Today, I finally got a chance to talk to my brother, Jaron, who's in Gulu to ask him about my project idea. He gave me some super interesting and helpful information. His friend has been doing research on the difference between the Western style of therapy compared to the style of therapy in East Africa. There has been a lot of research showing that a lot of Eat Africans don't respond well to our Western way of coping with tragedy, which is thinking and talking through it. For most East Africans, the best way for them to cope with suffering, is to forget about it. By forgetting about tragic past events, they are able to move forward with their lives. From Jaron's experience, he's noticed within the past 5 months that he's been in Gulu, that it takes a really long time after developing a relationship with someone, for them to say anything about the war. This means that it would probably be really difficult for me to gather all of the women's stories as part of my project because it would be dependent on the women and when, if ever, they would feel comfortable talking about their past with me. I definitely don't want to take them back a step in their process of coping with the past.
Knowing that in East African culture, most people don't talk about their past as a way to move forward, is more evidence to me that there are so many differences concerning every aspect of culture between me and the people I will be living with in Gulu. I thought that after building relationships and getting to know the women, of course they would be willing to tell me about their experiences. Of course they would want their stories to be heard and shared so that Uganda is never forgotten again. BUT, that's not necessarily true. I need to be so careful about assuming things based on my limited knowledge and understand that not everyone does everything the same.
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