I’m Back!

Well, I’m back?

For those of you who are confused, I’m back in Gulu for the summer, not on an ISSLP, but to do research. In other words I enjoyed working with BOSCO last year so much that I was willing to commit to any fundable excuse to come back. Apparently I’m doing impact assessment of ICT (Information and Communications Technology) solutions in development in Northern Uganda, specifically looking at educational programs. Or so I hear.

Anyways, after some 45+ hrs of traveling, I finally arrived in Gulu, simultaneously exhausted and excited. It honestly feels like I never left and it kind of makes me wonder why I even bothered studying Sophomore year. (I guess theoretically the time could have flown by due to how fun Sophomore year was, but given how much I “enjoyed” Discrete Math and Logic Design I’m pretty sure that’s not what happened.)

Nevertheless, I can’t begin to describe how fantastic it has been to see everyone again: Fr Joe, the BOSCO staff, my students from last year, and even my boda driver. I got my old room back and Fr Joe was even gracious enough to save my old phone for me. Going through the directory on my phone, I was slightly bummed to see all the names of friends who won’t be here this summer, Americans and Ugandans alike, but at the same time I know that I will meet new people and have just as much of a blast as last summer. Well, probably.

The End Where I Begin

It was my first full day in Gulu, Uganda, and I had decided to attempt my first (and last) run of the summer. I had made it about 100 yards from our compound, traveling a dirt road flanked by small plots of cassava and maize, goats grazing on the grass, and children playing in the shade of mud huts, when the boy joined me. Wearing blue plastic flip-flops and a smile on his face, he broke a stick of sugar cane over his knee and offered me half, passing on a baton of hospitality as we continued to jog towards town.

The next twenty minutes were some of the most educational I have ever experienced, a fantastic first impression of Northern Uganda. I learned about the hospitality of the Acholi people. I learned of their struggles. Of their triumphs. I learned that it is possible to make English less intelligible than a foreign language. That the dust really does get everywhere. Into your clothes, your eyes, and your lungs. Your soul.

I learned a lot this summer. I learned about what it means to live in a post-conflict society, what it means to truly live in poverty. I learned some Acholi, and much more about the people themselves. It’s cliche I know, but I’ve learned a lot about myself. About what I value and want out of life. I’ve found more questions that I started with, but I think that’s a good thing.

I’ve heard coming back is much harder then going there, and while I didn’t actually pass out upon my arrival in Houston (unlike the girl on the plane next to Eddie), I’m fairly confident it’ll be an interesting transition. But most of all I’m excited. Excited to be home. Excited for the upcoming school year. Excited for my next chance to get back to Uganda.

Jinja, Kampala, & Reverse Culture Shock

Last weekend we took a trip to Jinja, a tourist town at the source of the Nile, for a weekend of white water rafting and other shenanigans. Over the course of the weekend I think I ran into almost every ND student in Uganda. In total close to at least 30 people, either associated with ISSLP, Ford, Kellogg, St. Mary’s, or just recent graduates. All in all, South Bend more or less invaded the town of Jinja for a few days. Rafting was a blast, with quite a few class 4 and 5 rapids, and it brought back memories of last summer’s Outward Bound trip. (Unfortunately I won’t be able to get a hand on any pictures until I return to school in August)

On Sunday I stopped in Lugazi to see Dylan Nugent, another rising sophomore at ND with me, and then we went into Kampala for the day. We had lunch at an upscale Chinese Restaurant (still cheaper than PF Changs), and then he took me to Garden City Mall, the Mzungu (foreigner) mall in the nice district of Kampala.

Inside of Garden City Mall

Before I go into my experience at the Mall, I want to backtrack a little. With the exception of the evening in Kampala when I first arrived, I have spent my time exclusively in Northern Uganda. Thus visiting Jinja and Kampala, both in Southern Uganda, was an eye-opening experience. I don’t think I would’ve noticed this when I first arrived, but after 6 weeks, the differences between Northern & Southern Uganda are like night and day. The South is significantly more developed, with paved roads, real electrical wires/poles, actual farms (not just sustenance farming), and just generally more infrastructure. The South is also less arid, which contributes to a greener scenery and much less dust. Even the boda bodas in the South are nicer.

Anyways, while the South still looks distinctly “Africa”, with plenty of shacks etc, I still felt like I had returned to civilization and was honestly a little disoriented. However, this paled in comparison to my trip to Garden City mall, an experience that kidnapped my already disoriented psyche, threw it in the washing machine, put it in a tumble dryer, and then left it to dry on the center lane of I-10. The lane that the 18 wheelers use. During rush hour a hurricane evacuation.

View of part of Downtown Kampala from the Garden City Mall

It was like walking into the Mall of America, complete with western stores, foreigners, a full service Target-like grocery store (reminded me of E-Mart in Korea), and a general lack of “Africa”. I’m not exaggerating when I say I struggled with walking, having to sit on a bench for a few minutes until I could regain my composure. It’s funny, I didn’t experience culture shock when I got here, but I have a feeling that before I walk off the plane in Atlanta in 2 weeks I’m going to need to request a medic for when I pass out in the terminal.

