'Going Native', Xrays and Male Nudity

The other day was fantastic. I went with an NGO based on the outskirts of Gulu whilst they went to buy drums for their music-therapy course they do for former abductees. This involved driving for about an hour and a half north from Gulu. After around 50 minutes the roads ran out, and we were driving through grass taller than the car along mud paths that had been made by people walking over them; there wasn’t a road when we got there, but after the van had ploughed through there certainly was. We eventually stopped by a dense forest. After a few beeps of the horn, a man in tattered shorts emerged from the woods and greeted us all. He then led us through the bushes and trees into the forest, eventually emerge at a clearing with three huts in it. He said something in Acholi which was translated to me as “welcome to my village”. I was then asked if we had villages in England! “Not like this” I said!

The sole inhabitants of this ‘village’ were the man in the shorts, his two wives who were busy making local alcohol called Uragi, made from Potatoes, Sorghum, Cassava and other root vegetables, and his 6 children, all with massive protruding stomachs, which I presume was from their having worms or some sort of malnourishment. The NGO people chatted for a while in Acholi and numerous drums made from hollowed out pumpkins were bought. One of the wives bought me a glass of the alcohol she was brewing. I was a little wary of trying it as I had read stories in the news about people going blind or dying from drinking local moonshine, but I didn’t want to offend and drank some. It was like being punched in the face it was so strong, and my nose began to run! It was also warm, and so all in all, combined to make a fairly unpleasant experience! We sat around for a while whilst the NGO workers tried out the various drums and the children stared at me fascinated. The area was so remote I wouldn’t be surprised if they hadn’t seen a white person before.

On Thursday I arrived in Mbale, South Eastern Uganda, near the Kenyan border. The journey took 8 hours by bus and involved the man next to me constantly falling asleep on my shoulder. I reached the hotel my friend Frank was staying at, but he was at work, so I asked the receptionist for directions to town. He insisted one of the staff would take me, and so I ended up with an impromptu guided tour of the town. Turns out my guide is also one of the DJs at Mbale’s only nightclub, and I have now have free entry for life at the club (admittedly its only 80p to get in anyway, but the gesture was impressive).

Mbale is beautiful with a looming mountain forming the backdrop for the town. It is spacious, green and considerably less dusty and grimy than Gulu. It has supermarkets, many large shops and a feeling of prosperity. Also, my hotel room has hot water, so I had a warm shower for the first time since July 12th! We met up with Frank in the evening and had some drinks at a really nice bar with a swimming pool, nice grounds and numerous pool tables (all of which worked, had cloth on, and had more than one cue, thus making them a huge improvement on Gulu’s offerings!). However, sitting with 5 people from Southern Uganda, I discovered firsthand some of the views of the Acholi and the Northern Ugandan people I had been hearing and reading about. One person said, after asking me what Gulu was like, “I fear the Acholi, they are very much fear for me”. I said they are very friendly people and he seemed unbelieving and laughed. Another person said that the in the north “the people are primitive”, and she cannot visit because the men will rape her.


Later on, as we were leaving another bar, I trod on a step that was broken and turned my ankle. It swelled up hugely and the pain was fairly immense, so after 20 minutes sitting on the street I decided to visit a clinic. It so happened that the wall I was sitting against belonged to the only clinic still open in Mbale which was a stroke of luck. The doctor told me he suspected it was dislocated or fractured but no X-ray facilities were available until morning, and thus he wanted to give me Intravenous painkillers and I should come back in the morning. It wasn’t the cleanest clinic I’d ever seen in my life and so I declined the injections and took painkiller tablets, which were amazing! I felt fantastic after they kicked in, I may bring some back to sell in the UK!!

The next morning after no sleep due to the pain I went back for an X-ray, riding the motorbike with only one leg, and every bump it went over causing shooting pain up my leg. The doctor sent me for an X-ray which was down the street, so I had to hop down the road, supported by my tour guide from the day before (who was amazing, having stayed with me the whole time while I was at the doctors and constantly rubbed my head saying “you will be ok, you will be fine”). Needless to say the site of a Mzungu hopping down the street was fascinating to everyone I passed and so yet again I provided inadvertent comedy for the Ugandans! I waited for around an hour for the X-ray person to turn up as I was informed “he is sleeping but soon he will come”. I passed the time by admiring the array of stunning nurses at the clinic; the NHS could certainly learn a thing or two from Mbale’s nursing recruitment methods!



Eventually I was informed that it wasn’t broken but that I had done “ligaments damage” and more injections were offered, declined and then tablets given instead. I spent the whole next day in bed as the pills knocked me out, woken by around hourly visits from the hotel staff to check I was ok. They also went to a local restaurant and bought me lunch in bed. They suggested that instead of resting they could bring “a local healer. He will grab and twist and then all will be better”. I declined again, preferring to stick to pills, sleep and feeling sorry for myself.

