“The blonde kid from Iowa”

Personally, I don’t think my hair is blonde, but it is lighter than usual I guess. It’s helpful wearing an Iowa hat in telling people where I’m from.

Be sure to read the last paragraph.

Last night I was able to do something that I’ve wanted to do my whole life…learn a breakdance move. It didn’t take that long to learn it either, so I’m going to try to learn more from April and Teija.

This week was really the first normal week where projects were started and we were constantly busy with things to do. All the schools got back from about a month holiday last Monday. I’ve been helping teach English and Literature. When I’m up in front they call me Master Kasey or just Master. The guys are Masters and the girls are Madams. Ha. It’s a little difficult, but also really interesting and fun going back to elementary. Tuesday we did PE with the kids, so I think I found something that is harder than teaching American football to Europeans…teaching African kids how to play Steal the Flag. They didn’t understand the whole prison thing. They loved running in packs to take the flag, it was funny. The ages of the kids was probably 3-7, about 100 of them. We played Frisbee before they arrived, all the boys and girls came out with no shirt, undies or shorts or skirts, most were just in undies…yeah, definitely something that wouldn’t happen in America. We did stretches, jumping jacks, leap frog, and then Steal the Flag. Tuesday we also started business training. We have about 20 adults we teach at the town center. Tuesday we taught some basics, what businesses are supposed to provide their customers, the 5 external forces, and we played Prisoner’s Dilemma, to get them a little more cutthroat about business. It’s fun teaching it and using examples and suggestions on how to improve businesses here like providing more variety in what they put on chipatis, advertising the single samosa restaurant in Mukono better, etc. Thursday we played the BES game, which is a business simulation that is learner-based and gets the students to learn basic business principles hands-on. Wednesday I went to Parliament all day. Hamis told me that April and I were on TV last week for one of the economic meetings we went to. We went to the Economy meeting and only 3 MP’s showed up, haha, I love Africa. We chatted with them for awhile about American Politics and who was going to win the next election. I did my best to tell them about Mitt Romney and how he’s the best candidate. I asked Hamis if he knew any NGO’s in Northern Uganda that I could work with for a couple of days. So he took me to see the Opposition leader, who is from Northern Uganda. This is the Opposition Leader, kind of like the Senate Minority Leader! He has a big office, really nice couches and carpet, a tv and computer. He was really nice and stopped what he was doing and chatted with us for 20 minutes. This guy is one of the most powerful people in the country and is an important Acholi (one of the Northern tribes) leader. He speaks with Joseph Kony and is one of the mediators between the LRA and the Ugandan government. He didn’t really know anyone personally, so he called in another MP. We chatted with her for several minutes. She is really excited for us to come up there and said she would plan out everything, arrange thing with contacts, etc. I have to get permission this time from the Board of Directors in Provo. So hopefully it’ll happen. The Parliament session was interesting. I forgot to mention this last week, but the ruling party sits on one side and the opposition parties sit on the other. They start with a prayer and then people bring up different items. The first item they brought up is how cups of coffee in the Parliament Restaurant have been poisoned. The person that everybody thought was going to be the president’s successor was poisoned and died. Friday we taught the teachers at the Crane School our first business course. Saturday we helped build an adobe stove at a school in a far away village.

When we went to Parliament, my stomach was really not feeling good. I thought it was the bananas I ate that morning or the meal from the night before. At the meetings my throat started hurting and then got a headache. Then all of a sudden right after Parliament my nose was VERY runny. We went home and I went right to bed. From 6 in the evening to 9 in the morning I stayed in bed and slept maybe 4 hours. It seemed like every minute I was blowing my nose, followed by a sneeze and then maybe some coughing. In the morning I had a super huge headache, and I thought it was from all the fluids that I had blown out my nose. Seriously how much water is up there?! I think I drained my brain. So yeah, I stayed home all day, until 3 for business class, went back to bed at 6 and then Friday I stayed home until 3 for another business class. Saturday I was mostly fine, just weak. But yeah, I am very grateful for health. I had a lot of time to myself, a lot of reading out of the Ensign. I read an article from Valerie Hudson a couple months ago. She’s a nationally recognized political scientist, and is just very knowledgeable about National Security and Chinese Politics. She told her students that the politics stuff isn’t really how things are, the way things really are, are spoken about in Conference and in the Ensign. Anyway, so much reading out of the Ensign made me think of that. Frank, one of my buddies from the Crane School kept on asking the teachers where I was, saying that he missed me, loved me, and I was one of his best friends. When I came back Friday afternoon he held my hand and we talked for like 20 minutes. Ya know, it’s not that weird for me anymore to hold guys’ hands now, they’ve held mine so many times, mostly just when we’re standing and chatting, I don’t let them hold my hand when we’re walking, though.

I received my official Ugandan name- Muonge Kasey Nkula. Nkula is the clan name, meaning the Rhino, and Muonge is just a family name. When you buy a drink here, in restaurants and supermarkets, they always give you a straw. We love having kids sing us songs. One of my favorite songs they sing goes, “Jesus is a winner mannn…”, “Satan is a loser mannn…” They dance to it and everything. Ha, I love it. I don’t think they have wheat bread here. All the wheat bread we’ve tried was just white bread dyed brown. It’s confusing walking past people on the street because we’re used to passing on the right and they’re used to passing on the left. There are pigs, cows, goats, dogs, cats, cranes, other big birds, and chickens everywhere. The pigs next door are always squealing in the morning, so that along with roosters and chickens provide good alarm clocks. The cows have huge horns. When we went to Rwanda they played an African movie. Africans in Holland always watched those movies. They all have the same actors, who are pretty bad at acting, they are done with home video cameras and the plot usually has something to do with witchcraft. I’ve seen bits and pieces, and they are funny. They also played some African music videos. The chorus line goes, “heeeeeya never met a mzungu.” Which means they never met a white person. I guess they’re not actually saying that, but I like to think that they are. I always hear mice running around in the walls and they whine a lot, I can’t remember if I already wrote about it, but I thought there was a bat in the room. I couldn’t see it, but it was either a bat or a big moth. According to people here I talk in my sleep, I talked about soccer very clearly once. I’m pretty sure somebody in our house sleep walks. The last couple nights when I couldn’t sleep I hear somebody walking around, and I heard the door open once. I went to see what was up, but didn’t see anyone, but then I heard more footsteps like 10 minutes later. I would have gotten up but it’s too much work to get out of bed and out of the mosquito nets.

