A Day in Nakivale Part 2

           I believe I left off with us looking for a family to interview.  In order for our report to be consistent, we have broken down each zone into the predominant nationalities that live there and have to be sure that we interview 3 families from each of those nationalities.  So, as we head into the village, I tell FFH we need to first find a Congolese family.
            Africans have a sixth sense for identifying where people are from.  If you lined up a group of Europeans and asked me to identify from which country they came without ever hearing them speak, I would fail miserably.  FFH on the other hand has no problem differentiating between Congolese, Rwandese, Burundian, or any other African nationality.
            He gestures to a woman wearing a blue t-shirt and a bright, multicolored kanga around her waist.  She is sitting on the ground peeling cassava with an 8 inch knife while her children wait around to grab pieces that miss the pot into which she throws them when she's done.  We walk up to the woman and Furahaha crouches down to offer her an always long, East African greeting.  He appropriately decides to speak Kinyarwanda to her after recognizing that she is Nyamulenge (a tribe from the Eastern area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo bordering Rwanda).  After a few minutes he tells me she has agreed to let us interview her.  At that point she has already hopped up off the ground and carried her cassava and pot into her home where she sets up the one, small, wooden bench she has.  Then she motions for FFH and me to come in.
            Regardless of nationality, every time we have interviewed a Nakivale resident, they have been incredibly hospitable.  They will invite us into their home or offer us often the only two stools they have while they sit on the ground for the entire 45 minute interview.  The Eritrean community has gone as far as consistently inviting us back so they can make and serve us fresh coffee and popcorn.  I hope I don't forget the kindness they show to strangers, and that I take some of these lessons in hospitality back to the states with me.
            We sit down on the bench in her home; a mud hut with floors and walls smothered in dirt and cow dung; a concoction that suffocates the small bugs they call "jiggers" that eat away at the skin on their feet. There are pots and jerrycans piled in the corner opposite a mud platform that is clearly used as a bed.  I have FFH explain the confidentiality of the interview to her, and that she is welcome to continue preparing her food while we chat.  All 3 of her children gather around.  She sits down on the ground, picks up her knife again, and we begin.

A typical home in Nakivale.
The tarp being used as the roof is given to them by the UNHCR when they first arrive.  

            While the questions we ask in these interviews are always the same, the answers we get are always different.  I start by having FFH ask the women some biographical information; their name, their age, their nationality, when they came to the settlement, their marital status, how many children they have, the children's ages, if their entire family is united or if they were separated from children or relatives while fleeing, and if they are looking for any missing family members.  We try our best to make the interview somewhat conversational so the women feel relaxed and know that we care about their story and aren't just searching for coded, one word answers.  After the biographical information we ask questions from seven different categories: livelihood, education, recreation, health, water, communication, and security.

            Questions regarding livelihood are typically straightforward.  Most women tell us they are farmers, some others work odd jobs like washing clothes or cleaning for other Nakivale residents, and occasionally they own and operate small shops.  This woman is a subsistence farmer.  Her husband was killed in the war in Congo and her two youngest daughters and one eldest son were taken by soldiers.  She is living by herself with her 3 other children, selling part of her food rations to buy school materials, and working in her farm to feed herself and her children.  She tells us she is looked down upon and even abused by male residents because she is a single mother.

Three girls that were sent home from school after having a
stripe shaved in their hair because it was
said to be too long.

            We move on to ask questions about education to find that there is little access to either.  Most residents complain of the distance their children have to walk to school, the large class sizes, the language of instruction, and the apathy of the teachers.  This woman quit attending school in Congo when she was married at age 13.  Her children are in Primary 1 (P1), Primary 3 (P3), and Primary 6 (P6) at the "nearby" primary school, a 45 minute walk from their home.  There are over 100 students in each of their classes and they are taught in English and the local Ugandan language Runyankole, neither of which her children speak.  The two youngest go to school without uniforms (the mother can only afford one for the eldest child) and worry that they will be sent home every day.  It is the national policy in Uganda that every child is to wear a uniform, however it is also forbidden for a teacher to send away students who can't afford them.  That law is being consistently ignored in Nakivale as nearly every child without a uniform reports being publicly sent home from school at least once a week.  When they aren't chased away, her children typically come home from school with no more than 1 page of work written in their notebooks.  She is considering keeping them home so they can start working since they aren't learning anything at school.  She asks us, "What good will Runyankole do for them when we return to the DRC and everyone speaks French and Kinyarwanda?"

