A Meeting with the ACDA Women's association

In addition to conducting HIV/AIDS prevention activities in the IDP camps in the area, we have the general task of supporting the activities of the Agoro Community Development Association (ACDA). ACDA is the organization that Working to Empower is partnering with in northern Uganda.

One of the projects that ACDA has is a women's group. The women's group is an association of 28 women, most of whom are widows who try support each other and try to come up with income generation projects. Their most (or only) successful project has been making beads out of paper and then sending them to the US or Canada to be sold.

I had the extremely enjoyable task of meeting with the women's group and writing an article about them to assist in the selling of beads in Canada. Here are some pictures from that day.


I love this picture. The women are sort-of shy and if they know they are going to be in the picture they don't smile. (Or they give a half-smile with no teeth showing). However, they are so happy they smile all the time when you are not taking a picture. They can be telling you about how their husband died and they were homeless and their children were hungry, and they will still be smiling. So, this picture is really nice because you get to see a REAL smile. In the foreground is a string of beads that are almost finished.


This is Helen, she was a really nice and amazing woman. After her husband was killed she was inherited as the third wife of her husband's relative. Then after giving birth to her 7th child she got cancer in her uterus and couldn't have anymore children. So her husband left her and she had to move in (with all her children) to her parent's house. Then her father died leaving her with no support. Then she moved to Kitgum and was homeless... you get the idea. Anyway, she now works with the women's group and makes beads to sell in Canada and the US.

Here is an up close shot of a strand of beads.


Here I am interviewing the women's group. Beatrice, the woman sitting next to me is translating for me. (The women only speak Luo, the local language). The women we surprisingly open and so nice.

They still need more people to sell beads for them in Canada and the US. If this is something you might be willing to do let me know. :)

T.P. = Precious African Commodity

Toilet Paper = the precious African commodity. Yes, I did take this picture. Yes, the toilet paper is green (or pink) here. And No, I don't know why. I have been trying to figure out the reason for the colored T.P. and no one has been able to explain it to me.

Now it is time for a deep, dark confession: I have become a T.P. Kleptomaniac. OK, so maybe kleptomaniac is a slightly strong word for what I have become, because I can actually control the my desire to steal T.P. when I want or need to. Now, your first question is probably, "Why have you developed the habit of stealing toilet paper?" My answer is simple, "survival." It may be unknown to some of the readers of this blog, but apparently nearly all Africans don't use toilet paper. Therefore it is not available in pit latrines and outhouses. Early in my visit to Africa I developed the habit of carrying T.P. with my everywhere. I have started taking toilet paper form every hotel I have stayed in.

I can imagine an awkward conversation on the first day of medical school: a girl walks up to me and says, "Hi, I'm Kate." I say, "I'm Christine." She says, "Uh, why are you carrying a whole role of toilet paper in your backpack?" I say, "Oh that, (embarrassed laugh) I carry toilet paper around with me everywhere because of an insecurity I developed while I was in Africa - that I would go to the pit latrine and I wouldn't have any T.P. with me." Then the girl says, "But now you are back in the United States and there is toilet paper in every bathroom, so your behavior makes now sense."

Yeah, this conversation will probably happen.

The first time

The first time you see someone who has been mutilated by the Lord’s Resistance Army, you are shocked and a little disgusted. For me, I was walking down a dirt road in Kitgum town. I saw a woman carrying a baby on her back and a jug of water on her head. I saw her from a distance at first and noticed that something was wrong with her face. As we approached each other I noticed that her lips had been cut off. I couldn’t help staring at the scarred pieces of flesh surrounding her teeth. I gave her a timid wave and she gave me an understanding nod. She was accustomed to people staring at her.

The second time you are more prepared. You are still startled, but you are able to contain your surprise. For me, it was walking to get my breakfast of chapati and tea at the local food joint. I saw a man ride by on a bicycle who had no nose - only two holes where his nose should have been. As he passed I noticed that he was also missing his ears. Logan told me that this man had appeared on BBC after the LRA had come into his house in the middle of the night and cut off his nose and his ears.