It’s interesting being the only guy with 6 girls. They have funny chats with each other and it’s just interesting hearing what girls are thinking about a lot of things, as Zack Morris once said, the more I’m around girls, the less I understand girls. Girls really do pluck their eyebrows, this morning Tamara said ow after each hair she plucked. I found myself saying something that Alan would say earlier today. Kindra offered me porridge. I said I would rather stick the knife I was holding in my eye than eat that stuff, ha. They’re a lot of fun. The other house is a lot of fun too, their guy goes home next week and they don’t feel safe without a guy in their house so I might be going there next week. Saturday we helped make an adobe stove. It rained really hard for like a half an hour. I really like getting soaked by the rain here. It was funny cause we were fetching water to make mud when it started raining. We laid the bricks and then threw mud on them…and on each other. I’m doing pretty good about putting on sunscreen. We’ve only had a few really hot and really sunny days. Most of the time the weather if just perfect. Right now the clouds are tempting with a thunder-storm, it’s sweet. I always forget to put sunscreen on my ears, they’ve burned a couple times and that hurts. I have some pretty funky tan lines going. I love it how people always ask questions when making statements and then answering. Here’s close to something I heard the other day in Parliament, “RVR will not begin providing services until we’ve done what? Signed the contract.” Ha, that just might be my favorite part of Ugandan culture, everybody talks like what? Like that. Part of Uganda culture is that no one talks at meal time. Church always goes over, it’s pretty funny. Today it only went over 10 minutes, the worst was my first Sunday it went over 25 minutes. I love the pineapple here! The missionaries weren’t joking when they told us that it’s the best in the world. The fruit is really good here. Does anybody know when you can tell if the papaya is ripe? We have a papaya tree in our front yard but no of us know when to pick it. So when I wash my clothes I can never tell if the water is just dirty or my clothes are really dirty when I dump the water. There have been three baptisms the last three weeks. I love baptisms! They make me think about my own baptism, even though it was awhile ago, I remember just feeling good and clean. It’s been one of my favorite all-time days, just really special.

It was interesting the other day watching kids at recess. Some were playing volleyball, some soccer, some were burning things, some were dancing, some were talking, and other kids were just sitting and thinking. A lot of the kids here are orphans. I just think a lot about them, what they’ve gone through, what their goals are, and what life has in store for them. When we were doing the stove, we played a lot with the kids and just had fun with them. One kid had a 49ers sweatshirt, another had a Spiderman t-shirt. I asked him if he knew who Spiderman was. He didn’t know and was kind of confused. The kids we met at the stoves were all orphans, all 200 of them. They live in a village far away. Some of them will probably never go anywhere except Mukono and their village. They know a couple things about this other, modern world, but for the most part they really have no idea. Ya know, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing either. They are happy, they have fun, life is simple and manageable. It seems like that the more advanced countries become, the less happy the citizens are. That explains the recent surveys that show that people in Africa are generally happier than people in the US, UK, and Japan. Even though they live simple lives, life is still hard, they don’t necessarily have families, they do a lot of hard work in farming to grow food for the school, and teachers beat them. I think I would cry myself to sleep every night, but they are happy. As we walked away and said goodbye I was glad to meet them, have fun with them, and learn from them. In one of the books I’ve recently read, it said that what every person wants is to be important. So hopefully we’re making them feel important somehow.

Hamis and others told us in Kampala that Mukono is known throughout the country for child sacrifices that go on here. They said that newspapers often have stories about these tragedies. The police aren’t really empowered enough to do much to stop the situation. I’ve noticed lot of kids have sticks that go through their ears kind of as earrings. We asked around and found out that parents do that to their kids to give them blemishes so they won’t be offered as sacrifices.

I figured out what the x-factor is for a lot of African men, they like white women. I’m not quite sure what’s going on but I’ve heard from so many people about men who like just white women. I think it has something to do with Hollywood and how people all over the world watch American movies. Maybe African men, because of the entertainment industry, are cultured to be attracted to just white women. There are several older single guys here. A couple of the girls here have been asked out, I wonder if they are just holding out for white women. Man, think about how negative an effect this could have on African society if African men think that African women are second best.

I’m really excited that our projects are rolling. Things are really working out. I work with kids and help out at schools in the morning and then teach business classes in the afternoons and evenings. We’re teaching 4 groups of people twice a week and working on adding more groups. I really believe that better business practices and a better business environment can help the developing world. They need to become more competitive with the outside world by exporting more and provide better goods and services to citizens here. I’m more of a macro person, that the best way to help the developing world is through large scale projects and top-down stuff, that’s why I’m so interested in politics, but also improving businesses. But I still recognize the importance of micro-level projects as well.