The next morning I felt ok to hobble and they gave me a rather natty red, green and yellow walking stick to use. They now call me Moo-zay (no idea how this is spelt, but that’s how it is said) which means old man in Luganda, due to my feeble attempts at walking with a stick! I hobbled with Frank’s film crew for breakfast down the road this morning, and it was certainly worth the pain and effort. For £1 I had a plate with beef, chapatti, plantain, salad, potatoes and peanut sauce; THE best breakfast I’ve had so far in Uganda (That description was for you Mr. Simon Poole!)
One of the film crew had a child with her, and he refused to finish his breakfast. In England, perhaps the parent would have said “there are children starving in Africa, you should eat it”. Here this was adapted to “there are children starving in Karamoja, and you waste food? You must eat”. Karamoja being the unstable and very poor North-Eastern region of Uganda. I found it very amusing that the same emotional parental blackmail was adapted for a Ugandan context!

I spent the day sitting watching the film crew shoot a scene for their film in the hotel and taking some pictures. The film is about the unique circumcision ceremony the Gesho Tribe (no idea how this is spelt, pronunciation is Guh-show) of Mbale hold every two years. The film is apparently about the main character who is Gesho but ran away from being circumcised when he was a child, and comes back later and marries a Gesho woman, who then discovers he is uncircumcised and insists he has the procedure before “they can go any further” (as it was explained to me by the director!). Apparently the title roughly translates into English as “Blood is Thicker than Water”, and has been commissioned by an American distribution company to be translated into English too.



As part of the filming we went to the house of a Moo-zay (a village elder) who is one of the main characters in a few scenes of the film. It turns out his son had actually been circumcised only the day before as part of the ceremonies. We sat for a while, with a big discussion happening in Lugandan between some of the film crew and the Moo-Zay and his people. I just sat trying to nod at what felt like appropriate times, but I have no idea whether I achieved this or not! Eventually I heard the word Mzungu so I knew I was being talked about, and my interest pricked. It was then translated to me that the Moo-Zay had said “now that I have come to their place, there is no more tribalism and I am family”, to which I had intended to say ‘thank you very much’ in Lugandan, but ending up saying, due to tiredness, “Kale” which means ‘you’re welcome’, which I was concerned may have sounded like I was saying they should feel welcome a Mzungu had visited them! However, I was shortly after passed a jug from which most of the assembled family members had been drinking, so I assume I hadn’t caused offence. Although, after tasting the drink, I began to think maybe it was a punishment after all! It was made from Maize flour, and looked like (and I imagine tasted like too) the Gruel from the Oliver Twist films. I mimed drinking a lot, but only had a sip!



My welcome grew even fonder when I was invited to meet the son who had just been circumcised. Frank placed some money in my hand and whispered that after meeting the boy I had to give it to him. I expected a good old British handshake with the boy, maybe some sort of “well done old boy, bloody good job on having your penis snipped and all that. Stout fellow” (you know, that kind of standard post-penile operation banter!). Instead, I walked in, greeted the boy and his brother, only for his brother to pull up the sarong the boy had around his lower half to reveal his penis to me. My first thought was “dear god, I’m looking at a 13 year old boy’s penis, I wonder if there is room in Gary Glitter’s gang for me”, followed shortly by “oh my Christ, that looks so painful!” and finally, gathering my thoughts to foolishly say “ouch”. I’m not sure if ouch even translates into Luganda, and honestly I hope it doesn’t because it’s a stupid thing to say anyway, but I challenge anyone to think of something better to say when unwittingly confronted by a 13 year old Ugandan boy’s post-op penis.

Next, the brother said “you take snap”, so I posed with the boy, his mother, and his brother (still holding his skirt aloft), and the result, as you see below, is me looking rather awkward whilst holding the hand of an exposed 13 year old. Pretty sure this isn’t the average experience of a visitor to Uganda!


Later on, whilst filming another scene, Frank thought it would be a good opportunity to dress me up in all of the circumcision garb that the boys have to wear, so below is another picture of me looking quite uncomfortable. The reason for such discomfort is not that I am dressed like a tit, for this is something I am fairly used to, but rather because behind the camera, there were about 12 Ugandans laughing at my feeble attempt to pull of their traditional clothing!