One of Nakivale's most crowded P1 classrooms
with over 300 students.

A swing set on a playground built by Right to Play;
the organization that left in 2012.

            When we move on to discuss recreation we ask her what activities her children are able to be a part of.  She tells us that they jump rope at school.  Furahaha asks her children gathered around if they have any chance to play sports at school and they tell him that there are no sports teams for them.  Only the older boys (18 - 23 years old) are allowed to play football and that they don't have sufficient equipment for even that one team.  For quite a few years Nakivale was fortunate to have the organization Right to Play providing materials and organizing teams in the camp, but at the beginning of 2012, the organization left.  It is unclear why they pulled out of Nakivale, but since then the fields have become overgrown and the football nets have become rusted and abandoned.  The settlement residents simply cannot afford to maintain the facilities or purchase balls.  The children desperately want to be coached and have teams.  We gave a ball to one kid we became quite close with.  His name is Justin.  When he showed the ball to his friends, they all started jumping around and thanking us.  I've never seen the kids smile that much.

   

Justin's team after we gave them a real football
 (see the black and white ball being held by the boy in the red plaid shirt).

 
        After recreation we discuss health.  The primary health issue facing every family is malaria.  It is the number one killer of children in Nakivale.  We did not interview a single person who had been exempt from the disease.  Malaria, a disease that is contracted through a mosquito bite, can be relatively well prevented if you head indoors when it gets dark and sleep under a mosquito net.  Unfortunately, not many residents can afford a net.  No one in this woman's family sleeps under nets, and they have all contracted malaria at least once.  She also told us about the poor quality of medical care at the clinic.  She said that whenever someone goes to the public clinic, they test them for malaria, send them home with panadol (a European painkiller and fever reducer) and tell them to go buy Malarone (the medication they actually need) at the small pharmacy at the center of the camp.  We have discovered that these same doctors own the pharmacies people are being referred to.  They are stocking their private businesses with medication that is supposed to be free to refugees at the public clinics.  We have heard this same story from from in every village of the camp.
            Next we discuss access to and quality of water.  There are a number of sources from which residents collect water.  Some retrieve it from taps, which provide water that has been pumped from Lake Nakivale, treated, and distributed.  Others collect water straight from the lake.  Fewer collect water from bore holes (less than 10 in the entire camp) and from swamps.  Those who collect water from the taps complain of how unreliable it is (as I mentioned before, they attribute this to GIZ staff who steal the fuel that runs the generators), and that it is a thick consistency and gives them itchy skin rashes.  Rania and I shower using the same water the residents do and even I fell victim to the skin rash.  The woman we are interviewing today walks about 30 minutes to get her water directly from Lake Nakivale.  She has few complaints about the quality of the water (after she boils it) but says that many people are eaten by crocodiles.  Throughout all of our interviews people reported that around 10 people, on average, are eaten by crocodiles each year.  However, the refugees in Nakivale have been innovative and have started digging a system of canals to direct water away from the main area of the lake to allow safer retrieval.  It's incredible how innovative and self-reliable people here are.

Siblings pumping water from
one of the settlement's few operating bore holes.

   

Lake Nakivale

       







            The final section of our interviews is my least favorite: security.  For the most part residents in Nakivale feel very safe; at least relative to the environment from which they have come.  However, we are told the occasional nightmare.  Some Rwandese residents have been abducted from the camp to be returned to Rwanda and be thrown in jail or put on trial (primarily for being Kagame's political opposition).  Other residents have been thrown in jail in the settlement simply because they had a disagreement with their neighbor who was in a position to pay the police to get rid of them for a few nights.  One woman was even imprisoned for 2 nights with her 9 month old baby.  But none of these stories compare to the fear both Rania and I feel when either one of the women we are interviewing or one of their daughters is pregnant.  As I am speaking to this woman I realize that that is the case.  It is barely noticeable under her loose top, but she is pregnant.  As FFH begins to ask if she knows of any women who have been victims of sexual violence, she looks down at the cassava she is cutting and shakes her head, yes.  We ask if she can tell us how many women and what happened.  She puts down the cassava but doesn't lift her eyes from the ground.  She slowly begins to explain that about 4 months ago she was collecting firewood in the hills just beyond the settlement when she was attacked by 2 men.  They raped her and 2 months later she found out she was pregnant.  We ask her if she was alone and if she knows who the men were.  She tell us that she was with one other woman who was able to run away, and that she thinks they were Ugandan men.  She did not go to the police because she does not trust them and did not believe they would do anything.
            It is important to note that while we have interviewed many women who became pregnant by choice, women, especially in the remote areas of Nakivale, face a very real and present threat of sexual abuse.  Rania and I are struggling to address this issue and have started by telling any men in the family to fetch firewood themselves and by telling all female households to travel in large groups anytime they have to walk a far distance.

