Still in Lira

Hello good people who probably have electricity and hot water.  I am currently sitting on my bed at 11 AM bored out of my mind.  Yesterday I ended up going and seeing the villages where the huts will be built.  I saw the places that these children are currently living in, it is pretty bad.  So it is a good sign that huts are actually needed.  In order to get to this village it was a 90 Km motercycle ride on bumpy dirt roads.  I was also wearing a skirt and flip flops.  Needless to say it was a beautiful drive, but my butt still hurts. I then met with the engineer who gave me a projection that is wildly over budget.  The huts that he is suggesting are also very lavish and extravagant. They consist of 2 rooms and a sitting room, and it is rectngular.  Mind you, most huts everywhere here are circular and not anywhere close to that big.  So that was an interesting conversation.  I asked if we could cut out the sitting room and he said that would cut the cost in half; however they want a house that kids are proud to live in.  I do not agree, we could build ten houses for the cost of  5 without the sitting room.  But what do I know, I am just a white person in Africa trying to help an area that might not even want help.

So I was done yesterday around 3.  I went to the only resturant that I trust the food at, ordered a pizza, and went back to my room.  I skyped Josh for a bit and then ate the WHIOLE pizza and didnt get out of bed until this morning. At 6.  Because the people who work here knock on my door all the time.

Now I have nothing scheduled for today until 5 pm.  I am going to meet all of the children who are benificiaries for the huts.  Yay more awful stories about being abducted by the LRA. 

Until then I shall lay in bed and be bored. I finished another book, that makes 6 for this trip, and I would watch a movie but the power is out and I do not want my tablet to die. So the options are sleep or read some more.  I am going with sleep. I wish Lira had more to do in it.  It is very much a working town and I am pretty sure only I would choose to vacation here.

I also had the idea to go to a club last night just to check it out.... but as I was leaving the pizza place a HUGE truck full of South Sudanese soldiers, fully armed,  pulled into the other resturant down town.  The idea to leave later that night was squashed by the fear of being abducted and held hostage in Sudan, or just killed.  Yes mom I am using my brain. 

So hopefully this meeting today goes well.  I always like seeing kids. 

Love you all!

Huts For Peace

Hello everyone!

So I finally have a sense of what I am doing for Huts for Peace.  There was absolutely nothing set up when I got to Lira.  After talking to GLI it became obvious that they had no idea either.  I met with a woman named Jane yesterday who is the founder of a NGO called Children of Peace Uganda.  It focuses on taking former child soldiers and helping them reintegrate into the community, along with providing them with jobs and therapy.  The idea of Huts for Peace is building huts for children led households. However, there is no engineer, no budget, and no direction with the project.  The budget that they did come up with put each hut at 2,500 USD per hut; which is way too much. 

After talking to GLI my job will not be to build huts, but instead create a report that outlines every detail of the project.  So today I am going to meet with Jane to let her know Huts probably will not be built for awhile.  Then I am meeting with an engineer that I found who is willing to help for free.  I plan on getting the layout of the huts and the materials that are imperative.  Tomorrow I am going to meet with a few of the families that are benificiaries and see what the huts in their communities look like so we can ensure that anything that is being built matches the community. Then on thursday I am going out and pricing everything that is on the list of materials from the engineer.  So I will create a budget for the project, assess the need of the area, and see if this project is even needed here.

So this is nothing like what I though I would be doing, but that is okay.  Hopefully this will pay forward eventually and help someone!

Merchison

So it turns out that the people incharge of the project that I am supposed to be helping with have no idea what I am supposed to be doing either.  The woman that I am working with does not return to Lira until monday.... so what does that mean for me?  First of all I am mad that this NGO cannot get their stuff together, and if I had known it was going to be this unorganized I would have traveled somewhere else for my last 10 days here.  But since I am here and waiting till monday to see if I can get Huts for Peace started I decided to take a trip up to Merchison National Park.  It was totally worth the 4 hour drive.  On the drive to the hostel I stayed at we saw hippos, elephants, and antelope ( they all have different names but I cannot remember any of them).

