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kellywhimsy
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Name: Kelly
Birthday: 3/11/1985
Gender: Female
Interests: Jesus, Africa, Peace, Social Justice, ROCK, orphans, cultures, fairy tales, forests, communes, and transformational development.
Expertise: imaginating and hanging out
Occupation: Interfaith Peaceworker
Industry: Nonprofit
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
4/3/2005
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| I was down in Lira for the weekend, having escorted Thera there on her way to Kampala for the beginning of her vacation so she wouldn't have to drive that more dangerous bit of road alone. I stayed with our friends, the Christys, hung out with them at their office, and accompanied them to a movie night at their favorite cafe (owned by their friend) where we watched Mr. Deeds, a cute Adam Sandler movie with Winona Rider as the initially deceptive, but redeemable love interest.
I wanted to take a bus back to Kotido on Saturday, but the bus going this way was stopping in Abim, which wouldn't do for me, so we were told that a Lorry (a cargo truck that also takes people sitting or standing on top of the cargo) was coming up this way.
In the Lira bus park as I looked for the lorry to Kotido, I failed to watch my feet. There are grates covering deep drainage gutters for sewage and rain, but the grates often have bars missing, or just large holes in them. I put my unwatched foot through one of these holes, and fell. My leg was stuck between two bars of the grate. With the help of what seemed at the time like the entire bus park, but was really only two men with about fifteen men watching, my leg was pulled out of the grate. I had a bloody hole in the knee of my trousers on one leg, and the leg that had been pulled free has a bruise than runs the entire length of my calf on both sides. People told me to go to the clinic, but it was only the largest bruise I've ever had and a small scrape on my knee. No big deal, so I waited with everyone else, and boarded the lorry when it arrived.
I was unable to secure the front seat because a police officer had booked it ahead of time, so I had to pile in the back with the rest of the travelers. I started off sitting low, but decided to move up when there seemed to be too many people's bums near my head. We were all crammed in there so tight that whenever the lorry would stop to pick up another passenger I couldn't help but groan. Somehow they and their luggage always found a place.
One little girl was being squished, so in order to sit more freely and give her head some room, she scooted over and ended up with her head between a soldier's legs. She was probably too young to know exactly why this was awkward, but you could see that she felt it all the same. They probably sat like that for about an hour before someone got off and we could change positions.
I was sitting in the very back left corner of the lorry, which meant, as when you sit in the back of the bus, that I got about a foot of air every time we went over a bump. At first I hooked my elbow under a bar to hold on, but that ended up being more painful than helpful. When the lorry became so full of people no one could fit inside, the conductor squeezed in next to me, which at least held me in tightly, but I eventually got the hang of holding on.
Every time we stopped we would change positions, committed to the belief that if we could just shift things around a little, we would be comfortable. Usually things started out okay, but as our luggage seats shifted on the bumps of the road, pointy things were revealed in the formerly soft bag. Or the surface we thought was solid turned sideways or slid out from under us so that we were no longer sitting securely, but sitting on something tilted and sharp. Its sounds comfortable, sitting in amongst the luggage, but a lot of things are weird-shaped, and it wasn't very cozy at all.
The first few miles we went, things kept falling off the back of the lorry; things that hadn't been secured properly. First it was a stool, and then a fish. Yes, a dead fish. It was not in a container of any kind, not even a plastic bag. It was a naked dead fish. It fell off the back of the lorry and once we'd got the lorry driver to stop, the conductor borrowed a bicycle from a passer-by, and went back to pick up the fallen fish. It was large, perhaps the length of my arm, and as it was handed back to its owner, he laid it by his feet on top of someone's luggage, and we continued on our way. Every time we stopped and unloaded people and bags, shifting our positions, I would note the position of the fish. By the end of our trip the fish was quite stiff, and more dead-looking than usual. It was propped upright and standing on its tail in the corner of the lorry bed. I admired the commitment the fish owner must have had to the idea of eating seafood so far from any body of water, but I also worried for his health.