            Following the interview, FFH and I thank her for sharing her time with us, ask if there is anything else she'd like us to know, and explain that her answers will help us create a program to help her children.  She tells us there is nothing else and thanks us.  We say goodbye to her kids and then leave.  We begin looking for another family to interview.
            We go through this process 6 or 7 times throughout the day.  Hearing new stories, writing down more information.  We take maybe a 15 minute break to grab a mandazi - a dense sweet roll - for lunch and then carry on.  We continue interviewing households until about 5:00 pm.  Then, we walk to the nearest area with shops (often 2 or 3 miles away) and find another boda to make the long trek back to out hotel before it gets dark.

            We head straight to our "restaurant" and drink tea until Rania and Boss get back.  Once they return we order dinner - often just fried Irish (potatoes) and beans - and exchange stories from the day.  Once we've finished eating, we send FFH and Boss home on a boda and Rania and I return to our hotel.  The back gate to our rooms is locked once the sun goes down, so we have to enter through the main entrance in the bar.  Every night, without fail, there is a group of 6 or 7 men drinking bottles of 2500 UGS ($1) Nile Special beer and watching old American music videos - typically a cycle of Jennifer Lopez, Boyz II Men, and Celine Dion - on a 12 inch tv (the bar has a generator that runs at night).  Rania and I consistently make fun of Furaha and Boscoe for their obsession with love songs and music videos - African men are all hopeless romantics.  We slip through and say hi to Mafuka who is the big and bold woman who runs the bar, while we simultaneously try to avoid being seen by any of the men.

Our shower.

            It is no later than 7:00 pm and we are exhausted.  The sun hasn't quite stolen all of my energy so I decide to take a shower.  I grab my basin, jerrycan, shampoo, and soap and head to the "shower".  Our shower consists of a wooden pallet for us to stand on and a curtain that acts as a door.  It is located directly across from the toilet shared by the two of us and the bar crowd, so I always have Rania block the entrance from any drunk men who might confuse the two.  Bucket after bucket of cold water feels nice after a long day in the sun.  I shower completely in darkness and rinse out as much of the shampoo as I can.  I get dressed and head back to my room.  Rania and I stay up another 15 minutes or so chatting and brainstorming solutions to some of the problems we heard today.  Then, by 8:30 pm, we brush our teeth next to the goats tied behind our rooms, spend a good 10 minutes washing the red dirt from our feet, wish each other a good night, and close our doors.

               As I lay in bed under my mosquito net I hear people shuffling back and forth past my room and the faint sounds of Celine Dion's "That's the Way It Is".  I close my eyes and try to decompress before I fall asleep.  I remember the faces of the women and children I met today.  I reflect upon their stories and hold back the tears for the children who have lost their childhood and the mothers who can't do anything about it. I try to make myself numb to certain elements.  I know I can't become consumed by the sadness and empathy I feel for each woman and child I looked in the eyes today.  I cannot let it discourage me and I cannot let it paralyze me.  I pray that as I feel heavier each night, these women feel lighter because they were able to tell someone their story.  I must force all of this to motivate me, because tomorrow morning when I hear the roosters crow, I get to wake up and do it all again.

The reason I wake up every morning.

Rania navigating the road to the camp's only secondary school.
It was completely submerged following a heavy rain.

A young girl outside of her home.
Empty cans of cooking oil given by USAID
on the ground around her.

