Happy Memorial Day from Uganda!

Happy Memorial Day, America! Today I was finally able to sleep in a little until 10am, and felt no rush to get out of bed since once again there was not much scheduled for me to do. I took my garbage out to the post by my gate where the guard stands, and met the first female guard I’ve had since I’ve been here. Her name is also Josephine and we chatted for a few minutes before I returned to my book. A couple hours later, Josephine, knowing how bored I was, asked if it would be alright if we had lunch together. I was more than excited to have someone to talk to for a while and ran in my house to get her a fork and some napkins. She and I talked for over three hours, and the conversation turned my day of nothingness into a very enlightening one. Learning about different peoples’ cultures, countries, and languages is one of my greatest passions, if not the greatest, and during these few hours we learned a ton about each other’s lives. Josephine is 25 and lives with her sister in Kabalaga, a district of Kampala. She is originally from a small village in Uganda that is 230 miles away. Her parents still live in that village, and her 7 younger brothers now are dispersed around various parts of Uganda. The first topic that Josephine brought up is religion. She was born and baptized as a Catholic because her parents are Catholic, but last year she converted to the Mormon Church. Missionaries from many different Christian sects have a strong presence in Africa, especially Uganda, but she told me it is the Mormons that she sees the most. We got into a very long talk about colonialism and the concept of religious missionary work, which she was very intrigued by. During our conversation, I prefaced all my comments with “in my opinion…” and told her that in the classes I’ve taken about French imperialism I’ve learned that many imperial powers try to change the ways of “less advanced” or “less civilized” peoples by introducing them to western belief systems, both political and religious. Although there may be good intentions to help the subjects, Ugandans for example, there is always the underlying belief that these people are living incorrectly and doing things the wrong way altogether. Even though colonization is over, the work of religious missionaries continues to alter the lives of many people in developing countries. Since I don’t know from firsthand experience about the reasoning or tactics used by Christian missionaries, I couldn’t comment much except to say I believe it is another attempt to change the natural ways of life for these people.

She began to ask me many questions about the Mormon Church, specifically that of the Latter Day Saints, the sect to which she was converted last year. I was unable to answer many of her questions because I do not know much about the Mormon Church. She asked what religion I follow, and I told her that I am Jewish. She looked at me with confusion, and slightly nodded her head, and I realized she had no idea what I was talking about. I explained to her that Judaism is a religion different from Christianity altogether, not another one of its sects. She had never heard of Israel, and so I told her about the history of persecution the Jews faced, explained to her what the Holocaust was, and how as a result a state was created for the Jewish people. She did not know about the ongoing war in the Middle East between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and it was interesting and at the same time extremely difficult to break down the cause of the problems there, which came across essentially as an issue of land rights and country borders, yet with so much history and struggle behind it.

