For the past months every body was talking about the commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (Chogm) which was held in Kampala city,

In preparations the city was renovated, cleaned, flowers were planted on the sides of the road, new hotels built, building were renovated security was put on alert, and so many other activities done during the preparation time.

Chogm was consisted of different meetings the main meeting was that of the Heads of state which they talked about the climate change and agreed that its serious threat to both poor countries and the small islands, but failed to find a simple solution to combat it.

Some of the solutions which I saw they tried to talk about it was that of encouraging developed industrial countries to take a lead in cutting emissions of green house glasses,

These climate issue it’s a serious issue needed to be talked out in every international conference because it’s a serious threat which can undermine the continuing efforts to archive the millennium development goals, I am inviting all people most especially Ugandans to uplift the cause of climate change by campaigning about it in every environmental conference and encourage the major emitters to reduce green houses so that we can uplift the millennium development goals plus the health standards of the communities in poor countries, let us join together, I believe every individual has power to make good things happen in the communities, with the help of the living God we are to make it

Preparation to host the commonweath summit(chogm) has changed kampala followers has been grown on the roads of the city and this has made it beatiful, roads have been changed like entebbe road and jinja roads now days i like the way they have been changed, hotels have been built, at first to the local people Chogm was seen as curse becausing of the suffering it has brought to many ugandans during preparation, kiosks on entebbe roads were removed some boats on lake victoria and the clouser of some big roads to enable repairs to take place which at first made chogm a curse to ugandans because the blocking of major roads caused traffic jam in the city and delayed travelling plus the price increased for the taxes, many were urging that they suffer but very few may beneffit from Chogm

Millions of people in kampala and around kampala are preparing for the big conference of commonwealth countries to be held in kampala Nov 2007 about 5000 delegates are expected to be arriving in the country , According to the medias in the country, local people are saying that they have not gained in the up coming conference, they are urging that only the Government officials plus their relatives are the one to gain, while people are saying like that preparation are in high gear, all over the streets buildings are being renovated, flowers have been planted on the roads, and all the city looks that its ready, many people are arguing around the town that it will not be good if some of the big guests in that conference doesn’t visits the cultural leaders like Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi Of the Kingdom of Buganda Kingdom, it’s the one of the powerful and biggest kingdom in the history of Uganda but has been left out, many Baganda and other cultural leaders are not happy if queen Elizabeth doesn’t Visit their leaders or palaces,
People in Uganda are not satisfied with the words of the British ambassador in Uganda who said that cultural leaders will not be able to meet with the Queen of England and they are not happy with the letter which was sent to the kingdom more updates is coming

The Gonvernment of Uganda recently removed all the taxes for Vehicles in Uganda and Increased the revenues on Fuel, many junk motor vehicles has started moving on the roads of kampala and even bringing alot of traffic jam on the roads

The icreased number of reconditioned cars on Kampala street are some of the smong major causes, smog is a combined gases from fossil fuels, these gases are dagerous to human life, good envirnment is our life, its time for any one who cres to protect the environment and Kampala look like other big cities in Europe and the rest of the world,

any one or organisation and even good thinking people can join forces to cut down the importation of recondioned cars, transfer factories from the city centre and encourage use of the clean hydroelectric power in the city and we should also avoid use of old uncoditioned cars in the city

together we can make good things happen in Kampala city

KAMPALA CITY SMOG

Uganda's Unemployment is worsening Day by day desipite several Governments attempt to reverse the trend. The Uganda Breau of statistics findings reveal that illiterate s are more likely to be available for work than the litrate. the unemployed rate is 3.5% and underemployment rate is more prevalent in the rural areas which is 17%

while the Gorvenment of Uganda has created agospel among ugandans called Bonna Bagagawale ( prosperity for all) it has to create more income generating activities among Ugandans youth through training skills like in sustainable methods of Agriculture and promoting youth talents in sports and other talents,
this scarcity of employment among the most youth in the country among rural and urban residents has brought joint efforts among the communities through forming youth clubs, groups and even trying to to seek employment in foriegn NGOs and many volunteer groups have been formed to moblise for united civil and social enconomic actions on unemployments,

however this success of this programme requires more gorvenment effort in order to full fill prosperity for all plus all the entire public
Ugandan youth they are saying that they are ready to work but they don't have enough capital what the need is the skills so they well come any simple solutions to be employed

In no chronological order, summaries of our last big family dinner, our weekend trip to genocide memorials and a failed (but funny) volcano trek in Rwanda, and saying later (not bye, bye is for forever) to Gulu.

