The Research Itself

Hey guys!! So this week has been incredibly eventful, as most of you know.  The postings on facebook are enough to make everyone go insane.  I did in fact graduate on thursday and I even got to shake and salute the President!  It was incredibly exciting.  The best part of the whole experience was the time I got to spend with my family and friends this week.  I really just want to give them a really big shoutout. Without them, nothing that I do is possible.  So if you guys are reading this blog, thank you so much.  My success is dependent on the support and love that I receive from everyone!

Okay enough of being sappy.  I am currently on the plane just beginning my trip to Africa.  The plane rides today consist of a stop at JFK in New York, onto Amsterdam for a 55 minute layover, and then the final strech into Kigali, Rwanda. My traveling companions are Major Kristin Pearson and Dr. John Riley.  Kristin was my academic advisor at school and traveled with me to Africa last summer! She is a mentor and a friend and taught me in two of my classes at school, Politics of Sub Saharan Africa, and Politics of Southern Africa.

Dr. Riley is an African specialist in the Political Science department at the Academy.  He was my teacher for a core political science class and War Crimes and Genocide class.  He is the only political science teacher that has ever given me a C in a Political Science course, this is one thing I will never let him live down. He is also a great friend and mentor. 

They are going on this great adventure with me, and will most likely be in many of my pictures, I know Dr. Riley is really excited about this. 

So the main goal of our research in Africa this summer is to survey people to find out why they leave terrorist groups.  We are focusing on people in the northern Uganda region and the terrorist organization that we are studying is the Lords Resistance Army (LRA).  Many of you might recognize the name of this group, but I will give you some brief history.  Their leader's name is Joseph Kony and he created this rebellion because he believed that the Ugandan government needed to be run in congruence with the ten commandments; furthermore,  he thought the Acholi people of Northern Uganda deserved more rights. In the 90's his following of people was in the 3,000's and was focused on extreme violence and displaced many people in Northern Uganda.  They are very well known for taking children from their homes and forcing them to become child soldiers.  They are still active, but have been forced out of Uganda and have lost most of their people.  They are now located more in South Sudan, and they only have about 300 people who still follow Kony.  If you want more information or history on the group there is TONS of stuff on "The Google".

So you are probably now thinking, " well of course people would want to leave this group, it sounds like it would be terrible... so why would you want to research it?", apparently MINERVA is very interested in it and has given us money to travel all the way across the world to find out why!  In order to do this we (mostly Dr. Riley with some minimal input from Kristin and me) have created a survey that we will administer to people.  According to Dr. Riley we will have to bribe the first couple of people to take the survey, but people like telling their story and so apparently it will attract people. I hope he is right because that 2nd Lieutenant pay has not kicked in yet! We are hoping to conduct about 20 surveys a day.  They are all on tablets (which I am in charge of) and will be backed up to the cloud whenever we have WIFI. 

So that is the gist of the first three weeks of the trip!  For the last two weeks I will be working with Global Living Institute (GLI), who is also traveling with us the first three weeks (pics and small bios will come later).  I am building huts for people whos famly has been majorly effected by the LRA.  The program is called Huts for Peace. One of my friends from school will be joining me for some of that time. So that is a very basic summary of the trip!  Like I said before, I will update this as much as possible, I am using it as my own journal as well. 

Talk to everyone when I am in Rwanda!!