Dance-Off

Last week on our trip in Lira, I was basically double-dog-dared to go up and dance, by my lovely wife. Though she may be a little risk-averse, she has no qualms having me go up on a stage in front of a crowd of about 150 Ugandans and strut my North American dance moves.

We were at an “Expo.” It is a once a year fair with two rides, some food vendors, and lots of merchandise vendors. There was also a stage about 8 feet off the ground with a full sound system, lights and a big display of Splash, the fresh fruit drink. On the stage were 5 children, aged about 8-12 competing in a dance competition for a carton of Splash juice, but we all know the real reward for winning would be bragging rights and well worth the sweat expelled during the competition. One of these dancers still had his school uniform on--hopefully his parents were not worrying where he was.

So I’m egged on to go up and dance. Surely, the organizers of this thing would let the White Outsider on the stage. And they did! Two young women ran the dance-off and had me go head-to-head against the mini-dancers. Boy did I ham it up. Well, you can watch the video and stop reading my explanation.



        Click to see what the hoopla was all about.

When I got down off the stage I was swarmed, if ever there was the definition of the word, by the young kids in the crowd. They all just wanted to high-five or pound me. It was almost better than a walk-off home-run. I felt like a real celebrity.

Radio 1 – 90.0 FM

Short African Thought

Uganda is the land of Toyotas.  Seriously.   Nine out of ten cars, at least.  The Matatus are all the Toyota Haice model.  Taxis are all Corollas.  Seemingly every muzungu who drives a car drives a RAV-4—it’s really funny to see the streets outside a mostly muzungu event (think art showing and pizza in the backyard of a family’s home). 

All the cars come from Japan and have been reconditioned to be sold in the African market.  License plates all begin with UA and another letter followed by a dash and a letter and number combination, the third letter represents the year the car came over, A for the first year and so on.  I think I’ve seen as late as UAP. 

As a result of the cars being from Japan, the preinstalled radio dial only goes as far as 90.0 FM.  In Kampala and most of Uganda the station that has this frequency is called Radio 1, “where the car dial stops.”  There are radio stations here that exist beyond 90.0, but unless a new radio console is installed in the car, the manufactures radio will not get to those other stations.

The Okeng Community - Still Up Country

Post by Josh

Today we set out with more sodas and biscuits in tow to the Okeng community, which is about a 90 minute drive from Lira, a small town with many bicycles where the hotel is.  We turned off the main road and the road became muddy, bumpy, and swampy: it was more a path than a road.  We bumped over standing water, in which we spotted some tortoises.  Then another turn and the road got narrow, tall lush brush scraping against both sides of the van.  Finally we reached the Okeng community.  A rural village consisting of about 70 mud huts, and few brick ones.

This hut was the best kept hut I’ve seen yet.  It is owned by a young male, not yet married.  Apparently, after marriage these little things of looking good in the neighborhood fall to the wayside as other responsibilities take over.

We parked by the giant mango tree which is the community meeting place.  The Okeng community, unlike the visit to the clan on Tuesday, consists of a few different clans, striving to live in harmony together.  When we arrived word was sent around that we were going to hold a meeting.  Apparently the initial invite went just to the clan leaders, some individuals were sent around on bikes to rally the rest of the villagers.  In the meanwhile we toured the gardens, crops, and new community grazing site, with boundary markers sparked by the work of my NGO.

The community was greatly appreciative of the aid from my org.  They now have demarcated public grazing space and residents’ farming areas, or garden, are marked and mapped.  A surveyor has been out to the site and today we presented the community with a deed plan from the surveyor.  This is a huge step for any community such as this one.  Few have been able to make it this far, mostly because of disputes arising from challenges related to coming to agreements with each other during the process.  Okeng village has also written a charter regarding the rules of the grazing area.  Land disputes in this community have decreased, people are more familiar with their rights, and they have tools such as maps and boundary markers to protect themselves from encroachers and land-grabbers and prove exactly the location and size of their land.  Hurray for advocacy and the aid of NGOs!  In addition, women now have a much larger presence at meetings and speak during them because people in the organization spoke to them about their role in the community.  In sum, people are happier. 