 

The team celebrating after finishing out final interviews.
Top: Furahaha and me.
Bottom: Rania and Boscoe

A Day in Nakivale Part 1

            When you work in Nakivale, you’re guaranteed to never oversleep.  The settlement wakes its residents with a procession of alarm clocks.  It starts at 5:30 am with the resounding call to prayer echoing over the dirt roads and throughout the mud huts.  I never want to wake up to the call to prayer; it means it’s far too cold to come out from my mosquito net and no one else will be awake for another two hours.  If I manage to sleep through the first alarm, a second will sound an hour later when the birds begin to chatter and hop across my room’s tin roof.  The final wake up call comes at 7am from the crowing of the roosters and the subsequent stirring of the rest of Nakivale’s residents.  At this point there’s no going back to sleep.

            I swing my legs over the side of my bed and fight my way out from under my net before rushing off to the bathroom.  The latrine is always the first stop in the morning because I’ve avoided using it since it became dark the night before.  It is nothing but a hole in the ground, blocked by a wood door, and constantly occupied by hundreds of flies.  I dread using the bathroom and minimize it as much as possible.  Once its out of the way, I carry on with the rest of my morning routine.  Get dressed, brush my teeth outside, apply sunscreen, pack my materials for the day, and begin to mentally prepare myself for the stories I know I’m about to hear.  A quick knock on Rania’s door and we’re off to breakfast.

My room complete with bed, mosquit net, jerrycan and basin.

            We leave through a back door and are typically greeted by a group of kids yelling, “Abazungu!” (Look! Light skinned people!) and playing near the water tap behind the hotel.  We walk past hoping not to see a long line of jerrycans.  The mornings there is a line indicates that water never came the night before, a problem most residents blame on the Ugandan staff that they say steal the fuel that runs the generators that pumps the water.  At one point during our stay we saw that line three days in a row.

            We eat breakfast and dinner in the same restaurant run by a wonderful Ugandan couple that speaks no more than five words of English but always greets us with massive smiles.  When we walk in, our interpreters Furahaha (FFH) and Boscoe (Boss) are waiting for us.  We eat the same breakfast together nearly every morning: black tea and a chapatti and egg scramble, all for less than $1 each.  While our food is being prepared the four of us lay out our plan for the day; which pair will tackle which areas, how many interviews we need to complete, and when and where to meet at the end of the day.  We quickly eat and by 8 am, we’re out the door and off to work.

The water tap behind out hotel.
This was the line of jerrycans we found after water was turned off for 3 days straight.

The Ugandan couple who cooked nearly all of our meals.

            There are around 60,000 refugees in Nakivale representing over 8 nationalities and speaking countless languages.  The camp is separated into approximately 14 zones and each zone is divided into a number of communities organized by nationality.  In such a diverse settlement, separating residents by nationality is one of the only ways to keep the peace.  In order to record an accurate representation of the needs of the children in the entire camp Rania and I have to split up.  In front of the bar that shields the entrance to our hotel, Rania and Boss haggle with a boda boda driver (a glorified dirt bike) and head towards Kabazana to interview 3 families from the Burundian community, 3 from the Congolese community, and 3 from the Rwandese community that live in that region.  FFH and I head in the opposite direction towards Juru where we interview families in Congolese and Rwandese communities.  With the driver, FFH, and myself tightly straddling the boda, I say, “tugende” and we take off.

            Juru is one of the regions located farthest from the center of the settlement.  That means that in order to make a report to the UNHCR or GIZ (two of the largest organizations operating in the camp), apply for resettlement, or seek counseling or legal aid, the refugees that live there have to make a 3 or 4 hour trek.  Additionally, they have to walk through a vast, relatively uninhabited plain where nearly all of the sexual abuse reported to us is said to take place.  Its location also means that FFH and I are in for a lengthy boda ride.  

            The first part of the trip takes us winding through villages on dirt roads.  I am consistently impressed with our driver who swerves back and forth avoiding massive holes in the dirt and goats and chickens that have strayed onto the road.  It's a frightening ride but I am pleasantly distracted by the kids in the villages who, upon our approach, vigorously tap their friends and siblings and run to the side of the road to point, laugh and smile as they yell "M'zungu! M'zungu!" (Light skinned person!).  If the road isn't too rough I do my best to lift a hand and wave.  It's impossible not to smile.  

The plain that separates the more "urban" zones from the more "rural" zones.
Many refugee women and children come here to look for firewood.
This area is the location where most of the sexual abuse reported to us is allegedly perpetrated.