After the recent presidential election in Uganda, word spread through the international news that violence had broken out in the country’s capital, Kampala, as citizens protested the outcome of the election. Many people from the US, myself included, tend to associate opposition leaders and their parties with disruption and violence, and generally, think of them as rebel groups with a negative connotation. I know that before I arrived, my family and I were hoping that these particular Ugandan “opposition” parties would go home and be quiet so that war did not eventually break out. After speaking with Josephine, I was enlightened on much of the conflict surrounding this election, and the desperation in these opposition protests. President Museveni, as I mentioned yesterday, is believed to have rigged this most recent election in his favor. When I asked Josephine whom she voted for, she said she would have voted for anyone except him, and she personally does not know a single person that did in fact vote for Museveni. She says that she and her people are desperate for change. He has been “elected” as President since 1986, and since he has been in power life has changed dramatically for Ugandans. During his early campaigns, he borrowed billions of shillings from the Central Bank of Uganda to advertise and pay bribes to various officials to guarantee he would get their vote. He withdrew so much in fact, that the Bank ran out of money almost completely, and so when people went to their local branch to withdraw money from their accounts, there was none left. So, under government orders, this debt now falls indirectly to the people. Josephine says that before Museveni, 10,000 shillings ($5) was enough to buy a sufficient amount of groceries. But now, all supermarkets have been forced to mark up prices so high that 10,000 shillings may get a customer 3 items instead of 10. These markups are the result of the bank’s debt, which Museveni caused. Speaking in dollars, when a customer in Uganda buys a loaf of bread for $5 at the supermarket, $1 pays for the bread, a second $1 is profit for the store, and the remaining $3 goes directly to the Central Bank of Uganda to rectify the debt. This spike in prices for everyday goods explains the protests against the high cost of living that I mentioned yesterday. I asked Josephine if she thought the protests against Museveni could reach the level that they did in Egypt a couple months ago, but she does not believe they would because the Ugandan people are not united. She said that now is a time when it is difficult to know who you can trust, and most people have learned to keep their feelings of opposition to themselves because you cannot be sure that the person you talk to one day will not betray you the next. Museveni has many spies in the country and an army that is quick to kill. Josephine told me that she hears often that people she knew have been killed for one reason or another. One reason may be their open hatred for Museveni’s government, and another may be because the victim was too intelligent and posed a threat to Museveni’s presidency. If you are smart, with a good reputation from his hometown in Western Uganda, you can look forward to an appointed, well-paid position in Museveni’s government. But if you are unknown to him, from an Eastern village, politically involved and bright, it is best to keep your mouth shut or expect a visit from his soldiers.

The time I spent with Josephine today was invaluable in helping to understand the difficulties people here face on a day-to-day basis. The emotion behind her stories helped me learn more than one ever could from reading a book, or even from reading this post, but I sure hope it helps. Nothing in print is ever as good as it is firsthand, and I believe that if you can, you really have to come here and experience it for yourself.

A Very Lazy Sunday

This morning I woke up to heavy rainfall at about 7am. The walls, glass doors and windows are so thin at my house that I can hear everything around me. At night, it’s hard to tell if loud noises are coming from my neighbor’s yard or somewhere within mine, and I do find myself constantly checking the guard’s outpost in my courtyard. The thought of him here with me in this enormous compound is definitely reassuring, as is the razor wire. Last night I gave my parents a video tour of my house, and showed them bedrooms I had not even entered yet! May is nearing the end of Uganda’s rainy season, and I happily read my book in bed as the rainfall stopped. Thunderstorms here don’t last longer than about 10-30 minutes, and soon the sun was right back out. I prepared my pineapple like Miss Josephine taught me and made a delicious breakfast of gluten-free toast and eggs. My gluten allergy hasn’t posed too much of a problem here, besides refusing pizza at Café Roma it’s really quite manageable. After breakfast began my very lazy Sunday. Greg and Layla are at an all-day function, and since I don’t know my way around the city well enough to venture out alone, I’ve spent the day out in my yard tanning with a good book and this blog.

I started this blog because I have to write the same account of my time here, except in French, as part of a business French class I am enrolled in at Michigan. Originally my internship was in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, a francophone country in West Africa, but due to outbreaks of extreme violence I was let go from that post, reapplied, and was accepted in Kampala. I let my French teacher know with regret that since I would no longer be working in a French-speaking country I would not be able to participate in her class, but being the amazing woman that she is, she is allowing me to blog about my internship in French and still receive credit. If you’re a French speaker (Margie) and would like a link to that blog, let me know!

I would much prefer to be out and about exploring the city, but since I have little else to do today besides lounge, tan, read and cook (the rough life, I know) I’ll give a couple more tidbits that I’ve picked up about Uganda. For starters, Burkina Faso is a French-speaking country because it is a former French colony. In Uganda, the official language is English because it was an English colony before it gained independence in 1962. Unlike other English colonies, like Kenya for example, Uganda never had that large of a native British population. In Kenya, the British people found the game reserves way more impressive, and more importantly, there is no threat of malaria there like there is here. So, the British people outsourced most of the day-to-day responsibilities of Ugandan maintenance to Indians. Here, it is the Indians who own the stone quarries and sugar plantations, and it is these people who the Ugandans viewed as their oppressors instead of the British. To this day there is still underlying hostilities between the Indian and Ugandan people.

