Karamoja…Round Two

I’m sure this won’t be brief, as I’ve had a lot of adventures.

So, as was my first trip to Karamoja, my second (and last) trip has also been filled with some firsts.  First time I’ve gone to a hospital in Uganda, first (and hopefully only) time I’ve been diagnosed with Typhoid, first time to Kotido District, and first time staying at Tita Palace guesthouse in Moroto... 

I stocked up on DVDs in Kampala at a small but wonderful little shop down by the old taxi park – 15 DVDs for $1800 UGX, or less than $10.  As far as I’m concerned, that’s a deal.  I won’t provide a complete list of what I purchased, mainly because I opted for some less-than-great TV shows, but I’m quite pleased with my choices. 

I first spent a week in Moroto, staying at two different hotels, the latter being a quaint, new guesthouse within walking distance of the office.  While I had a week in Moroto, I didn’t actually do much other than work and sleep (thanks, Typhoid). 

From Moroto, I headed on to Kotido, which is about 2 hours away from Moroto.  Kotido district borders Kaabong District (which, as far as I’m concerned, is the only Ugandan district whose name rivals that of Nakapiripirit) and Kitgum District.  Ahh yes, good old Kitgum.  You would think, that since the districts border each other, it would be simple for me to get from Kitgum-Karamoja and back again.  Unfortunately, due to the Karamojong warriors (predominantly the Jie, I believe) and their incessant cattle raiding/rustling, it’s unsafe to travel directly to/from Kitgum.  Instead, the alternatives are: go from Kitgum to Lira to Soroti to Moroto (this can be done all in one day, but could take many hours, and depending on the time of departure, could become unsafe reaching to Moroto when it’s already evening), or, as everyone does, go from Kitgum to Kampala on Friday, spend a weekend in Kampala, and travel Kampala to Moroto on Monday.  That ends up being more of a hassle than it sounds like it would be, but at the same time, it’s the safest and, to an extent, the most direct. 

But back to the trip from Moroto to Kotido….The drive was a bit tricky, as there’s been so so much rain in the area lately.  We left approximately 3 hours later than our scheduled departure time due to a myriad of events; one being the fact that MTN was off entirely.  MTN is a major cell phone provider, and the provider that IRC is contracted with.  Most national staff have a separate cell phone with a different provider for non-work issues, but since I don’t care enough and IRC has yet to actually put me on their phone plan, I’ve stuck it out with the yellow, world cup-sponsoring, over-priced South African company.   The road was very bad in a few spots, so much so that we passed two buses that had gotten stuck in the mud.  The driver was flagged down by someone he knew (I think he said a man who drives for UNICEF or WFP) at one of the broken-down buses who asked us to take a lady, her small child, and all sorts of goods to Kotido.  We stopped for a bit, loaded all of their things into the car, fended off the many strangers who begged for rides, and were on our way.  The woman, who I think also works for an NGO in some capacity (she was well-dressed, clean, and spoke good English), was telling us about the journey from Kampala until they got stuck in the mud.  Apparently they were stranded there over night, and could have possibly made it to Kotido (or at least a bit farther down the road until the next muddy ditch) the previous day, but the driver of the bus thought he would be able to do it himself, and refused to let an 18-wheeler and some other large/powerful vehicles help pull out the bus.  Apparently this didn’t fare so well for the driver, and the passengers got angry and nearly mobbed him.  She didn’t mention how that was avoided, but I’m assuming that happened towards the evening, and not all that ahead of when the UPDF arrived to guard them and protect them from the warriors/raiders during the night.  I can’t imagine having to be stuck there overnight; now I fully see why the IRC doesn’t condone staff movement in non-IRC/NGO vehicles. 