This Friday we are going to Jinja. Hamis and his MP, Honorable Fred Nkayi, have wanted us to visit two schools. He says that what the students need to most are to be inspired. But what they mostly want is for us to help the teachers improve their teaching methods. They want us to give a teacher training workshop about cooperation, dealing with children with abnormal behavior, why they shouldn’t beat their students, how to handle teenage girls, teamwork, how school isn’t just about grades but also able personal growth, why it’s important to know the children individually, simple methods of handling children, why creativity is important to develop and how games and other activities can be used as teaching tools. So yeah, that’s a lot, I know. Some of the people in our group are familiar with this stuff because they are elem. ed majors and such, but if there’s anybody that reads this that could email me or even call me and let me know some good stuff we could use and teach the teachers, I would really appreciate it. I really don’t know what should be said, so if you could help me out, that’d be great. K, so you can email me or call me. To call you have to dial 011 to dial outside the US, then 256, then 773153765. Email or call before Thursday 5ish my time, so 8 in the morning Utah time, and 9 Midwest time. So yeah, it'd be nice if you could help us out, you would really be helping out the people here. Thanks.

Wabalee nnyo ssebo oda nyabo! (Thank you very much man or woman)

We had a poetry night last week Sunday. I wrote a poem, it isn’t great cause I wrote it during the exchanging of poems, and it’s mostly inside jokes, but if you’re interested, here it is:

Africa, Africa here I am

Being a mzungu I don’t really blend

Amazing sunsets and stars so bright

Except for sleeping in mosquito nets I love the night

Gosh I love samosas and chipati

As I digest them, they tickle me

People are amazing and very happy

I’m trying to not let this poem get too sappy

If you haven’t taken a boda-boda do so quickly

Isn’t it disgusting how the meat is so drippy

Mukono gives me very much glee

Ha, I love saying poo-poo-agie

Pooped on me too, Tamara just said

Everyday I become more what? Red.

This place is awesome and very supa!

Are we in America? nope…you gone duh!

Rwanda

Boy, I'm writing marathon blog entries. There's just so much happening.

Ok, so Wednesday I decided that I wanted to take one of my vacation days and go to Rwanda. So I came home and told everyone I was going, 3 other girls wanted to go as well. I think the country directors were a little upset with my spontaneous plans, but they ok’d it. So after Parliament we emailed, went to the market, and then to the bus park. Our bus didn’t leave until 3 AM, so we waited on some stairs. I couldn’t sleep, so I just read. I slept til 8:00 on the bus. I had a weird dream about privatization…because of all the government talk I heard that week. We didn’t get to Rwanda until 11:00, but wow, it was an amazing drive. Rwanda is gorilla country and called the “land of a thousand hills.” Uganda is called the “pearl of Africa.” I took several pictures, but the pictures really don’t do justice to the beauty of that country. South Uganda and especially Rwanda is amazingly beautiful. There are lush green mountains, lots of different types of trees and vegetation. There were really low clouds that day. I guess it was mist, but it was so thick and very white. There are all types of green on the mountains in the trees with terraces up the mountains. The valleys are where everything is grown, so the people live up the mountains. Gosh, it’s just such a beautiful country. It’s sad that such a beautiful country has such a bad history.

So we arrived in the capital-Kigali. It was fun switching from driving on the left side of the road (in Uganda) to the right (in Rwanda). We didn’t have plans, so we decided to just go see the things we wanted to see. 2 of the girls spoke French fluently, so I didn’t have to use my little French that much. We went to the Hotel des Milles Collines which was the hotel in the movie “Hotel Rwanda.” I’m going to watch that again when I get back. But during the genocide in 1994, this hotel saved many Tutsis from being killed. We went to the American Embassy to get some adoption information (one of the girls is looking to adopt a Rwandan kid). Then we went to a restaurant called La Sierra that advertised Chinese and Indian Cuisine. There was a supermarket in the back that had some amazingly good pizzas! We talked with the owner, who is of Indian descent, and is Canadian. We had a great chat with him and then he asked if we wanted to stay at his house that night. So we ran to the Genocide Memorial Centre. They had so much info on the history behind the conflicts between the Hutus and Tutsis, the problems the European powers caused, details behind the genocide, and how the country is recovering. They had a room of thousands of pictures and names of people that were killed, a room of just clothes from the people, and a room of skulls, femurs, and other bones. It was weird to see that the clothes had Spiderman, Nike, and other modern things that reminded me how recent the genocide was. Outside they had graves of 250,000 people (I think). The thing is, is that they were mass gravesites cemented over. There was a room with all the genocides that have happened in the past 100 plus years. There are several that are really recent: Darfur, Yugoslavia, Cambodia, and Rwanda. On our way back to the restaurant we talked with Willy. Willy is 26 now. He left Rwanda after the genocide. He is a Tutsi and all of his brothers and sisters (6 I think) and father were killed. He and his mom moved to Uganda until things were safe for them to return.

So Elnoor, our Canadian friend took us to his house. Wow! It was a really nice place. He brought back lots of food, including Indian food, lots of fruit, and European cheese! He went back to his restaurant so us 4 just chilled for several hours. We watched tv (BBC news), skimmed through some books, took showers (hot showers), and slept. I got to sleep in a huge double bed, it was great. Elnoor is such a nice guy, we were a little nervous at first, but everything was perfect. So while we were there, he gave us a tour of his house, there is a lot of important history that happened there. Ok, so in 1994, the Hutu government had been planning this genocide of the Tutsi. President Haryama (sp?) was killed, (we’re not sure who killed him, but some say Hutus planned it to blame the Tutsis). They then stormed the prime minister’s (a Tutsi) house (Elnoor’s house), killed 10 UN guards and killed the prime minister and her husband. The kids were able to escape in the back by climbing the walling into the UN compound. After that they proceeded killing Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The government used much propaganda, especially the radio, to encourage Hutus all over the country to kill their neighbors, friends, and family. Within a week all foreigners were escorted out of the country by soldiers who were flown in to escort them out. I read that if all the soldiers who were brought in would have stayed in the country they could have prevented the genocide. The UN would not allow its peacekeepers to fight and countries refused to do anything about this because there was confusion about what genocide actually is and they considered it to just be internal conflicts and not of their concern. So from April to July 1994 one million people were killed. One Rwandan refugee escaped to the US and tried convincing Congress and the Clinton Administration to do something, one Congressman replied, “The US does not have friends, just interests, Rwanda is not among our interests.” So yeah, we stayed in the same house as the prime minister when she was killed that was a significant event in the conflict.