For any of you news-followers out there, conflict between the current ruling government and opposition parties has calmed down almost completely in the city of Kampala. The elected President Museveni (opposition leaders believe the election was rigged) recently abolished the constitutional limit on presidential terms, and that’s got a lot of people, especially those who enjoy democracy, in a bit of a huff. For a few days before I arrived, civilians protested in Kampala against the high cost of living, especially of fuel. The people participated in Walk-to-Work demonstrations and anyone who did drive would honk, or “hoot” as they call it here, to demonstrate their support for those walking. Needless to say, the government has now made “hooting” illegal, and in Friday’s newspaper there was a half-page section listing about 40 license plate numbers of those cars that had illegally hooted and were now WANTED by authorities.

Tomorrow, Monday, I have another day off to celebrate our American Memorial Day. The Embassy gets 10 official days off, and chooses a mixture of American and Ugandan holidays that they will recognize. After this three-day weekend I’ll have only a three-day week because Friday is off to celebrate Uganda’s National Martyrs’ Day, which remembers those who were killed for converting to Christianity in Buganda, one of Uganda’s kingdoms.

That’s enough of a history lesson for now, hopefully I’ll be out exploring more soon, and first official day of work is Tuesday!

Post 3- Errands Around the City

Today (Saturday) I woke up at 6am, and although I got a pretty good night sleep the jet lag hasn’t quite worn off yet. The ten hour difference from California to Uganda basically turns night into day and my body hasn’t been too quick to catch on. Layla and Greg picked me up along with their sons, Benji and Dino, and we headed to Garden City, a new shopping mall in Kampala. I was feeling quite nauseous from my malaria medication but needed to get an internet hookup from one of the shops. I don’t have any fancy wifi here, instead, people buy a stick that plugs into your computer’s USB port and you charge it up monthly with a certain amount of memory. If you don’t use all your allotted memory, you can use it the next month, kindof like rollover minutes that Cingular Wireless used to brag about back when it existed… Dino excitedly showed me around the huge shopping mall, which consists not only of stores, but also restaurants, a movie theater, and even a bowling alley. After the mall I went grocery shopping with the family and was amazed at the huge selection of fruits the store offered. In Uganda, native oranges are actually green, unless you buy the imported Americanized ones. Another bit of advice: when in Uganda, don’t buy the green bananas because they will never ripen into yellow ones like they do at home. Green bananas are a different variety all together and have a taste more similar to a potato. Layla stocked up on pineapple, pawpaws (in the papaya family) watermelon, and my favorite find of all- jack fruit. Jack fruit is some of the sweetest, most delicious fruit I’ve ever tasted, and it looks like a baby yellow bell pepper. Unfortunately, Layla told me it’s forbidden to bring jack fruit back on airplanes because over time it will stink up the whole cabin with a peppery, garlic-y odor that betrays the delicious taste inside. I have a few extra bedrooms for anyone who wants a try.