My first day in Kotido the IRC lady that I was supposed to train was stuck in Moroto, so I hung out at the office and went to see a group in the town council rehearse a drama for an awareness raising activity next week.  I didn’t bring my camera, and I wish I had, because I could have taken some great shots.  They welcomed me by stopping what they were doing and organizing themselves into a song, which was lovely, though I have no idea what they were saying.  They presented their drama for us; it was about equal access to resources.  The LC-1 was a part of the group, and he gave a small speech, as any politician would do for a visitor.  Everyone was very welcoming, and as much as I tried to avoid shaking hands with people, everyone was trying to touch me, so I was forced to give in.  Luckily, I had some wet-ones with me, and we were about a 5-minute drive away from the office, so I could wash my hands well when we got back to the office.  By Tuesday, the lady I was supposed to train was back, so Tuesday and Wednesday were spent training her and going over the 150-page training manual I created based on the interviews I did during my last trip to Karamoja.  She gave a lot of really good feedback, especially about some of the examples and case studies, and making them more Karamoja-specific.  I also met with the two guys who work with Uganda Red Cross Society, the partner CBO for GBV Kotido.  They work very closely together, so meeting with them to review some parts of the training manual & some pointers for improving facilitation skills was necessary.  Also while in Kotido, I moved with URCS & IRC staff to Katcheri sub-county and Kotido sub-county to check up on programs (GBV & non-GBV related) and to see a community awareness raising drama & song/dance.  In Katcheri we moved to many different places, mostly schools, and as we drove along, the URCS staff would instruct the driver to stop occasionally so that I could take photos of some things they wanted me to (including the infamous unclothed men of Karamoja).  The IRC staff member who was traveling with us also made us all detour for about a half hour, so that I could go inside a manyatta, a typical Karamojong village that consists of a small, small entry-way that requires crawling through (yes, even for someone of my height).  All the while, the IRC staff member was instructing me what to take photos of, including the elders, who literally sit under a tree all day and do one of two things: talk with each other or sleep (don’t worry, I was instructed to take photos of them doing both).  While I had a great time in Kotido, I was still feeling not very good, and unfortunately didn’t explore the town nearly as much as I’d hoped to because all I really wanted to do after work was sleep. 

The Karamojong in Kotido are different from those in Moroto & Nakapiripirit.  From what I understand, here it is predominantly Jie, whereas there are other clans or tribes in the other districts.

So, following my week in Kotido, I went to Moroto for the weekend.  I was finally feeling better.  Friday was the last Friday of the month, and therefore a half day of work.  There isn’t a whole lot to do in Moroto, though, so it’s not nearly as exciting as it sounds.  I spent my afternoon at the small, small market, where I bought a couple of sulas as presents for people – I had planned to buy more than that, as they’re about half the price than they are at the super touristy craft market in Kampala.  I got some beads from a small store in an alley (which one of the IRC drivers took me to, and then proceeded to accidentally knock a table while backing out of the alleyway, which caused a small disturbance with everyone around).  Once that was settled and 2,000 UGX paid to the woman whose table was in the alleyway, I went back and hung out at the guesthouse.  Saturday I spent catching up on some work and preparing for my trip to Nakaps.  Saturday evening I hung out with the housegirls a bit.  Sunday afternoon I helped to plait one of the housegirls’ hair, hanging out with them, talking about their lives, answering their questions about America, discussing what they thought I should take with me to remember Karamoja (which, in our shared opinions, is a traditional skirt) and being very, very glad that I was staying there instead of Leslona.    I also met a couple who had just arrived to Moroto to work with Samaritan’s Purse.  They even let me go to their office with them and use their wireless Internet since IRCs internet wasn’t’ working.  We all (me, the couple with SP, the two housegirls, two children, the lady whose husband owns the guesthouse, the guard, and the woman whose brother owns the guesthouse…who is a Karamojong woman married to a Dutch mzungu and spent the last several years raising her children in Holland but now works under mama Janet) spent the evening hanging out together in the main sitting room at the guesthouse.  I continued to help plait Josephine’s hair with Lucy, the girl who was doing it to earn enough money to go to the hospital because she’d been feeling sick for several weeks.  The two children, one girl and one boy, had never been to school before.  Florence, the woman who just returned from living in Holland, explained to us that she was taking him for his first day of school the next morning.  He’s 12, and no one knows where he came from, where his family is, or if he even has a family.  He’s been working as a builder around Moroto since he was 5 years old, and just recently began staying with them.  She told us that he didn’t believe that she was really going to send him to school until she bought him a uniform, blanket, and school supplies.  She was taking him to start P1 the next morning, and had made special arrangements for him to board and for an older student to act in the capacity of a mentor for him.  That night, he, along with the young girl and guard, was learning to use a computer.  We had English-Ngakarimojong lessons, in which everyone tried to teach us pronunciation tips, especially as related to the “Ng” sound, and we helped to teach the guard how to spell his name, and, coincidentally, the greatest sound he’s ever heard of, how to say “P.” 