The condition of a typical road following rain.

            After about 15 minutes we approach the expansive plain that separates the relatively more "urban" communities near the center from the more "rural" ones like Juru.  This is by far the most frightening leg of the trip.  At this point the huts and people disappear, and so does the road.  We are riding through grass and mud and since it's the rainy season, the driver is forced to slow our pace and tip toes us through puddles and muck.  I am scared the boda will slide out from under us at any second. He is also forced to navigate through herds of long horned cattle who are grazing in the middle of our route.  If one of them turns its head I fear I'll be impaled.  Along with frightening moments, the ride through the plain offers some beautiful views as well.  Additionally, we are always sure to see a number of Ugandan Cranes, the country's majestic national bird.

            Once we successfully cross the plain, its just a quick 20 minutes on dirt road until we reach Juru.  When we arrive, the driver pulls over and I pay him for his service (including a tip if I felt like my life was endangered less than normal).  Once we're on foot I am swarmed by the most precious little children who are convinced that white skin will feel differently than black skin.  They take turns touching my arms and asking for high fives as they look up at me with their big beautiful brown eyes.  I tell FFH that I sort of feel like I'm in a petting zoo but it's impossible to turn these smiling faces away.  We exchange a few words in Swahili and with a child holding each hand, FFH and I begin searching for our first family to interview.    

Long Horn Cattle blocking the road.

Uganda Crane in the plains.

My mud drenched rain jacket after a rough boda ride through the plains.

Four Stories of Adaptation

     Spending an extensive amount of time in a developing country makes you appreciate the human capacity to adapt.  However, living in a refugee settlement leaves you blown away by it.  I could tell stories of adaptation in Uganda and the Nakivale Settlement for days, but here, I'll share just four.
     We'll start with my story.  When I first arrived and moved into our house in Entebbe I was incredibly uncomfortable.  For the first week I used my own hand sanitizer because the soap occasionally had ants on it.  I also refused to walk around the house without sandals on and certainly never showered barefoot.

Our shower platform in Nakivale

     In my second week I was sent to Jana in the Ssese Islands.  For three days and two nights I slept in a small room with a bed, a small lantern (no electricity, of course), and a jerrycan and basin for washing.  My first night I spilled the jerrycan on my dirt floor covering my room in mud.  Despite feeling incredibly dirty and walking miles around the island each day, I did not shower during my stay.  While I started being comfortable falling asleep to the symphony of squeaking cockroaches, I couldn't bring myself to take a bucket shower in a small communal space I wasn't convinced was fully enclosed.  My trip culminated in a three hour boat ride back to Uganda's mainland seated on top of bags of Nile Patch and Sun Fish that were being sent to market.  When we returned home I threw my shoes off and took a long shower without even considering what was on the soap.
     Now that we're staying in the camp I've learned to adapt yet again.  I have the same room setup as on Jana but thankfully, with cement floors.  I had to clear my bed of a frog and some six-inch centipede type bug when I first arrived and am now completely comfortable sharing my room with critters (I've even named the three lizards that live with me).  For two weeks, my only option has been to shower behind a sheet using a jerrycan and basin, so that's what I do.  And after my first time shrieking under the cold water and laughing while Rania (my co-worker) blocked the entrance from the men that hang around the hotel, I'm now completely comfortable and actually look forward to my shower after a long day in the dust.  I've gotten used to eating the same foods day after day (though I still don't enjoy it much) and am unfazed when the electricity flickers off during dinner.  Despite the rough conditions it has started to feel like home.

Rania attempting her own laundry

     Now the house in Entebbe that I used to protect my feet from offers the luxuries of hot showers and running water.  Ants on the soap or even ants on my plate or silverware go nearly unnoticed.  Everything is relative, and compared to Nakivale, Entebbe is paradise.

     My co-worker Rania has been forced to adapt as well.  In her home country of Australia she takes three showers a day.  In Uganda I've seen her last three days without a shower.  At the beginning of her stay she insisted she would never hand wash her own laundry, but about three weeks ago I found her seated in the backyard infront of her basin scrubbing away.
     Before coming to Nakivale, Rania and I took pride in how far our standards had been lowered and how well we had adapted to the conditions in Uganda.  However, we are not alone in this story, and the circumstances and tales of adaptation and perseverance we have heard from refugees in the settlement have been humbling to say the least.

