The Baby Factory – Lights On (Well, Every Other Day!), Nobody Home
I’m having difficulty writing this blog entry because my experiences have been so good so far until I entered the Twilight Zone called Uganda. I thought I could just write about the positive aspects or not write anything at all (my written journal is empty), but those options seem dishonest. The biggest problem I have is that the opinions I have about what I have experienced in Uganda are probably as much a reflection of me as they are of the country. I decided to leave Uganda a week before I was scheduled to leave and I am now relaxing in Zanzibar (well, I started this in Zanzibar where anything other than a nap and a mojito is difficult to finish). I’ll just shoot from the hip regarding Uganda and see where this goes…
You won’t find any people more friendly than the Ugandans. Unfortunately, I found that the friendliness made for great introductions, but there is a seriously lacking ability to form many relationships because the country is seriously lacking in educated or talented individuals. The official language in Uganda is English – speaking and writing although very few can really write it and most speak English poorly. The real language is Lugandan. There are about fifty languages in Uganda, but after asking some folks I think there are about 2-3 main languages and most Ugandans can converse with other Ugandans. So they have a system where school is taught in one language and almost everything outside of school is in another. Since most children do not go beyond sixth grade if they even attend any primary (not compulsory and not paid for by the state), I guess the “official language” is only used by government (how much?), business (international, definitely), aid organizations (at least with foreigners) and the well-educated. I was encouraged to meet some well-educated Ugandans with good communication skills and worldly knowledge, but I also felt sorry for them due to their minority position. While in Uganda I started to think that I had not experienced something different in Kenya and Tanzania, but now that I have entered both countries again I have once again met many people with great communication skills including humor and wit. There’s something wrong in Uganda which is not shared by its two closest former British colonies.
I spent close to two weeks with a family of in-betweens about one hour outside of Kampala. They have a three-acre “farm” consisting of a roofed, but uncompleted home, an attached chicken coop, an outbuilding that is completed, an outbuilding that has barely begun, some pens for pigs and cooking and an outhouse. As I would learn, Uganda is full of half-completed projects, half-baked ideas and an incredible amount of chaos. The chaos starts in the families, extends through their farms all the way to Kampala. So many levels of chaos…
The family has a man (32) and woman (28) who have been together for eight years, but are not married. They have two children seven and one and they are caring for one nephew (16) whose parents dies of AIDS and a niece (7) whose parents are living, but I don’t know what is going on. These are very lucky children in that they have a home rather than an orphanage which are so prevalent. The parents spend very little time with the kids. The kids are out the door at 7:00 AM to walk 3-4 kilometers to primary school (girls) and bike 5-6 kilometers to secondary school (boy). They return home between 5:00 and 6:00 PM. Food is served as follows: breakfast – basically none, tea (milky, sugary – lots of sugar consumed, little instant tea) – 10 AM, lunch – 2 PM and dinner – 9-10:00 PM. The schedule mainly driven by what they eat and how long it takes them to prepare it. I never did figure out why breakfast could not be handled, but they seemed to eat a lot less fruit than one would imagine for a farm family in the tropics. Someone would start cooking lunch around 10 AM for it to be ready by 2 PM. And dinner would be started around 5:00. Food was varied between rice, beans, matoke (cooked green bananas usually with ground nut sauce), sweet potatoes (not sweet like in US), sometimes some god awful beef and some fruit. No green vegetables. They also make fried dough kind of like tortillas which I would dread by time my last night arrived. To this day, I have no idea why such simple meals would take hours to prepare and why a meal schedule such as breakfast, lunch midday and dinner earlier in the evening could not be accomplished. The fallout from the food and the schedule was the girls being zombies by time dinner happened, lots of tension in the family by that same time, not enough sleep for anyone and probably fairly significant nutritional deficiencies.