The next morning we went to Saint Famille Church (the bad church) and Saint Paul’s Pastoral Centre (the good church). It was hard for me to visit the bad church because for me, the absolute worst part of the whole thing was that Tutsis thought they would be safe in the Churches, but many pastors were in agreement with the government, sold out their congregations, and let them be killed. This church was one of the more famous ones because it is right in the center of Kigali, but it happened with many churches all over the country. In the good church the pastor saved his congregation. So after visiting those churches we caught our bus back to Kampala. That was the bumpiest ride ever. Our seats were in the very back which made every bump huge. I was able to read the whole time, so that was nice.

I’ll never forget being in Rwanda, seeing the faces of people who experienced so much. Many had wounds, many had family members and friends who were killed, and many were killers themselves. It was just so terrible, lifelong neighbors, lifelong friends, and even family members killed one another. It is a miracle that the country is still together and is doing as well as it is (the economy is doing better than Uganda’s), Kigali is such a nice big city, scattered over several hills, well ordered, flowers everywhere, very clean…all in such a big contrast to Kampala. I just wish I clearly say all that I was thinking and feeling while I was in Rwanda. I just can’t imagine everything happening like it did, but all the happened was not a movie, it was real life. This was government-sponsored and the rest of the world just let it happened. Shouldn’t that be government’s number one purpose- to protect its people? Genocide should not be allowed to happen. Things like this really make me want to just go out and change the world. I won’t ever forget Rwanda.

Parliament

Each week just gets better and better. This last week sure started off with a bang. So I was planning on going up to Kampala (the capital) to attend Parliament meetings. We had to leave at 8:30 in the morning. Kindra, who I was going to go with wasn’t around for some reason, so at last minute I asked April to come with, and she did. We walked into Mukono, I stopped to pick up a couple samosas (one of my favorite foods here- it’s kind of a triangle pita with lots of beef and onions in the middle, and then deep fried..mmmm), but I left my wallet at home. So I borrowed money from April for the day. They let me take the cell phone, but we soon found out that there weren’t anymore minutes. So we went halfway and bought some minutes, then April was out of money, oh yeah, and it was raining the whole time. So we tried finding a bank, people told us it was a little down the street. We went and the ATM was closed and there was a huge line, so we asked where another ATM was. They said it was down the street, so we went and the ATM was broke! Ugh! Well, we called my contact, Hamis, and explained things to him, that we would be late for the committee meeting and all. He said that the meeting had been postponed til another day but we could still come. April then found she had enough money for us to go the rest of the way if we negotiated a little. So we finally made it to Parliament! Hamis met up with us and gave us a tour of the building, explained the flag and the national coat of arms. We went and chatted with a MP (Member of Parliament)- Honorable Okupah Elijiah. It’s proper to address all MP’s as Honorable blank and blank. He took us to the Local Government Accounts committee, where they were talking about an official in Jinja who embezzled money. The best part of the day though was just all the chatting we did with Hamis. So when I emailed a ton of MP’s from the Parliament website, Honorable Fred Nkayi was the only one who responded. So I started emailing his assistant, Mugendawala Hamis. After the meeting we chatted for about three hours with Hamis. He is so smart, we had so many questions about the economy, the war in the north, tribes, education, the role of the US in Uganda, etc. I left that day feeling really inspired about helping Uganda.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were very similar to Monday. I usually went each day with someone different, and each person just absolutely loved the whole experience. Every single time their most favorite part was talking with Hamis and learning about Uganda. Tuesday and Thursday I was able to go to the Economic Development meetings. The major topics of discussion were the privatizing the railroads and developing telecommunications throughout the country. Tuesday the Minister of Finance was there along with the Director Privatization facing the committee of MP’s. Uganda has about $300 million worth of rail assets. They are working out a deal by renting out their railroads to Rift Valley Railway (RVR), a Kenyan group that would mostly make it more accessible to Ugandan businesses to ship their goods from Uganda through Kenya to their ports so they can export goods to world markets. It’s a really good thing that can really help the country. One of Uganda’s disadvantages is that it is landlocked. The argument from the MP’s was on the percentage RVR would pay to the Ugandan government each year. It’s frustrating because this can really help and here they are arguing about numbers. The second meeting they had the Minister of Technology talk to the committee. China is willing to give a 20 year loan, for $20 at 2% interest. The loan would help Uganda develop more internet and cell phone coverage throughout the country. The MP’s had several concerns course, the first is that usually they receive loans at 0.075% interest, so why don’t they negotiate a cheaper loan, and the second is that would that interfere with their privatizing goals. They have some good concerns, cell phones are really expensive here, so it would help, but as one MP mentioned, the tariffs keep prices high, so they really should lower the tariffs to benefit the population. I agree, tariff and non-tariff barriers should be reduced, which lowers prices. It was fun to attend these meetings and read about them in the newspaper. On Wednesday I attended the Social Services committee meeting because the girls I was with really wanted to go. It was interesting, each district is allotted scholarships to give out to a number of student scholarships to attend university, but some students have been dishonest by saying they were from different districts.

So each day we attended committee meetings. On Tuesday, it was hilarious, me and Kindra were sitting there watching all the food and pop being brought to the MP’s and we were just starving. Kindra wrote in her journal and showed me where it said, “I would give anything to have a samosa right now.” Not even 5 minutes later the waiter asked us if we would like anything to drink…score! So we ate samosas and drank pop, it was great. The next two days they also gave us samosas and pop. The Parliament meetings were also really fun for me. The NRM Party sits on one side and the opposition parties sit on the other. They have a lot of British tradition in their meetings because the British colonized them. They talked about a few interesting things, many opposition members were upset with the Minister of Defense because 5 Uganda peace-keeping soldiers were killed in Somalia and they found out through CNN. They complained that the Minister is not keeping the MP’s informed about the happenings in Somalia. It is so funny though, cause every meeting started close to an hour after they were supposed to start. It really is a culture thing then. On my mission Africans were always late to appointments.

