First Contact
We made it to Lira!
There is a drive thru right before the bridge over the Nile that sort of divides Northern Uganda from Southern Uganda. Everyone gets snacks there and then throws them out the window a few kms after. As a result there is a troop of baboons who hang out just off the side of the road in the jungle waiting for the scraps. Jan revealed herself to be a sadist when she asked our driver to stop and wait for them to come get us. I steeled my nerve and watched as they approached then, as if on cue, the biggest male began to move menacingly towards the car. I took a defensive posture – head in hands between my knees and miraculously emerged unscathed miles later in Lira.
Lira is the opposite of Kampala except that it is still in Africa. 75% of the people here get around on bikes or their own two feet. Of course, there are still boda boda’s but the most common kind are bikes not motorcycles. So, if you can imagine this... 200 hundred pound me with a thirty pound pack on the back of a single speed bike pedalled by a eighty five pound twenty year old up a hill for three kilometres being chased by schoolchildren yelling “Mzungo, where are you going?” and dodging between a small herd of cows crossing the street... you’ve got the feel of the place.
Commerce is still everywhere but there is a distinctly laid back and accepting feeling here. People stare at me, of course, but instead of feeling like an outsider I feel like I am a welcome curiosity. (Speaking of which, I bought a phone for Lynn from a vendor in the market here who popped up from behind a counter after he greeted me to reveal that despite having a strong Lango accent was white – an albino local – imagination that!).
I have done a focus group and three interviews so far with many more scheduled. The students I first met with are at a school exclusively for war affected children. Their grace and optimism is inspiring. They told me that the largest barrier they had to overcome in order to come into the world of people from their bush life during the war was to learn that all humans were equal because they had been taught that civilians were like animals. Now, they want to be doctors, lawyers and teachers – all of which requires a prohibitively expensive university education – but which still speaks to the inexplicable redeemability of the human spirit. Another boy said that his biggest challenge is forgiving himself – I already do.
And here’s one for my teaching buddies in the inner city. I asked a teacher at a school with lots of war affected students today why he chose to teach there instead a place where students may be less challenging. He told me that we are all affected by war – just some more directly than others. He also told me that when his life was spared, by chance of where he happened to be when the rebels ceased their advance, he decided that his life would be remembered as one that made an important difference. For him, the choice of how to make that difference was clear – teach the people that need your help the most.
Tomorrow I get to interview an elder who works with local Radio preserving and presenting the folk tales of Uganda... pretty excited.
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