Once everyone got the hang of holding on, and felt more secure, conversations started up. The lengthiest and the only one mostly conducted in English was the one where everybody was arguing about gender and politics. They were saying that the problem with Uganda is that they have too many women in parliament. I should add that no women apart from me were taking any part in the conversation. The men said we should follow the rules of the Bible that the man is the head of the household, so women should respect the men in parliament. They were complaining that the women in parliament wanted to make it so that when a couple divorced, the woman got ownership of half of the man's land. They didn't like this because they said that African women were stubborn and might leave you after six months, taking half your land, which is not fair, especially if she had not produced children for you. I tried to explain that the reason for this law was to protect women, that usually women are left with nothing and they suffer, along with any children they have. Women have rights too and they need to be protected so that they can lead good lives. They should also have the right to leave their husbands after any amount of time, particularly if they are being abused, which is often the case. I explained the concept of pre-nuptial agreements, which set out the rules for a separation before the marriage starts, just so that everyone knows in advance what will happen. The men I was talking to said that sort of thing only works in more “developed” countries and that it was a good idea, but Africans couldn't follow such a system. I was told women's right are okay for us because we “in our place” are developed, but that doesn't work in Africa. The only reason given was that they weren't “developed” enough. They've been brainwashed by colonists, the World Bank, and their own governments to think they can't do anything because they're not “developed” yet, as if they have to follow the stages set out in some sort of project plan before they can be declared as good as other countries. Its sick.
We took a few detours out to villages to drop off some people, which is why it took eight hours to reach Kotido in the lorry, when Thera drove it with me in four. When we were in Morulem, a woman felt cheated by the conductor. Since I don't speak Luo, I have to go by what the soldier told me, which is that the woman didn't want to pay. But I think she must have had a good reason for being so upset. She was crying and she pushed the conductor. He hopped back on the lorry and told the driver to drive. The soldier dropped the last of the woman's jerry cans off the back of the lorry. One got stuck under the tires and popped as we ran over it. The woman looked at it for a second and then took off her shoes and ran hard after the truck, wailing loudly. Everyone in town was staring at her, and we left her there in the dust of our passing.
As it got dark I put on my jacket and put up the hood against the wind. I was sitting sideways, so the wind blew my hood against my face. It felt soft and cozy. I put my headphones in and enjoyed the wind and the privacy of my hood and my music as we bumped over the final stretch towards Kotido in the dark. It was a clear night, so I looked up at the stars. The season is changing, so there are a lot of new stars in the sky, but I found one familiar constellation: Delphinium, the Dolphin, and I smiled widely at the sky, feeling comforted by this small familiar thing.
You can tell when someone falls asleep on you. I mean, there's a definable difference between the gentle pressure of someone resting against your back, and the dead weight of a sleeping woman. I was leaning forward against the wind and I suppose my bent back made a comfortable recliner, because I suddenly noticed the heavy jouncing full weight of a body on my back. The funny thing was that whenever I shifted, she woke up and seemed annoyed. She kept scooting back as if I was taking up too much room, when in fact (and she had no way of knowing this) I was sitting on the very edge of a spare tire, with only a couple inches of my bottom on the seat. At one point she got so frustrated that I was taking up so much room that she pushed me off completely, but I squeezed my way back onto the seat to her disgruntlement. This is all a result of my failure to learn more than basic greetings in Swahili. If I had known how to say, “There's no more room for me to move over,” or, “If you push me like that again I might fall off the lorry,” none of this would have happened.
When we arrived at last I was met at the gate by Bishop, Mama Rose, and Deacon Peter. It was nice to be welcomed home. When I actually got back to my house, I was welcomed home by four cockroaches in my bathroom, two of which were mating, and each the size of my thumb. I killed them all.
The following day my muscles were so sore that I moved like an old woman, gingerly. Every muscle felt tense. Every move felt like stretching. Riding in the back of a lorry for eight hours made my muscles feel like I'd run a marathon the previous day. If only it had burned that many calories. | | |
| From The First week of September 2009:
Went out to garden. Very dry. Stumbled upon shepherd's souls in an abandoned training college.
They had drawn graffiti all over the walls of these abandoned buildings. Mostly they were pictures of people with guns, fighting. Sometimes helicopters, sometimes elders sitting on stools under trees and other scenes from village life, and sometimes cows. They reminded me of the drawings I had seen when I was researching my undergraduate thesis on child soldiers.
Sunday – went to Catholic mass. Liturgical dancers, incense, liturgy, a black Jesus painted on the wall...i liked it.
In the afternoon Romano took us out to visit the elders having a ceremony under some trees and next to a dry riverbed in Panyangara. The elders had requested a bull from a man, but the man's son sold it, so the punishment is that the man has to sacrifice a bull and roast it for the elders to make up for the wrong doing, in addition to providing the original bull they requested. Romano said that because of traditions like this, the Karimojong like wrong does. You also need those people because they provide excuses for everyone to gather together, tell stories, remind each other of their traditions, and eat meat. The very important elders also get to drink the blood and milk mixture out of a gourd resting on a dung pile.