But this is just one community, there are many more hidden out there amidst the roads that aren’t really roads in Northern Uganda.  The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) led by Joseph Kony displaced many people in a 20 year period ending in 2006.  The issues displaced people that returned to their land face are plenty.  Land is just about all people have.  They pay no bills, rent, or anything of the sort.  They really do live on less than a dollar a day, but they don’t need money on a day to day basis as most of their food comes from their land or through barter.  However, despite this fact, money is important, and some families value it more than others.  I saw a few families that have chosen to have a crop that yields more money, such as small red hot chili peppers, which allows them to have brick and mortar home as opposed to the standard mud hut.  On the flip side, “excess income” can be spent by the man head of household on drinking, which is obviously not the best use of rare funds.  Necessary changes to the community like surveyors, boundary markers, and deeds cost money among other one-off items like bicycles and dowry. It’s not just the future of land rights in this part of Uganda that needs coaching, organizations preach women’s rights and other issues in this country as well.  Some of those organizations were touring these communities with us and are figuring out how they can work with us to best solve these problems. 

The Okeng community took two years to get to where they are today.  Other communities do not see the importance of title or survey, or there is too much disagreement within them to arrive at the stage I witnessed in Okeng.   Communities will continue to face land rights issues until they start to understand the importance of equipping themselves with the proper tools for protection and start working together.  The onus is very much on them.

Such stories like the Okeng community are remarkable to witness firsthand.  The people are incredibly grateful, especially when we return to their community, for any reason.  When they are happy, they work together well.  I also learned the importance of having enough soda and biscuits for everyone.

The mid-meeting break consists of Fanta, Coke and biscuits for everyone.

HIV Prevention 101

Post by Nicole

Today is the day I give my first HIV prevention presentation.  Of course, there are a few logistical matters to handle before I get my program underway.  The reason behind my visit was that the first 68 children we had placed at the vocational boarding school 10 days ago were due for a monitoring visit, and we were bringing an additional 37 kids.  This second group was a result of my organizations hard work: scouting for eligible candidates in targeted neighborhoods, and resolving issues that had previously prevented many of the children from placement, such as employers who initially refused to let their child laborer go. 

The morning started out as an instant replay of last week.  We arrived at the police barracks where the children were eagerly waiting for us to take them to the school.  However, word must have spread that we were coming and there were an additional 10 kids than expected, packed and ready to go.  These sly youth had never been interviewed by our field staff and were plainly trying to sneak onto the bus.  Worse yet, some didn’t fit our age criteria while others had been brought from outside our targeted communities.  We didn’t know what to do because while these children undoubtedly are vulnerable (one criterion for acceptance to the program), they did not fit the rest of the characteristics and we must maintain the very strict condition set by our donors for purposes of accountability.  If it is later discovered that we accepted children who do not fit the age requirement, or are not domestic workers (though fit all the other criteria) we run into issues of project credibility. 

Once we resolved the confusion of the magically appearing kids, and some arguring, the staff and I took the names of the additional kids and will have a meeting with senior management to figure out a way to accommodate these children.  We clearly all felt strongly about this heartbreaking issue and want to help them.  We shall see what comes of it…

Children and mattresses board the "school bus"

Off we went on our two-hour ride to Jinja with the prescribed 37 kids.   When we arrived one colleague registered the new kids while another gathered the kids we placed last week for my lecture.  In total about 70 teens, boys and girls, were present.  They were so excited and enthusiastic.  Several wanted to hug me before the lecture even started.  I’m still not sure if they were enthralled by my white skin or just thirsty for knowledge.  Probably, some just wanted to feel cool that they were friendly with a muzungu.

