Random thoughts

It's approaching March, meaning I've now been in country a little over six months! It is amazing how quickly the time goes. I'm able to read the hometown paper on the Internet, so i'm not completely out of touch. The new campus hotel was defaced, the Jayhawks are amazing (my alma mater is also kickin' tail) and it's damn cold! I hope Ryan and Chad were able to have some cocoa after shoveling moms drive and walking Marley....

Some observations on Uganda:

1) Co-wives are an accepted part of the culture. It is not uncommon for men to have more than one wife. It is a sign of virility and manhood to have many children and multiple wives. And to think, it's a win for me if i get a second date with a girl. Deep in the village a successful man has many cows, children and several wives.

2) Battery acid is readily available on almost every street corner. It is sold for use in...batteries, but it is the weapon of choice in most domestic disputes (reference co-wives). You can hardly read the newspaper without there being a story of a woman throwing it on her husband or his other wife while they sleep. When a woman is suspected of sleeping with a married man... not good. It is common enough that there are support groups for those living with the damage done by the acid.

3) Child Sacrifice is a reality in almost every region of the country. The ritual was almost eradicated 10-years ago, but with more and more Ugandans struggling to make a living and survive, they are turning to traditional healers (witch doctors) for solutions. These witch doctors pray on the uneducated and the weak in most cases, promising wealth or good fortune in exchange for the ritualistic killing of a child. You see many children in the villages with pierced ears, they are considered impure and will hopefully not be kidnapped. When we first arrived in country there was a kampala businessman on trial for having buried a boy under one of the apartments he was building...the blood supposedly bringing good fortune.

4) Mob justice is rampant. While driving through Lira with coworkers we heard a man screaming. When I turned and looked there were three men beating a man with sticks as about 30 others stood around watching. My supervisor just laughed and said he had probably stolen something from the market. The people here hate thieves. There is a volunteer that was pick-pocketed in Kampala, he yelled "thief" and the man was caught and pummeled as he fled. If you are found with a stolen animal in the village...they will kill you. A recent article reported of a man in the south being decapitated by a mob for being "suspected" of stealing a chicken. They tend to not mess around.

On to good things...

I recently got on the list to track the silver back gorilla's in the rain forests bordering the Congo. There are less than 1,000 left in the wild and Uganda is one two places you can still see them in the wild. The trip is in mid September so I'll keep you posted.

I can't wait to make it home to be a part of Ryan and Christina's wedding! There was a time when I wasn't sure i was gonna make it, but I'll be there standing tall after all.

Things I want while back home:
-shower with hot running water
-pizza, Mexican food (including taco bell), cheeseburger from Conroy's and a steak.
-bowling and cold Coors light.
-time with family and friends
-to play a round of golf

not in any particular order, although Taco Bell is very high up there.

Ocen goes hunting....

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Last weekend the "gang" was invited to go on a little hunting excursion on some land by a village next to a town called Pacquatch. It's an area that is just a few meters away from the Nile river. We were invited by a guy who works for Concerned Parents main office, and it is apparently a yearly adventure where a group of guys go off for the weekend and do a little spear hunting.

I asked the question, "what will we be hunting?" and the answer was a very serious, "whatever it is we see."

Pacquatch is right outside of Murchison National Park, which happens to be an area that is full of elephants, lions, Buffalo, among other large, wild animals. Anyway, the trip is set and five of us drive down from Kitgum to meet up with the rest of the group on the way to the site. Me and Zach, my fellow P.C. volunteer, and three guys from work.

Our plan is to meet the rest of the group on the highway between Gulu and Pacquatch. As we are driving down the road around dusk we come upon a Toyota truck that is crammed full of guys yelling and singing... it's our group. 18 drunk Ugandan's crammed into the back of a small pickup. These are all guys that are "professionals" in Northern Uganda, most working for NGO's and other organizations like mine, but on this weekend they are cutting loose. Kinda, like when American men get together without their wives.

Both cars pull over on the shoulder of the road next to a village, everyone gets out and starts yelling and screaming and dancing...a guy tries to hug Richard, my coworker, and they both go rolling down off the highway into a ditch along the road. These guys are wasted! The villagers are looking at us all like we are nuts, and why are these three white dudes with all these drunk Africans?

After everyone calms down, we pile back in and make our way off the main road into the "bush" towards our campsite. When we reach it is completely dark (8 p.m.) and the landowners have started our campfire in the middle of three mud huts (like the one at the top of this page).

We gather around the fire and go through introductions, this takes a long time because the Acholi love giving speeches. they each talked forever and welcomed the munus to the hunt. After introductions the 23 of us split up into four teams, each team getting a sack of sweet potatoes. We went out in a field and dug a hole in the ground, then we gathered dirt clods of various sizes and built what i would describe as an igloo with the clods over the hole. I honestly don't have a clue how these guys were able to build a dome with dirt and not have it collapse but they did.

Then, the "igloo" was stuffed with grass and wood and fired until the dirt clods were glowing red, when this happened we stuffed the void with the potatoes, crushed the red-hot soil down on top of them and covered the whole mess with more dirt and let the Acholi oven cook the potatoes overnight.

After this was done they brought out the goat. Zach lost the coin toss and had to cut the goats throat. as he did this they captured the blood in a container for later use...Once the goat was butchered they put its testicles on a stick and briefly cooked them over the open flame, since i didn't cut the throat i had to eat one for good luck in the hunt.

While the goat was roasting, everyone drank and talked around the fire, eventually some native instruments were brought out and people started dancing. The first dish that was finished they called simply "blood," and it was all of the internal organs chopped up into bite size pieces and cooked in it's own...well, blood. Actually not nearly as awful as it sounds. But still pretty bad.

We ate and drank until about 1 a.m. then went off to sleep in one of the huts. We slept in a large pile of straw, and listened to about 12 in our party continue to drink around the fire. Pretty restless night to say the least.

We got up (those who actually went to bed) at 6 a.m. and were introduced to our guides for the hunt, two UPDF soldiers carrying AK-47's in case we ran into anything we didn't want to be running into. We were given instructions for the hunt; "Kill anything you want, except elephants." So with those intricate instructions we dug up our potatoes (our sustenance for the days hunt) and were off into the bush.

We spread out in a line of 23 and made our way into grass that was taller than me, we immediately came across an Anyeree (three-pound edible rat) and chased it into a huge termite hill. Everyone was very excited that we made a kill so quickly....and we took off in search of larger game...

We walked under 7' tall barb wire lines that people use as elephant fence, saw several antelope, but none that were close/slow enough to throw a spear at. After walking all morning through thick grass and clusters of trees we came upon a small river that fed directly into the Nile. We found a small series of falls and decided to strip down and go for a swim. It was awesome, the water felt great after the long walk in 90 degree heat all morning. Some guys fished, using the rat intestines as bait, and caught one small fish.

After about an hour we decided to move on with the hunt, so we got dressed and moved up river, where we immediately stumbled upon a large crocodile nest full of eggs....an hour ago it had not even occurred to me that big ass crocodile's like kickin' it around these rivers. We were still good on our head count though, so we moved on.

We never saw another animal, but what can you expect with 23 guys (most of which were still drunk) walking and talking through the bush. Every one's best guess is that we walked close to 20 miles that day and by the end i was about dead. Even though we never saw some of the things i was hoping to see, it was still a great day. The locals love having us around and really try very hard to keep us entertained...