Not long ago a few friends of mine decided to ask everyone they knew in Northern Uganda and associated with our works here a simple question, "Does Rubanga mean 'God' or 'a Hunchback'?" To which they received not very many answers but a lot of awkward stares. Since that failure, they rephrased the question as a request, for people to submit whatever they wanted to a first-run attempt at a literary journal. Figuring on a slight retreat from just constantly considering money and contracts, I tried to fold some small part of the beauty and frustration (and even the beauty of that) into a small piece. Given more time, I would have polished it more, but as it is, I tried for a small reflection of Uganda in terms of my own exeriences and those of my closer friends. If you want some additional reading, feel free to look through the first issue. If you are fully inspired, there is a call for participation at the end.
http://jamestravels.com/rubanga/issue_1.pdf
Friday, July 06, 2007
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Learning to Love French
Looking back it was one of the most fulfilling trips I’ve taken. Looking forward, I can sympathize with all of those who looked at us slanted and questioned. “Why the Congo? What do you hope to do or see there that might be worth the trip, and—of course—the ever-hyped danger?” Of course, these same questions rang considerably when I was first considering the move to Uganda. Then, I had a solid answer, a plan that—even if my eventual tasks here turned out to be completely different—at least I had something secure that I could offer as a reason for the trip. But at the beginning of this last excursion, I lacked anything so definite.
I knew we were neighbors, that these simultaneous and largely unlinked, though at times similar, conflicts raged beyond and sometimes across the borders of the two countries. I knew people suffered and longed and some people strove for peace. I knew a bit of the history, but nothing extensive. And I knew it seemed alright to go. This last art troubled me because I know how I have spoken and how I feel about people who travel to Gulu to see, first-hand, the suffering of the Internally Displaced Persons Camps. As if somehow the tragedy wouldn’t be real unless they stood as witness to it. People travel and let the tears brim up in their eyes and the wringing hands clench tight before returning down south. And partly, they are right. There is something about visiting the place and knowing the people that makes the reality of Gulu live. But I always question what they do, what they offer, and how they present themselves—ever wary of those loathsome words that have been regularly lobbed at our organization—conflict tourism.
We had the idea of going as investigators, not for any special purpose other than trying to gain a wider understanding of the area we lived in, having read too many books about how Africa is both more than and less then the political boundaries of formerly imperial borders and hoping to learn what linked and what differentiated. None of this was for formal research, and possibly we could have dove into JSTOR and other locations for similar information, but the vividness of experience called stronger than academic publications. And, to be perfectly honest, the slight amounts of danger, of walking into a country most people don’t go to for fear of rebels—numerous Congolese factions, the Interahamwe, other Rwandese groups—and other travesties. Anyway, we had a contact. Our friend Julia had been about a month before with a Congolese friend of hers from Kampala. I called him, and he happened to be in Goma at the time so I asked if I could join him. “Perfect.” So we left.
The two o’clock bus from Kampala to Kigali, Rwanda bursts through small towns, over darkened potholes and through the pre-dawn fog of the increasingly vegetation-filled countryside of southern Uganda with enough speed to rock us occasionally out of sleep for fear and to get us to the bus park by ten in the morning, plenty of time to push on to the border. The officials as we first entered the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the Goma crossing were friendly as people normally are when we are first friendly with them. We laughed about American tourists, very large passport stamps, and numerous other things (not so much about the $50 it cost to cross over) and met Petna’s friends. I had called Petna at the border, introduced myself again as Julia’s friend and he excitedly sent some people down to pick us up.
During the whole trip we struggled with language. In the Congo, they speak French and Kiswahili. I’ve learned about as much Kiswahili as I can from a song that runs through greetings. “Mambo, Jambo Sana, Habari Gani… Hakuna Mutata.” And as for French, honestly, I’ve never cared for the language. Too visceral, almost venereal, too many letters that aren’t actually pronounced and odd comas and hyphens thrown in for no reasons I can discern. Then there was the friend who offered to teach me but instead ridiculed my poor pronunciations at every step. But there are kids, and when beautiful kids speak, and wonderful people speak, I can listen and almost love it. And when our well-armed guard speaks (more to come) I can struggle to understand. I can imagine living in a place like this and learning more than I could hope for, more than when English and ease is such a simple recourse. I’d be forced to do what everyone we met did, struggle forward with a language they don’t quite grasp. But we met somewhere and still exchanged stories and laughed a bunch, right from the beginning when we met Petna’s friends.