The third time you are almost ready for it. It strikes you as only slightly strange that a mutilated person has just passed through your life. For me, I was working on a paper in a little internet shop paying a ridiculous amount of money to use an antique computer while a man walked by on the street who had his left eye cut out. The wound had healed over quite well. It probably happened many years ago.

As you stay in Kitgum district longer you eventually stop counting the number of mutilated people you see. The evidence of violence is all around. The IDP camps are filled with people who have left their homes to stay safe from the violence only to find the violence followed them to the camps. Food rations are inadequate and the children are starving. Almost all of the women have been raped by the LRA, even in the “Safe” IDP camps. Most of the men have been abducted. Every family has lost a member to violence of the LRA. They bury their ropes in the ground because if they keep rope in their huts the LRA uses to tie them up when they come through the camps.

After experiencing this, a part of your heart changes. Your pity and compassion towards to the victims of the LRA’s violence matures into a loathing of senseless violence. After being immersed into the lives of these people you develop a deep and silent conviction that the world be a better place if the Lord’s Resistance Army was not a part of it.

The LRA and the IDP Camps

We had our first visit to the IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camps two days ago. It was a very sobering experience. First of all, you need to understand why the IDP camps were created in the first place. They have been around for about 20 years and they were formed to protect people from the brutal violence of the Lord's Resistance Army that has been attacking the people of northern Uganda for that time. If you would like a brief review of the LRA please see this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord's_Resistance_Army

Here are a few pictures.


We asked an orphan girl that Working to Empower is sponsoring in school to draw a picture of her family's home in the IDP camp. This is what she drew.

Last year 900 people in the Agoro IDP camp died from a Cholera outbreak. It was because their latrines drain into the same area they were getting their drinking water from. This is picture of the stream that goes through the camp. The dirty pigs were everywhere.

This is Logan, the director of the project in Uganda. This was during our trip to the Agoro IDP cam. The mountains in the background are in Sudan.

This is a sign that is posted many places around the area. It is estimated that 400 people are killed each year by landmines placed by the LRA.

Here are a couple of kids helping their mom in the garden in the huts surrounding the IDP camps.

When we were visiting the IDP camps it started to rain. I was invited into one of the huts and I took this picture out the door. Whole families of 7 or more people will sleep on the floor of these huts. There is absolute poverty here. There are hungry/starving kids and Logan took a picture of a kid eating a rat (maybe I will post later).

Now I am out of time. I am working over 10+ hours a day, but I will post when I can.

Rice and Beans, Pit Latrines, and No Shower

Sorry that I can't post very often these days. I am in the utter rural hills of East Africa. The only internet available here is SSSSSLLLLLOOOOOOWWWWWWWW, expensive, and very unreliable and I can only get to it once every week.

Some people have asked what my life is like now that I have arrived in Uganda where I will working for the next two months. Essentially my life can now be simplified into a series of unpleasant odors:

1) Rice and beans for dinner and lunch every day. Results in an unpleasant odor several hours after every meal.

2) Pit latrines. As a result of four cubic feet of human waste, they continuously emit an unpleasant odor which you can smell for about a 40 foot radius. Using them requires some skill and balance which I have not yet acquired.

3) No shower. To "bathe" you have to carry water from the well (about 1/4 of a mile away), and sponge yourself off in a somewhat private area. As a result, we only bathe about once a week and we smell bad almost all of the time.


Pictures to come (I hope).

Boiled Green Bananas and Cow Stomach

Our journey to North Uganda got delayed until tomorrow because the director of the program had to apply for a new Canadian passport (all the pages were full in his last one) at the Embassy here in Kampala. The northern region in Uganda where we will be working doesn't have power so I am enjoying reading my email and charging my cell phone while I can.

