I'm in UganDUH!: "It's like a dog chasing its own tail"

L'shana Tova dear blog readers. Or happy Idd if that's what you're into. It's quite the auspicious day in the religious world indeed! Tomorrow is a national holiday in Uganda to celebrate Idd, but I will still be at school!

So I'm going to try to keep it short since I dropped the Anna Karenina of blog posts on you last time (which, btw I am currently reading. It is great, though not particularly portable for taxis. In an aside, would you believe that the one item I am most regretting not bringing from the US is note cards? If you know me, this does not surprise you at all.)

My classes have been so excellent! My days typically consist of Luganda from 9-11am, a break from 11-11:30, a Development studies lecture from 11:30 to 1pm, lunch from 1-2pm, and a site visit or an afternoon lecture after lunch, typically ending between 4 and 5. The days go so quickly because our lectures are awesome and the other students are awesome. Have I mentioned that enough yet? I seriously love these kids on the program. Good stuff. But our lecturers are absurdly overqualified, and say things like "when I was talking to President Museveni about this issue the other day..." Absurd. I am not worthy.

We had a very interesting/ depressing lecture the other day from Dr. Christopher Orach, who consults with the Ministry of Health, about Uganda's Health care system. For an hour and a half, we heard about the broken health care system in Uganda. About how 20% of deaths in Uganda are caused by maternal and perinatal mortality, and 15% caused by malaria and other infectious, but curable with the right resources, diseases. About the rampant alcoholism afflicting internally displaced peoples and about how there aren't enough doctors to treat Ugandans yet the doctors trained in Uganda leave the country to find better jobs. After the lecture, we all walked out of the room feeling the weight of the bleak picture that had been painted for us.

After lunch, we had the choice of one of three site visits and I went to see TASO, The AIDS Support Organization. TASO now has locations in many African countries, but the first one was in Kampala. Essentially, when a patient is tested HIV+, the doctor refers them to one of several treatment sites, of which TASO is one. TASO provides counseling and ARV treatment to the 10,000 patients it serves. After touring the facility, we got a show from the Mulago (the name of the hospital where TASO is located) Drama Group. The Group is made up of about 15 adults, all of whom are HIV+ and TASO patients, who tour singing and performing skits to fight the stigma that surrounds AIDS. The message on the back of their shirts reads "anyone can get AIDS," and that is exactly what they want to promote: that having the disease doesn't mean you are a sinful or shameful person. and that AIDS sufferers should be treated with respect and should be unafraid to seek treatment. The songs were very uplifting, speaking about how they are a family, how TASO saved their lives, and about how they were going to fight the disease.

After a couple of songs, one woman, Rebecca, told her personal story. Her parents died when she was young and she went to live with her aunt. However, there was never enough food to eat. She spoke of going to school hungry, coming home and doing chores hungry, and going to sleep hungry. She said that when she reached secondary school (roughly high school age) she saw all of her friends getting boyfriends, and felt that this was the only way out of her hunger. She started seeing a businessman and soon became pregnant and dropped out of school. She stayed together with this man until he died (presumably of AIDS), and he told her that his family would care for her. However, when she was tested and found HIV+, her in-laws kicked her out of her house. However, she found TASO, and through her work with the Drama Group, she was able to earn enough money to go back to school.

The message she preaches when she tours with the Drama Group is to tell young girls to abstain from sex until they feel they are ready. I know that now, with food in her belly, she can give that advice, but I wonder if the hungry girl she speaks to really feels that she has the freedom to make that choice. In such situations when human beings feel desperate, it seems so impossible to internalize the chance of getting AIDS. Or perhaps, if one can think about that risk, they decide that they would rather run that risk than be hungry. That being said, the group was lovely and it was wonderful to witness a program that does such good work. They also run skills training programs for HIV+ patients to teach them skills that allow them to earn an income while sick. One of those programs is in handicrafts and I bought a necklace made by one of the TASO clients (they are very big on calling their members "clients" instead of patients or victims, to fight stigma).

However, I will finally get to the title of this blog post. As I have heard a few lecturers, a few themes become apparent in Uganda's development problems. The largest of which is governance. Like all roads lead to Rome, all development problems seem to lead to bad governance. A little background: Following the repressive reigns of Milton Obote and Idi Amin. Yoweri Museveni of the National Resistance Movement Party siezed power in 1986. Since then, Museveni has been elected 3 times, and will be up for election again in 2011. Though his tenure has brought about stability and growth, most Ugandans will be quick to point to the rampant corruption and say that they essentially live under a dictatorship. The NRM primaries have been going on the past few days, and while watching one news report about ballot box stuffing, my sister Kathy sighed and said "I don't think Uganda will ever have fair elections."

This corruptions seems to be at the epicenter of Uganda's development issues. Local leaders capture funds meant to go to social services, unqualified politicians bribe their way into office for the bloated salaries of politicians, and are then largely unaccountable to their constituents. Today, one student asked our lecturer if there are any organization in Uganda to monitor corruption. The lecturer listed off about 10 organizations and then said, "but you see, it's like a dog chasing its own tail. The organizations to monitor corruption become corrupt themselves." When I think about this problem, I feel myself going in circles like a dog chasing its own tail. Politicians are capturing aid funds? Then publicize the funds committed to populations so they know when they've been cheated. But what then happens to the corrupt politician? They go to a corrupt court trial where they are acquitted. And what happens when the people try to vote them out? They defraud elections to keep themselves in power.

This issue is a tough one. I try to think that this means that the work I do in accountability and transparency is very important, not very futile, but in any event it is very fascinating.

And perhaps most exciting, I have some pictures!! Below are pics of the Nile river in Jinja and of my very Ugandan Rosh Hashana with my mommy Esther.