I arrived at like 3 in the afternoon and grabbed a burger at the hostel.  There is also a beautiful man from South Africa that works there, who moved to Uganda when he was 14 and has lived there for 13 years.  So that made the stay fun!  I went on a safari evening drive and saw EVERYTHING!  We saw Hyenas, Giraffes, Elephants, Water Buffalo, all the grass eaters... and A PACK OF LIONS!  They are very rare to see in Uganda... and I saw 8 of them.  7 female and one male.  It was amazing.  I went back to my South African husband and the hostel, had an amazinng dinner... I actually have no idea what it was, but it tasted good.  So late that night, at like 9, they realized that they did not have enough rooms for me there.  So i had to catch a ride to a hostel down the street, I thought I was winning big time because the reception area was a really nice lodge.  However.... the rooms were pretty terrible.  My bed sheets had a HUGE yellow stain on them, the water smelled like metal, and the mosquito net literally laid on my face all night.  It was really exciting...not.  I also managed to break the bathroom door handle, so that was really embaressing.

The next morning I took a river boat tour down the nile .  I kid you not when I say I saw well over 300 hippos, and they are adorable.  They make this weird grunting noise, and if you make it back to them they talk to you!  However cute they are, they are still massive and terrifying.  We also saw quite a few crocodiles... and let me tell you...I will not be swimming in the Nile anytime soon. These Crocs get up to 5 meters long and they are very scary looking and swim very fast.  They had to kill a croc 2 weeks ago because it was hunting people.  Sooooo yeah , no swimming in the nile for me.  Then we headed to Merchison falls on the boat.  It is the most powerful waterfall in the world because of the amount of water it spews out in such a small area.  This is also where Hemingway crashed his plane... twice.  He survived both.

The boat tour was really fun, but here is when my story starts to get interesting, and not for the better. So I call GLI ( the NGO im with)and ask how I am getting back to Lira.  They have no clue ( just like they have no clue about the huts) and so I have to drive ALL the way back to Kampala ( the capital) and then catch a public transport bus back up to Lira.  So I spent 6 hours on a bus yesterday, and will probably spend another 6 on a bus tomorrow.  I am kind of pissed to say the least.  And I bet that come monday Huts for Peace will still not start.  If I spoke the language I would be more helpful, but I do not, so I need GLI''s assistance in this.  And they are curently NOT pulling through.

So I woke up this morning around 9 and walked everywhere to try and find Wifi, because the guest house I am in does not have it.  And I FINALLY found a nice looking bar/resturant that says FREE WIFI really large on their sign.  So after 2 miles of walking I finally sit down and order a coffe. I pulled out my tablet to write this wonderful blog and the wifi does not connect.  They lady tells me there is no wifi here, despite what the sign says.  So I am writing this off line and drinking some coffee.  On the plus side this is one of the better cups of coffee that I have had; it has some ginger in it, which I have learned I like alot.

So my quest for a purpose here continues, also my quest for Wifi.  I am about to buy a wireless router on their network and just have that with me so I have Wifi everywhere.  I feel so boogie doing that, however, if I am going to be sitting around for the next week or so I at least want to be able to watch netflix. Actually if something does not change with GLI by tuesday I am going to go back to Merchison, stay in their resort hotel, and tan for a week by the pool and the hippos.  It has been decided.  I hope everyone is doing well!!  I still love Uganda, just peeved at the moment!

I will attach as many pictures as possible but alot of them are on my phone, and I have no idea how to put the on my tablet from my phone :)
Love you guys!

Updates

So there is still no update on Huts for Peace.  I went down to Kampala for a day.  I hung out with Martina, who actually works for GLI, and it was super fun.  I spent the morning trying to find internet... and did not.  So there will be two blogs posted today.

After my adventure to find Wifi Martina and I took Bodas downtown Kampala an had lunch.  It was heavenly.  I had some sort of chicken sandwich and a passion fruit drink that was freshly squeezed. Then we went to the big mall downtown to try and find a router.  I bought a router but the SIM card would not work.... it still is not.  It is supposed to work by tomorrow but I am not getting my hopes up.  Then we went to this store that can download any movie you want onto your tablet or laptop.  I got 14 movies and the whole new season of Orange is the New Black for $18.  So that was exciting. 

It was really cool seeing a side of Kampala that is very normal.  The mall was just like any mall in the US.  The phone store was just as annoying as a phone store anywhere else.  It was pretty cool.  Martina is also awesome. 

Yesterday I caught a public transpo bus to go back to Lira.  We left at 8 AM and arrived at around 2 PM.  I went to the MTN store in Lira and they told me to wait until monday for my router.  I was planning to meet the Huts for Peace lady last night to figure out what we are doing, but she canceled.  So we are meeting sometime monday.... which means I have another full day of doing nothing. 