The took us to Petna’s offices, a decent sized compound out of which he runs a film and television production studio, a music group, and other initiatives through which he tries to create Goma as a cultural center for the Congo. Having little to no idea what he did or who he was before we got there, we were amazed to meet musicians, cinematographers, and all kinds of folks as we entered the place, everyone friendly and promising a great time over the next week. They almost ushered us to a local hotel, until we ran into two of their mzungu friends who subsequently offered a spot at their guest house. They warned us as we drove over there, “It’s not what we expected when we came here, we live rather well.” Knowing how I am pampered in Gulu with a nice compound, a great cook, and other niceties, we tried to assuage them, “No, we understand.” But we didn’t. They work for HEAL-Africa, an organization that runs a hospital in Goma and numerous community programs in the surrounding areas.
The director is a former Member of Parliament and current orthopedic surgeon who runs the hospital and the organization and allows many of those involved to stay at a magnificent house he acquired right on the shores of Lake Kivu. While doing amazing work in the peripheral areas with local leadership, they seek out special cases for his orthopedic skills as well as for a group that works on the incredibly high rate of vaginal fistulas in the area (due a record setting number of unskilled deliveries in the rural areas and Goma’s tragic claim as the world leader in violent gang rape.) They opened their home to us, began explaining their programs, allowed us to jump off the rock outcrop of the garden into the lake, and fed us well. We took a small side trip up north about 80 kilometers (more than 100 km and it begins to get too dangerous due to the rebel groups, even the place we went is often off limits) with a group that was setting up a new operation to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV. (We also made a small trip to a dairy farm in the mountains that easily resemble Europe where we got what is easily the best cheese I’ve had in over a year.)
Tired, making it home and then swimming, we rejoined with Petna to celebrate the world premier of a film he made about the lives and thoughts of the children in the area, tying it in artistically to the hopes of the continent with the coming of the South African World Cup. After each film we saw, we enjoyed a spread of beers (not those small Ugandan beers, but serious, 720mL bottles) cheese, sausages, nuts, anything we could think of, and asked the various directors questions about their works in between rounds of applause. The evening offered us a homegrown film festival intimately celebrated and lovingly shared.
The next day was a big one for us, we had set up to climb to the top of ________, an active volcano. I thought I’d be ready, but the two years I’d taken off from backpacking apparently weakened my legs, which were about ready to quit when we finally reached the top. Everything seemed fine, though, as the sunset and the lake of fire and lava erupted below us in ever-changing patterns of continuous explosions. I could try to explain how the lava stands as one of the most amazing natural spectacles I’ve seen, but the words are dainty compared to the quite literal center of the Earth exploding below us. So, we sat and sometimes joked, but regularly watched in silence, then slept through our tired muscles easily and thoroughly.
The morning was cold and we rushed to get down the mountain without letting gravity push us too hard all of the time. Regularly we failed at that and everyone ended up with scrapes and torn clothing. (Each step made Adam and myself question the validity of making the entire trip in Chacos.) Half the decent lay in the path of a lava flow created by an eruption in 2002, making every step a struggle to keep your ankles intact on the rolling and crumbling igneous rocks. We pushed ahead and only slightly noticed as our ranger guide (adequately equipped with an AK-47) kept intently staring off to the right. Remember our conversation the other day about any dangerous animals in the area. “Non, non, les personne dangerouise.”) [I have no idea how to spell in French.] We became a little worried. Asking him what it was, we finally got the reply “Les Bandit,” and instructions to move quickly down the mountain. We started moving quickly then even quicker after a shot fired behind us. I tried to remember what I had learned, that a single shot is a warning shot, that people with AK-47s don’t tend to take single, well-aimed shots at their targets, and that the situation wasn’t as bad as it might seem, but that was difficult. So we ran down the hill. We kept running until advised and allowed to stop, rested, then continued down the hill until we found someone coming up. We explained to her in English and she translated a little French for us so we understood that two men with black barrettes and uniforms but no guns(?) were crossing up above. Probably Rwandan militia trying to make it home. The Congolese Army was called to scout the area and our photographer/translator friend who wanted to go up the hill waited until they were finished. We were close enough, so felt it best to go home.
