Visit to one of the camps

Went to Awer IDP camp today to the north (for those who want to bust out the map), this camp was made up of 30,000 displaced people. There were a few people that went up there with us (Adam and I) but we had different objectives while we were there. We were going there with a group to look at the current water situation for the camp, I guess a few of the water pumps were broken and some of the water wells weren’t sanitary. Of course when we show up, millions of kids rush up like were rock stars…we are far from it though. With 30,000 people in the camp and only 4 wells out of the 7 that were working, the situation wasn’t good at all. It is such a shame that I can’t just look past all the never ending poverty and just enjoy the countryside because it basically is the prettiest thing I’ve seen, but situation is a reality check to how the war is affecting these people. These people had no choice living they way they are. What is there to do when you have 30,000 people in a camp that couldn’t be that much bigger than my block back at home, not being allow to leave because if you did you are considered a rebel and then shot, so with nothing happening in the camp but boredom comes the drinking. There is some alarming statistic, though it escapes at the moment the exact number, but close to 80% of the population in the camps are alcoholic. With alcoholism comes a wide array of problems, and just remember…basically there aren’t any choices for these people being put in this situation, they own destiny has been taken out of their hands. Through all of this, the kids are so stoked to just chill with outsiders, though one thing that I did notice about some of the children that was disturbing (aside from many not having clothes, pot bellies from malnourishment, and 100% lack of parental supervision) was kids no older than 6 or 7 taking kids as young as 5-6 months old. Tried to get a decent picture, but not the greatest, you get the picture though. There were a bunch of these “kids taking care of kids”. I’ve come to assume that the normal age that the parental units letting go of their children for the real world is around 17-22 years old, here it is about 1-8 years old. Here is a video of me walking in one of the camps on my way to check out a water well.

Well…that is all for now

Cheers,

Scott

I am the one of the right.

bus trip from hell + more

Been a bit behind on this, but power is very intermittent, 1 hour of power 6-7 of none then 3 hours of power, etc, so it is hard to keep up and since everyday is so full of things that are done it is hard to pick and choose what to write about, so ill just give a few specs of the week.

Earlier this week Adam and I were returning from lunch and were approached three girls from primary school during school hours, first question we asked was, “Why aren’t you girls in school?” They answered, “we got kicked out because we couldn’t pay for this term.” Conversation went back and forth about payment and then when finished talking to them three more guys approached us and asked us for help with the same problem, paying their school fees; when we finished talking to them another two approached us, then another 3 approached us. It was crazy because these people are asking for help with their school payments, payments that are like 10-30 U.S. dollars for the whole year. And with the first girls we talked to, it cost them like 30 dollars to send 4 of them (they came back the next day with a friend) to primary school which Adam and I ended up paying for them in secret (we can’t give the money to them directly because people here in Gulu will think that all white people will give out handouts). It just blows that people are just so desperate to go to school to make something of their life and can’t make the payments of 10 dollars to attend.

The weather here is crazy. Massive storms, it makes me chuckle to think back to southern California and remember if there is one single drop of rain suddenly the news is “CHANNEL 5 STORM WATCH 2006!!!” If they have half of what we had here they would have news for the rest of the year…so what does one do when it rains? Naturally we build a slip-n-slide and not just any type of slip-n-slide…a massive one 10 meters long. To help with the slippin’ and slidin’ just add a little dish soap to the tarp with about the 2 feet of rain and you’re golden.

This past weekend we had plans to travel up to southern Sudan, Juba and try to catch a glimpse of Kony (very very very rare that that homeboy would come out of hiding, being he is the numero uno in the LRA) during the peace talks, but there was a major risk with traveling up there on the roads, major major rebel action in northern Gulu and even crazy action in southern Sudan, but the chance to be in the midst of history was a good enough factor to try and make the trip. The day we were to go we read report that people were shot in the head on the same road that we were to travel the day before by rebels, so after much debate we decided not to take the trip, this was a bit of a disappointment, but I obviously understand the concern so we instead went down to Kampala and did a little of R&R. How one get down to Kampala when one does is up in Gulu? Take a bus there naturally…but this was a pseudo bus, try to picture something like a VW wagon; that is how we traveled. So that is cool and all, but the driver thought it was a good idea to put 19 of us in there at once, 8-9 hour drive. But that wasn’t enough, the driver was falling a sleep while driving, and some of the people at the front said that he was also drunk too and his driving skills helped this theory (stuff like there isn’t really closely regulated by the police, to think of it…what police?). We would make random stops during the trip to pick up more people and people would buy things from the car and put them under the set. About hour 3 into the trip I felt something feathery at my ankle but I just ignored it…30 mins later something basically attacked my leg…yep live chickens fighting at my feet freaking me out, but of course I couldn’t do anything about it because I couldn’t move due to the other 18 people in the car that kept my wedged in my seat. That was a lovely experience to have chickens freaking out under my feet for the next 5 hours and if that wasn’t enough, they stunk like hell. Other than that we hung out at Lake Victoria and basically just chilled for the day (it was worth the drunk driver, crowed car, long drive, fighting chickens, smelly chickens ride).

