A study in dialectics: October 2010

12 Oct. 2010

It takes about 2 hours to drive the 73km over rough roads to Purongo sub-county. I am riding in a truck with my five colleagues from the Youth Department, four squeezed in the backseat and three of us, driver included, in the front, regularly falling on top of each other as the truck navigates and crawls over craters resembling the surface of the moon. Only a few kilometers at the very end of the journey are paved. It will take another 2 hours for us to drive back to Gulu, meaning that half of our workday is taken up with simply getting to and from our clients. Additionally a good 1-2 hours of our time once we arrive in Purongo will be spent waiting for members of the community to arrive from their work in the fields or other life obligations, in order for us to start our meeting. During these times – driving, riding, waiting – we laugh and joke with each other, sometimes contemplating our own thoughts gazing at the passing scenery, sometimes discussing work, sometimes discussing politics or music or families (or, my comrades discuss these things while I wish my Lwo classes would just hurry up and make me a miracle instantaneous learner of language already).

I compare this pace and flow of work to one of my former jobs in America, where simply taking a lunch break – rather than eating lunch at your desk while writing reports – was considered an unproductive use of time. Time is money is the slogan in mainstream America. In Uganda there is plenty of time (pole pole as they say in Kiswahili, literally meaning “slowly slowly”) and not a lot of money, so I wonder how this phrase might translate here.

The Youth Department at Comboni Samaritans consists of Collins, the Program Officer; Paska, the Assistant Program Officer; Walter and Anthony, the Field Officers; and Roberta, the Italian liaison to our donors, Fondazoni 4Africa. I love our “team”: the endless analyses and fun debates about culture with Anthony while we ride by motorbike to our field visits; the discussions on reconciliation and gender with Paska, from whom I eagerly absorb the perspective of a strong young Ugandan woman; the music that Collins plays in the office while singing along horribly out of key; Walter’s habit of stealing my camera whenever I bring it to field events, and innocently returning it hours later. It’s true that who you work with can be more important than the work you do – and so far this month I’ve had the best of both worlds.

Today we will facilitate a community dialogue in Patira parish of Purongo sub-county. The event is part of the Youth for Peace (Bulu pi Kuc) 3-year project that our donors are funding. We serve rural youth in 4 different sub-counties, offering them trainings, events, and support with a focus on fostering peace and reconciliation in their communities post-war. The youth include mostly those that can’t afford to go to school and are considered most at-risk for poverty, HIV/AIDS, violence, and other problems. Selected Peace Activists are trained in peaceful conflict resolution and then hired on a small budget by Comboni Samaritans to promote these values in their communities and mobilize their fellow youths.

“Youth” here is defined quite differently than in the U.S.: a youth can be anyone up to age 30, and there are even 35-40 year old members in these youth groups that, while technically not even youth in Ugandan standards, want to be involved in peace work. Imagine the irony of telling someone, “No, I’m sorry you can’t help us in promoting peace in the community, you’re too old. Thanks anyway though.” So, naturally, we let them participate. [A note that many of my Smith colleagues may sympathize with: At the tender age of 26 I am most definitely considered a youth here, which doesn’t help counter my existing apprehension about being a new social-worker-in-training in a foreign culture – trained specifically to not know. Large gulps of humility have become part of my daily diet here. Ha.]

The purpose of today’s dialogue is to bring together members of the community to discuss issues that interfere with peaceful living in Patira parish. Peace Activists will be joined by teachers, school headmasters, community elders, mothers, local elected council leaders (kind of like U.S. town mayors and officials), students, and others who have been invited by the youth. Besides discussing problems, we hope to come up with concrete solutions and an action plan to move forward.

It is raining lightly when we arrive in the small village, so instead of holding the dialogue under the shade of a nearby mango tree as planned, we move the event to a classroom of a local school. In a magic communication style that I’ve only ever seen in Africa, everyone seems to know just where to find it, despite the change of plans. As we wait for invitees to show up, we set up the schoolroom benches in a circle around the room and make sure the volunteer cooks have what they need to start preparing lunch, which will be served after the dialogue.

The event starts at 1:00 with 23 participants present, and by the end of the dialogue a total of 40 have arrived. This is almost everyone who has been invited – higher than a 95% attendance rate. I am impressed and astounded by the mobilization that Comboni Samaritans is able to accomplish. Not only have they organized a community dialogue with important members of the community and done it all last-minute (preparation began only a week ago), but they did so without our modern Western modes of technology. Letters of invitation were distributed to our Peace Activists, who then hand-delivered them to invitees. There was no email and very little telephone. Despite short notice, rain, lack of transport, far distances of travel, and outside responsibilities, people have shown up. Perhaps this speaks to the generally higher commitment I’ve noticed people having toward their community here in Uganda. I mean, can you imagine town citizens and employees in the U.S. going out of their way during their hectic day to have a facilitated dialogue with their neighbors about problems in their community?

Although the meeting, like most, is entirely in Lwo, today I’m lucky enough to have one of my colleagues as an interpreter. Before I notice what’s being said, I observe the dynamics in the room.

Out of the 40 participants present, only 5 are women, and one is a young schoolboy. The rest are adult or elder men. The women look to be mostly middle-aged and elderly, except for one who looks like she might be around 30 years old. The men sit on the benches and chairs around the periphery of the classroom; the women sit on mats on the floor in the middle. I ask Paska later if this is common for women to sit on the floor. She first says that the women (especially the elderly) are more comfortable on the floor because they are able to stretch their legs, but then she says it is also the culture – it is another way of literally keeping women “down.” The Youth Department makes an attempt to balance gender throughout all of their events and projects, but this is hard to actualize given the cultural dynamics. As the wife of my supervisor said the other day, women do the work of three: they provide for the family, raise the children, and take care of the home and fields. For the typical woman, the dawn-to-night schedule includes cooking (taking hours for each meal), cleaning (again, hours), digging, planting, harvesting, bathing and nursing and otherwise looking after children, and possibly working outside of the home to bring in some sort of income with which to cloth and educate their children. This is not a schedule that necessarily allows for flexibility to attend a community event like this. Men, on the other hand, are much freer to attend such events.

