Marc Kuly - Storyteller

Hello to those of you whose cyber wanderings have found you here. If you are looking for contact info or stuff related to my storytelling work please go to: www.marckuly.blogspot.ca

Marc

pics

Kampala Billboard

boda and Dr. McBrien

use it

my buddy raph

jan's daughter sent some stuffed toys which brought a smile

Heading Home

Alright, so I'm packing my bags and heading out of Gulu tomorrow morning. I have been told the drive to Entebbe airport will take between 3 and 8 hours. Traffic, the weekend, elections, sinkholes, buses flipping, cow herds and drive thru's await.

I have lots of conclusions to draw still but I will do them less publicly. So, for the time being, here are a pile of pics....

NGO Fatigue, Neo-Colonialism and a surprise celebrity cameo

One note – what I am writing here is not part of the research or drawn from research interviews involved in Jan’s project – it is simply my observation drawn from informal conversations I have had lately.

I’m sitting on the patio of the Hotel Florida Magnificent in downtown Gulu just down the street from Mega FM enjoying a cold Tusker and listening to Phil Collins, Roxy Music, Madonna and the Neville Bros. pumped through a booming stereo. The city is winding down from a long, dusty day and the bodas, Toyota HiAces and pedestrians are all jockeying for position as they weave their way to their respective homes. This is the hour when the heat breaks. It is dramatic. When you wake up at 6:30 it is about 15 degrees outside and in half an hour it is 25. By noon it is well over thirty degrees and everything is ominously and oppressively calm and hot. Between 6 and 7 at night the breeze emerges, the dust settles and the temperature drops at least fifteen degrees. In the next two hours before dark people seem enlivened as they come out of whatever shade they have found. Supper fires start, horns honk, beers are uncapped and cobs of corn and shiskabobs are sold from roadside barbecues constructed of wheel rims. Life happens. 

And just when all seems idyllic shit happens. There is a growing problem with street children here in Gulu as well as a serious problem with amputees as a result of the war. These two problems just came together in front of my eyes as a street kid lifted a bag from the back of an old shirtless man’s wheelchair and took off through the maze of back alleys. Complicated place, this.

Catch me if you can

 

I had a couple of interesting conversations over the past two days about how NGO’s operate here and in other post-conflict zones. In order to understand what they brought up you need to know that NGO’s are one of the biggest industries here in Gulu.  I will have to get a picture of some of the arrays of signs here to show you all but until I do, accept that every kind of NGO has offices here. UNICEF, World Vision, War Child Can., War Child Holland, Action for Children, USAID, Norwegian Refugee Council, Danish Refugee Council, Japan international cooperation – and many, many, more all have offices here.

Each NGO has a specific mandate. Some are focussed on food, some water, some health, some education and still others justice. Their mandates are the only difference. I have noticed that there are two ways to distinguish between NGO’s. The first is easy – faith based or not. The second is not so easy – neo-colonialist or not. I met a veteran of the post-conflict NGO world. He had been in a list of developing countries as long as your arm. Blurred Vision is how he referred to World Vision. In his opinion, faith based NGO’s tend to use traditional culture to spur development. That sounds great, and I am all for the revival and rigorous practice of cultural forms but there is a dark side. Consider that with the Acholi people’s traditional capacity for and rituals to facilitate forgiveness comes child marriage and rigidly defined gender roles. Also consider that supposedly well meaning faith based NGO’s often use scripture as their basis for work and while not explicitly endorsing the darker sides of faith (homophobia, gender discrimination, etc.) often turn a blind eye to it. A similarly problematic dilemma is that many well-meaning NGO’s come to Africa completely equipped with development plans that have no basis in an understanding of the communities that they intend to help. Sound familiar? Ask all those folks who told their stories of abuse and neglect at the sacred fire at the Forks this summer. 

Bottom line is this. Helping out is complicated business and not for the faint of heart. Many people here are working harder and doing better by people than I could ever manage. Still, if you come to Africa with a bulging wallet in your pocket you have tremendous power and if your heart and mind aren’t as open as you intend your wallet to be you might be doing as much bad as good. 