Not quite sure what this week holds in store for me, I might take a trip up far north in an UN car to do some work in the primary schools up there.

Well that’ll do it for now, here are your random pics for the time being

Cheers,

Scott

Me chilling with an ak47 infront of me on the bus
these things are everywhere.

damn chickens!

Schools and more

A few days ago Adam and I when in an UN range rover to observe the quality of the primary schools in an IDP camp in Opit (so you can bust out a map if you really desire…it is still in the Gulu district, east side). These IDP camps are a community of people that have been displaced because of the war. In this particular camp there were roughly around 12,000 people living in a very small proximity. Naturally with that many people there are going to be a lot of kids. Adam and I evaluated two primary schools that were 200 yards from each other. The first school was of a displacement group. Walking into the first classroom was shocking to say the least. The floor looked like a street with pot holes that haven’t been fixed in years. The chalkboard looked like it had been through a million lesson plans before today. Desks for the most part were non-existent, and the roof of one of the buildings looked like it was raided by a German bomb from WW1. The excitement of the children upon entering the classroom was unbelievable considering the conditions of which they were learning in.
Our first task when entering the classrooms was to count how many boys and girls that were in each class, and if a teacher was in there teaching, which at the sound of it may be a bit ridicules but about half of the time the classroom had no teacher at all. Upon finishing counting of all the students in the school and all the teachers teaching, there was roughly a 100:1 ratio students per teacher in the first school.
The students were very respectful of Adam and I, when one of us would greet the class and inform them of our intentions the class would stand in unity and say, “Good morning, sir. Welcome, how are you?” every class greeted us in this manner. Though it would be presumptuous to classify all, but this type of respect was nonexistence in primary school back in the states when thinking back to my youth.
We would then meet with the school’s headmaster to go over scholastic supplies, desks, chairs, and the sort to see what was needed. Next came finances, to which I hear is very shady because Uganda is so corrupt that there have been reported cases of headmasters stealing all the money funded by the government for the schools. Bottom line was that the school was giver about 600,000 schillings to pay for the materials, teacher salaries, etc for the year. 600,000 schillings is roughly 380 dollars U.S., and with over 800+ kids at the school you can do the math at how much each kis costs. Think of it this way, the cost of a Dr. Grip pen, as nice as they are, would take care of almost 5-6 kids for the entire school year.
The second school that we visited was a lot nicer because it was the hosting school, thus meaning it was there originally and had already had all the nice things, nice for Uganda at least, that the IDP schools didn’t have. The buildings were in order, at least they had roofs, though the student ratio per teacher was still about 100:1.

The next day we played soccer with the locals and got worked, but after coming home later i wasn’t feeling so good. The bad feeling progressively got worse deeper into the night…finally when I basically couldn’t move anymore I was rushed to the hospital and the doctor confirmed that I had malaria (thanks a lot anti-malaria pills for nothing). Basically it felt like the flu x 10. When going to the clinic I had Adam help me out the door because I had the hardest time walking. Doctor gave me some pills, a lot actually, and that took care of the malaria quickly, though I still feel a bit crappy today, nothing compared to what I was feeling last night. So that is all I have to report right now

Cheers,
Scott

first week rounding up

My first week in Gulu is rounding up quickly and a lot has happened, but this post would be impossibly long if I were to write them all, so I’ll give some highlights.

I’ve spent sometime outside of Gulu where most of the Guluian (sp? who freakin' knows) live in little huts and there is usually 5 to 6 of these huts in close proximity to each other. It is very common to see goats, chickens, ducks, and a horde of children running threw this little camps. These pictures don’t really do the “camps” justice to how small and cramped everything is. There is absolutely no privacy here, so you better get along with your neighbors, which everyone seems to. Another thing I’ve notice, random tangent, is that emotions of the people here. For example: people here are always either stoic, or happy, or in rare cases, very very mad at one another, I haven’t seen anything outside these three emotions for the weeks time that I’ve been here. There are no arguments that take place; people seem to know their place here within the community. Now that I’m writing it, I guess it is hard to explain with text, this is something that needs to be seen first hand. One might not find this weird but just think about it, driving in OC and getting pissed for someone running a red light, or back in highschool, people fighting over a spot in line, or over a girl/boy…that just doesn’t seem to happen here, all petty things are not worried about.