After these errands we headed back to Layla and Greg’s house where their cook, Miss Josephine, taught me how to conquer and prepare a giant pineapple. In Kampala, it is expected that every well-to-do family will have hired help, and pretty much every Embassy-employed family has a nanny for the children, a live-in housekeeper, cook, gardener, driver, and gate guard. In the US, these types of help are usually reserved for the extremely wealthy, but in Uganda it is quite commonplace and this is for several reasons. First, not only is it fairly inexpensive here, it’s a form of social welfare. Ugandans that are employed by families make far more money than they would working in the stone quarries, in construction, or in factories. Often, the money they make is used to pay for reputable boarding schools for their children, and to improve their own homes in poorer areas of the country. Second, cooks and housekeepers are necessary for preparing and cooking fruits and vegetables that are not ready-to-eat like they are in the States. Of course when I buy a bag of grapes at home I rinse them under the faucet for a good 5 seconds, but here only fruit that you can peel is safe, and raw vegetables are out of the question. I watched Miss Josephine make a mixture of 1 tablespoon bleach for every 2 liters of water, and after thoroughly washing all the fruits and veggies in the sink they were placed in this mixture to soak for about an hour, rinsed with clean water once again, then boiled. Greg told me that a cook can usually be hired for about $100-$200 per month, and with four interns living at my house and splitting the cost, we should really consider treating ourselves to freshly cut pineapple and a hot meal ready for when we get home. That’d be bizarre to get used to, but don’t get me wrong, it’s tempting…

Post 2- Waking Up in Kampala

Although I was absolutely exhausted from the near 24 hours worth of traveling, I was too excited to sleep much that first night. It was that excitement, as well as the 5:30am call to prayer broadcast by the nearby mosques, and the unbelievable variety of morning bird calls that helped to wake me up in time to see the sun rise in front of my balcony. Over half of the bird species found in Africa are in Uganda, and seriously they make noises you have never heard. I could have sworn there was a chimpanzee somewhere in my house until I was told that a very common bird here sounds like a monkey. Unable to sleep anymore, I made myself breakfast and ate outside in my courtyard. At 7am it was about 70 degrees, the perfect temperature that seems to read on the thermometer no matter day or night. At 9:30am I was picked up at my house by a driver who brought me to the US Embassy for the first time. The 10 minute drive from my house to the Embassy is along one of the main roads in this part of Kampala, and the city was bustling with people everywhere. It was my first chance to see Kampala during the day, and the first thing anyone would notice on the road is the maniacal driving of motorbikes, here called “bota-botas.” The first warning I got from Greg and Layla is to NEVER ride on a bota-bota taxi. Half of hospital patients are these drivers and passengers (sometimes three or four people stacked on one bike, with groceries, bags, goats, etc) who weave in and out of traffic, up onto sidewalks, and through traffic lights without a second glance. Part of this hectic road scene may be related to the lack of any lane markings, potholes that send even SUVs flying into the air, and broken traffic signals in intersections that are directed by one, lonely traffic officer who can’t seem to get hundreds of cars to pay attention to him. Instead of blinkers, most people use horns to let other drivers know they’re coming in whether you like it or not, and it seems that everyone has the right of way, all the time.

Upon arrival at the US Embassy, I went through security and proceeded inside. I was met in front by Greg and the Political Affairs Deputy. Hebecame my tour guide for the day, introducing me to everyone in the Political Affairs Department and showing me the lay of the land. The Embassy is huge with a different wing for every department. I had my first meeting with the Political Affairs Officer (the Officer is the head of each department) and she gave me a brief outline of what I will be doing this summer. The first big event is on Tuesday at the Ambassador’s house. The event is called Rising Stars, and it is a mentoring event for about 300 Ugandan high school girls. My office is in the pressroom, which I share with three other employees, all Ugandan. That was probably the biggest surprise at the Embassy. I assumed that since it was a US post, all employees inside would be American, but actually, besides the deputies and officers, native Ugandans carry out mostly all other functions of the Embassy.

