a homestead around Gulu

Until this weekend, my image of Uganda was shaped by my time in Kampala, where 4.8% of Ugandans reside.  I’m aware that the vast majority of Ugandans (89%) live in rural villages.  But my excursions with API last summer to Western and Northeastern Uganda were somewhat sheltered, since I returned each night to a city and stayed in respectable hotels.  Moreover, I was aware that the longest running civil war in Africa was in Northwestern Uganda, but my experiences were only second-hand.

After spending a mere 24 hours in Gulu district, the hub of war-torn Northwestern Uganda, my image of Uganda has vastly changed.

It’s the last weekend that the AIESEC Yale interns are here, and two of them (Joan and Julia, plus Mirta from Holland) had taken huge initiative in planning a visit to Gulu this weekend.  I also recently met David, another Fulbright scholar, who is doing his field research in villages around Gulu.  Plans quickly coalesced, and I jumped on a 7am bus on Saturday to make the 6.5 hour ride from Kampala to Gulu.

I spent less than an hour in Gulu itself – the city has experienced rapid construction and development as scores of NGOs establish headquarters there, so as to serve the war-torn region.  After taking a delicious meal of boo (leafy green vegetables stewed in sesame sauce) with rice and posho (maize-flour paste), I met David who took us to an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp.

The IDP camp was an hour away by boda-boda (hired motorcycle driver).  Joan and I squeezed onto the back of the boda, each with a large backpack.  We sped out from the city on a bumpy dirt road.  We maintained a great conversation that took my mind off the discomfort, as the rear handle of the boda was knocking my tailbone with every bump.  We didn’t notice until the end of the ride that we were disadvantaged to be in the rear, picking up all of the others’ dust:

Me and Joan, shocked and soiled after a one-hour boda ride to the IDP camp

We had the chance to accompany David on his field research, which studies people returning from IDP camps to their village to re-start farming.  The economic markets are understandably wrecked by the war, but the shattered social relationships have an even deeper effect on the collaborative farming structure.  Factors like “trust” within the group are essential for the livelihood of the community. 

On Saturday, we accompanied him for an interview with a newly-formed farming collective.  He was assisted by Francis and Stephen, two research assistants who belong to the local tribe (Acholi) and could translate for us.  The farming group was particularly interesting, since it was all women (including a chair-lady, secretary, and treasurer), although Acholi culture traditionally has strict gender roles where only men do farming.  I feared to ask, but I imagine that the men in that part of the village were killed in the war, and that gender roles were evolving to enable survival.

The group clapped heartily as we each introduced ourselves (aided by the translators) to show their respect.  An old man from the village also attended the group interview, and he provided humorous anecdotes during the interview.  I couldn’t help thinking that his humor was a key factor in surviving the war.  Of the women, almost half of them were holding babies that they periodically breast-fed during the interview.  After David’s questions were finished, I asked one more - “what are your dreams for your children?”  They responded simply, “better education and health care,” … mothers’ dreams can be so universal.

Farming group formed by people returning from IDP camps

After the interview, it was getting dark.  But to be respectful, we stayed to eat the gift of corn from the farming group.  They also gave us a live chicken, which is of substantial value in the North.  Then the three girls took off to the lodge in the nearby IDP camp, while David, his two research assistants, and I started walking to the homestead where we’d spend the night.

It was at that point that David told me we had a “long walk through the jungle” ahead, and to watch out for ants, snakes, and land-mines.  With my cell phone in the left hand to provide some light, and my right arm up to block branches from hitting my face, we were off.  The walk lasted over an hour, and we passed through many other homesteads along the path through the bush.  At most homesteads, we greeted the inhabitants in Luo (the Acholi language).  David pointed out one homestead where the husband was always substantially drunk, and that he would keep you for hours unless you briskly continued along the path.  I was astonished that each homestead was 15 to 20 minutes apart by walking, and the village still maintained a sense of community across so many acres.

When I reached our village homestead, I realized why the girls couldn’t join us to spend the night.  The women of the homestead had made a campfire for us, and had cooked a very nice meal.  The men sat around and ate the food from a communal tray with our hands.  I asked if the women had already eaten, and I learned that they usually take the men’s leftovers.  That night, the women also set up my sleeping bag on the floor of the hut, and strung up the mosquito net.  They also heated water in a bucket for us to bathe.  I was very uncomfortable with the gender roles, but it would have been arrogant to raise the issue during my one day as a guest.

The inside of the hut where the four of us spent the night, in the homestead.

There was a dog in the homestead to help with hunting and security … but it behaved poorly.  It would come up as we were eating, and the men would stomp or slap it away.  Later on, the dog somehow got aggressive and snarled at one of the children in the homestead.  Francis immediately grabbed the cool end of a burning log and threw it at the dog.  The dog yelped upon impact with the embers and sulked away.  I was surprised by this harshness, but it’s a natural part of surviving in the village.

After dinner, the men gathered around the campfire, and out came the little plastic sachets of local rum from sugarcane.  Each 100 mL sachet goes for 15 cents, which partially explains why agencies have ranked Uganda as number one in the world for per-capita alcohol consumption.  David, Stephen, Francis, and I all took ample rum, throwing the empty sachets into the campfire to watch the plastic curl and burn.  With the silence of the village surrounding us, the conversation wasn’t as boisterous as I’d expect in a bar with loud music.  But nonetheless, there were many stories exchanged, and I learned a lot of Stephen and Francis’ backgrounds since leaving Acholi land while young to avoid the war.  As the night went on, the thick blanket of stars got consistently brighter, with wisps of the milky way visible. 

We all rapidly fell asleep after the drinks, but not before the others’ warned me of the large rats that frequently visit the hut to nibble on your ears at night.  I wasn’t phased, and luckily none of us suffered from rats that night.  We awoke before sunrise to start a new day of field research.  Just as I was finishing my warm bucket-shower, it began to rain – an utterly invigorating feeling.  We decided to postpone our movement until after the rain passed.  The rain was short, but the homestead members made a point to thank me, the visitor, for bringing with me much-needed rain for the field.

The homestead during the rainy morning.

We reviewed the survey questionnaire in the hut during the rain, to make sure Francis and Stephen had standard methods when they were independently interviewing households.  Then once the rain subsided, we started on another one-hour walk to reach the homestead that had been randomly selected for that day’s interviews.

Walking through the bush at morning to reach the other homesteads.

A rock outcrop along the path, which was a strategic military point during the war.

The interviews at the next homestead were especially interesting, since I heard (translated) stories of how the war had made people lose trust in their village community and prevented them from forming cooperatives.  I was also astonished at how people supported themselves, since the drought last year eliminated most crops.  The single largest income for the families I met was charcoal, which they produce from trees they chop down in the forest.  This was sobering, as I’m currently working on a grant application to introduce bio-briquettes into rural communities to boost environmental sustainability.  I’m now aware of the potential societal impacts of stripping people of their only livelihood when their crops fail.

All in all, it was tremendously eye-opening to visit the homesteads.  I admire David for spending a majority of this year in villages around Gulu to collect this data.  Although he’s also from the Midwest, I was pleased to listen to how he’s adopted vocabulary, sentence structure, and vocal intonations to better communicate in Uganda – something I notice myself beginning to do.  He’s at the mid-point of his research project, where he’s collecting the bulk of the data, and it’s inspiring me to quicken my preparations for my own research.  There are clearly deep interpersonal connections created through his project, and I’m optimistic that I’ll be able to achieve something comparable, even from the chemistry lab.