This morning I decided to go get a bite to eat and I walked into this little whole in the wall place. The man behind the counter didn't know much English so I tried to order in Swahili. (The woman washing dishes made fun of him and said in Swahili, "Ha, that white person's Swahili is better than your English."). Anyway, I tried to order several things on the menu, but he said that they didn't have any of those items. Finally I said, "What do you have?" He said we only have "something something something (I didn't know what it was)" and I asked him to describe it, but I didn't understand the description either. I said, "OK, give me that." I figured I couldn't go too wrong for about $1 US.

My plate arrived and I quickly recognized the cooked green bananas (a common staple in Africa). I took a couple bites and then gathered a whitish-meat looking thing on my fork and popped it in my mouth. I started to chew, and then I chewed some more, and then some more, and then some more. It was like having a ball of rubber in your mouth. I explored the item some more and discovered that it had a textured side and a smooth side. After swallowing the rubber ball and looking at my plate I realized that the whitish chunks were cow stomach and cow intestines.

Since there was no anxious Maasai wife watching me eat, I decided to not eat any more and snap a couple pictures for all of you to enjoy.

The plate of bananas and cow stomach and intestines. I turned over some of the stomach pieces so you could see the texture (slightly brown).

I thought about trying to use words to describe how I felt after I discovered I was eating cow stomach, but I decided to use a picture instead. Yeah, that is how I felt.

Flamingo Camp?

(Note: I did not take this picture, I downloaded it from Google images to illustrate the idea of what a flamingo camp might be).

On the 14 hour bus ride from Nairobi to Kampala I saw many signs at the side of the road. I would like to share 2 of them with you:

The first was a danger type sign that said "Devastation Ahead" I think this was supposed to mean "Road construction ahead," but I thought that this was an interesting choice of words.

The other sign said, "<-- FLAMINGO CAMP" and the arrow pointed down a really bad dirt road. Now, my question to you is, "What is a flamingo camp?" My first thought was a place where people go in the middle of Africa to learn Flamingo dancing. Or maybe somewhere where you can pet flamingos. Or maybe it is a music camp for people who want to learn to play flamingo guitar. Now, if you email me your idea of a "flamingo camp" I will add it to my blog.

Best Friend Stephanie said: "like place for flamingos to roam and do crafts? maybe not the craft part, but like a flamingo sanctuary?"

One of my most favorite professors, Lynn said: "it's a little known fact that flamingos, too, enjoy camping. Of course, they take a lot of teasing about their tents and their climbing gear."

Thanks for your emails and responses from this post. It is nice to hear back from all you blog-readers!

Dinner With 5 Colombian Men

When I arrived in Nairobi I stayed with some friends of Lucia's (a friend from the language school). I got to eat dinner with them - 5 Colombian men. They were all very nice and they wouldn't even let me help with the dishes. For those of you who are thinking, "Wow, men who do dishes! Are they available?" The answer is "no" they are all either priests or monks!



Here are the men from Lucia's mission. They kindly spoke either English or Swahili while I was there instead of Spanish so I could know what they were saying.

This is Betty. She is a lively Kenyan who helps with cooking at the house. She was really nice and had fun laughing at my various Swahili attempts.

A visit with Akasa

The day before I left Arusha I was able to visit my friend Akasa from the language school. She is a nun working on a mountain just outside of Arusha.



This picture was taken on the walk to Akasa's church/convent outside of Arusha. It was a good way up in the mountains.

Here I am with Akasa! We has a really nice visit and I got to meet the other nuns she works with.

I am in Uganda!

I am in Uganda! The day before yesterday I met with the director of the Working To Empower project. Yesterday we took the 14 and 1/2 hour bus ride from Nairobi to Kampala. Tomorrow we will be traveling by bus to the northern part of Uganda where we will be working. The northern part of Uganda does not power so I don't know how often I will be able to post to the blog. Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts!

A bunch of Random Pictures

I thought I would post some of the random pictures which I have not shared yet on this blog. These are all pictures from before I left Morogoro.


This is me after I had purchased a bunch of bananas at an auction the weekend after I had learned how to say all my numbers in Swahili. I was quite proud of my self.

This was an interesting (and slightly drunk) man who wanted me to take his picture.

