Election

19 February

        “Vote Museveni - send this to seven people and get 7,000 [Ugandan shillings] air time [phone credit].” I wittily studied the text message from my pal Tonny’s mobile phone. Yesterday’s Presidential elections suggest the corrupt and dictatorship-style government regime of the incumbent Yoweri Museveni will inevitably reign another five years. Controlling and manipulating a sea of Ugandans since 1986. And as fellow opposing candidates hinted at civilian protests, the chief of Uganda declared, “Uganda is not Ivory Coast. It is not Kenya. Don't expect what is happening or happened in these countries to happen here .... I have the right medicine for those who want to cause trouble.” Does his “medicine” constitute the thousands of copiously armed and forceful UPDF troops spread throughout the country? Through analytical discourse, the collective energy of northerners is that Museveni – rather than Uganda in general – has an enormous army that he will noticeably use. What is the general populace’s interpretation on the elections: A media poll recently raised the question, “Do you think that the Ugandan Electoral Commission will conduct free and fair elections come February?” The media poll was unscientific but it gave emphatic results: Yes — 27 percent, No — 73 percent.
        A few nights ago, I bumped and bruised my way along the dry and dusty Juba road with Mamma Flo en route to Lacor Hospital. Albeit speaking in broad, general sweeping terminology, my personal observations and perceptions of African hospitals are gripping. We found Christine and her three-month old baby spooning on a green mat, next to a rusty crib in the pediatric ward. Rubangakene was suffering from an initial bout of malaria. The euphoria that expelled from Christine’s mother’s face when she recognized us ignited a lukewarm fuzziness. Our crew slowly sauntered past the caged off Tuberculosis Ward of the hospital. Only hours earlier I had spent moments at that particular TB Ward while a patient from my internship wilted away from TB, bedsores and AIDS. Trouble amounted whilst trying to remove the dreary image of her horrifically emaciated, desperate face from my cognition.
        As we meandered westward up a concrete ramp, I couldn’t help but open my wide mouth and smile deeply. In a mass of female African women sleeping with straw mats on the damp, cement hospital floor Winnie’s perfectly aligned white teeth shined from afar. Winnie – another one of our neighbors/sisters – was patiently waiting amongst heaps of Ugandans for the impending surgery of her 13 month old baby. The undersized male was born without an anus, and ten months later, rumor reached Winnie that two munu doctor’s were coming back to Lacor Hospital to finish round two of his surgery. Winnie unwearyingly remained for days, but the munus never showed; they feared election violence.
        Directly after passing through the post operation ward of the hospital, I subtly and gently motioned to Mamma Flo that I needed to depart. The combination of a potent bloody urine stench mixed with the eyes of a patient whose arms weren’t thicker than the diameter of a quarter was personally enough for the day. On our mellow and wordless walk out of the open-aired hospital, I felt a smooth, reassuring flow of energy creep within my soul. On the ruffled speakers that cracked through the infrastructure was a soft, beautiful Acholi prayer song. I observed Mama Flo’s lips move with the rhythm of the tune. She was not alone. As my heads courteously wandered to the patients, family members and loved ones in the verandas under the stars, I realized almost everyone was quietly singing along.
        It wasn’t until I made eye contact with a legless man, thanks to a landmine blast, that I conceptualized religion in a benevolent, understanding and indulgent framework. As his words echoed those of the speaker, I smiled with him. Religion – especially (but not exclusively) in this area of the world – suddenly made clear sense to me. Why not believe in something higher, something more powerful, and something to else? If not, what’s the point in it all? Sure, I’ve philosophized, discoursed and written about this phenomenon. However, viscerally feeling and experiencing it directly in the soul was something foreign.
        Finally, the fine folks of northern Uganda experienced an election where they weren’t crammed in displacement camps, fearing direct assaults from rebel and government factions. While meeting with my American supervisor yesterday afternoon, we halted as a hardworking family member was decked out in a beautiful, South Pacific Ocean blue dress with off-white flowers. As she so eloquently greeted us, I commented (in Acholi) that she looked, “beautiful.” Her warm, genuine response alerted us that she had dressed up and walked through the bush to the polling station. Her smile that beamed with joy and elation exposed the large gap in between her front teeth. My supervisor smiled and tenderly commented, “It’s a big day today for many people!”
        I’m optimistic and confident that the astounding souls of Uganda will eventually be clear of violent, oppressive, and subjugating regimes. Developmental justice lurks within the confines of this country and continent. It’s about believing, communalizing, and remaining within. As a white, privileged American, I have much to learn from northern Ugandans about developmental justice. It’s here, somewhere amidst a plethora of injustice.

