Field Journal
So have been in the field for a couple of days and since there was no internet I have to copy and paste some journal entries I made below.
Monday December 11, 2006
So I will never ever ever go on another community function again. On the way to Gulu we went to hand over an ambulance to Anyeke Health Centre IV which was part of the UNICEF project. This ambulance will be the only one serving 300,00 people in the district. Got up at 5, left at about 630 got there about 11. Definitely the only mzungu there and people kept thinking I was someone important. Pretty funny as the conversations would go like this:
Them: So are you with UNICEF?
Me: No I’m with CPAR
Them: Are you the manager?
Me: No the manager is Fred, he is over there talking to the Program Director, I’m the intern.
Them: Oh I see.
I’ve developed quite a distaste for speeches since I came here as all functions involve a number of them but I learned there is a hell worse than too many speeches – three hours of speeches about an ambulance and the maternity unit we are building while sitting in the mid day heat with no food and all the speeches are in LUO…..Eddie (construction genius) translated for me but the whole situation was PAINFUL. Seriously wanted to die and I couldn’t escape to the car for a little snack like most my coworkers b/c the entire community would notice if the only white girl there who the district chairman specifically mentioned in relation to the speeches being in Luo and the need for someone to translate for me.It was strange actually seeing that many people waiting outside the health centre for treatment. Another strange experience was at the ground breaking part a little girl about a year old came up behind me and touched/patted my leg (I was wearing a skirt) just to see what my skin felt like. I guess I was the first white person she had seen. The eyes looking up at me when I turned around and gave her my hand were so huge it was amazing. All the people around me noticed and thought it was pretty damn funny which it was but still strange.
At dinner tonight we had the most intense discussion about the war and the peace process, justice, forgiveness and reconciliation and what might happen after people go home. The general consensus was that people just want the war to be over so they will say they forgive and all that but after a while and when reality of living next door to someone who killed your uncle and raped then mutilated your aunt really sinks in things could get really really really nasty and the violence could be unbelievable. It actually really scares me b/c I have such high hopes for peace and yet I know that a peace treaty is only the very beginning and in all likelihood things will still be nasty afterwards. Lets look at things here, there is a population who has been attacked, terrorized, forced into camps, practically starved, had their way of life destroyed, been mutilated, murdered and ignored for over 20 years and in most cases the people doing the terrorizing are parts of the community (many of whom have been forced to carry out these atrocities on their own people). This population has been left behind the development of the rest of the country and often looked down upon as well. Now there is talk of sending people home to the very places where these killings happened, to live beside the people who committed those acts, with questions of land ownership and tenure looming. Without a well thought out return and reconciliation process this is a recipe for disaster. I hope that peace and stability actually come to the north because the people have suffered too much.
Tuesday December 12, 2006
Today we had the meetings with possible (probable) trainers for this peacebuilding project. It went well though we sort of change the project structure a bit to make it more viable. The meeting with the youth coalition for peace (henceforth won’t call them by whole name but by YCFP) went really well I think. They like the project and together we all managed to come up with the criteria for selecting the members of the new groups as well as the TOTs who will be trained along with six of them to do the training of these new groups. Turns out I am really really difficult to understand, especially for the not as well educated members of the YCFP, so I am going to have to work on speaking slower and more importantly my Acholi. I have a Lwo-English dictionary now so that’ll be helpful.After work we went to visit Christine (the caretaker of Loro) who was in a really really bad car accident in early November. She broke her arm in two places and her leg above the knee but got off easy as the two people in the front seat died. She is in what is generally known to be the best hospital in Uganda (well best affordable hospital – ppl actually come from Kampala there for treatment b/c it has things even Mulago doesn’t have) but I would not want to be there. Although it is clean it really was not where I would want to be spend a lot of time and I would be very concerned about the treatment I would receive. After we went to the best hotel in town for a total staff dinner, it has a lot of western food on the menu so it will be my new home away from home when I live in Gulu….
Wednesday December 13, 2006
This morning we had a staff meeting and then another meeting with the trainers to go over everyone’s roles in the project. After that Evelyn, Richard and I went to Amuru to discuss the project with the district officials. The beauty of new districts is they are very keen to have projects so the district is giving us land/space to “establish” (not construct b/c the donor doesn’t want construction) a youth meeting space for that subcounty. So one space down only 5 more to go. The really interesting/sad thing is Amuru District was carved out of Gulu District in July except no one really checked to see if there were the facilities needed to be a stand alone district. You should have seen the district headquarters – three UNICEF tents, one dilapidated building and some mobile toilets. Now the plan was for me to go home on the bus once we got back to the office from Amuru but we got back too late for it to be a good idea for me to take the bus so I hitched a ride with Evelyn to Lira for the night to visit the office there (and b/c the place we would stay has good pizza.) We get to the office and find everyone piling into Fred’s car turns out Julius of Lira (not to be confused with Kampala guard Julius) has really bad malaria and is in the hospital so it’s trip three to an Ugandan health care centre in as many days. It was only when Evelyn went out to take a phone call that I realized exactly how male dominated the Lira office is – there was Julius, Fred, Godfrey, Raymond (ok he’s from Gulu but was there), Richard, Jeff and then me. If the genders were reversed you’d think I was a pimp but I don’t know what to call me in that situation. Hit the hotel restaurant for dinner only to find that there was no pizza…..