We got to ask the elders some questions after the ceremony ended. We asked them about the origins of the Karimojong and Jie. What makes the Jie different? Why do they think this is such a bad year for crops? Why have drought and famine been happening so much lately? And what are their memories of the first white people and/or colonizers? They said the reason of the changing weather and the dryness and bad crops was all the raiding and fighting of the people. God is angry because there is no peace.
We walked to sliding rock in the evening with Bishop and Mama and Timoteo. On the way, we passed the site of the firing squad punishment for the men who killed the priest on Moroto Road a few years ago. One of our friends witnessed it.
I taught Mama Rose how to skip. I was worried about sunburn, so I took the flimsy umbrella I bought in Ethiopia. It lasted well through those two weeks in Ethiopia, but now it's pretty useless because it bends at any suggestion of a breeze. So it only protected me from the sun as long as I was able to battle against the breeze, which wasn't long.
Trip to Kamion in Ikland from September 28:
When I stood still I could feel the heat of the mountain through the soles of my shoes. The Rift Valley spread below as deep as an ocean, the blue mountains of Sudan visible like distant islands out to sea. The wind rhythmically buffeted the escarpment, creating a sound like ocean waves. The sound of the wind only emphasized the silence, adding to it, rather than detracting. Standing still and listening to the wind made me feel like the only person in the world. No wonder the Ik children are always running home from school.
We walked a thin trail along the edge of the escarpment to the nearest village. The Ik always build their villages at the top of mountains, and the huts are dug down a little bit into the ground, so that if someone comes to the door and shoots, the bullets will fly over the heads of sleeping people. Curious children came out of the stick-walled village to watch us and giggle. The first village we entered was the home of the local LCI, the most minor of the local government officials. He has two children sponsored in our Global Families Ik Education program. We crawled through four tiny stick doors to sit with their relatives, watch a girl pound maize, and discuss life. We talked about the recent raids in Lokwakoromae where a little girl was killed, the opportunities brought by education, family members, and the weather, then we said goodbye and moved on to the neighbor’s house.
The next village over is the home of another of our sponsored children, Narok Christine. We found her at home instead of at school because three weeks ago someone had burned her huts.
When Christine was accepted into our sponsorship program, her father built her a special study hut so she would have a special place of her own to study when she came home. It is not usual for men to be excited about their daughters being educated, but Christine’s family is special. We don’t know why the huts were burned, but the assumption is jealousy. Christine’s study hut and the hut she slept in were burned. She sustained bad burns to her left hand and shin in trying to put out the fire. Inside the burnt study hut, her chalk drawings can still be seen: a love flower and the national crest of Uganda. This was a place of her own, something not easy to come by for a 17-year-old in a tiny village on a mountaintop, always surrounded by relatives. Tell me, who burns the home of a child?
We took Christine back with us to school in Kaabong. I hope she will continue to study hard and not let this setback discourage her too much. One of the items on my to-do list now, as current monitor of the Ik education project, is to arrange for some counseling for the Ik students. They get teased about their ethnicity by the other students, and it's harder for them in school, having to study in a cross-cultural situation away from their families, not to mention being the first in their families to receive education. I want to make both a male and female counselor available to them maybe once a month, just to meet with them as a group and encourage them to keep studying and listen to any problems they have.
Last week I went out in the field in Nakapelimoru to witness the handover of previously stolen cattle. I watched as a group of about six men walked into a kraal of about three hundred cows and picked out 117 cows that they recognized as theirs. Talk about the shepherd going after lost sheep! Then we went into the offices of high up UPDF officials and signed documents certifying that we had witnessed the handover of the cattle. As we were waiting to ride back to Kotido, one of the officers, a man named Arthur, informed me that Karen is a nickname for Kelly. I decided it wasn't worth an argument.
Men enter the kraal to start identifying their cattle
Found one
And here, for your visual stimulation, is some food porn:
Peanut butter filled chocolate banana cake I made last week. It's all gone now.