Today I woke up aound 7 and watched the whole season of Orange is the New Black.  Then I did some laundry and now I am eating dinner.  My life is incredibly exciting.

Survey Days

So the surveys are done!  We ended up completing over 100 surveys.  The stories did not get easier, but they got easier to hear. I have heard so many incredible stories of perserverence and the ability to make the best out of an awful situation.  

We made our way from Gulu, to Kitgum, and now I am in Lira.  I thought that Gulu was tiny but compared to Kitgum it was nothing.  Kitgum was where there was a lot of LRA violence, one of the worst massacres happened there.  We went into 3 different villages and went around talking to people, like we did in Gulu; however, most everyone in Kitgum had been abducted by the LRA for anywhere from 1 day to 5 years.  I loved walking around the villages and just talking to the people.  They are like neighborhoods except instead of houses there are huts!  The people were very nice once you started talking to them. 

Kitgum was also the first hot shower that I had in a week... but the shower was subpar.  It was a hole in the ground in the bathroom with a faucet and a bucket! So that was super exciting, trying to wash my hair in that.  Also, all of the beds here are made for very short people.  My feet hang off the end of everything, and if there is a footboard i am awkwardly hanging my feet over the top of the footboard.  It makes for very comfortable sleeping.  We only stayed in Kitgum for 2 nights.

Two days ago we made our way to Lira, this is where I will be for the remainder of the trip.  We did not have the privilage of just walking around villages here to get interviews, instead our translators set up meetings at schools.  It was not as much fun, but I heard the more horrific stories from the students that we talked to here.  One of the boys I talked to yesterday is 20 years old now and was abducted when he was 12.  He worked directly with Joseph Kony and was the one who smuggled Kony's 3 wives across the S. Sudan border into Uganda in 2004.  He told me, " Kony is the hand of God, so everything that he does is essentially God".  So I asked him if God was the one commiting all of these murders and torturing all of these people, and he said that yes the people deserrve it.  He also told me that he was one of the nicer soldiers that killed his victims quickly so that they did not suffer, and that made him good.  He said he enjoyed his time with the LRA, up until he was shot in the knee and waited 3 months to get medical help; he is now limp. 

It is incredibly fascinating to me the inherent evil that surrounds the LRA.  The things that this group does is by far one of the most horrific if you are comparing it to other terrorist group and rebel groups.  And when i say more horrific it is the way that they kill people, the things that they make people do, and their torture methods.  I have no explination as to why this group is more violent than others.  But it is incredibly obvious that it still effects peoplel to this day.  Even though the LRA is out of Uganda there is now a HUGE group of children and adults that have retured after being abducted and are not being reintegrated into the community.  People still call them rebels and treat them terribly.  If something is not done it would not be surprising if another rebel group formed that was comprised of this group of displaced people. 

As for the LRA they are low in numbers now (about 300) but are still creating huge problems in S. Sudan, Cenral African Republic, and Congo.  They have such a reputation for terror that people scatter when they hear that they are near.  So the problem persists, even though they are so small.

So lets talk about something happier! Kiristin and John left this morning, leaving me in Lira ALL ALONE ( it is okay mom... I am safe ).  The wifi at the hotel that I am staying at is only in the lobby, so i decided last night that I would go and buy a wireless router so that i could use my phone in my room and when I am out and about.  So i went into town and went to an MTN store, which is the mobile network here.  I was told that i needed to go to the regional store which was a couple km away so i hopped on a Boda (the motercycles)and went there.  Only to be told in very broken English that they do not have them here... I do not think the lady understood me to be honest. So that was a fail.  Now I am in a coffee shop I found (with actual coffee, thank the lord)and I am attempting to download the Dark Knight Rises onto my tablet so I can watch it in my room later.  However.... I have been sitting here for an hour and it is only 4 percent loaded. So that is exciting.  I am eating dinner with some GLI people that are here at the hotel tonight and then going out with my friend Claire to the club Angles tonight.  Apparently it is the hopping place to be at! 

I hope everyone is doing well!!