But here’s a great story. I spoke with a local NGO rep who told me that his org’s original plan was to provide counselling to war affected children. He was honest enough with me to admit that their attempts were a complete failure because, surprise, Western style, consult an expert who has all the answers forms of counselling simply did not work. Instead of treating children as patients who had a deficiency the organization started to focus on the shreds of resiliency they found in children and then reworked their efforts towards promoting the good they found. End result, over 20,000 children have participated in the program across four districts in this area and their teachers, parents and friends all have formed (on their own) regular support and advocacy groups. Listening works.

Sorry for the long post. Just one more note. I was at a school today that specializes in former combatants and after my interview I was waiting for Jan on the school porch. A white guy walked out of the office with a camera man and the head teacher. Looked familiar. Turns out it was Henry Rollins. Small world. Google Henry Rollins + Sudan and you’ll find the dispatch he sent out the day before I ran into him. Henry Rollins. Hmm.

So, what are the differences?

Here’s one big question... where is the line between crushing poverty and a simple life? I know that research studies in this post-recession world state that having a high income doesn’t correlate with happiness but the same studies do make it clear that it is hard to be happy when you are poor. So, where’s the line? Similar studies state that it is easier to be happy and poor when you don’t have constant reminders of the differences between your standard of living and the amenities enjoyed by people who are well off.  

I don’t want to romanticize poverty and I don’t want to have to live in a hut but I have seen active community life and seemingly happy families living in little villages over the past week. I also don’t think that my observations are even close to sufficient for stating that “these people” are happy. Still, there is something to the feeling that I have when I am talking with boda drivers and school children that a quality of life exists here that doesn’t where I live. Maybe the mistake is to engage in comparison. There is definitely a difference and maybe that’s all I can say with any authority.

Three boys fly homemade plastic bag kites

Questions for newcomers

I woke up this morning and realized that I was becoming fairly acclimatized to things here. Then I panicked because being acclimatized means that I have learned something and haven’t recorded it. After interviewing students, teachers and ngo’s it occurs to me that they all plan their work with important background knowledge about their students. If we don’t have this information about our students in Winnipeg we will not be able to adequately teach them. So, here are the questions we need to find answers to...

What was the source of the conflict and how long was it going on?

Civil war is different in its effects on students than natural disaster, acts of terrorist destruction or other push factors for refugees and immigrants. Likewise, a localized dispute of a relatively short duration will not have the same destabilising effect on the cultural and family values of the students we are dealing with. 

Did the student come with family?

If a student came with a family it is essential that schools connect with them. War tears at the fabric of family life and we may need to spend as much time working with the family to acclimatize them as we will with the students. If the student doesn’t have a family we need to identify the supports the child needs and find ways to provide them.

Did the student leave from a village, a town or a city?

Each of these locations have very different approaches to and understandings of education and its purpose. The student will be the best guide to finding out what their home community has prepared them to think about education and the good life.

Did the student live in a camp before leaving – and if so, for how long?

Camp life is a category altogether different from any other category of community structure. Long term residence in a refugee or idp camp likely means disconnection from cultural traditions and community values.

What resources were available to the student in terms of health, education, psycho-social support?

Students who come to us are as varied as the circumstances from which they come. Generalizations like I have just made here can be shown to be completely flawed by individual students who have somehow managed to succeed and thrive because of protective factors they possess. 

Was the student an active combatant, an abductee or displaced?

As one of my teachers here told me, “we are all war affected”. However, there are large degrees of variance when it comes to depth of trauma.

What cultural beliefs, practices does the student remember or engage with?

Teacher after teacher has identified cultural traditions such as music, dance, drama and story as being key to returning students to the “normal life”. We need to learn more about them and implement them at all levels.

What family life skills and values (e.g. cooking, laundry, money management, conflict management, understanding of sexuality, etc.) does the student have?

When we meet a student, particularly an older student, we naturally make assumptions about their capacity to do the things we knew when we were that age. You know what they say about making assumptions.

Children leaving school to go home for the holidays

lira photos

People being trucked into Lira from a village for local elections

Young man in front of a mosque under construction - rebuilding after 20 years of war

A whole family enjoys watching a muzungo take their photo - yes, I asked first!