So last Thursday, we had our last big family dinner with members of the family coming from every student. It was a big buffet with traditional Acholi cultural dances, including the amazing “courtship” dance, which consists of a lot of shaking of body parts and then little Acholi girls coming up to Jacob and Paul (our visiting professor from the US) and courting them as they both get on their knees and rub each other’s faces.

It was an amazing night as our parents gave speeches wishing us off. Several of us, including myself, cried after my father’s speech, which involved him telling us all to share Gulu and what we have learned and seen with our families and friends. He quoted the Pedagogy of the Oppressed book that I gave him and described how we liberate each other when we listen to the stories and problems of others and that the study-abroad program that we are on is an amazing educational experience where instead of just hearing about “war-torn people in Northern Uganda” we live with a family and work with the people rather than for them. He also mentioned that whenever he sees a white person walking around Gulu he will look for my face in theirs and feel compassion for them rather than seeing them as just another white person. He also emphasized the importance of tearing down artificial barriers, such as race and where one is from, which he has brought up with me throughout this trip.



Also, last weekend, we went to Rwanda where we saw three different genocide memorials and went volcano trekking. Rwanda is one of the most beautiful countries I have seen in my life with its 1,000 hills and volcanoes that are filled with fields that stay green all year, and according to our Ugandan friends, some of the most beautiful women. Yet, odds are that every Rwandan you see has been affected by a genocide that cost hundreds of thousands of peoples’ lives and left 30% of children as orphans. It reminded me of Northern Uganda, where odds are every person we saw has been affected by the twenty-plus year war where 90% of the people in the area we live in have been displaced.

Two of the genocide memorials we visited were in churches that people went to for sanctuary, but the churches were attacked by Hutus who killed the Tutsis that were hiding inside. Upon walking into the first church, I did not notice anything different other than the holes in the roof, which I guessed were bullet holes, but I was not sure. A guide for the church who is also a survivor of the attack showed us the front gate and windows which had been bent open, the blood stains on the altar where the priest says mass, the bullet holes of the roof, the room with the broken door where they now keep everyone’s clothes who was in the massacre, and the basement of the church and area behind the church where there are rows upon rows of skulls, bones, and caskets with more. She survived because she was by the door during the initial grenade which through her down, and she was left covered by other dead bodies for three days. I do not know how someone could relive the worst day of their life every day by taking people around that church or the families and friends of the 2,000 victims who have to go see all the bones.

5,000 people died in the other church where all the clothes, jewelry, letters, everything of the survivors was kept and is now displayed. It is just too much for the human mind to comprehend and too much for people to tell Rwandans to simply get over it. If I have learned anything from hearing genocide survivors speak at Northwestern, it is that something like genocide is cross-generational and is not something that someone can “get over” and “move on from”.

The final memorial we went to was in the capital Kigali and was a beautiful museum that looked like the Jewish Holocaust Memorial. The saddest part for me was not the images and videos of murder and the blood stained clothes, but the stories of people saving others and the stories from kids about the last time they saw their parents. One kid describes how his mother and he (who, as he is telling this story, is about my age) were in hiding for days before they ran out of all their food except beans. His mother knew that he did not like beans so she risked her life by going out and finding him vegetables and passion fruit. She died soon after. Stories of life and love in all this violence is just too much for me.

To unwind from all of this, we went volcano trekking on a soaking wet and muddy day, and our tour guides laughed at us as most of us were wearing sandals, shorts and t-shirts. We did not even get close to the crater at the top, but it was a lot of fun as we slipped up and down and we got to see two gorillas. Our guides said the gorillas were the closest that they have ever been to the path and that we cannot tell anyone that we saw them because they are not supposed to point them out to us since we did not pay the $1000 to see them (I am sure they will not read our blog, so we’re fine).



Now zoom forward to a couple days ago: as we are leaving Gulu, our agricultural training project has been “successful” as the seeds are growing, and our computer project has a shot at being sustainable as we have left the teachers and a potential outsider to continue our work with a work plan for a peer education program where the two teachers would have students help them teach their classes, which can contain 80 students at a time!