Gulu Day One

So just a disclaimer, there is some rough stuff in this one because interviews started today. 
We drove into Gulu yesterday, it is a small town in northern Uganda.  It is where alot of the rebel violence occured and where many of the IDP camps were located.  This is also the town that the commuter children fled to every night at the height of LRA violence. So there is a really weird feel to this town.  Everyone is nice, but people seem haunted. Which is more than understandable ; the things this town and its people have gone through are unimaginable.  There was a bit of political violence here last week and so the whole town is on edge.  The government turns the power off at night so the town is pitch black, trying to divert people from staying out late.  So the town seems very eerie at night, very deserted.  The town itself is  very normal but the vibe is much different.

We started our interviews today and went to a village where a huge IDP camp used to be.  I ended up conducting 5 interviews today, our team did a total of 22.  We have 3 university students with us and had 3 tanslators.  We split up into 3 different groups and all went our own way in the village. I interviewed one man and three women.  Two of the women were former rebels.  The first woman was abducted from her village when she was 15 and was part of the LRA for 6 months.  She was incharge of watching the kids on the compound, and was also forced to be a 'wife' of a commander.  She was pregnant within the first month.  She ended up escaping with 6 other children when their compound got raided by the ugandan military. 

The other woman I interviewed was abducted on her way home from school when she was 11. She was in the middle of her 5th grade year at school and was never able to finish.  One of our questions in the interview is if religion played a large role in their life while they were part of the LRA.  This woman told me that they were banned from praying until they earned it and were inducted into the LRA.  This included being tortured and sexually abused by the other soldiers.  She endured that for a year.  She was then trained to become a soldier, at age 12, and was used for village raids.  She said, "I killed people, many people, babies too".  After a year of being a soldier she was in a fire fight with the Ugandan Military and things went south very quickly.  She got shot in the ankle ( she was not sure if it was by a member of the LRA or the Ugandan Military).  When the fire fight was over her commander told her that she was dead weight and buried her alive.  She waited until she felt out of breath and clawed her way out of the shallow grave.  They had buried her in a bannana grove so she slept there for 2 nights, scared that the LRA was in the general vicinity still.  When she finally left she went to a neighboring village and told an old woman that she was lost from and IDP camp becuase if she had said she was a former rebel  the community would have killed her.  They took her to the hospital to tend to the gunshot wound that she still has scars from on her ankle (it went clean through) and then returned her to her family.  Most former soldiers go to a rehabilitation center to cope with what happened to them, her family would not allow her to.  They would not recognize that she was ever even a part of the LRA. 

Dr.Riley interviewd a little boy that was born into the LRA and did not escape until he was 15, he is 19 now.  Another woman escaped in 2011 with all three of her children ( all born while she was a wife to a commander).  These stories are absolutely incredible and heart breaking.  I am in a really weird emotional place of complete awe at these people and a sense of horror.  Which is completely selfish of me, it is unfair for me to take these peoples stories and make them emotionally taxing for myself.  Everyone told me their story so hap hazardly, like it was completely normal for them to encounter such terrible things.

So that was day one of interviews! Tomorrow should be interesting!  The picture is of the kids that were following me around at the village today.

Uganda!

Hey guys!  Sorry I have not had Wifi the last couple of days.  I successfully made it back from Congo and will be in Uganda for the remainder of the trip.  We spent 3 nights in Kabale at a resort called Entusi.  It was incredibly beautiful and it sits directly on Lake Benyoni.  Those were our down days before research really kicked off.  I did alot of reading by the lake, hiking in and around the villages, canoed, and other relaxing non useful things.  It was very enjoyable.

Yesterday we had an 8 hour bus ride from Kabal to Kampala the capital of Uganda.  It is a HUGE city.  I love the vibe here.  We had dinner at a Mediterrainan resturant and met the man who supplies tea for Tevana and Celestial Seasonings (I think).  His plantation is in Rwanda.  So that was pretty neat.  We are staying in a guest house here in Kampala, and I am on day 5 without a hot shower, so that is exciting!

Today we went into town and met a woman who has built a business around producing and selling peanut butter and honey. Then we went and  saw the slums of Kampala and visited the free hospital.  It was all rather interesting.  Then we went to Makerere University, the campus is beautiful, and had lunch there.  It took us 2 hours to get back to the guest house we are staying in, about 5 miles away from the University.  So that was fun.  We are Boad Boading to dinner tonight ( hpping on the back of a moter cycle) so that should be fun!!

I still love it here, even though it is super hot.  We head up north to Gulu tomorrow and really start our research there.  We are meeting our research team tonight!!