they deserve to be remembered

My parents just returned from a two week trip to Uganda to do dental work. We talked to them last night and they told us a little bit about their experience while over there. While talking to my mom about possible research projects while over there, she got talking about how interesting it would be to just talk to the people and hear about their experiences living in a IDP camp during the LRA ruling and then what happened afterwards. She talked about how incredibly tragic it is that the rest of the world let so much incredibly horrific things take place in Uganda for 20 years while the LRA was in power. Many of the Ugandans don't understand why their situation went totally unnoticed and unrecognized by the rest of the world. I thought we were becoming so much more globalized, but why was Uganda forgotten? It's not just the Ugandans that don't understand why they were forgotten, I don't understand it either and it kills me inside to hear about all the inhumane, indescribably tragic crimes that Joseph Kony and his army inflicted upon the innocent, Ugandan people for such a long time with no one to stop them or even try to help them.

It's so sad that the U.S. government only cares about countries that have something that we need, like my mom was also saying. If there's no benefit for helping another country in crisis, why bother? That's so sick. The U.S. cares about the countries that we need to get oil from, but not the countries where children watch their parents get taken away and then later see their skulls, like Rose in that movie War Dance, or where innocent children are forced by rebels to kill 3 innocent farmers, just to save their own life, like Dominic in War Dance.

Honestly, I am a little worried about going to such a war-torn place, but I know that I am going to learn so much from the beautiful people there who have gone through and suffered so much. They deserve to have their story told, so the world can learn from our huge mistake of not paying heed to the Ugandan people.

War Dance

War Dance is this incredibly awesome documentary that takes place in Patongo Uganda, an area claimed to have been the most "remote and vulnerable in the war zone" during the LRA insurgency. The movie is about a group of children who get to compete in the biggest music festival in Uganda and represent their war-torn village and show the rest of Uganda that the war didn't kill their love of music. The documentary highlights three children who tell their story and what happened to them and their families during the war. I very very highly recommend this movie! It's not just about the horrific things that happened in northern Uganda, but about the power of the human spirit and hope that brings for a better future.

This film made me realize that I need to keep in mind that I have absolutely no idea what the people I will be working with and talking to in Uganda have been through. I can't think that just from watching movies and reading material, that I can pretend to know anything about their experiences. The movie said that 30,000 Acholi children were abducted by the rebel army and forced to be children soldiers and over 200,000 children were orphaned by the war in Uganda. This tells me that if I end up working in one of the orphanages while in Uganda, many of the children will probably fall under those categories.

Keeping that in mind, I also learned from the movie that these children, despite the fact that they have experienced more than I can imagine and have characteristics of adults in that sense, they are still children. It showed one of the boys and his friends running to the little pond to take a quick swim, knowing they weren't supposed to, laughing and splashing each other and then quickly running back to the camp when they knew it was getting too risky that the soldiers might find them. Teenagers here do stuff like that all the time!

it takes a village to raise a child

We've all heard this famous African proverb, but have you ever wondered what it really means? As I was reading an article about the traditional religious influence on orphans in Africa, I learned a little bit more about how literally that proverb is implemented in African villages. There is a unity and bond between those within a village that brings a sense of duty and responsibility for one another. Extended family is so important and one's support network is made up of mostly one's extended family, but I think also other members of your village. Even when someone moves to the city or somewhere away from home, they remain forever loyal to their family and village. The sense of inter-relatedness within a community is so strong, that when one person commits a moral crime, it is believed that everyone within the village is negatively affected by it and a cleansing ritual has to be performed. Everyone is so closely connected and knows everything about everyone (well so it seems to me), that literally everyone is raised by everyone. When a child's parents die, then their mother's sister or someone else within their "extended family support network", takes them in, even if they don't have the money or resources to really support another child. It is believed that if you neglect your responsibility to care for an orphan, you will face the wrath of the ancestors.

When I compare this to my own life, it makes me kind of sad how little I know about my neighbors. I basically only know the neighbors directly to the left, right and across the street from me and beyond that, I wouldn't even be able to tell you names. I definitely don't feel a huge sense of unity within my neighborhood. Even within my family, I don't really know any of my relatives beyond my dad's immediate family and my mom's immediate family and there are even some of those family members who I never see or have very good relationships with. I really love the idea in Africa of having this large support group that is held so strongly together where everyone watches out for each other. It might be kind of weird to have everyone know everything about my life, but there would be extra motivation to not do anything stupid! I also feel like there wouldn't be so many homeless people and orphans and people not being taken care of, if everyone had a larger support system while growing up.