According to our Professor Paul, it has been a success story, and we are providing means for them to continue this. He reminded us this past week that “when working with community, the ultimate goal is not sustainability, that’s for institutions that hire people and have a maintenance fund to worry about. With communities, you give them some things and learn with them, but ultimately it is up to them if they want to do it. He reminded us that the strength of the community is flexibility. The importance is on building capacity of organization we are working with to address issues, not sustainability. Overall, our group found that we did not have much to contribute to the agriculture project, other than funds, and we were flexible and were able to work at Alliance Secondary School and to provide the computer teachers with some skills, knowledge, materials (and further donated resources), and a work plan to truly be “Your Computer School”, as Alliance calls itself on their sign and the students’ shirts.

Our host families were amazing. Gulu is amazing, even if the Lonely Planet says you have no reason to go there. I want to go back next summer. Our organization turned out not to be everything we expected, but we learned a lot about NGOs, development, Uganda and ourselves and that’s as cheesy as I will get in a blog.



Finally, to borrow from Liz's post (read below), I will miss Naked Man ("he has a name, it is Komakech (which means unfortunate)", the markets, having 14 brothers and sisters, big momma (my mom), bigger momma or big momma squared (her sister), the clouds, the stars, the trees, my dad's village, having chicken potatoes and rice with every meal, three bottles of Fanta Citrus a day (find it in the US), the Acholi languages/dances/people, seven stones and the other games my siblings played, and just life in Gulu.

I will not miss the war, the Internally Displaced Persons Camps, the way women are treated, being called a muzungo/mono by everyone (everyone asks "how are you? i am fine" but they don't care how I really feel ha), the way too many briefcase NGOs (NGOs that exist simply to exist and go from donor to donor), Ugandan food (sorry, but it isn't that great), the bus ride from Gulu to Kampala (horrible roads and Kenny Rogers and Ugandan music and Nigerian films), and the fact that if I like Gulu now, I am told I should have seen it before this war where "everything was different".



Thanks for reading so far and I’ll keep posting until someone cuts me off.

Adong maber (take care),

Nikolai "Anywar (stubborn) Komakech (unfortunate) The Last/Lost Born

My Dad takes me to where he and his family lived until he had to move to avoid being killed. Also, an update on our Computer Training Project as we struggle to try to connect NGOs and do something sustainable, and on our help at a Camp with literacy.



Last Saturday, my Father here in Gulu took me to see the village (a ten-minute drive from our home) that he was born in, grew up in as a child, and lived in up until 20 years ago when he was forced to leave. He was Principal at the time of Samuel Baker Secondary School (a couple kilometers up from where we live now) and the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) came to his village to murder him.



He had 5 children then, and two of them, Tony, my 26-year old brother, who was born in the camp and lived there for several years, and Wini, my 20-year old sister, who was born in the camp and moved after several months, told me their thoughts on the village. Tony said he has no interest going back as he does not remember much about the village and does not feel any ties to it. Wini likes going back to see the family members there, but she does not like talking about it much. In contrast to both of them, my father talks about it several times a week and took me to the village “so that I would not get lost when I come back”. He is going to move back to the village once the war is over and will finally have cattle and goats again as the LRA and government military stole his livestock once he left.



The village was several huts in different spots with a huge patch of mango trees where the kids would climb and throw down the mangoes when they were in season. My Dad was beaming with pride at the village and showed me how the huts have been moved, where the hut was that the rebels burned down and where his aunt was still living (she was sitting outside her door as she was locked out) and where his brother, the father of my cousin Ochii, still lives. He is a “drunkard” and my father and Ochii kept their distance from him.



We then went to the family’s graveyard where my Dad showed me where his sister, daughter, mother, and other family members were buried due to different deaths, but the most common of which was AIDS.



I will talk more about the village later, but a quick update on our project is that we are trying to find an NGO in the area to help continue our computer training at Alliance Secondary School. We want to institute a peer training program to help the one teacher with his 30-80 students per class, but we simply do not have the time. Also, we are helping out with a literacy program at an IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) Camp, especially with child mothers there, and the lady we are working with is pushing for a lot there, including a nursery, but we are having problems addressing the issue with her of the importance of people returning to their villages and not providing things to make them not want to leave the Camps and instead provide these services in the villages.



Ok that was a run-on sentence, but I have to run.

Apoyo,

Nikolai Anywar