I’ve spent a great deal of time in the “bush”, term given by the Guluians that is in the jungle/forest, just observing how people live their day to day life. These walks are never taken alone, that is just plain stupid. I’ve taken a few of these walks with Adam and I love to walk behind him 10 feet or so and watch time interact with the people that are living there. It cracks me up to see this white boy talk Luo with the people. Here is a typical sky over the forest. Of course while walking we have about 15-30 kids always following us. I think their amazed at our color, who knows…here is actually a funny video of a small baby coming up to us, looking at me for a few seconds, thinking about me then start crying…quite funny.

Needless to say, Adam has quite a few friends here in Gulu. So when he was going to attend a meeting with a few of them one night he invited me to go along. We went to one of these huts that I described earlier and met up with two men. So we sit outside of his hut and get to talking, I find out that these guys were former commanders in the LRA. This is crazy because they held such high rank and made it out of the LRA alive. Side note on the LRA, it is the reason that the children do the night commutes to Gulu. All the killing that goes on up in Northern Uganda is done by the LRA. Do some reading up on the situation with Kony (Leader of the LRA). Anyway, one of the men was a bodyguard for Kony himself. This is crazy because anyone up that high usually never leaves the LRA, or if they try they most always end up dead. So here I was sitting with Adam and the two former LRA commanders and the wife of one of them outside their hut talking about old stories of when they were in the bush. I don’t really want to repeat them…just think about getting together with some Vietnam vets and having them talk about the war with you, but these guys were crazy guerrilla fighters.

Um…that is all for now I guess, kind of an abrupt ending, but I need to get off the net…ill try to think of some good stories that I can write for you…hard for me because im not the most eloquent writer. Here are some other other random shots...other than that

Cheers.

Scott

An interesting first few days

So after a crazy long plane ride (21 hours in the air, 26 in transit) I arrived in Entebbe at 6 am not know what the local time was, nor even the day. It was easy to find Adam who was meeting me there, the only white face. We had a "special hire" (taxi) take us from Entebbe to Kampala which is basically the "downtown" in Uganda. The driving there is insane. I thought that we were going to hit people walking on the side of the street like 10 different times, which in fact would be their fault for getting in our way I was told.
After getting to our house in Kampala we ran a few errands in the city. Time is very different here. For example, things that would take 30 seconds to take care of at a bank took us an hour. Adam bought some motorcycles quite awhile ago and we went to pick them up but they still weren't ready for us. These bikes were suppose to be his like a month ago, but they keep telling him that he can have them "next week". That is just how things roll here.
Things are very shady here too, I can't trust what I'm eating is what is as advertised. Also my cell phone was jacked from me when I got up for, no joke, 30 seconds to grab a bite to eat then turned around...poof, gone.
The next day was our trip up to Gulu. The ride up was insane. Driving like I said is an adventure...we were playing slalom with pot holes the size of the Grand Cayon with oncoming traffic and people waling on the side of the road. We passed "towns" (a few huts, lots of people trying to sell food to people driving by) every 5 to 10 mins. When passing one of these town on the way up, our guide was explaining to us that there was a guy that was burned alive yesterday and that she saw it. She said that mob justice was carried out, and there was basically nothing that the guy could do. That was pretty intense because we saw the charred spot were the guy lived his last moments. I guess that is the way things are handled here, don't pissed people off. I could go on about the visuals of the trip and seeing the Nile, but I don't want to bore.
So I arrive in Gulu, which to those that don't know isn't considered "secure". Nothing is north of the Nile, and Gulu is way north. Yes, that was a bit of a tangent, but if you don't the history of northern Uganda, do read up on it. Anyway, I arrive and the sounds of a massive thunderstorm is rolling in...this thunderstorm is crazy loud, nothing that you ever really see in the states, but from what Adam tells me, it was a baby storm. The house that I'm staying at has about 9 people staying at it right now. It is about dinner time when it starts to rain and everyone wants to go out to eat. We again hire taxis to take us where we need to go and then afterwards this Gulu bar to watch the worldcup game, it is really big here.
Onto the living conditions here in Gulu, needless to say it is quite different than the states. Poor in the US is only having one TV, 2 cars, and rent being 1000+ a month. Poor here is living in a grass hut, not knowing where your next meal is, if there is to be a next meal at all, and people being REALLY stoked if you give them 200 shillings (roughly 15 US cents).
Yes, i know this blog was really really scatter brained, and not thought out too well, but I haven't thought this out too well because I'm short on time here to write this, sorry for not really paying too much attention to the grammar rules that were broken, spelling errors that were not fixed, but I think that you'll get the picture. I have some pictures coming up very shortly, maybe some video to help you "experience" Gulu with me. Well that is all for now.

Cheers!
Scott