That night was filled with lively retellings of the story to our mzungu friends, to Petna, the whole crew, through drinking and dancing and wishing we weren’t so tired and aching and that we didn’t have to leave the next day. I said I’d try to come back. And I will try. I don’t know. We here it all the time in Gulu, but I loved the place. Their was music, amazing food, amazing people, all of these aspects of African life that I loved. I wanted to stay and learn from the solid organization. I can see myself returning on a rotation in 3rd/4th year, or maybe once I start my MPH studies. I’m not sure, it’s hard to promise these things, but I want to.
The whole trip didn’t offer us much rest, the main cause for the vacation, so we took an extra couple of days at Lake Bunyoni on Bunyo-Amagara Island. The place is seriously the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in Uganda. Perfect lakes and islands, wonderful food and people, a rope swing to dive into the clear actually safe waters, canoes to paddle around in, everything that promises a great vacation. It took a couple of days, but we finally felt rested, completely rejuvenated, and hopefully ready.
I had about a month left. Since that time (about three weeks) I’ve encountered numerous struggles as I attempt to prepare to leave. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be ready or if my tasks will ever near completion, but more and more it looks like things will be fine. I trust in this as I try to trust that all the complications with money and school will work out, as I try to trust on every trip I take, leaving that silly book behind and knowing that I’ll meet great people and that things work out. If I can try to make something bigger out of it, that this is how God works, but I don’t feel like I have the distance from the occasions for that sort of philosophizing. I’m not yet good enough to fold it in like I should have learned from Garrison Keillor, but now I’ll spit out my quick experiences and ideas. For now, what I can offer is just trust, and more hope. But it seems to work.
Pictures to come, hopefully.
(NB – While writing this, I attempted to relax outside in the shade and chose a spot next to the Kampala Golf Course, watching the players. The afternoon was pleasant as I enjoyed a sandwich and tried to put my thoughts together. However, after a little while, two men—introduced as Inspector William and Moses—came up to me and said I was frightening the golfers. I had selected a spot just on the edge of the course to stay out of people’s way but apparently, that was too obtrusive. At first, I thought of just apologizing and leaving, but instead I just asked if there was somewhere else I could sit. After a long talk and pleasantries, the two men offered me a bit of shade at the end of one green. This advised spot actually lay considerably further into the course than my first choice, but it seemed nice enough so I sat down and finished my sandwich.)
I knew we were neighbors, that these simultaneous and largely unlinked, though at times similar, conflicts raged beyond and sometimes across the borders of the two countries. I knew people suffered and longed and some people strove for peace. I knew a bit of the history, but nothing extensive. And I knew it seemed alright to go. This last art troubled me because I know how I have spoken and how I feel about people who travel to Gulu to see, first-hand, the suffering of the Internally Displaced Persons Camps. As if somehow the tragedy wouldn’t be real unless they stood as witness to it. People travel and let the tears brim up in their eyes and the wringing hands clench tight before returning down south. And partly, they are right. There is something about visiting the place and knowing the people that makes the reality of Gulu live. But I always question what they do, what they offer, and how they present themselves—ever wary of those loathsome words that have been regularly lobbed at our organization—conflict tourism.
We had the idea of going as investigators, not for any special purpose other than trying to gain a wider understanding of the area we lived in, having read too many books about how Africa is both more than and less then the political boundaries of formerly imperial borders and hoping to learn what linked and what differentiated. None of this was for formal research, and possibly we could have dove into JSTOR and other locations for similar information, but the vividness of experience called stronger than academic publications. And, to be perfectly honest, the slight amounts of danger, of walking into a country most people don’t go to for fear of rebels—numerous Congolese factions, the Interahamwe, other Rwandese groups—and other travesties. Anyway, we had a contact. Our friend Julia had been about a month before with a Congolese friend of hers from Kampala. I called him, and he happened to be in Goma at the time so I asked if I could join him. “Perfect.” So we left.