Part of the scene being filmed was for everybody to be eating for the post-ceremony celebration. However, there doesn’t traditionally tend to be many white people at such ceremonies, so I was given my food earlier whilst he crew were setting up. I liked to think it was because they knew I was really hungry, but I know it was actually because they wanted the Mzungu out of the way so they could film. The problem with this was that the whole cast for this scene, 35 Ugandans from the surrounding villages, was waiting to be filmed, sitting very bored, and very hungry waiting for the meal they had been promised after the scene had been shot. This therefore resulted in me sitting, stuffing my face, with 35 Ugandans staring hungrily on! I think the sight of a white person eating local food with his hands (and making a right mess of doing so!) would have been cause enough to gawp, but coupled with their hunger, and the fact that someone insisted I sit amongst all the circumcised boys in their skirts (to prevent chaffing I’m told!), it really felt I was an unwilling celebrity for about half an hour. Eating rice with your hands is hard enough at the best of times, let alone when every grain you swallow is being watched with the keenest of interest by a multitude of hungry Ugandans!

The film crew and I went out to a trade fair in Mbale one night. They had lots of stalls selling various things, live music, lots of bars in tents and food sellers everywhere. The evening was a lot of fun, and everyone got pretty drunk. Frank’s girlfriend and I ended up having an argument about the existence of god, which was fairly interesting as she is a born-again Christian! I don’t remember a great deal of it, but we were still friends the next morning so I can only assume we didn’t fall out over it!

Born During War

I came back from using the internet and found Jackie sitting on one of the outside tables looking outstandingly bored. She greeted me as usual “welcome, you are back!”, and pulled out a chair for me at her table indicating to sit. We made the usual small talk about how are days had been, and I bought a beer for me and a soda for her. After the niceties about how hot is was, and how I am slowing turning less Mzungu (white) were over, there was a awkward silence. Jackie filled it a moment or two later;

‘You know my name is Jackie Amoyne. Amoyne means born during war. In my village the day I was born the rebels had been fighting with our people. They came and eight of my family hid in our house. My mother started to go into labour, I was coming very soon. My father ran with her and took her to the empty water barrel because it had been very dry so there was no rain inside. She gave me while she was hiding in there, and nobody knew. They were fighting for three hours. My father had to jump through the window to get back to the house. There were bombs and guns going everywhere. After I was born and my mother and family ran away with me, but as they were running they met with a rebel. He pointed the gun at my mother’s heart and said ‘you should not run. Where are you going? You should go back and see what we have done’. My mother said that she was not running, that she lived in the very next village and was going home. The rebel let us pass.

When I was at school the rebels came and took all of Senior 1 and 2 (class for children aged around 15-18), there was only Senior 3 and 4 left. They took everybody. The man kept 22 for his wife, the best ones, and killed all the others (I asked who the man was, to which I was told ‘the man, him. Kony’). They have all come back now, they have many children, some of them 3. You have to be very careful with them, they have bad mental. If you say bad words to them they can be very angry with you.

In the village the rebels would come, and they would not want to waste their guns. The guns were for fighting the army. So they would hit you with hoes, and kill you in the head. Sometime they would tie you with the rope like they tie the goat, and they would tie a woman with a man, and kill the man, so the wife was left next to the dead body.

They would tie many people together, put you in a line. They killed 300. They were in a line, and they would hit from both ends, until everybody was dead. They would come and say they want women, then they would cut off their breasts and leave them. They would hold their lips together and cut them off, and say ‘you don’t talk to anybody’. They would burn all the houses.

At night if you hear they are coming to the village you go to the centre and hide, and run so fast. If they are in the centre you go the bush and you sleep. There was no food there in the bush, you had to eat some leaves, any that were instead of food. If they are in Lacor (about 7km outside Gulu) you would run and run, some people took suitcases but why? You have to just run and hide. In the village they would make an alarm if they are coming.

Since my birthday (1988) until 2004 I have struggled, always there was war, so hard.’

After Jackie had finished telling me some of the more horrible parts, she would giggle and look at the sky, tut and then tell me some more.

She paused for a moment or two and just looked out onto the street. ‘You go to sleep now’ she said. She had said all that she wanted to say.

Dinner with the Family & Down A Rebel Highway

On Saturday I went for dinner with the family in For God again. Regina the 10 year old came running out and jumped up and hugged me when I arrived which was a nice welcome. Regina then showed me all the pictures she has drawn and some stories she has written. She is very good at drawing for a 10 year old. Lucy (the mother) then showed me her photo album. She has met the pope which is a pretty cool thing to be able to say! Many of the pictures were of her two husbands, both of whom were killed. Susanna (the semi-adopted daughter of Lucy, who is aged 21) and I then went for what I thought was going to be a nice stroll around the village, but ended up being about a 6km walk to a ‘beach’ that has been made about 7km outside Gulu. It’s in fact a small lake, with a moth-eaten wooden boat tied up on it advertising “boat ride 1,000”. I imagine if you summed up the courage and paid the 1,000 it would be more of a stand in a boat, watch as boat sinks, fall in, swim back to the side, be annoyed experience than an actual ride. Some may consider that UGX 1,000 (30p) is about a fair price for this kind of experience, but I stuck to drinking a Fanta instead.

