Holly Ben and I have had very little downtime in Kisaasi.
Parliament has been going well. We've really been offered an incredible opportunity to intern here. And while I have some frustrations and criticisms about the pace in which things get done, the people have been very welcoming.
I'm officially attached to the Committee on Defence and Internal Affairs and the Committee on Presidential Affairs. I was supposed to travel with Presidential Affairs to Tororo to observe the Kenyan refugee situation on Thursday, but the trip was cancelled because of a ruling party caucus. All committees that day were cancelled, as well, because there were not enough Members of Parliament in attendance.
I have attended 3 committee meetings thus far, although they are not the ones I have been assigned to because neither of them have met yet. I tried to go to a select committee meeting twice, but both time it was cancelled. The only thing I have successfully witnessed is the Public Accounts Committee. That day they were meeting with Gulu University to discuss inadequate accounting on the part of Gulu Univ.
I am most excited about my networking with the Amani Forum, the Great Lakes Parliamentary Forum on Peace. I wish I was told of them before I began my internship with the Clerks Department because their activities are much more relevant to my research. They are in Karamoja right now on a fact-finding mission. They are researching the root causes of the conflict between the cattle-rustling Karimojong and the people affected by their theft. I am anxious for them to return so I can view their report and findings.
Friday we didn't report to Parliament because the Clerks Department went on a weekend retreat. We didn't get a formal invitation from the Assistant Director, so we didn't go. Instead, we met with Cathy Piwang from ChildReach Africa. She took us to a slum area in Kampala to visit a primary school. Of the 240+ nursery and primary school students, 70% of them are Acholi displaced by the war. The stench in the slum was overwhelming, and I don't typically have a strong awareness of smells. We got to meet the founder of the school, Emily, and some of the students.
I was most upset that she doesn't have enough funding to feed the children during the day. Instead, she asks them to return home for lunch, but many of them stay and play because there is nothing to eat at home. Later, Cathy helped us calculate the costs, and it is less than $3.50 per day to feed all 240 students. That's only $235 for the
whole term! Those figures have really stayed with me, and I'm considering donating that money myself so that the children have something to fill their stomachs as they learn.
(Ben, Holly, Cathy, and I with the staff of Ray of Hope primary school)That evening we went with Vincent and his friends to a discotheque in Kampala called Agne Noir. It was reggae night, and we enjoyed dancing and socializing.
Saturday we went to Lake Victoria to attend a media bash thrown by the media venues who cover Parliament. Public Relations representatives and Members of Parliament were also there. We got there late but still enjoyed the barbeque and music.
On Sunday, we attended a play called "Butterflies of Uganda" at the National Theater. It was directed by an American and a European. The play is based on the true story of a 12-year-old Acholi girl who is kidnapped during a rebel attack by the LRA. Throughout the course of the abduction, she is forced to kill her father with a machete. She is also raped and forced to become the wife of Vincent Otti, a late top rebel commander to Joseph Kony.
After, there was a symposium in which the co-author, co-director, a representative from the Uganda German Council, a representative from the European Commission, and a representative from World Vision answered questions from the audience and even the cast.
One man in the audience commented that it was important to tell the whole truth when telling a story, and he did not feel as though the play offered a balanced view of the situation in Northern Uganda. He said that they depicted Kony as the sole reason for the suffering in Northern Uganda and they did not include dialogue on the government’s lack of assistance in protecting the Acholi. The director combated the comment by saying that this was but one facet of the conflict and that they hoped that in showing this one girl’s story, people would be thirsty to know more and then research on their own.
The play first debuted in Los Angeles, California with an all African American cast. None of the actors knew anything about the situation in Northern Uganda. They said it was a completely different, more enriching experience bringing the play to Uganda. I don’t believe many, if any, of the Kampala cast was Acholi, but the plot was at least something there were familiar with hearing in the news. Many people in the audience wanted to know what was being done to show the play around the country and include it in school curriculum. The answer was always that there was no funding.
After, I ran into Jennifer Ball, a Canadian woman I met at Makerere University in July. She is back in Uganda completing her dissertation on the role of women in peacebuilding. She will be in Uganda until May, so I hope to meet with her soon to discuss more about studying peacebuilding in Uganda.
Today we went back to Parliament, and there wasn’t very much going on. Instead of attending the Committee on Public Accounts meeting, I decided to research in the library. I read Your Rights, a magazine produced by the Human Rights Commission in Uganda. The July/August 2006 issue focused on reconciliation and the gap in legal amnesty and moral amnesty. They addressed the hesitancies of the communities to welcome former rebels granted amnesty under the Amnesty Act of 2000.
This week we’re traveling to Gulu with George Piwang because a delegation from the US Department of Education is visiting Kitgum and Gulu. We will be gone Wednesday through Saturday.
Erin arrives March 2nd, the day before my 20th birthday. I can’t wait!