I recognize that this article was written in very general terms referring to all of Africa, which is a humongous place, and everyone and every village, I'm sure, is different. I also know that many things have changed since 2005, but my brother told me that many of the women he works with in Uganda take care of their sister's children or their children's children, so it was interesting to get some more insight into that aspect of African culture.

communication

Wow, talking about all the different forms of communication is so interesting to me! I am not the most observant person, which is a weakness of mine, but after reading and discussing all the signals and details shown through body language, facial expressions, silence, touch...etc. I have been so much more aware of people's little actions, including my own, that I normally never pay attention to.

I remember one time when I was in high school and had to give a presentation, one of my friend's told me before hand not to fold my arms while presenting. He said that he noticed I almost always fold my arms when I am standing somewhere for a while and said that it comes off sometimes as kind of stand-offish and cold. I had never thought about it that way before and hadn't realized that I gave off that impression when I folded my arms. His comment really stuck with me and I have tried ever since to not fold my arms as much, unless I want to send the message of being closed off. It's interesting for me to note that my body language was kind of out of habit and unintentional until someone pointed out to me what I was doing.

After observing people and understanding what different forms of body language mean, you can start gathering so many more details about a person and their attitude or their real feelings about something just by noticing the other aspects of communication other than just words. I have a friend who I know super well and I have had to learn how to read her mind because she rarely says what she really think or really wants. All of the different forms of communication from facial expressions to tone of voice, have helped me over the years to learn how to respond the right way to her and understand what she really means. For example, when I ask her if she wants to do something over the phone, I can tell right away by the amount of silence before responding, the tone in her voice, the way she responds, if she really wants to do what I suggested (whether she says some form of yes or no) or if she doesn't or if she wants to do something else or not do anything with me.

Since it has taken me such a long time to be able to read my friend and I still struggle with interpreting signals from people in the US, when I go over to a completely new culture in Uganda, I am going to have to be super super observant in order to catch on to the forms of communication over there. I will also need to be really mindful of my actions and movements in order to make sure I don't give off the wrong impressions. I'm sure a lot of my learning will come from trial and error...which will hopefully not mean embarrassing experiences.

Where I'll be living

So these are pictures my brother, Jaron, took and since I'm going to be living with him, I thought I would show on my blog where I will be staying while in Uganda. This is the front of the house.
This is the backyard of the house and you can also see the neighbor's bathroom.

APF

African Promise Foundation is a non-profit organization that I have the option of working with while in Uganda. They buy beads made from recycled paper by women in Northern Uganda and then sell them in the US to help the women provide for their families. Check out their website at: africanpromisefoundation.org

time

Last class period, we discussed this super interesting article called "Monochronic and Polychronic Time". In countries where time is thought of as doing many things at once, the author calls that "polychronic time" and where time is thought of as one thing at a time, he called it "monochronic time". I just found this article so fascinating because I have never really thought about how we keep track of time and how we think about time in our culture. The U.S. falls under the monochronic time category and the author talked about how we think of time as something tangible. We talk about wasting time, spending time, killing time...etc. Also, we schedule everything so that we do one thing at a time and we get frustrated when things come up that get in the way of our planned time. In polychronic time, time's not as structured but more about just completion and being involved with the people around you. Well, it's kind of confusing to explain and I don't completely understand all of the differences myself.

After reading this article, I have been thinking about how I've noticed these two ways of thinking about time in my life and surroundings. I related it to a few of my Indian friends from back home who would tell me about parties and gatherings within their Indian community and how when the hosts say to come at 8pm, that really means that people start showing up around 10pm, or kind of whenever they're ready. Even though within my extended family we have to tell people to come way before we actually want them to, sometimes people get kind of upset about it and it can cause contention. Within my friend's Indian communities, they made it sound so normal and just how it is. The author also talked about how you can't really mix monochronic and polychronic time because it causes problems. That's evident in my family because some of us are always late, some of us are sometimes late, but then some of us are also sometimes on-time. That causes problems because those on-time get mad at those who are late because they have to wait. Those with monochronic time tables usually get frustrated with those on polychronic time tables.

Opening my mind to the idea that not everyone thinks about time in the same way, makes me wonder how time is perceived in Uganda. I will have to do some research on that and so a follow-up post.