I started my lecture by asking for volunteers to define HIV and AIDS and was impressed by the audience participation.  I had a staff member help translate as English is only one of many languages spoken by the students.  Surprisingly the language barrier wasn’t as much of a problem as I had expected.  Things were off to a great start.  Until my intern colleague approached me and whispered that the warden told him I should not talk about condoms and instead only discuss abstinence.  Not this issue again, I thought.  The school is funded by Evangelical Christians and I anticipated such a problem, but I was assured the topic of condom use and safe sex was fair game by the school’s director weeks ago.  I had also consulted with members of my NGO who offered the same advice.  Clearly there are differing opinions within this institution. 

Action shot: me giving the lecture to the students in their classroom

Let me back up for a moment, a little history if I may.  Uganda was on the forefront of combating the AIDS epidemic in the late 80’s and early 90’s.  While other African presidents were denying the problem or offering false information, Musevini has been praised for immediate and effective prevention strategies (which included distribution of millions of condoms and education on how to use them).  As a result, the HIV rates dropped.  They are now sadly on the rise again, with heterosexual females being the most rapidly growing group to be infected.  While the exact numbers are unknown, it is estimated the 10% of the urban Ugandan population is HIV positive.  The rates are slightly lower in rural areas.

Given this trend and my prepared curriculum of condoms and bananas for a demonstration I decided, with the support of the Director (who’s decisions technically trumps the Warden’s) and my NGO counterpart, to go forward with the program.  I feel it is morally wrong to withhold information from inquiring teenagers.  My counterpart and I we agreed that if the kids ask about condoms we would answer honestly.  I was very cautious with my answers.  I stressed that they are too young to be having sex, maybe I said some things that scared the heck out of them regarding the potential of sex jeopardizing their futures, but I believe they need the whole truth.  Finally, a student—bless him!—asked about condoms and I took the opportunity and ran with it.  They were full of excellent questions and seemed to hang on my every word.  And then I broke out the banana.  The class went wild, roaring with laughter and jumping up and down.  Fearing our potential misdemeanor, my colleague and I shushed the kids and did a quick banana-condom presentation, hoping that the warden wasn’t nearby.   

I felt slightly vindicated about my decision to speak to the class honestly when my colleague told me that last year one of the students sent to the school through our NGO got pregnant while there and was forced to leave.  After the session was over many kids came up to thank me.  I handed out teen-focused newspapers produced by a Ugandan NGO called Straight Talk, which the kids went crazy for.  I realized that with kids at this age the Internet becomes a fountain of information, for good or for bad, but these kids only have the little information they get from friends, relatives, and teachers (if they were fortunate enough to have attended school).  Handing out these Straight Talk publications, it seemed as if they were made of gold by the way the kids expressed such a desire to own an issue.  I regretted not bringing more educational handouts.

We also evaluated their progress at school and asked them to tell us what challenges they are facing.  The first thing that came up was the lack of sanitary pads for the girls, and lack o mosquito nets.  Many were sharing cups and bowls with other students.  They don’t have enough pens or paper.  And, some of the kids have been stealing things from other kids.

Still, when asked if they are happy, all replied with an enthusiastic YES.  They are learning a lot, the teachers are good, and they are hopeful that this education will help them in the future.

As I had expected, my little buddy Derrick found me the minute I arrived.  We took a walk and he told me that he loves school and has chosen the catering and hotel management track.  He promises to work really hard in the courses.  He then told me a bit about his background.  His father died many years ago and Derrick was not able to go to the funeral or ever get information about his father’s death since it happened in the city and he was living in the countryside.  His mother eventually had to move to the city with her children to find work and has been supporting the entire family on her modest police officer salary (71 USD/month).  Some of the money is sent back to the village to support extended family members.  Even though he performed well at school, he wasn’t able to finish secondary school, as his mother’s meager wages just weren’t enough for all the children’s school fees.  He said that he feels blessed to have been chosen for this program and promises not to waste this opportunity.  He hopes to get a job in a hotel so that he can earn a better income and help his mother and younger brothers. 

What an incredible feeling to be part of an organization that is truly changing the lives of children.