So after committee meeting we would go to Hamis’s office, chat, then Parliament, then back to Hamis, chat some more and then go back to Mukono and get chipatis on the way back. I love chipatis! They are kinda like pita bread with eggs, cabbage, and tomatoes on top. I get a couple of them each time, because they are really cheap (500 shillings, or 35 cents, approx.) and really filling. It’s funny, we always lend money out to each other and remind each other and stuff…most of the time it is like 1700 shillings, which is $1, or something. But that is a lot of money…but really it’s not.

Ok, so here are some of the things I learned from Hamis: Colonialism really is the worst thing that happened to Africa. In 1848 Otto Von Bismarck called the European heads of state together and carved up Africa. Most of the time, borders were set according to latitude and longitude lines, not accounting for the people that they were affecting. Basically they made Africa one big mess. In Uganda there are 56 tribes. Most tribes are related to each other, in the south and west, most are related to the Buganda tribe. This tribe also goes into Rwanda and Congo. These areas in Uganda are the wealthiest and most industrialized. In the East, the people are related to the Kenyans, in the North most tribes are related to the Acholi, which is very similar to people in Sudan. For these reasons, Sudanese have supported the Acholi by supplying them with arms and refuge, and Uganda helped out the Tutsis in Rwanda. The Kanjoma (sp?) in the East believe that all cattle in the world belong to them. They don’t eat the cattle, but they drink the blood. The government has been fighting with them because they raid other tribes and steal their cattle. In Northern Uganda, war has existed for 20 years for a couple of reasons. Uganda got its independence in 1962. Dictators in the north ruled the country very ruthlessly and made their tribes more prosperous than the rest of the country. They two main dictators were Obote and then Amin. Amin overthrew Obote and then the current president, Museveni overthrew Amin and held elections. It’s interesting, Museveni went to school in Tanzania and was buddies with a couple of other guys. All of them overthrew their governments and are currently in power in South Sudan, Uganda, and Tanzania, I think. Anyway, Museveni could have been a dictator, but he held free elections and disciplined his soldiers, and just did some really good things. Hamis says the two things that he has really done well with are education and infrastructure. Uganda has been the first African country to offer free universal primary education and are starting to offer free universal secondary education. He has also built roads connecting the major cities in the country. But he has helped his tribe and the Buganda-related tribes the most. That’s why the south and west are the most prosperous. Many of the ministers are from the west, along with the bureaucracy, police, and soldiers. He has built some state universities and moved industries to the west. Amin and Obote did the same things. For these reasons, the northern tribes do not support Museveni and have fought for independence against Uganda the past 20 some years. The leader of the resistence was Lukwena, a woman who said that if the soldiers put a certain ointment on them the bullets would not hurt them. Obviously they quickly learned that that wasn’t the case. Her cause was moved along through Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). After awhile the people in the north got tired of the war, Kony punished them by abducting their kids to fight in his army. He also placed mines all over the north. So there are refugees living in the UK that have been supporting Kony financially and giving him arms and been calling some of the shots. South Sudan was supporting Kony, but that government was overthrown and the new guy has not supported Kony and has kicked the LRA out of Sudan. Also interesting, in about 2010 South Sudan will vote whether they want to be an independent country, most likely they will become one. So Kony is stuck in the DRC (Congo). The Congolese government really doesn’t have power in East Congo, but Kony is being pressed by Uganda, Sudan, and the International Criminal Court (ICC), who is out to arrest him and his commanders. They have had cease fires, but no peace treaty yet. Hamis says that one reason they haven’t had any treaties because the people in the UK tell him what to do and sign. But the war is pretty much over, Kony will have a hard time getting out of this. The people in Northern Uganda are living in terrible conditions in Internal Displacement Camps. The wait to get clean water is two days. The US is helping by giving technology that helps detect mines and dismantle them. Hamis let us go through so many official government documents. I went through the Northern Uganda roadmap plan, that was sweet! Ha, I also went through these booklets, one from the UK about how to be a good committee member and one from the US about how to recover from a war. Wow, that was a lot of info…sorry. All this Parliament stuff has just been heaven for me. I have loved mingling with MP’s, listening in on important meetings, going through documents, etc. A couple MP’s from the East want to take me to their districts; unfortunately, I’m only here for 6 weeks, so won’t have enough time. I’ve kind of seen the President. We were driving on the road and a caravan of several military vehicles and limos drove by. The driver told us it was the president. A lot of people here just don’t know of the laws. Men in the villages beat their wives and don’t know it’s against the law. That’s one of the problems they face. I’m very ethnocentric when it comes to politics. I compare other country’s systems to the US and measure how well they’re doing to how close they are to the US, bad huh? There are big cranes everywhere! One of the times going up to Kampala this guy on the radio was speaking Lugandan and just laughing like crazy. Nobody else in the bus was laughing, but I was cracking up!

So Hamis is assistant to Honorable Fred Nkayi. This guy sounds impressive. I haven’t met him yet, he’s mostly been in his constituency, but he does not know anything about politics, he’s in it because he wants to help his people. He wants our group to come to Jinja, where he’s from, for a day and visit schools and see the source of the Nile. Hamis has been asking me how to get donors from the US, I’m really not sure. But we’re going Jinja next week. Hamis says what the students need most is to be inspired. I’m excited.

OK, this blog is very long, I have a lot to write still, I have to tell about my trip to Rwanda, hopefully I’ll get to it sometime this week. If you haven’t noticed this blog has kind of become my journal.

Poop-Poo-Agie!!