Walk to the polling stations.

Folks lined up to cast their votes.

Which war??

9  February

        Last week’s visit to Amuru District personally distorted an already murky observation on reality. Riding on the back of the fire engine red, donated motorbike through bumps and craters of the reddish-brown clay dirt road was elevating. I observantly witnessed an unusually special atmosphere that was slightly dissimilar to that of Gulu town, in the fairly new formed district that boasts a shabby wooden stick trading center. I exhaled and allowed the feeling to linger.
        Our internship’s two room office – one is a bedroom and cooking space for the counselor and the other a space to meet beneficiaries – is nestled in a former internally displaced persons’ camp. Remnants of the brutal and exhausting war are unmistakably noticeable in the botched infrastructure. The official ideology of war in this region conveys the physical and mental obliteration by the LRA; one has to dig deep to educate herself on the malicious underpinnings of the government forces that clearly ignited the rebel movement. After spending the week touring the Amuru District, my immediate perceptions alert that war undoubtedly lurks. It may although depend on which type of war one is referring.
        One of our home visits landed us two hours away from Amuru town to another dilapidated former internally displaced persons’ camp. Our beneficiary – a parentless 12 year old, HIV positive boy – was slowly strolling down the path with his wide eyes fixed on the brown dust cloud immediately in front of him. Quite calm and direct, his older cousin expressed disgust with the beneficiary’s schooling system. “Teachers come from far away and need to board at the school. Most often they leave halfway through the day on Friday, and do not return until Tuesday. The students are only left with three and a half days of school a week. And now, there are only two teachers at the entire school.” This information was bluntly translated through the soft and kind words of the most beautiful, elder male counselor who has so graciously taken me under his wing. He went on, “This is the problem with government run schools, the government says they are good, but if you notice that everyone who has money - especially all government officials - send their children to private schools outside of northern Uganda. What does that say?”
        Subsequently we cruised through the vast geography and dry, searing sun’s rays to find another beneficiary at a former camp closer to our living quarters. Here was a joyful, lovely and jovial 20 year old paralyzed female. She’s been battling the virus since 2003, and was misdiagnosed with TB, which caused her present inability to move half her body. The beauty and energy this hopeful youngster expelled was simply rad. The woman sews some of the finest sweaters I’ve seen on the continent and beyond. Her oomph brought hope to a personally foreign and ominous actuality.
        The previous stories only amplified in lunacy and intensity throughout my educational and enlightening visit to Amuru. In lieu of describing the woman planning to sell her nine year old daughter, the male nurse erroneously prescribing harmful medication to a freshly diagnosed patient suffering from TB/AIDS, and a nurse’s decision to discard multiple patients’ blood samples, I aim to highlight positivity. I’m convinced that beneath the grimy and oily surface of my perceived Amuru District is a lavish daintiness.
        Sure, Amuru District was brutally wasted by decades of inhumane and gross conflict that continues to haunt its contemporary surroundings. One could also argue that Amuru is currently waged in a war against poverty, a war on education, a war on HIV/AIDS and a war on gender inequality. In the same breath, one must also recognize the absence of war in Amuru District. A war on hospitality, resilience, humanity and beauty are simply nonexistent in this unruffled district on our globe. Vast and broad smiles, receiving peanuts, jackfruit, meals and kind words were all integral aspects of my stay.

        So I presently wonder, are human beings all involved in some form of abstract or concrete war? Why do we collectively and individually choose to foolishly gauge war on ourselves, neighbors, “friends”, enemies, and loved ones? And what constitutes the ending of war? The vast global discourse suggests that when fighting is done, so is war. Without war, is there no struggle? If I was born in an internally displaced persons’ camp in northern Uganda, where would my notion and conceptualization of war fall? Distinct responses to these subjective questions are clearly open for interpretation. Instead of drilling my brain with such deliberation, I think I’ll implant the sound of hysterical laughter when a group of young men curiously observed me pull a flying “white ant” out of the sky and lie it on my moist tongue. Deep in the Amuru villages, this is a central aspect of most folks’ diet. How could I let that opportunity slide?

This is someone's door crafted out of USAID donated aluminum, cooking oil cans during the conflict.

   

Trapping the "white ants."