Three Birds on a Wire

I'm so proud of all the girls at our camp; These young ladies have come from schools or homes that disapprove of honest and creative expression, keep them feeling inferior to men and discourage negative behaviour by harsh beatings.

We, as staff and counselors, have been so lucky to watch these (normally very quiet and submissive) young ladies freely use their talents to learn, to share, to paint, to draw, to sing, to dance and to express themselves.


The guest speakers have all mentioned the way women respond to questions here: Heads down, whispering voices, no eye contact. Any other form of address from a young woman is seen as disrespectful. Rehmah Kasule, who wrote "From Gomba to the White House", came today to speak to us about her challenges and successes as a female Ugandan entrepreneur. After her speech, she gave this riddle: "There are three birds sitting on a wire. Two decide to fly away. How many remain?" The answer is: There are still three. The two birds only "decided" to fly away, they didn't actually take action. She ended with saying that as women, we can decide to do many wonderful, enlightened and empowered things. But the most important thing is to follow our words and good intentions with action.

GLOWing with good speakers

Jane Alowoyo, a 17-year veteran lecturer from the Department of Language and Communication at Makerere University, came yesterday to speak to the young ladies about effective communication. She gave a wonderful speech after lunch about our different styles of talking. She highlighted Ugandan and American patterns of interacting with each other and really sparked lively discussions with her role plays of giving directions.

Ugandan directions: Oh yes, let me tell you, you walk down the road and turn at the mango tree, then when you see the ant hill, go up that way. You'll see another road on your right, it'll have many trees nearby. Don't go that way. When you get to the next trading center....

American directions: Doyouhaveamap?AtTheNextLightMakeARightAndWalkDownThatStreetFor5MinutesThenMakeALeftAt....

The campers and counselors LOVED having her.

Visit our website to see more! Camp GLOW Uganda 2010 :)

HIV/AIDS Part II: Women and HIV

December 1 2010 marks the 22nd annual WORLD AIDS DAY.This year's theme is "Universal Access and Human Rights."

Visit WORLD AIDS DAY and see what's going on in the world.

________________

Biologically and culturally women are more at risk for contracting HIV/AIDS. In the case of Uganda, a country where women are still seen as inferior to men, women are still fighting the status quo to keep themselves and their children safe from HIV.

[ I think America does a pretty good job of "saying" otherwise but not really completely settling in to gender equality. I'd like to take ask all of the women who read this blog. Do you feel equally capable of doing the same things as a man? Do you feel treated the same as your male counterpart? ]

In the Life Skills class that Sister Emma and I taught at the local vocational school we found that many young ladies are still being given false information about their bodies and about HIV/AIDS. Many of them didn't know that it is, in fact, incurable. Others didn't understand how the virus functioned in their bodies and some were just speechless when we talked about the myths that they have been told since childhood.

"At the end of 2009 it was estimated that out of the 33.3 million adults worldwide living with HIV and AIDS, more than half are women. It is suggested that 98 percent of these women live in developing countries. The AIDS epidemic has had a unique impact on women, which has been exacerbated by their role within society and their biological vulnerability to HIV infection. "

Taken from AVERT

Here are some of the reasons that woman are more at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS:

1. Unequal gender rights

2. Rape

3. Not being able to negotiate condom use:

Men and women in Uganda enjoy large families. If a man wants to continue having children, he will not listen to a wife who wants to use a condom.

4. Forced sex in marriage:

It is a woman's duty in Uganda to please their husband, he has already paid the bride price for marriage, and it's considered part of the bargain.

5. Widow inheritance:

This practice is still common in Uganda. After the husband dies, the wife and all of the deceased's property are handed over to his brother.

6. Female circumcision:

Not very common in the Central region of Uganda, though there are male circumcision ceremonies in the East.

7. Early marriage:

There are many young girls who are forced to marry young. Being young, they are more likely to tear their vaginas during sex.

8. Biological factors that cause women to be 2x more likely to become infected than men during unprotected sex.

Happy Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving celebration began with a mass organized by Sister Valentine. My friends and i went into the mass a little leery about how long it would be (Pumpkin Pies were in the oven, waiting to be eaten! Mass in Uganda can be 3 hours!--don't judge me too harshly people.) To begin with, we were the only 6 participants, until, in true Ugandan fashion, people began trickling in after it started. Before we arrived at mass, we were asked to write the intentions so to begin mass, Father Edward pulled out the handwritten list, stumbled over my poor handwriting and proceeded to pray for our community in Uganda and America. My friend John, from the east, read the first reading from the Book of the Apocalypse. We listened to tales of the end times and tried to look forward to things to be thankful for. The rest of the Thanksgiving Mass was taken from a 1984 American Prayerbook that Father found somewhere since Ugandan Prayerbooks don't include Thanksgiving. He apologized after mass for the old edition and promised that a newer version was on its way!

The homily was about how Americans say thank you and Ugandans don't. After mass we found ourselves exclaiming our disagreement! Ugandans do say thank you. They always express their gratitude and appreciation. They just also include a request for more of whatever they received, especially from foreigners. Walking down the village roads, i see moms telling their children to run up to us to ask for money or sweeties. It's something they're taught from childhood, that foreigners have money and they want to share it. It's mostly true. I appreciated Sister Valentine's desire to show her love and support for our American holiday, traditions and our friendships, in ways she knows how to express her committment to friendship, in this instance through a Thanksgiving mass.



