An Invincible Summer

So. On Saturday, I get on a plane bound for Entebbe, Uganda, where I will spend the next four months of my life.

Well, that's not entirely accurate. On Saturday, I get on a plane in Chicago bound for Logan International Airport, in Boston, where three hours later, I'll fly out to Heathrow, London, where I have a ten-hour layover, after which I'll get on a plane which will land in Entebbe the next morning.

Still. I'M GOING TO UGANDA.

Whew. It's such a relief to say that. Less than 48 hours ago, leaving was much less of a fact and much more a dream that was slipping further and further out of my grasp. Serious financial problems threatened to not only keep me from Uganda, but from school entirely this year, after having sunk nearly $3,600 of my own savings into this trip ($1,800 non-refundable plane tickets, hundreds of dollars in immunizations not covered by insurance... you get the idea). On top of my entire study abroad dream being crushed, my '5-year plan' - graduate with a major and two minors, go to grad school, pay for grad school with the Peace Corps, get a job with an international NGO, finally start my life - seemed like it was about to completely derail. I was looking at a year working at Staples by day and Wal*Mart by night, trying to earn back enough money to maybe get a car and be able to take out a loan on my own to return to school the next year, where I would attempt to scrape something together from the shambles of my education plan.

Luckily, I go to a pretty awesome college, which employs pretty awesome people, who work tirelessly for a week and a half to not only find a loan my mother and I can get approved with, but who save me a bunch of money in the process by reworking my entire financial aid profile to accurately portray the type of financial situation I'm coming from (something I didn't have the power to do myself). Mary Wright, you'll probably never read this, but you are THE greatest person in the entire world. Knox should give you a gigantic raise. At the very least, my first day back in January I'm stopping by your office to thank you in person. And, probably to hug you to death. Prepare yourself.

That's not to mention the loan she actually found was one that my mother had to take out on her own, not one in my name that just needed a cosigner. I'm incredibly lucky my mom was willing to take on the loan without any hesitation, despite her own rocky financial situation (of course, I have every intention to pay it off myself, but still, to put your name on something like that, for somebody else, is a phenomenal favor). Thanks, Mom - really, I am eternally grateful. I love you!

Anyway, that leaves me sitting here, in my bed, listening to Arcade Fire and staring hopelessly at my incomprehensibly messy room, wondering where to even begin packing. The only thing that's ready to go is the bag the parents of another student going on my trip Fed-Exed for me to take for their son. I did dig out my big suitcase - point for me. And the school supplies I bought with my fancy Staples discount are crammed in my new computer backpack, which I scored for way cheap on Amazon. I have some skirts stacked up on my hamper (which explains the dirty clothes all over the floor), but other than that, I haven't done anything else for this trip. I spent two weeks not even daring to hope I'd be able to go, and now I'm afraid I've left too much for the last minute. I haven't even bought everything I need yet (just where in the hell do you go to buy a head lamp anyway?!). However, all of that pales in comparison to not even going on this trip at all, so I'm not complaining.

Anyway, for those of you who don't know, or who are a bit fuzzy on the details, the reason I'm going to Uganda in the first place is to study post-conflict transformation. Like many countries in Africa, Uganda spent decades steeped in violent, bloody turmoil, from which the country is still recovering today. Ethnic tensions between the north and the south of the country have persisted since colonial times. From 1971-1979, Uganda was led by one of the most brutal dictators to emerge from the African continent, a man named Idi Amin. He slaughtered thousands of his own people until being forced into exile by rebels and the Tanzanian army. Still, the country did not know peace. Rebellion against the newly formed government exploded on two fronts, first in the west, with the National Resistance Army, and then in the north, with the Lord's Resistance Army, led by a man named Joseph Kony. Peace treaties have since been signed with the NRA, and fighting has, for the most part, ended in western Uganda. Unfortunately, Joseph Kony and his LRA, while they have been forced into hiding in southern Sudan, continue to operate and remain at large, expanding their reach into Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic.

