Alive and Kicking

I actually wrote this over a week ago, but have had extremely limited internet access, and this is my first chance to post it. Apologies for the delay - the family will also understand the extenuating circumstances...

No – I haven’t died. Although I have been insanely busy for the past week and have, at times, felt dead on my feet! But I am still alive and kicking and checking in…

Last weekend I finally moved into an apartment – it is fairly nice – has a kitchen and living and dining areas, so I am self sufficient. The complex also has a pool and a gym, which is great for my workout-obsession and makes it easy (except for the strange opening hours. What kind of gym closes at 3.00p.m. on a Sunday?) Also – another Program Officer lives in the complex, which has been fabulous.

Terri is an intern Program Officer from Canada who has been a godsend. During my first week here, she was up north, but the day after she returned, she gave me a call and helped me to find places to go, etc. She also took me to church with her on Sunday, has been showing me how to get from apartment to office and has taken me out to lunch. After the fairly dismal first week, where I received very few pointers about anything, it has been fantastic to have someone take an active interest in welcoming a newcomer and helping me settle in to Kampala. Plus, she’s a real sweetie!

Unfortunately, my weekend was marred somewhat by work. At 4.45p.m on Friday afternoon, I was handed a food security project that was not performing well, and essentially told to ‘fix it’!! I therefore spent half the weekend working and frantically finished the documentation by Tuesday afternoon to send to America (we are asking for an extension to finish the work in). Then Wednesday morning, I left to come up north.

This is my first trip to Pader, an area that was chronically insecure during the insurgency. Peace is holding now and people are beginning to move out of the large mother camps into smaller satellite camps – the first step towards moving home and a very positive one, as it expresses confidence in the future of the peace process and of their area.

I’m thinking at some stage, that I need to provide a full explanation of the situation and history in northern Uganda, but I am incredibly tired now, so this will probably not be the day! Suffice to say that the region is emerging from twenty years of war – battered, bruised and pretty uncertain, but determinedly striding forward. The scars are everywhere – driving north, once you cross the Nile (interesting fact: the Nile has its source in Uganda) you are officially in ‘northern Uganda’ and basically, up until six months ago, in a war zone. There are memorial sites and IDP camps everywhere. (IDP stands for Internally Displaced People, who are basically refugees who have not crossed an international border – pretty much the entire population of northern Uganda are IDPs). Some of the IDP camps are beginning to be dismantled as people move to smaller camps closer to home (but still near army barracks) so there are stretches of land with the remains of huts on them.

Today we went out to a distribution at one of the camps – we do feeding programs up here, and today we were distributing seeds and tools to people. Today’s was reasonably small – I think there were less than 1000 people receiving goods. But apparently our food aid program is massive – there will be distributions covering 40,000 people – this blows my mind and I can’t wait to see how the logistics of such a large distribution are handled. I am not sure how many people we are feeding up here – from conversation I have heard it is at least half a million each month. Pretty huge numbers for a chronic campaign…

I am literally too tired to type anything else right now (too hot to sleep up here – just like Afghanistan!) so will end now. I can’t even post this because the internet isn’t working. So I will save it and post it when I return to Kampala.

A Whole New World

Yipee – I have just been handed a piece of paper that, fingers crossed, will free me from the hotel and get me into a serviced apartment tomorrow!! I cannot wait to move from the hotel, and to particularly be able to cook for myself again. Now all I need is my stuff that is due to arrive next week, and I am set.

Even though I have been out of Afghanistan for six months now, some things are still an adjustment. Loud noises can still sound like gunshots or explosions and guns still make me incredibly nervous. What is strange, however, is adjusting to a new office where security is not the first thing you learn about (in Afghanistan, the security department was the first port of call for all newcomers – you were shown the security procedures before you were even shown your desk!) Here, nobody checks under our cars with mirrors when we enter the office or home, we don’t have call signs, nobody tracks our movements – it takes some getting used to!

