Days since arriving back at project - 8
Exciting ASDA-bought food products now in kitchen - CHEESE sauce, boil-in-bag choc pudding, bacon pasta, KETTLE CRISPS (eeeh)
Level of spoiltness due to holiday - 80%
Reluctance to use basin as shower - HIGH
You may have seen Uganda in the news recently amongst the many African countries that appear to be rebelling against the government. In one of my last blogs I spoke about the reaction to an 'interesting' election campaign and eventual win but any rioting that happened at the time was minimal and mostly without consequence. Ugandans have chosen now to take to the streets in Kampala, Mbale and Gulu (amongst others) to peacefully protest against the rise in fuel prices and food in a 'Walk to work' organised by the opposition leader, Kizza Besigye. Unfortunately the reaction from the NRM was not great, and where these peaceful protests became riots the police, under government instruction, came down hard on the people. Now is an exciting time to be present in Uganda as you really get to see the frustration of locals at the problems that face their country - everyone wants to talk about the politics. I fortunately haven't witnessed a riot but the aftermath is ever-present. When walking through Mbale it's obvious - eeriely quiet streets, burnt tyres strewn across the roads and broken bricks littering the pavement. A few weeks back, it all kicked off when Besigye was leading a walk to work and was arrested (along with other opposition leaders and MPs) simply for not using transport. The governments response claimed he was inciting violence. After paying bail, Besigye vowed to continue the walk to work and as police dispersed the crowds with gunfire he attempted to escape in a car. From here on the story differs - NRM claim a clumsy police officer dropped his gun and it went off. But the truth is obvious; police officers smashed the car window and repeatedly fired tear gas into the vehicle to the point where Besigye was hospitalised. In other cases of police brutality men are struck with sticks as they attempt to escape - in total 9 people have been killed, including a toddler who was shot at point blank range. And now the people are no longer focusing their protests on food, but against active police brutality and supression by government - NRM wonder why.
I've been back at project, after a short and luxurious holiday with the parents, for 8 days now and in that time I've been working closely with an elderly Ugandan women called Josepha and her organisation African Rural Development Initiative (ARDI). ARDI do a lot of work in the local area but focus mainly in counselling of the poor rural community on topics of education, HIV infection and productive farming. As a potential project for Project Trust next year I visited 'the rural field' with Josepha to see what help was needed. As I walked between the ultra-green fields of maize and vegetables, down the thin footpaths to people's homes, there were calls of welcome from everyone. On our first home visit we sat with a woman in her garden as she breast-fed her young child and told us about her husband who works far from home in Jinja. Josepha's job is purely as a support for these women who are extremely poor (but often happy) and can offer no solution to their many problems. On our second day we were visiting with messages on the importance of education but often the response was hard to solve. One women called Evelyn had herself not passed primary school but instead been married and started a home and family. She had aspirations for her children to be educated but they were failing in a government school where children are 200 to a teacher and there is no funds for private tuition or schooling since she is a simple sustinance farmer. Another lady living in Bujuhili village has the tremendous task of looking after her orphaned neices and nephew, yet with little money and being herself infected with HIV how is she supposed to support her family? I got the chance to do a talk with youths in a village near Bubutu and a small 22-year old girl asked me how she could earn some money. In this talk, which focused on marriage after education, this girl told me she had dropped out of primary school, married at 16 and now had 3 children - what was I supposed to tell her? It seemed like the problems were endless and had no solution. However there is always a brighter side to each story - I visited a grandfather who was the sole guardian of his heavily disabled 11-year old grandson. This boy was so smiley and happy to greet visitors - he ran to meet us. After 11 years of sitting his grandad had taught him how to walk.
Us volunteers have become completely backwards in our response to label clothing. When I see someone dressed well the obvious question is 'Where did you get that?' but the answer is not always so obvious. Owino! Owino market is the second-hand clothes market that dominates central Kampala. Filling the area of a full-size football stadium, Owino sells suit jackets to baby wear, jeans and t-shirts, hats to thousands of shoe brands, abercrombie and fitch to ralph lauren and marc jacob. It's so much more of a trick to find an expensive label jumper or shirt in the expanse that is Owino and then buy it for the equivelent of one pound.. A lot of the clothes donated at home, unwanted in oxfam or chucked into the Tesco-car park clothes bin end up being sold to stall-sellers in Owino and then on to whoever has the money. I bet you never expected that nice shirt you donated to end up on the back of this volunteer! On my last visit I picked up three seemingly new Abercrombie and Fitch shirts for the equivelant of 3 pounds. Doesn't it sting? Ha.
I've got less than 3 months now until I'm home in the UK and then speedily whisked off to Uni. I've got extremely strange and mixed feelings on the subject - both anxious to get home and worried at how little time is really left. I know that I just have to make the most of the time I've got left before it's all over.
Til next time,
Ben