When we got back dinner was served. One of the items served, a bitter green vegetable, was possibly one of the most disgusting tasting things I have ever eaten in my life (and I’ve eaten dog before!). It had been put on my plate though, and I didn’t want to seem rude, so I ate it very quickly to get it over and done with. Unfortunately, this was understood as ‘he’s eaten that all already, he must really like it, let’s give him another massive portion of it’. Lucy then bought a cup through with “oil from grinded tree nuts” in it, which she said made the green stuff taste even better and she poured liberally over the green-ness. Unfortunately, she was misinformed; it in fact made the green stuff rate even higher up my list of ‘things to NEVER EVER eat again, even if it’s massively rude’. Aside from this, and being told the meat served was “beef meat” when it in fact was tuna, the meal was very acceptable. It seems however that Ugandans eat massive portions, and I myself don’t eat very much, especially not when confronted with a plate of Carbs. I ate all that was given (which was hard as I felt massively full) but refused seconds. Lucy got very concerned as she was worried that my “parents will think I have not been feeding you and be cross with me”. At this point I made up some elaborate lie about how I was sick when I was younger and so I can’t eat very much food at one time. She seemed satisfied by this. Sometimes a lie is better than the truth.

I had bought my camera to their house and offered to take pictures for them, which I could print in the UK and post to them. I had meant pictures of them, but little Emmanuel interpreted it to mean anything he could every possibly want a picture of. So I now have a camera full of pictures of Michael Jackson taken from the TV, the Virgin Mary, taken from various posters they have on their wall. I also have some nice ones of the family too though, so I shall make sure I shall post those. In return, Lucy is going to make me local chilli powder and ‘sim sim paste’ (like peanut butter) to take back to ‘my mother’ so she can ‘cook it for’ me! Lucy also found it hilarious to give me a small chilli and tell me that it is not very hot, to which I put the whole thing in my mouth, and instantly started sweating, my eyes watered and I went bright red. “It is very hot really” she laughed as I gasped for air. This apparently passes for comedy in For God!
Yesterday I travelled with my friend Sunday Ojara who is the teacher at the school where I sat in on the music class. We went to his village called Lukome (pronounced Loo-Ko-May), which is 10 miles North of Gulu. He drove me on a motorbike he hired, and gave a running commentary of our surroundings along our journey, which took about an hour as the roads were horrendous quality, with huge gulleys and potholes the whole way. Sunday informed me how people were slowing moving back to this area from the Camps, and how it had once been a rebel hotspot, as it took them between two points. Driving along it was hard to imagine how afraid and isolated people must have felt taking this route, as the narrow dirt road is surrounded either side by tall grass which reaches well above head height. There could be a group of rebels just 1 metre away from the side of the road and you would have no idea until it was too late. The empty houses and neglected farm patches are testament to the fear that pervaded amongst the communities along this route.

As we neared Lukome, Sunday pointed out a neglected house that was falling apart, and some ramshackle huts on the opposite side of the road. He said “This is where my uncle and family lived. They are all dead now”. I sensed this was a bit of a trip down memory lane for him. We also visited the house where his grandma lives. She is a very elderly lady and can no longer walk, and so she has to crawl around hunched over. She is alone now, and clearly struggles with life. She asked Sunday for some money as she would like to eat some meat which she couldn’t afford. He had no money with him, so I gave her UGX10,000 (£3.50). She was absolutely delighted, as she had only been expecting UGX500 (15p) from Sunday. She asked that Sunday go to town and buy her all the things she was wanting, as with so much money she could get everything she was missing.

We reached Lukome proper, and he took me to a statue that commemorated a massacre carried out by the LRA in 2004. They overran the Ugandan Army contingent that was supposed to be protecting the village (as so often was the case with LRA attacks, the Ugandan Army was unable or perhaps unwilling to protect the villagers in their care), and massacred the whole village, burning all their houses to the ground. The statue only lists the names of the bodies that could be found, but Sunday informs me that many more were killed, but the violence was so extreme their bodies weren’t found. One of the people listed shares the same surname as Sunday but I didn’t want to enquire whether it was a relative of his.
Lukome really had the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere. The trading centre which used to be busy now consists of three buildings, one of which is completely destroyed with grass growing inside to the height of where the roof would be if it hadn’t long since collapsed. Another building housed a shop that sold such a varied array of items I can only assume it was the only shop for quite a distance. As we left town a meeting was being held, attended by maybe 30 people, which Sunday told me was a land dispute. When young rebels return from the bush, their parents have often been killed, and so they have no way of knowing or proving where their land is located, so these disputes are very common. From my research, they seem to be one of the major challenges associated with the reintegration of former rebels, but like everything else I have experienced in Gulu and its surrounds, these intense and emotional disputes are dealt with with restraint, understanding and civility.