All in all, it was a great weekend, and after a 6.5 hr (though only 180 mile) bus ride from Kampala to Gulu, it was strangely comforting to step off the bus onto the dusty main road and discover that power for the 154,300 people in Gulu had been absent for the past 24 hours or so (and would continue to be so for another 12 hrs or so). It’s good to be home.

I’m Alive

So I just successfully survived my first African illness, although as far as illnesses go, it was pretty lame. Fever peaked at 100.2, had some pretty gross sneezing and coughing for two days but that’s it.

I had hoped it was malaria so that I could strike it off my bucket list, but looks like the common cold cut in line. Oh well, better luck next time?
I had prayed/meditated/fasted/practiced self mortification for 2 days/6 weeks/4.12 years/3.46 lifetimes to Zeus/Jesus/Mohammed/Buddha in order that I might be blessed with the gift of Malaria and attain Immortality/Heaven/Nirvana/A Nice Warm Shower, that much sooner. Unfortunately, none took mercy on/notice of/anything from/pictures of me.

(UPDATE: Apparently there has been a misunderstanding as to the degree in which I desire Malaria. In case the facetiousness of the above paragraph is still unclear, I want Malaria as much as I want a pony. That is to say, I don’t.)

Otherwise nothing else too interesting has happened. Right when we got steady power and internet back last Thursday, Mother Nature decided to send a few more daily afternoon storms. Hurricane force winds, torrential rains, hail, etc. Punctual too, you can set your watch to them. Always at 3:17. Well except yesterday’s was at 1:05, and today’s was sometime around 5ish. So … Ugandan punctual.

Anyways, power and internet has basically been shot since Thursday, severely hampering both my work and just life in general (Posting this took a solid 20 minutes from the time I opened up my computer till I could start typing).

We’re meeting up with the other ND students in Uganda this weekend, so hopefully next week I’ll have some good stories and pictures.

Storm in a Teacup

We’ve had a couple big storms over the past 2 weeks or so, which has caused the already fragile infrastructure around Gulu all sorts of problems. The power companies have been doing repairs on something, shutting down power during the day for about 4 days or so (but luckily we got power back yesterday). The phone company that provides BOSCO’s internet access has also had some trouble, and it wasn’t until the other day that we got full service back again. Its easy to forget that Northern Uganda is still a developing area when we have power and internet, so the outages have been an important reminder of how unstable the situation is here. It also underlies one of the major weaknesses of organizations like BOSCO, their dependence on existing infrastructure.

Anyways, these Armageddon-like occurrences in Gulu culminated in a lightning storm the other day which struck the main radio antenna from the office towards town; the antenna services everything south of us including Bardege, where I work, as well as a few schools in and around town. Unfortunately it fried some equipment, but on the bright side it allowed me a chance to learn about our infrastructure and help out with some maintenance.

One of the switches on the main antenna in town (which piggy backs on a radio tower), also lost one of its ports, so they had to do some repairs on that too (I didn’t actually get to help out with this, but it was fun to watch nonetheless).

Alfred climbing

Peter helping Alfred get ready to climb

Alfred working 2 hours later while we eat lunch

Murchison Falls

Last weekend we went on a trip to Murchison falls, a national park/wildlife refuge about two hours southwest of Gulu. In addition to taking a boat trip down the Nile to the falls, we also went on an obligatory safari trip. I may or may not have been sleeping in the back of the car for a large portion of the safari ride, but I still managed to wake up for at least one of every animal that we came across, so clearly I got the best possible experience. Anyways, no one wants to read a lackluster attempt at creative imagery, so I’m just going to redirect you to all the photos I took instead.

(That means the photo page is updated, or rather will be complete by Tuesday Wednesday eventually)

Crackers

Or team crackers to be more precise. The neighborhood guys invited us to play with them in a volleyball match against a local high school last Sunday and they decided that our team name would be the “crackers”. The reasoning? We were going to “crack” the other team. Of course the linguistic faux pas went over everyone’s heads, but that didn’t stop Eddie, Joey and I from cracking (sorry) up every single time someone yelled “go crackers!”, or “crackers! team!”.

Eddie getting some pt

Language barrier aside, the match was a lot of fun. The high school team was good, and I certainly haven’t played that serious of a match in a long time. Also, perhaps because it was an away game, the crowd was the most hostile (and possibly largest) crowd I’ve ever played in front of for any sport. Ever. Which in and of itself was quite the experience. Unfortunately we lost in the 6th game (out of 7), but nevertheless I still had a blast.

Eddie going up for a block

I’m not sure if its because we put up a good fight, or some other factors had been leading up to it, but after the game the guys decided that they wanted to form an official club. They’ve already replaced the wooden poles at our court with metal ones, and are trying to raise some money ($5-10 US, which doesn’t seem like much but is still a fair sum for the guys) for concrete to hold the poles for good. They also spent all of yesterday evening out our dirt court and drawing better lines (they were aghast that our courts had been short by about 2 inches, talk about attention to detail).