Monday December 11, 2006
So I will never ever ever go on another community function again. On the way to Gulu we went to hand over an ambulance to Anyeke Health Centre IV which was part of the UNICEF project. This ambulance will be the only one serving 300,00 people in the district. Got up at 5, left at about 630 got there about 11. Definitely the only mzungu there and people kept thinking I was someone important. Pretty funny as the conversations would go like this:
Them: So are you with UNICEF?
Me: No I’m with CPAR
Them: Are you the manager?
Me: No the manager is Fred, he is over there talking to the Program Director, I’m the intern.
Them: Oh I see.
I’ve developed quite a distaste for speeches since I came here as all functions involve a number of them but I learned there is a hell worse than too many speeches – three hours of speeches about an ambulance and the maternity unit we are building while sitting in the mid day heat with no food and all the speeches are in LUO…..Eddie (construction genius) translated for me but the whole situation was PAINFUL. Seriously wanted to die and I couldn’t escape to the car for a little snack like most my coworkers b/c the entire community would notice if the only white girl there who the district chairman specifically mentioned in relation to the speeches being in Luo and the need for someone to translate for me.It was strange actually seeing that many people waiting outside the health centre for treatment. Another strange experience was at the ground breaking part a little girl about a year old came up behind me and touched/patted my leg (I was wearing a skirt) just to see what my skin felt like. I guess I was the first white person she had seen. The eyes looking up at me when I turned around and gave her my hand were so huge it was amazing. All the people around me noticed and thought it was pretty damn funny which it was but still strange.
At dinner tonight we had the most intense discussion about the war and the peace process, justice, forgiveness and reconciliation and what might happen after people go home. The general consensus was that people just want the war to be over so they will say they forgive and all that but after a while and when reality of living next door to someone who killed your uncle and raped then mutilated your aunt really sinks in things could get really really really nasty and the violence could be unbelievable. It actually really scares me b/c I have such high hopes for peace and yet I know that a peace treaty is only the very beginning and in all likelihood things will still be nasty afterwards. Lets look at things here, there is a population who has been attacked, terrorized, forced into camps, practically starved, had their way of life destroyed, been mutilated, murdered and ignored for over 20 years and in most cases the people doing the terrorizing are parts of the community (many of whom have been forced to carry out these atrocities on their own people). This population has been left behind the development of the rest of the country and often looked down upon as well. Now there is talk of sending people home to the very places where these killings happened, to live beside the people who committed those acts, with questions of land ownership and tenure looming. Without a well thought out return and reconciliation process this is a recipe for disaster. I hope that peace and stability actually come to the north because the people have suffered too much.
Tuesday December 12, 2006
Today we had the meetings with possible (probable) trainers for this peacebuilding project. It went well though we sort of change the project structure a bit to make it more viable. The meeting with the youth coalition for peace (henceforth won’t call them by whole name but by YCFP) went really well I think. They like the project and together we all managed to come up with the criteria for selecting the members of the new groups as well as the TOTs who will be trained along with six of them to do the training of these new groups. Turns out I am really really difficult to understand, especially for the not as well educated members of the YCFP, so I am going to have to work on speaking slower and more importantly my Acholi. I have a Lwo-English dictionary now so that’ll be helpful.After work we went to visit Christine (the caretaker of Loro) who was in a really really bad car accident in early November. She broke her arm in two places and her leg above the knee but got off easy as the two people in the front seat died. She is in what is generally known to be the best hospital in Uganda (well best affordable hospital – ppl actually come from Kampala there for treatment b/c it has things even Mulago doesn’t have) but I would not want to be there. Although it is clean it really was not where I would want to be spend a lot of time and I would be very concerned about the treatment I would receive. After we went to the best hotel in town for a total staff dinner, it has a lot of western food on the menu so it will be my new home away from home when I live in Gulu….
Wednesday December 13, 2006
This morning we had a staff meeting and then another meeting with the trainers to go over everyone’s roles in the project. After that Evelyn, Richard and I went to Amuru to discuss the project with the district officials. The beauty of new districts is they are very keen to have projects so the district is giving us land/space to “establish” (not construct b/c the donor doesn’t want construction) a youth meeting space for that subcounty. So one space down only 5 more to go. The really interesting/sad thing is Amuru District was carved out of Gulu District in July except no one really checked to see if there were the facilities needed to be a stand alone district. You should have seen the district headquarters – three UNICEF tents, one dilapidated building and some mobile toilets. Now the plan was for me to go home on the bus once we got back to the office from Amuru but we got back too late for it to be a good idea for me to take the bus so I hitched a ride with Evelyn to Lira for the night to visit the office there (and b/c the place we would stay has good pizza.) We get to the office and find everyone piling into Fred’s car turns out Julius of Lira (not to be confused with Kampala guard Julius) has really bad malaria and is in the hospital so it’s trip three to an Ugandan health care centre in as many days. It was only when Evelyn went out to take a phone call that I realized exactly how male dominated the Lira office is – there was Julius, Fred, Godfrey, Raymond (ok he’s from Gulu but was there), Richard, Jeff and then me. If the genders were reversed you’d think I was a pimp but I don’t know what to call me in that situation. Hit the hotel restaurant for dinner only to find that there was no pizza…..
posted by Erin at 7:23 PM
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