in the Red Light District. I had trouble wrapping my mind around how Amsterdam thinks about sex. It's cool to gawk at and people watch because it is so different from any world I've ever entered. But I'm a little too prudish to fully embrace the Red Light District as Amsterdam does.

1. Amsterdam is STUNNING. Just gorgeous. All of the buildings are built in the old style as if they're out of the 17th century. And with the waterfront just, sigh, I didn't want to leave. It made me wonder why I ever left Europe 4 years ago. Why would anyone ever leave? I don't know how I would have gotten on my flight if it hadn't been for the fact that I was on my way to somewhere cooler than Amsterdam.

Next up: Cairo!