Last Saturday Thera and I were bridesmaids again in another introduction, this time of people we didn't know, but a lot of our friends were there. It was held in a village in Abim, the home of our neighbor Rev. Nelson Owilli. It was his second daughter, Caroline, officially introducing her finance to her family. I've been told that you have to “bring the man home.” If you neglect to bring the man home before your marriage, then you have neglected to respect your family. Here is a link to the pictures I have from the occasion, for those of you not already on Facebook. Enjoy.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2041595&id=187701368&l=a40321b121
Here is something I read recently that really resonated with me:
"Rhodes realized that our identity is not a constant, the same in one relationship as in another, but instead is a composite, with every individual we know holding a piece of it, and all of these people, and all of these pieces making up who we are.” – Debra Bendis, Christian Century senior editor in a review of Driftless, a novel by David Rhodes.
Maybe identity is not singular, but composite. That is, who we are is not something we can know in and of ourselves, but is made up of the people we are in all our relationships; a composite of our combined roles and personalities with all our acquaintance. I like that.
Also, my dad is buying a crossbow. | | |
| Here's a picture I forgot to post earlier from the letters I got from P4 students.
A Child's Drawing of the Ugandan President.
I love the color. It speaks volumes.
I've been struggling a lot with my faith recently...as in, the last year. Not with God so much as with myself. I think all of the sudden I've come to a healthier place where I can accept the foibles and fallacies of the church, accept what I don't know, and get back to trying to serve. The problem is, I don't know how to serve God here. Ostensibly, I'm serving God just by being here: by going to work and living in this country, this town. And yet I feel isolated from the community, trapped in a bubble of whiteness and richness (yes, I make $74 per month and I am rich beyond compare as far as some of these people are concerned).
Here's a horrifying piece of news: last week a woman came to our gardener selling brooms. He wanted them, so he kept them to show us. We agreed to buy them for him at 2500 Ugandan shillings (about $1.25) and gave him the money to give to the woman. Later she showed up at our house to ask for the money when our gardener wasn't around and with the help of a neighbor we told her to come back the following morning and get the money from the gardener. Maybe she couldn't come the following day, I don't know, but she showed up again yesterday, sitting in wait just outside our gate. I was just taking our computers to charge at Thera's office. I recognized the woman, but I couldn't remember exactly who she was. She started shouting at me, "Ake ngisilinga robo!" "Just give me money!" I mean, from her perspective it had been a week and she hadn't been paid, but I felt attacked at my own door and I didn't remember that we actually owed her money, so I just kept walking. Thera called me while I was at her office and explained to me that it was the broom woman. We decided to pay her and then get the money back from our gardener, since he hadn't paid her yet. But I feel awful about the whole thing because I just kept walking.
It's getting to be the season of food distribution in earnest. There was virtually no harvest this year because of our wacked out climate and I see more and more people staying at the clinic, and more and more children around. There's one little girl who's been around for a couple months now who still practically hyperventilates with excitement every time she sees us. I want to do something to get out into the community and serve, but I don't know what I can do. I don't want to give hand-outs and perpetuate that particular colonial mistake. And I don't want to go into the villages and evangelize and perpetuate that particular colonial mistake either. And that seems to be the only service our church does for the poor: evangelism. :-| So....thoughts? Ideas? Help?
My co-workers just came in (yes I'm using office time to update my blog, I thought we'd already established that I'm a bad person) and informed me that Hotel Discovery next door is serving free tea. The people from the workshop didn't show up, so we get to have their tea, and my boss Romano goes and gets a bunch of the poor and invites them to tea as well! Way to be biblical. (Actually, he is pretty biblical. He lives in a pastoralist society and says things like "Happy are you" when you tell him good news.) So Romano seats all these people in cushy chairs in the Hotel Discovery lounge and walks around giving them hard boiled eggs, bananas, and spooning more sugar into their milk tea. This is what makes it worth working for him, disorganized as he is.
Also, our guava tree is full of unripe guavas the size of large marbles or small golf balls. We think maybe the tree isn't to good fruit-bearing age yet because the unripe, inedible fruit keeps dropping off and hitting our corrugated tin roof with an earth-shattering bang. Our dog used to bark at it until she realized it was just fruit. Sometimes it still makes me jump. | | |
| A little while ago I went to visit one of our other workers in Masaka district. She was a schoolteacher there for one year. I stayed with her host family and visited her school. I met all her students and they practiced their English on me, asking me such questions as, “How old are you? What is you father’s name? What is your mother’s name? Where are you from?” Then I left. We went to a meeting in Kampala, and I went back to Karamoja. Then, about a month later, I was given a little packet of letters from these children. They had decided that we were such good friends, they would write to me. All the letters were pretty much the same. When they teach kids how to write letters they must give them an example to copy or something. However, some of the letters were more original, and some of them had fantastic drawings. Here are a few of my favorites from their letters:
Hair letter
This letter had a drawing of the student, the teacher and me all dressed up and it looks like we’re on a stage, maybe? Or perhaps in a box. I love our hair.