According to a volunteer from America, a lot of the school day is spent learning about God. This is in the less expensive public schools. In the more expensive church schools which are boarding… I can only imagine. The girls bring home homework even after 9+ hours at school. It gets looked at with about as much light as a candlestick (Uganda has a serious power issue which only delivers electricity every other day) provides around 8-9 PM. I saw the girls and the parents struggling with 1st-2nd grade English – maybe 15-30 minutes was spent per night on school work or any other discussion. Public school is 40,000 Uganda Shilling (USh) per semester, three per year. The boarding option is 200,000 USh per year or 80,000 more per year over public. A US dollar is 1850 USh so primary school costs between $65 and $108 per year. I have read that 75% of Ugandan children are “enrolled” in school. I saw many eligible students not at school because their parents could not meet a payment or never paid or don’t want their children in school at all. There are so many children running around plus I don’t know what 75% “enrolled” means so I cannot say that the village I was in was far off from the norm in Uganda. I can say that I am very skeptical that 75% will get through primary school and I am positive 75% will not get through secondary. Missionaries and aid groups are everywhere in Uganda. I do not understand how any money or energy can be spent in Uganda without making education the number one priority. I’m sure that an educated populace could do a lot more for this country in the long run. I have serious issues with the whole missionary business especially when it appears to have done nothing for the people other than turn them into zombies…
The US volunteer was tired of hearing children being beaten/punished in the next classroom and used a bible quote (always a mistake when dealing with the bible thumpers) to the teacher to get her to stop. The teacher being much better with the good book after years of having it drilled into her head replied with “Spare the rod, Spoil the child”. I told her that corporal punishment was Uganda’s smallest problem. My mind was wondering if anyone is checking up on the priests with all of the orphans throughout Uganda and Africa. A couple of days later I read about the US Catholic Church’s new calamity – not enough billions for nun retirement. It supposedly dwarfs the priest abuse payouts. Something tells me that the Vatican probably is not looking into any potential misdeeds by staff in Africa. The schools have signs on the main roads and they often have a little saying on them. I saw one with “Suffer Today, Enjoy Tomorrow”. Before the spare the rod business, I would have thought suffer was semantically equivalent to “work hard”. I’m not so sure now. All I can say is that if someone in the first world is giving money to any groups for Africa, they should probably be asking a lot of questions about exactly what it is used for. I’m also fairly convinced that Africa only needs aid for schools and a good curriculum. Everyone gets educated to a high school level and then the other problems get solved. Pumping money into an increasingly younger and more ignorant country is going against the tide… more like tidal wave. I saw that Clinton Foundation has 3000 people on HIV medication in South Africa. That’s good and I don’t mean to totally denigrate the effort, but it was soon mentioned that hundreds of thousands more don’t get it and there is no chance they will. Cut the losses (ouch) and pump all that money into education that prevents HIV and we won’t have another set of hundreds of thousands with a death sentence when they start meds for 6000 lucky ones.
Each Ugandan woman has 7.1 children. HIV has dropped significantly to between 2.8 and 6.6% (all statistics in Uganda are moving targets such as population – between 25 and 30 million). HIV has affected life expectancy (46 years for those born 2000-2005 versus 51 for 1970-1975 – Alex, this seems to be the discrepancy in our numbers), but there are a lot more reasons why they live such short lives. Only five doctors per 100,000 people has to be a big contribution. If Uganda would stop producing so many babies, that would be a good step. But that would mean abstaining from sex (uh, good luck on that one – it seems that the missionaries have not put a dent in it) or having the churches and state support birth control. Imagine… The Condom… It’s Not Just for Preventing HIV Anymore! While condoms are freely available in other countries, they are not free in Uganda.
I was told by the American volunteer working in the schools that Ugandans are lazy. I had just been in Kampala and I didn’t think it was a correct assessment. After a couple of weeks, I started to think the same thing because I saw how little work is actually done in a day on the farm. I am reading a book that claims that anemia is widespread in Africa caused by a serious deficiency in the nutrients in the food. The book claims there is a simple answer – iron pills – but it is too simple and cheap without enough consulting work to warrant attention by the big NGOs. This would seem to explain how the poor food consumption I have witnessed could lead to a day-to-day issue and such a short lifespan. Any other theories? I’m all ears.
A Kampala newspaper called New Vision has well-written, hard-hitting editorials against the status quo in government and the Ugandan people. One day it discussed how Ugandans are kicked back just waiting for Divine Intervention to save them. I nearly fell over laughing because it seemed to answer my questions about why the country seemed so clueless. I felt a general paranoia in the people like there is a waiting for the second shoe to drop. Maybe just my ignorance and prejudices… I don’t know. Uganda has three “interesting” neighbors – Sudan, DRC and Rwanda. Uganda has a violent past with Idi Amin followed by civil war (executions of the leaders on the grounds of the beautiful new Serena hotel – now you can swim with their ghosts) and northern Uganda is still dealing with Kony’s LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army – spare me!) funded by some crackpots in Sudan. Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity including the boiling of enemy and forced eating of them by their fellow citizens. The current Ugandan president has just offered amnesty for his surrendering of arms and ending the LRA. Makes me wonder if the Ugandan government doesn’t want the whole saga in court.
Tags: Travel
vagabondrick
Rick,
Thanks for taking the time to keep us all updated with your travels. It is great stuff written as only you could do it. I hope all of your adventures are as fascinating as the ones you have already had.
BTW the mojito/nap line is one of the funniest I have heard in along time.
Travel Safe and be well.
Mike
Well, Rick, we never planned to make it to Uganda and now I am certain we won’t. You are a brave guy just to visit there. We’ll take Chicago, and we leave in the morning. The big heat wave is now in the midwest so it’s about 100 there, plus humid. Probably a lot like Africa. What an adventure to tell your friends and relatives.
Terry