On Friday morning, in the Kampala taxi park, on the way to Gulu, we waited for about 2.5 hours for our big coach bus to fill before we could take off.  During that time, I alternated reading Herzog and the New Vision newspaper.  The paper had a center spread about the weekend’s Miss Uganda competition (with big photos, undoubtedly a paper-seller), and a fascinating article about a court case brought about by a lesbian couple dealing with right-to-privacy.  Apparently, it’s only the second such case in Africa, after South Africa, where homosexuality is legal.

The coach bus is roughly the size of the American charters (maybe narrower, it seemed to me): five seats wide, divided two-three with an aisle in between.  Additionally, the bus conductor added wooden stools to the aisle, making us a six-across fleet.  I’m 5’3”, and my knees touched the seat in front of me.  My shoulders touched Heidi’s.  The poor man on the wooden stool next to me had nowhere but my armrest to lean as the vehicle rocked across deep potholes.  Eventually, some sort of road authority stopped us and forced the conductor to empty the aisle and refund each passengers’ 20,000 USH.  So… after smashing themselves onto small wooden benches and paying the same fare as everyone else, the aisle passengers were abandoned near some random Ugandan village.  Apparently, they were supposed to catch taxis that passed… magically vacant taxis in rural Uganda.

The bus ride lasted about six hours from Kampala to Gulu.  We stopped – about 7 minutes at a time near the side of the road.  Any urination took place squatting in tall grass with strangers.  There were also “drive-thrus,” ie, groups of people who ran up to the bus’ windows with bottled water, grilled maize, grilled meat on sticks, bananas, nuts, pineapple, and/or cassava whenever we stopped.  They also sold live chickens, which fortunately did not make it onto the laps of any of our travel mates.

Gulu is quieter than Jinja – wider streets, fewer shops.  The GuluTeam describes its small town atmosphere; they often say hello to others on the street.

We visited an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp full of tightly-crowded mud huts.  In addition to the Jinja Team (5 members) and Kampala Team (5 members), one of our program directors, Chris, brought his wife, Jessica, and 2-year-old blonde son, Sam.  On Saturdays, apparently adult camp members travel to their fields to work, so a pack of minimally-supervised young children greeted us.  They swarmed particularly densely around the blonde in the stroller, and stuck close to our whole group.  They fought with each other (pushes to catch up with the visitors, smacks on the head), and grabbed our hands.  Some doubled up on each hand, so occasionally I walked as a molecule of five people.

I don’t know what I thought about the camp.  I’m still thinking about it.

Here are some things that stuck out to me:

*Children fighting.  Did the scuffles occur because their parents were gone (woohoo!, I remember the feeling)?  Is it my imagination, or did they seem particularly aggressive… particularly apt to cry?  Were those two boys really fighting over one straw from someone’s roof?

*Bracelet making.  Inside one hut, camp residents made black bracelets “to sell in America.”  With the resulting funds, residents pay their children’s school fees, among other things.  Our Ugandan camp guide told us that someone informed him that the bracelets were a “mark of honor” in America.  My numbers are fuzzy, but he said they started with about five bracelet makers, but thanks to great demand, now use about 50.  Invisible Children does a similar program.  I don’t know if this was affiliated.

*Brewing alcohol.  As I said, few adults hung around during our visit because they were working in the fields.  Many of those who were present brewed alcohol inside their huts.  I think they can make 30,000 USH from their labors, a l-u-c-r-a-t-i-v-e business… certainly more lucrative than most of the farmers and second-hand clothes vendors I’ve talked to.  What are the numbers?  Who are their customers (neighbors, I assume)?  What does alcoholism look like within the camps?  Child abuse?

-Liz