Confidence
I just love his confidence! “Let me promise that you will reply my request” “Our family is not yet rich.”
Brain Tree
It looks like a brain tree.
Cyclopses
This is my favorite. When I opened this letter I laughed so much I had to go pee. Why are we cyclopses? Not to mention that all the other letters had neat little envelopes, perfectly folded out of notebook paper. This one came in this envelope. It looks like something I would have made as a kid. I was always jealous of the kids who could draw well and fold things nicely. My stuff always got wrinkled somehow, or was slightly off-kilter.
Envelope Side A
Envelope Side B
Cyclopses!
Something else interesting that happened: while I was waiting for a bus in some small town a couple hours outside Masindi, a sort of ruckus began and I saw a small parade marching a man across town. I asked a nearby shopkeeper what was happening, ad she said he had stolen a chicken and some salt. After about 15 minutes, the little parade came back through town to take the thief to prison at the police station, but this time he arched with chickens hanging around his neck and from his tied hands. In fact, he was covered in chickens! Now there’s a way to deter thieving. Never mind chopping off hands, just tie chickens around him and march him through town. How embarrassing. When he was marched back through town wearing the chickens, people ran from all sides to come and jeer at him. A couple people hit him as well. Public beating is an accepted form of punishment as well, but it wasn’t a serious beating this time, just humiliating. It was certainly an interesting display of small-town Ugandan justice.
Also, we got bunnies. They were meant to be a wedding present to our friends who got married. But we accidentally got two boy bunnies. So we have to go back to get a girl bunny….and maybe another boy one, so we can give the “couple” to our friends, and keep two boys for us. Because we like bunnies.
And now I’m going on holiday to Ethiopia for my holiday.
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| Notes from a “Problem-Solving Meeting” I attended, and which I found very illuminating:
I got a ride to the meeting with the RDC (an appointed representative of the president who lives in the district – each district has one – and has sway over almost everything that happens there), but we got a flat tire on the way to the meeting, so the army guys had to pick us up. So I roll into the meeting with the biggest politicians and the guys with guns. Great. Next time I’m riding on the back of Romano’s motorcycle and I don’t care how dusty the road is.
The meeting opened with a traditional prayer given by a respected elder. Prayers in Karamoja are sort of call-response style, so the diviner or elder prays one sentence at a time and waits for the confirmation response of the people. The joined voices of response give my goose bumps every time.
My boss Romano addresses the assembled people
Then the people began to speak. Here are a few selected quotes: (My personal comments are in parentethes)
“The sun is burning our crops in the fields. There is hunger. People and animals are getting finished. We are crying to the government at this meeting.
“We have one request: the remaining cows and people that are here, protect them, at least.”
“If all cows go, how will we get school fees to pay for our children? Our whole bank is the cow.”
“Enemies are always there. Women raise the alarm every day. Children are chased every day.”
“The Jie are confused. We don’t know who our father is. (Uh…Who’s your daddy?) W thought it was the government, but we not being taken care of by them. The guns have been handed over to the government, but how many cows have the government recovered?”
One man gave the army advice about tracking. He said that when tracking cows, you can find them even if it’s been a long time since they were raided. If the raiders ate one, you’ll find a grub in the soil, which proves that meat was eaten on that spot however long ago, depending on the age of the grub. (Wow! CSI Karamoja?)
Another man talked about how the project of KOPEIN tries to make peace. It’s trying its best and moving all over Karamoja, but even after returning from peace talks, raids continue, sometimes from the very place they just had a peace meeting, causing people to call KOPEIN office “The Office of Blood.” (Great.)
Lounging and Listening...
“Even if we discuss one million hours from this tree here, nothing will happen. Give us a way forward!”
Arukan, who had people’s cattle stolen from his kraal says people are cursing him now. He says there should be a process for people to complain to the government for recovery, not to him personally. (Good point.)
“It is now a perception that all Karimojong are thieves. Not all are thieves. There are some good people here.”
RDC says the issues of famine and protecting cows have been covered enough. “Let the people now give us a way forward.” (But these are their main problems and you’re the government…)
Stubborn man says, “You’ll never stop cattle raiding. It’s been happening for centuries.”