Somebody in our group explained it best: “each day feels like a week, and each week feels like a month.” We do so much each day. It feels like I’ve been gone for a month because of all that we’ve done here. SO much has happened this last week. The biggest thing is that the group of volunteers arrived last Wednesday. So there are 14 of us now, sharing a little tiny house with one bathroom. The first night they were here there was no electricity that night nor the next morning. It was certainly interesting getting everybody showered that morning. Every morning is kind of interesting because there are so many of us. Yesterday I was in mid shower with all the soap on me and all the water pressure in the sink and in the shower went out. There was a small drizzle, but that was it. Luckily we had a bucket of water in the kitchen that I had someone bring me. Tomorrow we are moving into a second house really near by. A week ago from Saturday we moved out of the hotel into a house. This place as a dump! I’m not sure what I expected an African house to be like, but there was trash everywhere, rat dogs, mice, cockroaches, geckos, all kinds of interesting insects all over. We spent the whole day cleaning. When April opened her suitcase three mice ran out. We’ve put rat poison everywhere but the mice continue to live, every morning we see tons of mice droppings in the kitchen and on our porch. The first day Freddy pointed at the droppings and said, “Ahh, poop-poo-agie,” which means, “who’s poop.” That’s kinda become a funny saying we say a lot. I’m finally getting used to the cold showers, it takes a couple of seconds of shivering. The thing is, I don’t feel like I get clean after cold showers. I’ve been running in the mornings, so I come home all sweaty, cold showers feel good. Tomorrow the house I’m moving into has hot water, a fridge, and a stove, so I’m excited about that. Last week I went four days without seeing my reflection. When I finally saw my reflection in the mirror of a motorcycle, I was scared…everyday I get really dirty from all the dust going around. I’m not sure what it is, but I can go a whole day with just eating in the morning and at night, and going to the bathroom in the morning and at night.

Here’s an interesting little cultural tidbit- husbands don’t know the age of the wives, kinda like how husbands in America don’t know the weight of their wives in America. Freddy thinks his wife is 28, but she has never told him. The missionaries say that there is a lot of witchcraft and devil worshipping in this area. They said that there have been beheading ceremonies. The male/female roles are sometimes very apparent. When we were in the hotel they gave me, the guy, a room twice as big as the one they gave the two girls…I also got the fan. When we go to schools and meet with the directors, they ask me questions and talk to me, even though the girls know more about those things.

Last Thursday the mission president here was killed in a car accident. I hung out with the missionaries for 5 hours that day, it was so sad. I just can’t imagine what that would have been like if Pres. Hamilton was killed while I was serving. The drivers here are the worst I have ever seen. They think that if they honk their horn they can get do whatever they want. They remind me of the Brazilian drivers, but to the extreme. The other night when we were coming back from the airport in a taxi, there were several times when I thought we were going to die. The drivers here really have guts. Saturday we went to the funeral in Kampala, the capital, I sat in the front with the driver and made sure he would drive safely. I actually had a good chat with him. His name is Adrien and he really likes white women. That was kinda awkward cause there are 13 girls and 2 guys in our group. But he fell in love with an English girl a year ago. She said she would send for him, but she hasn’t gotten in contact with him. He wears a ring on his left hand out of hope. But he was wondering why white men like African women, but white women do not like African men. I explained that everyone is different and has different tastes. He asked me why America is so segregated, compared with Brazil. Ha, we saw a white person on the road and he asked me if I knew them. I told him that if people in America drive like Ugandans they must pay lots of money, could lose their licenses, and could get arrested. Nice guy.

I should just be a full-time missionary my whole life, I enjoy it and as opposed to dating, I think I have it figured out. I went with Elder Soko, from Zimbabwe, and Elder Metemi, from Kenya all day Thursday and it was amazing. Elder Soko’s parents were killed when he was younger; both of them are older and very humble, they have gone through lots of sacrifices to come on missions. We had some really good appointments with some people, they gave me lots of opportunities to teach principles and bear testimony. This lady we taught told us, after peeling the onion, that she doesn’t have a personal relationship with God. I think we helped, but it ultimately comes down to whether she has enough desire to do the things we asked her to. That appointment made me really grateful for the teachings of the Church and how our doctrine stresses the importance of a personal relationship with Deity. Elder Soko told me some funny stories about Pres. Mugabe, the president of his country. I’ve seen a documentary about the guy, and basically he’s just like King Noah. Elder Soko said Mugabe is very anti-US and anti-UK. He says he’ll let Blair have the UK if he can have Zimbabwe. To those that say the country doesn’t have fuel, he says they should lie down on the road and see if that’s true. I had a good time playing the Book of Mormon game with the missionaries, when one reads a chapter heading and the other two guess. 3 Nephi 22 gets everyone!

Friday we went to the Crane School and played games with the kids. There are several students from the North, where the war is. The school situation is very interesting here. There are so many schools with tons of kids. Often the school boards some students as well. School directors have told us that private schools are better than government schools because they are allowed to beat the kids, and they need that for discipline. It costs a lot of money for the parents to afford their kids to go to school. I’m kind of torn about education in the developing world. Before I came here I thought that education is the answer to all problems, but now I’m really not sure. Both of the elders say that their countries are more developed than Uganda but education is better here. I’ve met a lot of people that have high education levels but there just aren’t enough jobs. I have lots of ideas for job creation, maybe I’ll mention these business ideas when we start teaching. This last week I’ve been thinking so much about this education dilemma and development in general. Do we want Africa to become like America? I think there is a parallel between prosperity and wickedness. Hardly anyone here smokes because they can’t afford it. So yeah, if anyone has any thoughts, I’ve discussed this a lot recently, but any thoughts you have, let me know.

Our favorite game is werewolves. We played an amazing game last night. Yeah, this game was definitely one of the better ones I’ve played.