The two o’clock bus from Kampala to Kigali, Rwanda bursts through small towns, over darkened potholes and through the pre-dawn fog of the increasingly vegetation-filled countryside of southern Uganda with enough speed to rock us occasionally out of sleep for fear and to get us to the bus park by ten in the morning, plenty of time to push on to the border. The officials as we first entered the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the Goma crossing were friendly as people normally are when we are first friendly with them. We laughed about American tourists, very large passport stamps, and numerous other things (not so much about the $50 it cost to cross over) and met Petna’s friends. I had called Petna at the border, introduced myself again as Julia’s friend and he excitedly sent some people down to pick us up.
During the whole trip we struggled with language. In the Congo, they speak French and Kiswahili. I’ve learned about as much Kiswahili as I can from a song that runs through greetings. “Mambo, Jambo Sana, Habari Gani… Hakuna Mutata.” And as for French, honestly, I’ve never cared for the language. Too visceral, almost venereal, too many letters that aren’t actually pronounced and odd comas and hyphens thrown in for no reasons I can discern. Then there was the friend who offered to teach me but instead ridiculed my poor pronunciations at every step. But there are kids, and when beautiful kids speak, and wonderful people speak, I can listen and almost love it. And when our well-armed guard speaks (more to come) I can struggle to understand. I can imagine living in a place like this and learning more than I could hope for, more than when English and ease is such a simple recourse. I’d be forced to do what everyone we met did, struggle forward with a language they don’t quite grasp. But we met somewhere and still exchanged stories and laughed a bunch, right from the beginning when we met Petna’s friends.
The took us to Petna’s offices, a decent sized compound out of which he runs a film and television production studio, a music group, and other initiatives through which he tries to create Goma as a cultural center for the Congo. Having little to no idea what he did or who he was before we got there, we were amazed to meet musicians, cinematographers, and all kinds of folks as we entered the place, everyone friendly and promising a great time over the next week. They almost ushered us to a local hotel, until we ran into two of their mzungu friends who subsequently offered a spot at their guest house. They warned us as we drove over there, “It’s not what we expected when we came here, we live rather well.” Knowing how I am pampered in Gulu with a nice compound, a great cook, and other niceties, we tried to assuage them, “No, we understand.” But we didn’t. They work for HEAL-Africa, an organization that runs a hospital in Goma and numerous community programs in the surrounding areas.
The director is a former Member of Parliament and current orthopedic surgeon who runs the hospital and the organization and allows many of those involved to stay at a magnificent house he acquired right on the shores of Lake Kivu. While doing amazing work in the peripheral areas with local leadership, they seek out special cases for his orthopedic skills as well as for a group that works on the incredibly high rate of vaginal fistulas in the area (due a record setting number of unskilled deliveries in the rural areas and Goma’s tragic claim as the world leader in violent gang rape.) They opened their home to us, began explaining their programs, allowed us to jump off the rock outcrop of the garden into the lake, and fed us well. We took a small side trip up north about 80 kilometers (more than 100 km and it begins to get too dangerous due to the rebel groups, even the place we went is often off limits) with a group that was setting up a new operation to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV. (We also made a small trip to a dairy farm in the mountains that easily resemble Europe where we got what is easily the best cheese I’ve had in over a year.)
Tired, making it home and then swimming, we rejoined with Petna to celebrate the world premier of a film he made about the lives and thoughts of the children in the area, tying it in artistically to the hopes of the continent with the coming of the South African World Cup. After each film we saw, we enjoyed a spread of beers (not those small Ugandan beers, but serious, 720mL bottles) cheese, sausages, nuts, anything we could think of, and asked the various directors questions about their works in between rounds of applause. The evening offered us a homegrown film festival intimately celebrated and lovingly shared.