Following my weekend in Moroto, it was time to head to Nakapiripirit.  Monday morning arrived and went, and I was still sitting in the IRC Moroto office.  GBV staff from Kotido were scheduled to come down for a training, and, due to the fact that no fuel was available in Moroto, they had to bring some for the vehicles to drive me to Nakaps.  Yes, that means we’re still moving in convoy to Nakaps, though this time I was told it was unnecessary for me to wear the bulletproof vest.  The extra time in Moroto meant that there was time for me to go back to the guesthouse, speak with the housegirls, and provide money for them to purchase material & find someone to make me a skirt.  Since my clothes are based on American sizes, not Ugandan sizes, and no one seemed to have a tape measure or other object to measure my waist, Josephine decided to put her arms around her own waist, then do the same to mine, and declare that I’m just a little bit fatter than her, a compliment that I was more than willing to accept, despite the fact that it wasn’t meant that way.  We ended up not leaving for Nakapiripirit until nearly 3pm, and arrived just after 4.  When we arrived, Lilly, the GBV officer, was still in the field, so I went straight to the hotel, where I was given a room in a house, instead of a cottage like on my last trip.  This was severely disappointing on a few levels; my room was not circular like the cottages, the toilet didn’t have a handle so it couldn’t be flushed, and electrical socket was missing.  On the upside, the hotel had better food this time – chapattis for breakfast and several options for dinner each night, including potatoes, which I hadn’t yet eaten in Karamoja. 

My week in Nakapiripirit was uneventful.  It’s my favorite of the IRC offices for a few reasons.  The view is gorgeous – there are mountains to one side, and looking out the other side you can see down across plains.  The staff are so friendly – the office is quite small, only about 10 or 12 employees.  They laugh and joke with each other all day, eat lunch outside on the front porch and hang out, and when someone talks in the local language, someone else always translates for me.  And they always share food.  I extended my trip to Nakaps by a day, making it so that I would leave for Moroto on Friday instead of Thursday, which, in turn, disorganized all of the transport arrangements that had been made.  Whoops.  Friday morning Lilly & I went to Nabilatuk, which is the sub-county where GBV does most of it’s work, where I met with the women’s group WAPIIK last time, and where Lilly comes from.  We arrived in the morning, maybe around 11am, and spent about 2 hours with the women, mostly talking to the support volunteers about the trainings they will attend, some of their concerns, etc.  Then afterwards we took some photos and we spent some time going through their beaded jewelry (which resulted in me buying a few necklaces and some headbeads).  Overall it was a lot of fun, but a bit rushed again this time, because I had to travel back to Moroto by 2pm that afternoon to reach before it became dark.  The drive back to Moroto wasn’t bad, but I somehow managed to lose my sweater.  Other than that, I spent most of the drive talking with the driver, who was telling me about how security issues have changed along that stretch of road over the years.  He grew up in Moroto and spent several years driving heavy trucks around East Africa before deciding he wanted a more secure driving job and applied to work with IRC a couple years ago.  When I arrived back in Moroto, I went back to the guesthouse and visited with the staff before heading to the office to find that most of the GBV staff had taken the day off for one reason or another.  I finished up on some work, met with the field coordinator, and then returned to the guesthouse to try on my new skirt and spend some more time hanging out with the staff.  In the evening the field coordinator picked me up, we drove around Moroto for a bit doing some errands (and searching unsuccessfully for some running pants so that he could run the annual cross-border peace road race the following morning), and then ending with some drinks at Leslona.  Paul, the field coordinator, is Sierra Leonean, and shared a lot with me about his country, his work in East & West Africa with various organizations, and the plans that he & his wife have to go into the tourism business in Sierra Leone.  Overall, it was a great evening and a nice way to close my time in Karamoja.  The trip back to Kitgum began early Saturday morning, and ended around 6pm Saturday night, when I arrived back at my house after passing through Soroti & Lira on the long journey back. 

Overall, my 3 weeks in Karamoja were quite great.  If my IRC email account hadn’t been broken for the entire month of June, I would have applied for the “case management trainer” job that IRC advertised

To conclude my rambling, I’d like to share two things from my time in Karamoja that really struck me. 