The sunsets here are amazing. Our house is on a hill so we see the wide open sky, African trees, the clouds, and an amazing sunset. Every evening it is amazing and just spiritual.

The members here are amazing. Their testimonies, lessons, and talks are so simple and great. I’m learning a lot from them and how they are so happy with what they have, even if it is very little. What they cherish most is the Gospel, and as long as they have that, life is good.

This was kinda long, and I’ll only be able to post once a week. But the group has a blog at www.help-internationaluganda.blogspot.com

I think they put pictures on there and stuff. I'll pretty much copy this entry and paste it on there too.

K, so I wrote this post yesterday (Sunday) and now it is Monday evening. Holy cow today was an awesome day, by far the coolest so far. I spent the whole day in the Parliament building meetings with several members of Parliament. Tomorrow I’m going to an economic development meeting and later in the week I’ll go to a defense meeting…this is insane. Stay tuned for next week’s post!

Mzungu!

So I’m here in Uganda! We arrived Wednesday night. Monday night we left from SLC and then arrived in Newark, New Jersey Tuesday morning. We took a bus and train to the World Trade Center. I’ve been there before and man that place is big. I can’t even imagine huge buildings being there and the destruction them falling could cause. We saw a lot of lower Manhattan: Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, Brooklyn Bridge, Little China, and Little Italy. We were only there for about 5 hours but we were able to do a lot. So then we left for Amsterdam and arrived there at 6:00 AM. I love flying into Holland, it is a very distinct country. It’s cool seeing the cities from the plane and the peninsula and the Afsluitdyk. The sunrise was amazing too. We walked around the city for 3 hours, saw the Anne Frank house, and all the flags and trash from the Queen’s Day celebration from the day before. Everything was closed still, but I was still able to get April and Tamara to try vla and doner kebabs. Being there for a couple hours got me really excited to go back in 6 weeks.

So we left for Africa. KLM is a really good airline, they brought us so many meals and snacks. It was really fun to see on the map where we were. We flew right over Egypt and Sudan. I just couldn’t believe that I was actually going to Africa! I had an aisle seat but I saw an amazing sunset outside with awesome clouds that looked really African-like. As we were flying into Uganda, I finally understood why Africa is called the Dark Continent. It was so dark outside. Down below there were hardly any lights, the airport wasn’t lit up at all either. It was sure interesting when we touched down cause you could hardly see the road. We were picked up at the Entebbe Airport and driven through Kampala, the capital, to a small town, Mukono. David, our driver, has never been swimming. We were all very tired from going through so many time zones and lots of walking in NYC and A’dam. I could not sleep at all, though. The main road is outside our hotel and there were so many large trucks, lots of horns honking, and it sounded like there was civil unrest outside or something cause people were yelling the whole night. It turns out there was a soccer game going on. I didn’t get much sleep at all.

So Thursday was our first day here. We went around looking for houses and meeting people that can help us with our projects. Uganda is what I thought Africa would be like: Dirt roads, jungle, palm trees, banana trees, small shacks, and everyone is black. It seems like everyone in the community knows one another. There aren’t any street lights and even though Mukono is small, there are tons of people everywhere. A lot of the people come from small villages outside the town. Mukono is really hilly and beautiful. It reminds me a lot of Brazil. It’s pretty close to Lake Victoria and the beginning of the Nile. Everyone speaks a tribal language called Luganda. It’s interesting, Uganda has many regions, which are tribes and then within each tribe there are clans. Each clan has a flag and such. President Museveni is from another tribe and all the government workers are from his tribe, that’s how African politics work.

We ran into USAID yesterday, they were doing a “saving money” workshop in the center of the town. We made a lot of contacts. USAID said we can help out with different things around the country. There was this kid who stared at me for like 5 minutes and then came over and started rubbing my skin. I think he was trying to see if the white would rub off. Everywhere we go little kids run up to us and call us “Mzungu,” which means whitey. We talk to them and call them “Mudugavu,” which means blackey. We walk everywhere and occasionally we take boda-boda’s which are taxi motorcycles. For the most part they are safe. Our friend, Freddy, has taken us around to our project contacts. We’re lining up projects, working with some schools, health clinics, orphanages, and micro-credit organizations. I have a contact in the Uganda Parliament who is trying to make it work so I can go to some committee meetings in Parliament in Kampala. Last night the guy next door had a prostitute come over…that was kind of weird. This trip will be somewhat like my Europe last year- cleaning my clothes while taking a shower and living out of my backpack.

The oranges are green, not orange. The electricity goes out at random times. The exchange rate is pretty nice: $1 equals 1,720 Uganda shillings. The price of food, though, isn’t that much different than Walmart, which is really unfortunate for the people that live here. It’s a very poor community. Though things like micro-credit and better education help out, it’s still hard for some people. In my classes I’ve learned things like ¾ of the world’s population live on less than $2 a day. Yesterday I was chatting with Henry, who makes about that per day and has 4 kids. I don’t know how he does it. I spent $3 on drinks alone. It’s really warm here. It’s the rainy season for them, so it’s pretty humid. I’ve put sun block on, but I’m still getting sunburnt a lot. It’s fun though. I feel like a missionary again. It’s fun meeting people, getting their cell phone numbers, making appointments, getting dogged, and trying to help people. We’ve run into several members of the church. Sunday should be fun. I got chewed out by the hotel people for leaving my balcony light on. Electricity is very precious here.

There are tons of gas stations all over. I’m not really sure why cause it’s expensive to own a car or a boda-boda. We saw the head of a cow just lieing on the ground. It was weird. It was really fresh too. Guys hold hands together and girls hold hands, but guys and girls don’t hold each other’s hand. I saw two mzungus (whitey) today. One’s from Germany and the other is from some country in Africa that I’ve never heard of. They drive on the left side of the road here, like the U.K. A kid told me yesterday that all whites look alike. I thought that was funny.