I was sad in Afghanistan that, due to security restrictions, I was hampered in what I could write about. I could never tell you whereabouts in the country I was, or even at times, what I was specifically doing. Afghanistan is a world where you travel early in the morning, to blend in with the local cars, but cannot use a vehicle from your organisation. You must check in constantly with head office, but must use a code to reveal your location. Monitoring of our project work can change from week to week, depending on the security situation, and there would be days when we couldn’t leave the compound. Yet the endless sense of humour of the Afghans helped us to stay positive amidst such restrictions on our work.

I am looking forward to a different situation in Uganda, and to being able to tell you much more about my day to day life here. I am looking forward to sharing my stories and adventures as I begin to take on whole new tasks. I am currently working on a proposal for monthly food distribution to 400,000 people!!! And that is just in one district – I have never been involved in relief distributions on the scale that I will be doing here – the number of beneficiaries, the tonnage of food that we are moving is amazing. I am really excited to be getting into it – I am going to the field next week for some distributions and cannot wait to get back out to field life.

But since arriving back in another national office, I have been thinking a lot about Afghanistan again. I still miss it a lot – I thought I was past that, but obviously not completely. I have been missing my colleagues, in particular – some of those wonderful Afghans who welcomed me into their lives so warmly. I miss the amazing countryside, I miss the daily frustrations that would just make us laugh. So many small memories in my mind that pop up – seemingly from nowhere. They may find their way onto these pages (screens?) through the coming months.

An amusing trait that I picked up is the habit of saying Inshallah. I wrote about this while I was there – it translates as “God’s Will” and is the answer to just about everything in Afghanistan. We would say to someone “have a good day” and they would answer “Inshallah”. Or if we said, “we hope your new marriage is very happy” they would answer “Inshallah”. The expats took to using this expression, slightly ironically, but also as a reflection of how we heard it everywhere. And it is not one of those things that goes away – I almost said Inshallah to someone this morning. And I really don’t think it would go down very well in this fervently Christian country! Must make sure I don’t trot that out too often…

But in the meantime – I really need to get a more comfortable chair to sit in!

What's the Word

Oh man – I am trying to write an article for a development magazine, and it just won’t come – my muse is dead. Thom Yorke can’t find it, Tool can’t find it and Damien Rice can’t find it (and I have just tried all three) – maybe I should stick to the tried and true methods and find Placebo. Or ask the guy in the next office to increase the volume on the already ridiculously loud African music he is playing!!


I love to write – almost as much as I love to read. You know that feeling where you know exactly what you want to say? When you have it all in your head and you know it is just right and your fingers are working overtime, trying to get it down on paper before is slips from your mind? I love that feeling – it is like a mini-high and I use it in a variety of means, both professional and personal. I love playing with words for different purposes and different audiences and creating something with them. I love coming up with a means of expressing a new idea – of using words to create a project design, or an email to a friend, or even a commentary on the latest Prison Break episode.


Anyway – that feeling? Is completely eluding me right now. And I have a deadline…


A few months ago, I wrote an article about Afghanistan and I showed it to my Mum. She came to talk to me about it after she read it. She made a bunch of obligatory motherly comments that I won’t bore you with, but she also said something that resonated (and I paraphrase) – “the words flowed so well, it was completely different from your blog. On your blog, you write the same way you talk. But this was so well edited etc etc.” Made me cringe for all the poor souls who plough through my blog (I was pleasantly surprised when I was home to hear how many people actually do read it). The thought of a written expression of the verbal me is a wee bit terrifying…


(Double Hee – the ipod has just landed on Big Audio Dynamite II – anyone remember these guys?!?!)


I have had a fair bit of free time on my hands since I got here, since I don’t really know anyone or places to go, yet! So I have read quite a bit and seen a couple of movies (finally starting to catch up there). I am going to recommend a few things – first of all, the book I just finished, which is Exile, by Richard North Patterson. He is one of my favourite authors and this is one of the best expressions of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict I have ever read, in an incredibly entertaining narrative. And so well researched – from both perspectives. As always, I thoroughly agree with just about everything he has to say.


