fireworks- not the fun kind!

Happy fourth of July everyone! Mine started off with a night of getting sick every 15 minutes or so. Apparently I ate something not so okay yesterday. Got up around noon after catching up on sleep to hear that some friends I'd taken lunch with had been sick as well. Liz apologized profusely for her cooking or lack of proper peel it, boil it, cook it or forget it (so the slogan goes).
I can't believe it is July and that I will be turning 27 in one week! The past week was busy with the clinic moving from the location on the edge of town way out to the trading centre in one of the villages about 20km out of town. will be quite a trek out there! The nurse will soon take the bicycle and I'll take bodas, which is much more manageable. Will make the ride out tomorrow though, so we will see how that goes! So far, all the clinic possessions are just shoved into the 4 rooms of the new building. will be quite a job to move things and organize. As we were unloading the lorry, which the crowd along the way found it very humorous to see a mono in the back of a huge truck, boxes were breaking and papers and things were going everywhere. There is no telling where files go or binders or papers. is a bit of a mess! But I do love to organize! Just hope the urge to throw things out doesn't frustrate me as these are not my papers to throw out.

In other note, Ive been staying with Wissit in the VSO (like peace corp kinda) compound for the weekend as martha was away and I didnt want to be alone. has been very nice to have good company and a bit of space and privacy within a walled compound. Got to sit out for lunch yesterday in my running shorts and not worry about showing too much skin. got quite a nice lil shorts tan. Wissit was great about asking thought provoking questions as we sat over pasta with chorizo or lentin curry and rice the last two nights. Got me thinking a lot about my time here so far, what I've learned and what I've experienced. Realized I've given you a lot of the daily grind on this blog, but not a lot of big thoughts. So. Here are my big thoughts after just over two months in Gulu.

The Gulu I imagined was the Gulu of 8 years ago. The night commuters walking to avoid abduction by the LRA. People in camps because that is where they are protected, though experience great problems like food shortage, lack of livelihoods, rape and domestic violence, alcoholism, zero education, etc etc. Now, don't get me wrong, I didn't expect to come into Gulu to still see night commuters nor people living in camps, but I suppose I expected a bit more palpable postconflict feel. But I've found Gulu is not in the postconflict stage anymore. It is in the rebuilding and development stage. Many of the international NGOs are gone or have drastically reduced their presence as I understand. The community is trying to cling to the perks of camp life while returning and rebuilding their villages (as I've mentioned in terms of paying for health care).

Other white people often tell me about all the stories they have heard of peoples experience in the war or visiting the ward at Gulu Hospital reserved for women who lost their legs at the hands of the LRA. I, on the otherhand, have heard very little of these stories. A few of the Boda boys who pick fares from just across the old clinic location have made minimal comments to me as they saw me reading an article in world vision about the night commuters, telling me they used to do that. But whether it is that I haven't asked or the stories have not been offered, I have heard few. I have never been in a place where so many people are on crutches, in wheelchair bicycles, or missing limbs. I pass at least one person on the street who've experienced these losses, but who is to say they are a product of the war?

There are many people here living with mental health problems and developmental disabilities. Some severe and visible as you pass on the street. There is a boy I see frequently who always grabs my arm as I pass, but says nothing. This is particularly unfun when I am on my bicycle and thus my handlebars twist and ive come close to falling. This same boy often climbs the small statue in town sitting in the middle of a roundabout and attempts to destroy it by beating it with a brick. another women stood as though she were part of the conversation that martha and i were having one afternoon on the street. She said nothing, asked for nothing, touched my arm a few times, but just looked on as we talked. I wasn't bothered but martha was uncomfortable and grew more and more impatient and angry with the woman. I've slowly picked up on the attitude towards those living with mental health problems here, and it is very dismissive. As the lorry drove back from unyama (the new clinic location) the boda boys pretended to be 'mad' in the back of the empty lorry as we drove. I told them to stop that it wasn't funny, but all thought it was hysterical but me.

Coming out of 24 years of war, fear of being abducted, living in camps, no education to speak of depending on your age, how do you not go a bit 'mad'? The young adults my age living in Gulu were 2 when the conflict started and have only known peace in the last three or four years. How can you be expected to function soundly? this week I had the great pleasure to visit the Recreation Project, a new initiative started in Lacor (about 7km from Gulu Town). Eric took me out through the back roads on his boda and dropped me to spend the afternoon with a group at this new centre. The Recreation Project (www.therecreationproject.org) is a therapeutic ropes course for groups of youth- youth here consists of 18-35 year olds). I got to talk a lot with Ben, an American counselor, who has helped to start the project with the help of the little sisters convent in Lacor. We talked a lot about western therapy and how that just isn't culturally applicable here nor would people see therapists. i got to hear about his adoption from St. Jude's Orphanage and how that process has been, which is always interesting as one day I would love an East African child. Then I got to watch the group do a few activities and then complete the zipline. These students were in the technical school where I know some instructors. As we were watching, one boy sat with me and told me they were selected from their school because they are all orphans. Again, I didn't push for information and not much more was offered. Knowing what I know about their school, most of the students are former abducted children. I was curious but have been cautious. Ben wanted to do an activity with them where they pick a tree that describes them. He told me that this gets them talking a bit about the past and normalizing some of their experiences. I was hopefully to see this activity, but they didn't do it with this group.

I am very interested to continue to follow what the Recreation Project is doing. They had a US intern from Colorado State and I thought that was quite cool. Was disappointed that Ben wasnt an MSW or else I'd be working on being there rather than Kenya next spring. Still have yet to meet an MSW in Gulu, though I haven't tried too hard, if I'm being honest. Ben told me he might could offer me a job in a few years, though I think it would have to be a bit more clinical for me to be interested. Would be like working at a summer camp year round, zipping people all day. though I thought it was pretty cool that they belayed people up the tree to the zip platform.

Gulu is much like tanzania. There are little bits of post war evidence, but from what I've seen they are structural and under the surface. People are generally happy and friendly, the children play and are pleased with the things they have. people are getting on with life, its not easy, but its one day at a time.

i have really enjoyed my work here, I have loved being able to take what I've learned in school and apply it. i love sitting on the veranda and listening to the children play and the comings and goings of life here. I relished in the hour it took me to do my 8 pieces of washing saturday morning (towels are haaaaaard to wash), and laugh at my sunglass tan. I was quite pleased by the pleases and thanks yous I heard this week at kickball, if nothing else they have learned those two words from me.

I am attempted to add a plethora of pictures to the facebook album. scroll down to the earlier blog for the address and check for those soon. kickball, the recreation project, life in gulu.
this coming weekend I will go with wissit and mike and marion (two other VSOs) to Murchison Falls National Park. I am excited to see the other end of the Nile and maybe an animal or two! Will be a nice little treat!

Until next time, take luck my friends.
nakupenda sana soft blue.