Today we went drove a ways through lots of little villages to a graduation ceremony. We showed up unexpected with a family friend and became the distinguished guests. Everyone stared and stared at us. We kind of feel like we’re supposed to entertain them. The father, who had multiple wives, and one of his wives, died a year ago, leaving behind close to 30 kids. The oldest is 20 and just graduated. I wish I could write more about what I feel and stuff. Email me with questions if you want to hear more.

It’ll be a fun two months.

Mzungu!

So I’m here in Uganda! We arrived Wednesday night. Monday night we left from SLC and then arrived in Newark, New Jersey Tuesday morning. We took a bus and train to the World Trade Center. I’ve been there before and man that place is big. I can’t even imagine huge buildings being there and the destruction them falling could cause. We saw a lot of lower Manhattan: Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, Brooklyn Bridge, Little China, and Little Italy. We were only there for about 5 hours but we were able to do a lot. So then we left for Amsterdam and arrived there at 6:00 AM. I love flying into Holland, it is a very distinct country. It’s cool seeing the cities from the plane and the peninsula and the Afsluitdyk. The sunrise was amazing too. We walked around the city for 3 hours, saw the Anne Frank house, and all the flags and trash from the Queen’s Day celebration from the day before. Everything was closed still, but I was still able to get April and Tamara to try vla and doner kebabs. Being there for a couple hours got me really excited to go back in 6 weeks.

So we left for Africa. KLM is a really good airline, they brought us so many meals and snacks. It was really fun to see on the map where we were. We flew right over Egypt and Sudan. I just couldn’t believe that I was actually going to Africa! I had an aisle seat but I saw an amazing sunset outside with awesome clouds that looked really African-like. As we were flying into Uganda, I finally understood why Africa is called the Dark Continent. It was so dark outside. Down below there were hardly any lights, the airport wasn’t lit up at all either. It was sure interesting when we touched down cause you could hardly see the road. We were picked up at the Entebbe Airport and driven through Kampala, the capital, to a small town, Mukono. David, our driver, has never been swimming. We were all very tired from going through so many time zones and lots of walking in NYC and A’dam. I could not sleep at all, though. The main road is outside our hotel and there were so many large trucks, lots of horns honking, and it sounded like there was civil unrest outside or something cause people were yelling the whole night. It turns out there was a soccer game going on. I didn’t get much sleep at all.

So Thursday was our first day here. We went around looking for houses and meeting people that can help us with our projects. Uganda is what I thought Africa would be like: Dirt roads, jungle, palm trees, banana trees, small shacks, and everyone is black. It seems like everyone in the community knows one another. There aren’t any street lights and even though Mukono is small, there are tons of people everywhere. A lot of the people come from small villages outside the town. Mukono is really hilly and beautiful. It reminds me a lot of Brazil. It’s pretty close to Lake Victoria and the beginning of the Nile. Everyone speaks a tribal language called Luganda. It’s interesting, Uganda has many regions, which are tribes and then within each tribe there are clans. Each clan has a flag and such. President Museveni is from another tribe and all the government workers are from his tribe, that’s how African politics work.

We ran into USAID yesterday, they were doing a “saving money” workshop in the center of the town. We made a lot of contacts. USAID said we can help out with different things around the country. There was this kid who stared at me for like 5 minutes and then came over and started rubbing my skin. I think he was trying to see if the white would rub off. Everywhere we go little kids run up to us and call us “Mzungu,” which means whitey. We talk to them and call them “Mudugavu,” which means blackey. We walk everywhere and occasionally we take boda-boda’s which are taxi motorcycles. For the most part they are safe. Our friend, Freddy, has taken us around to our project contacts. We’re lining up projects, working with some schools, health clinics, orphanages, and micro-credit organizations. I have a contact in the Uganda Parliament who is trying to make it work so I can go to some committee meetings in Parliament in Kampala. Last night the guy next door had a prostitute come over…that was kind of weird. This trip will be somewhat like my Europe last year- cleaning my clothes while taking a shower and living out of my backpack.

The oranges are green, not orange. The electricity goes out at random times. The exchange rate is pretty nice: $1 equals 1,720 Uganda shillings. The price of food, though, isn’t that much different than Walmart, which is really unfortunate for the people that live here. It’s a very poor community. Though things like micro-credit and better education help out, it’s still hard for some people. In my classes I’ve learned things like ¾ of the world’s population live on less than $2 a day. Yesterday I was chatting with Henry, who makes about that per day and has 4 kids. I don’t know how he does it. I spent $3 on drinks alone. It’s really warm here. It’s the rainy season for them, so it’s pretty humid. I’ve put sun block on, but I’m still getting sunburnt a lot. It’s fun though. I feel like a missionary again. It’s fun meeting people, getting their cell phone numbers, making appointments, getting dogged, and trying to help people. We’ve run into several members of the church. Sunday should be fun. I got chewed out by the hotel people for leaving my balcony light on. Electricity is very precious here.

There are tons of gas stations all over. I’m not really sure why cause it’s expensive to own a car or a boda-boda. We saw the head of a cow just lieing on the ground. It was weird. It was really fresh too. Guys hold hands together and girls hold hands, but guys and girls don’t hold each other’s hand. I saw two mzungus (whitey) today. One’s from Germany and the other is from some country in Africa that I’ve never heard of. They drive on the left side of the road here, like the U.K. A kid told me yesterday that all whites look alike. I thought that was funny.

Today we went drove a ways through lots of little villages to a graduation ceremony. We showed up unexpected with a family friend and became the distinguished guests. Everyone stared and stared at us. We kind of feel like we’re supposed to entertain them. The father, who had multiple wives, and one of his wives, died a year ago, leaving behind close to 30 kids. The oldest is 20 and just graduated. I wish I could write more about what I feel and stuff. Email me with questions if you want to hear more.

It’ll be a fun two months.