1)   As we were coming out of the manyatta, we saw two UPDF soldiers walking with about 5 young men/boys who were shepherds.  I asked the IRC employee if the UPDF moves with the shepherds here, to protect them from raids.  He speculated that they had recovered the cattle and were returning them and then asked the soldiers.   They had, in fact, recovered the stolen cattle; the 5 young men/boys were the raiders.  The oldest one was no more than 13 or 14 years old, the youngest no more than 8 or 9, yet they had been arrested by the army and were being taken to jail.  I certainly have no issue with believing that they were in fact raiders.  The vast majority of the shepherds that you see in Karamoja are males between the ages of 5 and 15. They’re uneducated – instead of spending their days in school, they spend them moving with the cows and goats throughout the day, and returning home to their families in the evening.   They are responsible for the family’s most valuable possessions, and because of that, they’re at the greatest risk of danger.  They’re the ones that will be targeted during daytime raids because they’re alone with the cattle.  They’re also the ones that will carry out the raids; since they’re responsible for their family’s cattle, if they feel threatened by a neighboring community or village, they’ll organize themselves, stake out the neighboring community or village, and then raid them, taking the cattle belonging to their neighbors back to their home village, and increasing the value of their family’s possessions. 

Seeing these boys being escorted by the UPDF to the police barracks sparked a conversation about cattle raids in the vehicle.  I should say, that of the 4 people in the car, none are Karamojong.  The IRC employee comes from Gulu, the UGRC employee from Mucwini (in Kitgum District), and the driver, I think, is from Lira.  I found it interesting how they were talking about everything.  While they all had spent at least one, maybe several years living in Karamoja, they were all very adamant about the fact that these Karamojong are not their people.  Anyways, our conversation focused primarily on the overall security of the Kotido area.  We talked about the disarmament campaign, peace-building techniques, and other strategies that the government & INGOs are trying to implement, and how successful they’ve been.  Apparently, during the 1990s, the region was much more dangerous; they pointed out several locations that had been known to be dangerous during that time.  Everyone owned guns, they were smuggled in from South Sudan, the DRC, Kenya, and even as far away as Somalia and were readily available at markets.  There was a big market at the convergence of Kitgum District, Kotido District, & Sudan.  Bullets cost 200 UGX each.  That’s approximately the equivalent of .09 to .10 cents.  If you couldn’t afford to pay for the guns or the bullets, you could barter if you had some gin waragi, or you could provide the sellers with lots of waragi all day, get them drunk, and then just steal the guns and bullets that you wanted.  Simple process.  Once you obtained your guns & bullets, you could target anyone you wanted: someone who owed you a few thousand Shillings, someone who had more cattle than you, someone who had a better-looking or younger wife than you.  Sometimes you couldn’t pass between two trading centers or two villages because the risk was too great.

2)   When I returned to Moroto, I had a conversation about families with one of the housegirls at the guesthouse where I was staying. Her name is Josephine.  I was watching tv on DVD on my laptop in the living room when she came to chat.  I paused the show, and the scene happened to freeze on a character that’s a teenage male.   She asked if he was my brother.  That’s how the conversation about families began.  She told me that she’s the oldest of 4 children in her family.  Her follower is in secondary school, the next getting ready to sit for the PLE (primary leaving examination) to move to secondary school, and the youngest in P4.  She comes from a trading center about an hour away from Moroto, just before Matany.  She was going to school at Moroto High School up until last year, when she had to drop out after finishing S4 because she didn’t have the money to continue all the way to S7.  She asked about my family, and was shocked and slightly appalled to learn that I was the only child.  She even offered to give me her brother to balance the family and so my parents could have another child to love.  She told me that her father died in 2007, and that he was very young when he was killed.  She didn’t go into the details of his death, but she said, in a very nonchalant manner, “they shot him,” and made a motion with her hands like she was shooting a rifle.  She went on to say that she was in a vocational school to study catering & hospitality management, but she wasn’t able to continue after last semester because she didn’t have the money.  So, now, she is working in a guesthouse, cooking, cleaning, and learning about how everything works, and going occasionally to Kampala where she is a part of a young Christian’s group (possibly the YWCA, though I'm not certain) which provides some small bit of education (from what I understand).