Christmas in Uganda

Christmas in Uganda

25^th December 2006
Participating in different cultures is one of the more rewarding volunteer experiences. The way they celebrate birthdays, weddings Christmases and mourn at a loved one's departing are all part of the experience. I've already been fortunate enough to experience Filipino Christmases, weddings and birthdays. I attended a birthday party in Ghana, and a funeral in Uganda.

I have yet to experience a personal birthday abroad, which is a bit of a shame as I have already experienced thirty-three of them in New Zealand. My most recent birthday was quite nice though.

Mzungu Style
The first Christmas party I attended was very Mzungu (white person or foreigner) style. It was held at a compound in Lugazi where Gigi is based. Gigi and a new volunteer called Mai prepared the food and we sat around all day, ate and drank beer and soda.

It was relaxing and it was nice. They plan was to stay for the evening. Earlier that day I had moved to Rose's place. I had packed up my stuff to take to Rose's but completely to forget to pack something for the overnight stay, so I had to sleep in my clothes on the floor. I was quite stinky the next day.

Despite it being Mzungu style, that didn't mean we couldn't invite Ugandans as well. All the people that we work with were invited to come along. I got yakking to some of the female Ugandans and the topic of my desire to not get married and having kids came up. One lady got quite upset with me and thought I was being very selfish.

You have all this money and yet you refuse to have a wife and a child with whom you could share it with? Selfish!

Uganda seems like a different world to the one I am most use to. Sometimes I think I get it, but then it wriggles away again.

Some people planned to return to their respective homes in the early evening, but the roads were super busy with people wanting to return to their own homes and villages for Christmas and it was impossible to get a taxi. So everybody had to pile onto various mats and blankets and crash out for the evening. I went to bed at around 2 a.m.

Gigi made pancakes in the morning. Legend.

Ugandan Style
Christmas day itself was spent with Rose in Jinja.

In the morning I went to church with her. The church service was very similar to the ones I used to attend in New Zealand.

There were some Singaporeans (one of whom was the minister) and some Chinese present throughout the service. It was nice to see some Asian people. Reminded me, yet again, of how much I miss the Philippines.

One lovely Singaporean lady called Sarah tried evangelising me after the service. I didn't want to get into an argument (discussion?) with her after the Christmas day service, so I grunted, smiled and gave half answers to her questions.

Which was quite a bit different to the discussion I had with a gentleman on a Mutatu the other day. He asked if he could share his faith, and I said it was fine as long as it was a discussion and not a sermon. He promptly launched into a sermon.

I don't usually like discussing religion with Africans. For the most part their faith is simple and beautiful. I wish I could have a faith like theirs sometimes. But this guy was annoying. So I launched into a full offensive and argued and harangued and pointed out my problems with the church and God. I quoted Bible verses at him and cornered him nicely with 1 Samuel 15, which talks about God ordering a tribe to commit genocide. After some back and forth he said that genocide is "sometimes okay". I told him that I wanted no part of a church that considers genocide "sometimes okay".

I think everyone has their own little arguments that either prove or disprove religious ideas. I have my own that strike at the heart of religion. That's not to say religion is "dumb". Some of the people I most admire in the world are cleverer than me and have very strong faiths. It is just not for me.

*End unexpected rant*

After the service we went back home and had some lunch that Rose had prepared. One of our friends called David also arrived for lunch. Seemed kinda cool that there was Rose (a strong Christian lady), David (a devout Muslim) and me (a rampant Atheist) all sitting down and enjoying a lunch on Christmas day.

In the evening we wandered over to another families house for supper.

It seems as if Jinja has little pockets of Acholi (a tribe from the north that Rose belongs to) people within it. It was such a family that we had supper with. The food was nice and the people were nice, but the thing I enjoyed most of all was talking to people about the north and the problems that the Acholi face.

I used to think I knew a lot about the Acholi people but I am starting to realise that I am pretty much just another dumb, ignorant white guy in a land I don't understand. I talked a bit about this in relation to the Liberian people over here.

Still, little by little I'm attempting to decrease my ignorance.

Take the IDP camps in Kitgum for example. Silly me thought of them as places of haven for the Acholi. If you're not safe in your own village, then you come to somewhere like the IDP camps. Turns out though that that is only half the story at best. The people at the Christmas party talked about them more akin to concentration camps. The government forced them there and a forcing them to stay.

They forced them there all those years ago so that the land would no longer be worked and that, therefore, the rebels would no longer have an abundant food source to plunder. It would also make it a lot harder for the rebels to recruit more soldiers to their cause.

And it is not as if the government does a good job of protecting them anyway. In recent times, the few soldiers that have had the job of protecting the thousands of residents live right in the center of the camp. This gives them a safe location and allows them to bolt at the first sign of trouble.

They residents of the IDP camp are forced to stay as the government soldiers in particular are making money in all sorts of way from them. The story of the git who distributes food aid is a good example of this.

There is also talk that the IDP camps will be converted into an urban center. Schools, hospitals and proper facilities have all been promised to be built around the IDP camps. Crops will be planted where the locals can get gainful employment. On the surface this all sounds like a good idea, but scratch just a little and the whole thing fall apart.

The government is trying to sell the Acholi land to foreign investors. They have no right to do that - it is not their land. A good way to keep the Acholi from their land and simplify the whole land protest thing is to keep them in the IDP camps. So instead of having the option to sell and profit from their own land, they are forced to work on plantations and earn stuff all money in the process.

Even in the current peace talks succeed, there is still going to be this land issue. The Acholi people are very angry and want to defend their land. One politician had threatened to stab any foreign investor with a spear if he says any in the north.

Sometimes I just feel like weeping for the Acholi people. They are forever wandering from one disaster into another. Idi Amin, the Karamajong, the LRA and now the impeding land grab issue...

Christmas was nice though. It was good just to hang with some Ugandans for a bit. Which is how it is going to for me going forward for the last five (!) weeks of my stay here. Plenty of Ugandan company. Very limited contact with Mzungu.

Do you like the work that I am doing?

Wanna help in a real and tangible way?

Then visit GrassRootsUganda.com and purchase some crafts made by Ugandan ladies. 100% of the profits are returned to the ladies

Questions? Comments? Try contacting me.
Wanna receive an email whenever this site gets updated? Click here.

(c) 2005, 2006 and 2007 Malcolm Trevena.
All the stuff on this site is written by me, Malcolm Trevena. Feel free to link to this page. Heck, you can even copy stuff from here if you want. Just make sure you sight me as a reference.