For more exciting stories from Thanksgiving 2010, visit: Amanda's Blog

HIV/AIDS Part 1

World AIDS Day is coming up, 1 December. And in our Life Skills classes we've just finished the learning activities on HIV/AIDS. The class at the university goes in-depth about transmission, immune system response, origin, stigma, myths, and healthy living. The Life Skills class at the vocational school is a little more basic, focusing on transmission and debunking the popular myths that float around about why or how people get HIV/AIDS in Uganda. I thought I'd share some of the general information:

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS)

TRANSMISSION:
There are four main fluids that transmit HIV: blood, semen, vaginal fluids and breast milk. These fluids can pass through mucous membranes (on genitals, nose, eyes, mouth, anus) and through cuts or openings in your skin. (Sweat and tears do not carry HIV; saliva has such trace amounts that you would have to swallow liters of it to be at a small risk; cerebrospinal fluid carry trace amounts as well.)

HIV can be passed on by:
1. Having sex without a condom
2. Contact with infected blood
3. Injecting drugs/re-using needles
4. Mother to child (during pregnancy, during delivery or during breast feeding)

IMMUNE SYSTEM RESPONSE:
HIV targets the CD4 helper cell (the part of the immune system that coordinates defense.) After some crazy cellular moves, HIV gets the CD4 cell to replicate its viral DNA INSTEAD of its normal function (defending the body and producing other CD4 cells.) CD4 counts determine how compromised your immune system is.

Without Anti-Retroviral Treatment (ART or ARVs), eventually the amount of HIV will almost fully suppress the immune system, (the person now has AIDS), leaving the body susceptible to death from many different types of infections or AIDS-related cancers.

ORIGIN:
The most accepted theory is that humans first got HIV from chimpanzees in Cameroon in the mid 1900's. These chimps had Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) and the virus was transferred to humans probably through hunting or eating chimp meat.

(There are many different theories and time lines of HIV origin, please take a minute to check online for more information.)

MYTHS:(these are not true)
There is a cure for HIV/AIDS and its only available to people in the Western nations
If you have sex with a virgin, you can be cured of HIV/AIDS
You can get HIV/AIDS from hugging or kissing someone with HIV/AIDS

IN UGANDA:
Two thirds of all HIV infections occur in sub-Saharan Africa. In Uganda, the first AIDS cases were reported in the early 1980s, it was known as the "slimming" disease because of the wasting away of the body of most people who had it. Today, about 1.1 million people in Uganda have HIV/AIDS.

I could keep unloading lots of terrible numbers about the situation here, but suffice it to say it affects everyone. Unfortunately, the numbers are on the rise, mostly in married couples. The feeling is that Ugandans are accustomed to hearing about HIV and have become desensitized about its effects.

IN USA:
At the end of 2006 about 1.1 million people were living with HIV. In 2008 Texas had 2, 924 people living with AIDS, making Texas the fourth highest state with people living with AIDS (after California, Florida and New York.) It’s estimated that about 53,000 Americans become infected with HIV each year.

Please take a moment to visit the following websites for more information:

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/
www.who.int/hiv/
www.avert.org
www.aidsuganda.org

"Mosi-oa-Tunya"

"The Smoke That Thunders" : the falls that are on the border of southern Zambia and Zimbabwe

When we were driving in the taxi from the Lusaka (capitol) airport, the first thing to be noticed was the dry dry everything. Of course they are in the dry season, so it makes sense. Lusaka is also a beautiful city that looks like an American suburb. There were strip malls! Boulevards! Street lights that work! It felt strange to be in such an organized city. Strange but good...

Amanda and I went to Livingstone, the tourist town near Victoria Falls and stayed at Faulty Towers, a nice hostel that we discovered, after an awkward misunderstanding of the joke behind our hostel and a Google search later, is named after a British comedy.

We drove the short trip to Vic Falls National Park in a truck with outside seats (the kind for safaris.) I thought it was appropriate for all the white people to be on display driving through Livingstone. I hope someone took our picture for a really prestigious magazine about cultural/financial diversity.

We signed up for the breakfast tour of the falls. Sometime in late morning we were anxiously swimming across a very cold Zambezi river. We reached the edge of the falls, marveled at the sights. When they showed us the "devil's pool" we were meant to JUMP into, Amanda and I began regretting our decision to pay so much money to fall off the edge of the world. Somehow, we decided to jump in and there we were at the top of Victoria Falls. After our swim, feeling brave, we had a surreal experience at breakfast. There was incredibly delicious food (a little bit of food on a really big plate, that always makes me feel like I'm in a fancy place, in my little head, extra plate space equals extravagance), white napkins, silver silverware, bacon, waiters and waitresses tuned to our every move. Money, blah. We snuck food for later.

The next morning was a scheduled elephant ride. Geez. The elephants were cute and scary. It made me wish I had been an explorer with my very own elephant (an explorer without the desire to colonize.) But I probably wouldn't really like it. When we were walking around Vic Falls admiring the greatness of water, there were at least 50 baboons strolling around like they owned the place and I would have appreciated some people-appropriate primate control… especially when I thought one was going to jump on me and almost started crying.

Northern Zambia was just as dry. We went to Chishimba Falls, more stunning vistas and the sound of loud water. We went fabric shopping. We had nshima and beans with our friends family. We call nshima posho in Uganda. Any way you look at it, it's an inexpensive, tasteless mush made outta corn that people use to spoon up a sauce or relish (like beans, meat, greens.) Its not half bad, just can't think of any other word besides "mush" to describe it.

It was exciting to be on an adventure in another African country. If you ever get the chance, take it. You're gonna love it.

http://www.zambiatourism.com/travel/places/victoria.htm

Happy Day Matre

Victoria Falls, Zambia

Feliz Cumpleanos Mama! I love you and can't wait til you're hanging out with me in Uganda... muah!