     The first refugee story I will tell is of an Eritrean woman we have become quite close friends with.  She left Eritrea in 2008 in order to protect her four children from being forced to fight in the military (an indefinite obligation of every child, male or female, when they finish secondary school or reach the age of sixteen).  She was a lawyer in Eritrea with a beautiful home and a summer house near the water.  She had a driver that brought her children to well respected schools and she continues to rave about how clean and cute the city of Asmara is.  This life is in complete contrast to the one they live in Nakivale.
     In the settlement they live in a small home made of mud bricks.  They soak and scrub their feet every night to fight off "jiggers" - microscopic bugs that enter through the toes and eat away the skin - and she told us that, "in Eritrea we would have to fight other people, in Uganda we have to fight the land".  She has used her education to her advantage and is now employed as an interpreter (she speaks English, Italian, Arabic, Amharic, and Tigrinya).  She has also opened a small tea shop infront of her home.  Despite her respectable employment, there are still few opportunities for her children.  They are required to walk twenty minutes to and from school where they are often taught in a language they don't understand.  For her eldest daughter who will be moving on to secondary school next year, there are few options.  The closest secondary school in the camp is a two hour walk away and the private boarding school in neighboring Mbarara is incredibly expensive.  She is struggling with what to do for her.

Eritrean hospitality in Nakivale - Jabina, popcorn, and hombasha

     Since first interviewing this woman we have visited her numerous times.  Each time we show up, unannounced, she, along with two other women, and their children, welcome us as if we were dignitaries.  They bring out the pots and vessels needed to make Jabina - a delicious Eritrean ginger coffee - and chat with us for hours as they cook us fresh popcorn and serve us at least three cups of coffee.  While we originally felt special for being received with such ceremony, we soon discovered that this was their culture.  Every guest was treated this way.  When this woman earned some extra money by interpreting in Mbarara, she would use it to treat the community to sodas and the children to treats.  The lifestyle in Nakivale is not what she or her family is used to.  There is no summer home and they don't have a driver, but she takes pride in maintaining the cleanliness of her home and in taking care of her community.
     Despite two of her children being American citizens (born while she was married to an American man), she has not been granted resettlement in the United States or anywhere else.  As citizens, her two children have been welcomed to America, but will be orphans upon arrival.  She has seen many Eritrean community members move into the settlement and move out to Australia or Canada and she bids them all a loving farewell as she returns home and hopes for resettlement herself.  In the midst of what is one of the most drastic changes in lifestyle we've heard, this woman takes pride in what she does and finds joy in helping those who need her.  She and her family have adapted and have learned to find happiness and hope in Nakivale.  

     The final story I will tell is one I'll never forget.  We had the privilege of working with the female refugee of the year and found that the title was well deserved.  This woman, who is 61 years old, left Mogadishu in 2006 where she led a relatively luxurious life.  She fled the city with her twelve children after being widowed in the war.  Her already horrifying situation became even more nightmarish when she was separated from all twelve of her children while running away from gunfire in the bush.  In the past six years she has utilized the International Committee of the Red Cross numerous times to try and locate them, but to no avail.  Now she lives alone in her modest home in Nakivale.
     I cannot begin to imagine what it feels like to wake up every morning under a UNHCR tarp, thousands of miles from home, with no idea whether or not your children are alive.  She told us, "Sometimes I think, God, will I die here and not see my children?".  This sentiment was what I expected, and reflected the way I assume I would feel; paralyzed by despair.  Then she made an important addition, "But I trust God".  She has faith, and she has persevered.

Making Nakivale feel like home

     Despite the most dire of situations, this woman is the most generous and appreciative of people.  She understands that if she sulks idly, she will die.  So she has dedicated all of her time to assisting the Somali and overall refugee community.  She is a Somali counselor, and in the past six years, has become a certified HIV/AIDS community worker, child protection worker, health moderator, and UN interpreter (she speaks Somali, English, and Italian).  She is also the only chairWOMAN we've met in the camp.  It is nearly impossible to visit her during the day because she is always out somewhere, shuffling through the dust in her black flip flops, gathering clothes for a new arrival or bringing someone's case directly to the UN offices.  Nearly everyone in the camp, regardless of nationality, knows and loves this woman.  She is comfortable in her small home and has made it her own, surrounding it with beautiful flowers and a thriving garden.  When you speak with her, there is no doubting how much she misses her children - her eyes are filled with grief when she mentions them - but it is also clear that she has embraced her new life and has decided to, as my college coach used to say, "go forth with alacrity".