“We used to have peace, but since the government came, we’ve begun warring again. If the government goes away, maybe peace will return.”
“People are finished; cows are gone; but you, Government are here.” “Disarmament causes raiding.”
“Do you love us? [pause] Or have you come here to make sure all the Jie of Kotido get finished? [pause] Protect us if you love this community.”
Translator really gets into his job. (Excuse the sideways alignment of some of the pictures. Technical malfunction...)
“Governments come, governments go, but this land is ours.”
Then the army guys says, “That is insurgency.” (Great.)
A woman finally speaks: Martina from Nakapelimoru
“From the beginning and up to today, we have been shedding tears.”
“The reason we are here is because the government gave us food, otherwise you would not be seeing these people.”
“Some cows were impounded.” [uh…my cow is up on blocks?]
“It should only take one or two days to register them. Why are you excluding the people of Kotido town? They are also suffering like us. Please give them food too.”
“Because of your reluctance to recover our cows, let me assure you there will be no cooperation.”
“We are confused. When someone is killed in a village and we tell the police, they come and tell us, “You are the one who killed yourself.”
“Please try our suggestions. If it fails, at least we will admit it, but please heed our requests.”
“We have the medicine for insecurity. Let us apply the medicine. I recommend strongly since there is government everywhere, that you merge our kraals together and bring the karachuna (youth warriors) together and there will be peace. Only small children will remain with the cows. Women and men can be resettled and farm. Merge the conflicting groups to create one people. We are really on people. If we are merged, the gun will have no meaning and people will reject it for themselves. I’m tired of bloodshed. Also, talk to your boys so that they will stop beating the women during the searches and killing us. Soldiers have even killed a pregnant woman. Was she suspected to have a gun? Soldiers take cows. Are the guns hiding in the stomachs of the cows? A two-year-old girl was killed by a stray bullet in a village the day when 31 cows were shot by soldiers. They brought the skins of the cows to show the police, but nothing was done. (Govt. interrupts him and says to stick to the point. He apologizes.) We have all agreed that whoever refuses to give in their gun is an enemy. Please chase them.”
Alupo Anna – parish counselor from Lopwio Parish. “I’m not going to talk to you about cows. I’m going to talk to you about human life. We don’t deny that guns are there…BUT people are taken and remain with you in prison barracks on suspicion of having guns with no proof, and sometimes they are beaten until they confess.
LCIs, (local officials) it is your responsibility to follow up if someone is taken from your village or parish and see if they are tortured.”
Brigade Commander listening
Response of the District Police Commissioner:
“If you have two children who are fighting, who will you help and who will you not help when all of them are your children? You talk of security and you want us to provide, but you don’t provide security for your neighbor. Raiding is against the law. We all know it is bad, even though someone said it was good. You want protection from raiding, but it is you who encourage it.”
“We [the government] have come and we are not going back. We are moving forward. An offense is an offense and we are not going to tolerate it. That is all.”
“Your request that we give you guns, I’m not even going to talk about it. We shall not. (People laugh.) Also, walking naked is an offense. Stop walking naked.” (Random…) “As to your complaint that the government is not helping you: If I were you, I would be very grateful for what the government is doing for you. You do not appreciate…Just stop the issue of the gun and leave it to the government.” (Talking and shouting breaks out from the people – Was that a veiled threat?)
(Note: big men take phone calls even when they’re in the middle of giving a speech.)
(I never thought I'd be AGAINST disarmament, but when I had to type up the government's words "As UPDF soldiers, we are here to disarm you even to the last gun," I can't help but feel a seed of revolution germinating. The way the UPDF disarms the people is by the "cordon and search method." This method means that they sneak up on a village and make everyone leave what they're doing so they can search for hidden guns. Sometimes they torture and beat (and even rape) people to get them to tell them where they are hiding the guns. Often there are no guns to find. While the people who DO have guns are out stealing cattle and escaping across borders. The UPDF isn't following them to get the cattle back and recover the guns of the raiders because they are busy searching the villages. An elder suggested at the problem solving meeting that the army follow the raiders rather than searching villages. Then they could even arrest the criminals responsible for cattle raiding. The government had no response.)
Okay, I tried to just give the highlights, but apparently I thought that a lot of what people had to say was important. I hope it made sense. Feel free to ask questions.
Anyway, for those of you who read this far, I hope you’ve gained some knowledge about the problems faced by the Jie tribe of the Karimojong…
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