The strategies ployed by Kony and the LRA are perhaps some of the most infamous in modern conflict. While guerilla warfare is, unfortunately, nothing new, Kony has adapted its tactics to fulfill his own goals: to destabilize the Ugandan government and, more importantly, to build his army. LRA raids often targeted small rural communities in northern Uganda, where they would maim and murder adults and abduct the children. Thousands of Acholi children were taken. The raids from the LRA forced many families to flee from northern Uganda in an effort to survive. This has resulted in hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people in Uganda. IDP camps have sprung up all over the country.

While today Kony has very little hold within the country, his army continues to consist of children he has abducted. Some children are used as pack animals, made to carry the loot the army steals in raids. However, many boys are taught how to handle weapons and fight as child soldiers. They are desensitized to violence, and are taught to inflict it on others, even other abducted children, easily and without second thought. Girls are given as gifts to veterans and LRA higher ups, to be made wives and used for sex. Girls as young as 11 or 12 are made to bear children, and often die from the effort, their bodies ill-prepared from the demands of childbirth.

However, as Joseph Kony remains in hiding in the Sudanese bush, Uganda has begun to know a relative peace, and the time has come for the country to begin healing. It is this process that I am going to study. The School of International Training, or SIT, the provider of my study abroad program, describes its program in Uganda as, "[examining] the origins of the conflict in northern Uganda; issues of identity construction in the Ugandan context; and ongoing efforts by Ugandans to advance peace, community building, and reconciliation." (If you want to take a look at the whole program, check this out: Uganda: Post-Conflict Resolution [Program Overview].) I'll be learning Acholi, a prominent language in northern Uganda, as well as taking two additional classes: the Post-Conflict Seminar, meant to provide contextual understanding of the conflict in northern Uganda and the recovery effort, and the Field Study Seminar, where I'll develop the skills necessary to completing my final, independent study project.


Each student in SIT's Uganda program will, by the end of the four month, complete an ISP, and present it to the other program attendees and the SIT professors. What we do our project about is our choice; I'm hoping to research and present an ISP about the role women play in recovery and community rebuilding efforts. We'll see if that stays the same throughout the program.


In addition to the coursework, I'll also be spending six weeks living with a family in northern Uganda (speaking of, if anyone has any idea what sort of gift I should bring them, I'm desperate for ideas!) I have no idea who they are, what they're like, where they live, or if they have any children, and won't until I'm there. So, stay tuned to find out. Also, I'm be going on several expeditions while in Uganda. Some will be to memorial sites and other towns in northern Uganda, but I'll also be visiting a refugee camp, Murchison Falls National Park (where I'll sail on the Nile!), and spend two weeks in Rwanda doing a comparative case study of the 1994 genocide.


Congratulations if you've made it this far - really, I wasn't intending to make this first post very long. But, I guess it'll make up for all the time I'll spend in Uganda with limited internet access. I'll be super busy, so this will have to do for a while.


Preparing for this entire experience has been incredibly draining, both physically and mentally. Honestly, I don't feel ready to leave. I'm immeasurably sad about all the people I'm leaving behind, who I really won't have much of a chance to talk to for the next few months. I'm creating this blog so that when I do get online, I have a way to communicate with everyone I need to, without driving myself mad trying to send off personal messages to everyone who wants to know what I've been up to, how I'm doing, if I'm alive and safe. Know that I will miss you all very, very much, and I'll be thinking of you the entire time I'm away.


But, while I'm incredibly sad and unprepared to leave, the effort it has taken to get to this point has been so overwhelming and so seemingly insurmountable that I know I'm meant to go. And I shall keep this knowledge tucked in the back of my mind, secure, ready to be remembered when I'm far away on a different continent, immersed in a completely foreign culture and it feels like I am totally, utterly alone - because, as Albert Camus once wrote, "In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."


Here we go.