Since Friday is a half-day, I left early at 12:30pm. Layla and Greg invited me to a lunch that was held at the home of the American Manager of Operations. His wife, half-Korean, had cooked up an incredible feast which included homemade sushi, kim-chi, sweet and sour chicken, and sweet potato noodles, just to name a few dishes. There were four other embassy families at the lunch, and it was a great opportunity to talk with them and learn about life in the Foreign Service. They’ve been stationed in Bogota, Mexico City, Bombay, Bosnia, Liberia, Senegal, Peru…the list keeps on going. One of the most interesting things for me is that every family at the lunch has young children under the age of 10. When considering a career with the Foreign Service, I’ve always been concerned with how family life would exist and survive when you must move across the world every three or four years. It was really intriguing to hear their stories, and exciting to meet all of their kids later in the day. Dino, Layla and Greg’s son who is 10, attends the International School in Entebbe, and it was awesome to hear him talk about his friends from Korea, Germany, England and India. Tonight Dino is at a Cub Scout sleepover…amazing how far we are from the US but a lot of childhood traditions and activities are the same. For dinner we went to Café Roma, an Italian restaurant that many Embassy families go to every Friday night, where kids can jump on the trampoline, make their own pizza and eat ice cream. After successfully staying awake all day, I passed out early at 9pm, with ear plugs this time to avoid the bird call and Islamic prayer alarm clocks.

Post 1- First Days in Uganda!

As a first-time blogger, I'm not sure who to address these posts to, or if that's even necessary, but I’m optimistic and will pretend that there's someone out there reading this (hi mom and dad)...so...

Dear Anyone and Everyone,

It’s amazing to me that after only 2 days in Kampala, Uganda, I already have so much to report. This will probably be the longest of my posts since I’m including the trip itself, and my first few days. If it seems to drag on, don’t forget I’m here alone on a three-day weekend. If I have anything at all, it’s time. I left on Wednesday, May 25^th from SFO International airport, flew 11 hours to Amsterdam, ran to my next gate, and flew 9 hours to Entebbe, Uganda, stopping briefly in Kigali, Rwanda. I met the most amazing German 20 year old girl on the first leg of my journey, and we talked for four hours straight about as many topics as you can imagine. Meeting other people and hearing about their journeys, where they’re coming from and where they are going, is one of the best parts about sitting in the middle seat between two people you’ve never met and will probably never see again. I arrived in Uganda on Thursday evening and was met at the gate by an Expeditor from the US Embassy. His name was Nono. Nono and I went through customs together, and then headed over to baggage claim where I saw a large piece of posterboard that read, “The following bags were not loaded onto the plane…” I read the list of names just for kicks, and there was my name in lights. SIMONS. For anyone that has been around me the past few months, they know that many of the arrangements for this internship have been out of my control. Whether it was confirming the country I would be serving in, or attempting in vain to make flight arrangements (successfully booked a day and a half before departure) I’ve learned that well, shit happens. Nono seemed pretty relaxed about the whole “you don’t have any luggage” situation, so it was a bit easier to accept that if a flight to Africa is crowded, they might just pluck your bags out of the lot and feel no reason to consult you on the matter. Nono and I left baggage claim with one found bag out of two, and met up with my sponsor, Greg. Greg, an American, and his wife Layla, who is Bosnian, are my sponsors here in Uganda and they both work at the US Embassy. I’ve spent mostly all of my time with them and their two sons, Dino (10) and Benji (2.5), the past two days. They are incredible people and have completely adopted me as another child, but more on that later.

The drive from Entebbe to my house in Kampala was about 40 minutes. Entebbe is right on Lake Victoria, the second largest lake in the world, and Kampala is north from there. In just 40 minutes there were three police checkpoints, but we did not have to stop because the license plates on our car read CD02, which identify us as employees of the US Embassy. I arrived at my house, and although I was told it would be big, I didn’t realize it was essentially a mansion. The house has seven bedrooms, most with their own bathrooms and balconies, sitting room, dining room, TV room, servant’s quarters and beautiful backyard. Since I am the first intern to arrive (I will soon share the house with three other interns) I was directed to the master suite and immediately dropped my backpack like it was a flag meant to stake out my territory. Although I’m alone in this huge house, I feel comforted by the brick walls enclosing the compound, the razor wire decorating the top of the walls, the 24 hour armed guard at my gate, and the panic button next to my bed, that if pressed, will send a screeching alarm to the Marines at the Embassy. As Greg said, “all hell will break loose if you press this button.” I like the thought of that.