The next day was a big one for us, we had set up to climb to the top of ________, an active volcano. I thought I’d be ready, but the two years I’d taken off from backpacking apparently weakened my legs, which were about ready to quit when we finally reached the top. Everything seemed fine, though, as the sunset and the lake of fire and lava erupted below us in ever-changing patterns of continuous explosions. I could try to explain how the lava stands as one of the most amazing natural spectacles I’ve seen, but the words are dainty compared to the quite literal center of the Earth exploding below us. So, we sat and sometimes joked, but regularly watched in silence, then slept through our tired muscles easily and thoroughly.
The morning was cold and we rushed to get down the mountain without letting gravity push us too hard all of the time. Regularly we failed at that and everyone ended up with scrapes and torn clothing. (Each step made Adam and myself question the validity of making the entire trip in Chacos.) Half the decent lay in the path of a lava flow created by an eruption in 2002, making every step a struggle to keep your ankles intact on the rolling and crumbling igneous rocks. We pushed ahead and only slightly noticed as our ranger guide (adequately equipped with an AK-47) kept intently staring off to the right. Remember our conversation the other day about any dangerous animals in the area. “Non, non, les personne dangerouise.”) [I have no idea how to spell in French.] We became a little worried. Asking him what it was, we finally got the reply “Les Bandit,” and instructions to move quickly down the mountain. We started moving quickly then even quicker after a shot fired behind us. I tried to remember what I had learned, that a single shot is a warning shot, that people with AK-47s don’t tend to take single, well-aimed shots at their targets, and that the situation wasn’t as bad as it might seem, but that was difficult. So we ran down the hill. We kept running until advised and allowed to stop, rested, then continued down the hill until we found someone coming up. We explained to her in English and she translated a little French for us so we understood that two men with black barrettes and uniforms but no guns(?) were crossing up above. Probably Rwandan militia trying to make it home. The Congolese Army was called to scout the area and our photographer/translator friend who wanted to go up the hill waited until they were finished. We were close enough, so felt it best to go home.
That night was filled with lively retellings of the story to our mzungu friends, to Petna, the whole crew, through drinking and dancing and wishing we weren’t so tired and aching and that we didn’t have to leave the next day. I said I’d try to come back. And I will try. I don’t know. We here it all the time in Gulu, but I loved the place. Their was music, amazing food, amazing people, all of these aspects of African life that I loved. I wanted to stay and learn from the solid organization. I can see myself returning on a rotation in 3rd/4th year, or maybe once I start my MPH studies. I’m not sure, it’s hard to promise these things, but I want to.
The whole trip didn’t offer us much rest, the main cause for the vacation, so we took an extra couple of days at Lake Bunyoni on Bunyo-Amagara Island. The place is seriously the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in Uganda. Perfect lakes and islands, wonderful food and people, a rope swing to dive into the clear actually safe waters, canoes to paddle around in, everything that promises a great vacation. It took a couple of days, but we finally felt rested, completely rejuvenated, and hopefully ready.
I had about a month left. Since that time (about three weeks) I’ve encountered numerous struggles as I attempt to prepare to leave. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be ready or if my tasks will ever near completion, but more and more it looks like things will be fine. I trust in this as I try to trust that all the complications with money and school will work out, as I try to trust on every trip I take, leaving that silly book behind and knowing that I’ll meet great people and that things work out. If I can try to make something bigger out of it, that this is how God works, but I don’t feel like I have the distance from the occasions for that sort of philosophizing. I’m not yet good enough to fold it in like I should have learned from Garrison Keillor, but now I’ll spit out my quick experiences and ideas. For now, what I can offer is just trust, and more hope. But it seems to work.
Pictures to come, hopefully.
(NB – While writing this, I attempted to relax outside in the shade and chose a spot next to the Kampala Golf Course, watching the players. The afternoon was pleasant as I enjoyed a sandwich and tried to put my thoughts together. However, after a little while, two men—introduced as Inspector William and Moses—came up to me and said I was frightening the golfers. I had selected a spot just on the edge of the course to stay out of people’s way but apparently, that was too obtrusive. At first, I thought of just apologizing and leaving, but instead I just asked if there was somewhere else I could sit. After a long talk and pleasantries, the two men offered me a bit of shade at the end of one green. This advised spot actually lay considerably further into the course than my first choice, but it seemed nice enough so I sat down and finished my sandwich.)
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