The first part of the dialogue invites community members to share issues they think are interfering with peaceful living in their communities. Naturally the men in the room do most of the talking because of their sheer number, sharing issues like tribal divisions, land disputes, poverty and oppression of the poor, lack of clean water, poor roads, disunity between the government and the community, cultural shifts resulting from years spent living in Internally Displaced Persons camps, generation gaps, and alcohol abuse. Many say that women no longer respect their husbands, that they have been introduced to money and now care more for money than for their husbands. They also say that the trend of young girls eloping and getting married without the permission of their families are causing problems, because when a man doesn’t pay a dowry for his wife, he then has much less power over her during the marriage.

The few women that speak share issues such as hatred among people and groups, the widening gap between elders and youth, and men drinking away their money and not taking time to help raise and educate younger children.

Over the two hours I watch Paska facilitate the discussion with ease and confidence. She commands respect in a calm and gentle way, which participants show to her and to each other by raising their hands and speaking in turn. They do not interrupt each other or become heated, even when talking about sensitive issues. They laugh easily and keep the atmosphere light. If people feel frustrated over points of disagreement, they do not show it.

Various solutions are explored, such as creating legislation on drinking, managing money as a family (rather than an individual), constructing a training center for youth to build practical skills, encouraging transparency between partners, and increasing religion in the communities. A few men suggest that culturally, men should maintain authority, and gender roles should be clearly demarcated. The school-aged boy says there should be regulation against the mistreatment of children.

It’s decided that what has been discussed here should be spread out to the community, and there should be further dialogues in the future. I find myself wondering, How can these people ever come to a consensus? Have we made any progress at all? While many agree on various issues, others hold very different opinions on the same issues. There has been no agreement reached, especially in terms of gender issues – so when participants leave this meeting to “sensitize” their neighbors, will they all say different things? And throughout the dialogue these disparities were never directly addressed or named – it’s as if there is an eerie silence left floating around even the existence of the disagreements.

Over the next few days we travel near the border of Sudan to Atiak, and then Palaro and Odek in the east to hold similar dialogues. In each case, the issue of family conflict and gender is primary. This trend appears to replicate the general cultural shift occurring in Uganda today. Generations move further apart as war, globalization, education and westernization leave their mark on the people, and it is only a matter of time before information and media make their way from urban to rural areas as well, affecting traditional life even more than they already have. IDP Camp life in Northern Uganda has increased the spread of information and forced a shift in cultural values as people were forced to uproot their lives and live in uncomfortably close proximity with each other; families were torn apart and gender roles shifted due to necessity for survival.

Needless to say, I have had gender issues on the brain since arriving in East Africa almost 6 weeks ago. I left Seattle and Northampton with beliefs about gender that were pretty solidly grounded in my personal values, but open to expansion and challenge. Since landing in Kampala the synapses in my brain have been firing confusedly at each other attempting to reconstruct the mental damage that comes along with immersing oneself rapidly into a different way of thinking and being. I am attempting to integrate the dialectics that I am living. While my views and values remain mostly solid, they are certainly being challenged. For example, how do I hold the disparity that many of the male colleagues I work with and respect would not hesitate to cheat on their wives – while maintaining strict adherence to every other Christian value? What right do I have to think that my value of fluid gender roles is more effective for a culture of which I am not a part? If I believe that liberal is inherently “better” than conservative, am I any different from my conservative neighbor that believes liberals are full of crazy ideas? Right and wrong is relative to perspective and context; and yet if I believe that there is no absolute right or wrong in the world and that it’s all on a fluid continuum of perspective, what about the case of gender-based violence? What about when the greater culture condones men’s refusal to wear condoms, so that even HIV-negative women cannot keep from becoming infected? As a white female-bodied person acutely aware of western post-colonial influence, where do I draw the line between joining the fight for the rights of the Ugandan women I have befriended, without imposing change on a culture that is not mine?

How do I integrate the flooding of feelings in my gut when a woman very seriously says that if her husband didn’t beat her, she would think he didn’t care? And the mirroring feeling when I think of the women in the U.S. that think this very thing, only they typically remain hidden under our surface image of “gender equality” and women’s empowerment? What can I learn from and integrate into my own feminism from these strong Ugandan women that, while believing in their rights, also firmly believe in their responsibilities as women and the importance of giving to their families and communities?

As the dialogue comes to a close, I am appreciative of the chance to divert my attention onto a lighter topic: the delicious lunch consisting of mingled millet flour, rice, chicken, beans, and sautéed greens. Gender roles threaten to disturb me again as I help the women serve food to the men, but I brush off the thought and merely enjoy the camaraderie instead. Sometimes analysis and deconstructionism need to be put on the shelf.

An hour or so later we start the drive back to Gulu town, where I anticipate sleeping very well tonight. I am thoroughly being rubbed against my edges. I guess I’m pretty blessed that, for the most part, I enjoy the experience.

S.C.

Paska introduces the dialogue

Community members of Purongo sub-county

Anthony speaking about the importance of focusing on solutions.


Paska, Anthony, and Collins

The following pictures aren't related to the dialogue, but they're from a field visit I took with Anthony some time back. The road to Attiak was closed because a bridge had collapsed, but that didn't stop us from getting by on motorbike...