     Living in Nakivale has highlighted the human capacity to adapt.  But importantly, it has demonstrated how joyful life can be when you make the best of your situation and focus on helping and building community with others.  We have worked in the camp for three weeks now and I fall asleep each night hoping to forget some of the awful stories of abuse, loss, and suffering that we hear.  Yet when we meet individuals like these two women, I also try my best to remember their stories and hope to leave Nakivale transformed by them.  If there is anything I will bring home to America with me, it is the joy they have for life, despite their circumstances, and the purpose they find in serving the people around them.  

Full Disclosure

     I have spent the past two weeks trying to establish the character of this blog.  I knew I wanted it to be a means of communicating my experience with friends and family and also hoped it would start a conversation about the refugee experience.  Beyond that, I wasn't sure how it would develop.  However, In my first three weeks here, before even leaving for the Nakivale Refugee Settlement, I ran into a personal and moral crossroad.

     When I first arrived, our organization's director showed me around Uganda and introduced me to the many incredible  projects he has imagined and brought to life.  It is still hard to believe that one man (with, he'll want me to include, the help of many volunteers) has done so much for the people of Uganda.  I was sent to visit his school for orphans and vulnerable children, assist with his micro-loan program that helps small businesswomen in the Ssese islands, and deliver medicine to one of his clinics.  These are just a few of his many projects and despite being here for a month now, I continue to hear of additional projects he has in operation.  The most incredible part of his work is that it is sustained solely by volunteer fees and donations.  He is a master of monetary efficiency and ingeniously solves massive problems with minuscule budgets.  Compelled by the work his organization does I thought I'd format this blog in a way that would also promote his work and maybe bring in a few more donations.  But that was after just the first two weeks.

     As my third week in Uganda came around, I was having more and more conversations with our director and my co-workers about how business operates in Uganda and what a nightmare it is to ever have to deal with the government.  I've been in developing countries before and I've studied and researched corruption for years and yet I wasn't prepared for how an opaque and unaccountable government operates in reality.

     I have now discovered that everything in Uganda has a price and that that price often gets in the way of little things like freedom and human rights.  Most things I have seen and have been told, I find trivial and am not terribly bothered by.  So what if a traffic cop asks you for money in order to get you out of a ticket.  I'm sure that happens in America sometimes too.  However three weeks ago, when we started preparing to head to the Nakivale Refugee Settlement to begin our needs assessment, the government workers' blatant disregard for international law and the rights of refugees was too much for me.  At that moment I wanted to tell everyone I knew how government staff was abusing its people and taking advantage of arguably the most vulnerable population in the world (but more on that later).  I grabbed my computer and started writing down everything on this blog, but before I hit publish, I thought about our organization again.  I could not safely promote our organization and simultaneously report the abuses of the Ugandan government.

     I talked with my family, friends, my director, and my co-workers trying to determine what would be most beneficial to the work of the organization and most honest to the narrative of the refugees.  Eventually we decided upon full disclosure of our experiences.  This blog will report everything I see, every obstacle we run into and who is responsible.  I want to paint an accurate picture of what life is like for a refugee and what challenges honest organizations face when trying to help them.

     That being said, in order to protect the work of my organization, I will be omitting names and specifics that may incriminate or tie them to anything I write.  What I publish here represents my perspective and my experiences.  Ultimately, I will be leaving in December while this organization remains in Uganda continuing to persevere through the challenges of non-governmental work in a developing country.  While I want to accurately represent the plight of refugees, I want to do so without jeopardizing the organizations' reputation or work.  It kills me to have to choose but I cannot offer details on both.  So I am committing to full disclosure when it comes to day to day activities, processes, and operations - good and bad - but selective disclosure when it comes to names and details about the organization for which I am working.  I hope to still convey the impressive scope of this group and ask that if anyone wants more information or is interested in donating to them or maybe coming and volunteering themselves, that they send me a private message.  I would be more than happy to connect you with more information.