These are some women dressed-up in traditional East African clothes. I tried to get them to look at me while I took another picture, but they became very embarrassed. This was right before a wedding.

I thought this little girl in her Lion King shirt was very cute.

Here is another woman dressed up in the traditional (fancy) East African dress.

This picture should be at the beginning of the blog. This is a picture of the Addis airport.

This is a Maasai man and his first-born son. I thought thought it was interesting that the man wore everything that was traditional Maasai, but his son wore Western clothes.

Here is a Maasai girl carrying her little brother or sister. You are never too young to start taking care of your little siblings. One of the Africans was telling me (jokingly) why white people have long noses and Africans have flat noses. He said it is because African babies get carried on their mother's or sister's backs all day long and their noses get flattened while they are being carried and then they stay that way when they grow up.

Get as many people in that truck as you can...



This was a choir that was signing at one of the weddings we went to. I wish I could share the music with all of you. It is so beautiful.



Here is a bride and groom walking up the aisle to get married. For some reason people who are getting married don't like to smile or hold hands during the service (or during the pictures), but I guess they are still happy on the inside about getting married.

A visit with Ben and Jesse

This Easter weekend I got see Ben and Jesse. They have been working in Tanzania teaching at a Bible school for over 8 months. It was fun to see Jesse again (he goes to my church in the United States) and to meet Ben. They showed me where they usually spend time in Arusha and I gave them the peanut butter Jesse's mom sent. On Easter morning we went to a nice church where the sermon was in English! It was so nice to understand what was going on in church.

Here is Jesse talking with a Tanzanian named Moses. Moses is very nice and is doing some amazing work in the surrounding areas.

Just for my Ethiopian Siblings

A couple nights ago a girl from my language school and I went to nice Ethiopian restaurant. We had some delicious food. I thought I would put a picture in just for my siblings.

The Bus Ride to Arusha

Last Thursday I went on the 8 hour bus ride from Morogoro (central Tanzania) to Arusha (northern Tanzania) with Narooma from my Swahili language course. I decided to post a couple pictures I snapped out the window of the bus to give you an idea about what the ride was like.




This is just a village shot I took about half way through the journey. This picture is very typical of what you would see out the window of the bus. I was very tired during the trip, but I was so interested in looking out the window that I couldn't sleep.


Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of this, but what should be the next picture is passengers on the bus throwing garbage out the window. It is not against the law, or even looked down upon to litter in Africa. They call it the 'African recycling system' - you throw something you don't need out the window of your car and someone else will come along and use it.

This is one of the many sales people that came up to the bus offering to sell all sorts of items when the bus stopped.

Sorry this picture is a little blurry - I took it through the glass window. You can see that there is a wide variety of items available at each bus stop.

International food night

The night before us 2-month students left the language school, we had an 'International Food Night' where everyone made a dish from their home country. It was so much fun and the food was sooooo good. I decided to make chocolate chip cookies.



Here I am chopping garlic for a Danish nut and bean salad that Tuja was making.

Tomas made traditional Danish cinnamon rolls. They were really good.

Lucia was cooking her Mexican dish over an African "stove."

Karleen made pb & j from Jif peanut butter she brought with her from the United States. Amani, one of the teachers from the language school is helping her.

Pastor Charles is explaining what the different dishes are. His 3 year old son who was adopted from Kenya is standing next to him.

Malaria

A couple of weeks ago I was started to feel very tired and developed a bad headache with an upset stomach. I thought that it was probably just the flu, but the symptoms kept returning, so last week I went in for a malaria test. It turns out that I have Malaria. Don't worry, it is just a mild case. Only 2 parasites per 200 white blood cells.


Here is my diagnosis and prescription for the anti-malaria medication. Notice how it is written on torn piece of notebook paper.

Here is the doctor, his examining room, and his lab. He was very proud of his microscope and was happy to let me take a picture after diagnosing me with malaria. I bought the best malaria medication available in Tanzania. Unfortunately my insurance doesn't work down here so I had to pay the $5 for the medication out of pocket - that is less than my copay for medications back in the States.