Similarly, I watched both The Last King of Scotland and Blood Diamond over the past few days. Both are excellent and interesting portrayals of different aspects of African culture and history, and both rang very true for me, for different reasons. Obviously, The Last King of Scotland evokes a bloody and terrible time in Uganda’s history – I kept wondering what the Ugandans sitting in the audience with me thought of the movie – I doubt that was forefront in the movie-makers minds when they made the film, but it adds another level of poignancy. Similarly, I don’t think anyone in the crowd with me as we watched Blood Diamond could have looked at the depiction of the child soldiers in that movie, without thinking of the exact same situation occurring right now in northern Uganda – watching these children being indoctrinated and turned into killing machines was chilling, as I knew it was happening not far from me at this very moment.


On a lighter note, the gentle disparagement of humanitarian workers provoked general amusement, and Jennifer Connolly’s assessment of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character (and goodness – wasn’t that an awful Zimbabwean/South African accent!) as “not really the UNICEF type” caused quite a few chuckles. Good when we can laugh at ourselves.


I suspect there will be many posts about child soldiers, so I won’t harp on about it for the moment – just giving a foretaste of things to come.


In the meantime, I shall occupy myself with what to do tomorrow, during the public holiday…

1000 Miles Away

I’m thinking of trying this new thing whereby I label all of my posts with the title of a song. Not for any profound reason – mostly for my own amusement. So for this one – I offer you the Hoodoo Gurus…


Although actually, as I landed at Entebbe Airport on Thursday, INXS’ ‘Never Tear Us Apart’ was playing on my ipod which may be slightly true as well. Arriving here is an indication to me that dreams really do come true, sometimes.


As some of you know, since visiting Uganda in 2002, I have wanted to come back and work here. Specifically in the north, where a pretty savage rebel group called the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has waged war against the government for 20 years. Their MO is to kidnap children as soldiers, labourers and sex slaves, to kill indiscriminately and often to cut off tongues, ears and even limbs as they terrorise the north of the country. We spent most of our visit in 2002 up in the north, in Kitgum and Gulu, looking at the work we were doing there, and I was moved and motivated by the people, the staff and the tiny rays of hope that we were imparting through the small good acts we were able to achieve amidst such hopelessness. Since that time, I have wanted to work in northern Uganda and I now have my chance – I have started as a Program Officer in the Emergency Relief team here, working entirely in the north of Uganda.


Since returning, I have rediscovered the love I developed for the country four and a half years ago. Ugandans are warm and friendly, full of optimism and joy. I am based in Kampala and am currently learning my way around and trying to settle in (hampered significantly by lingering jetlag – although I was proud to survive until after midnight last night, as I was invited out to dinner – that beats my previous record by four hours!!) I have yet to meet anyone from my last trip – I suspect I will when I arrive up north (hopefully soon). However, I was taken around the office in Kampala and introduced to about 100 people – I think I can remember the names of maybe three! (although with the blokes, I suspect the strategy might be, ‘if in doubt, try Sam’ – there are so many Sams!!)


After the disappointment of leaving Afghanistan so abruptly, and the continuing heartbreak of watching a country I have come to care for so deeply spiral down into a mire of violence, fear and hopelessness, it is wonderful to be given a chance to come here and hopefully achieve some real change – a shaky peace process is holding in the north and people are cautiously optimistic, if justifiably wary. I am looking forward to getting to work up there and to sharing my stories along the way.


Our dear friend, and virtual surrogate family member Su, wrote to me a couple of days before I came here. As a South African she understood very well the ties that Africa bind you with. I hope she won’t mind me quoting her here as a thought to finish with:

“I am sure part of this is bias but since I have heard it from non-Africans too - once you've lived in Africa a part of you always hankers to go back - and when you've done 'good work' in Africa (for want of a better expression this early in the morning) NOWHERE else is quite as satisfying.”