Welcome back! This is the 8th installment of the When Uganda Go, Uganda Go Chronicles, in which Papa Justin breaks a Bugisu world record by witnessing seven circumcisions in one day, has a run in with a refrigerator with a fiery disposition, and dines with Ugandan movie stars in Gulu.

BTW - has anyone seen the new James Bond flick? Mbale, Uganda is the headquarters of the terrorist group at the beginning of the film! I couldn't believe it when I heard. Of all the millions of places worldwide!

Sweet Jesus have I seen enough circumcised man members to last me a hundred lifetimes. Yesterday was a marathon...7 in one day. Moses, one of our students, (I kid you not I have met 50 Ugandans here named Moses) and I took my motorcycle way out into the countryside to his village, Bukaya. His brother was going under the knife, and he has been asking me to come for months. There are many circumcisions going on now because school has just finished, and the time period is almost over. I really enjoyed yesterday because I was able to see more of the ritual involved in the process. One thing I had never seen before - in the early afternoon the boys were smeared with yeast, and then covered with, ok, brace yourself, goat feces. Yes, they slaughtered a goat, cut the insides open, removed the feces from the bowel and smeared it all over the boys. That greenish color you see in the picture…that’s it. The boys had to jump in place several times as the elders spoke to them, (from what I gather they were saying things like “You are about to become men, and you must be responsible for your families and your villages”) and then they all went off to march through the village. I also got to see some large quantities of local brew being imbibed. Groups of between six and 12 people sit around a large pot filled with the local brew that is made from millet and maize. They have long straws made of some sort of reed, or plastic tubing. They sit for hours and take tokes from the container. They brew is full of sediment…not pure liquid like beer we drink. I had a few pulls…it wasn’t bad! By the time the circumcisions went down around 5:00, there were many bleary eyes, but everyone in the village was extremely pleasant, and entertained by my knowledge of some of the chants, and of course, a my booty shaking. Of course.

It was surreal to spend most of my day in a rural, undeveloped village, watching boys covered in goat feces, and then that night, I was sitting in my house watching a movie on my laptop, eating crackers and cheese spread imported from Dubai, and text messaging someone halfway across the world. Surreal I tells ya.

Now our sojourn continues with my encounter with the feisty frig. I was spending the night at Sam’s house after having dinner in town. Sam had opened up the back house, and walked me into the back bedroom. I was exhausted, so I blew out the candle in my room, and was out. About two hours later, I woke up in pitch black, with a really noxious smell in the room, and as my eyes adjusted to the tiny amount of light present, I could faintly see that there was thick smoke in the air. I was disoriented, and had no idea whatsoever what was going on. I stumbled out of the bedroom to discover that the refrigerator in the corner of the other room was engulfed in flames! As I was running to the door, I smashed my shin on the couch, and was howling in pain. I got outside and started yelling for Sam, because the other part of the house was locked up so I couldn’t get to any sort of container to carry water in. I was screaming in the small window in the door, and finally after about a minute Sam came running out. When he saw the frig, he sprinted back into the house panting “Oh god! Oh god!” I couldn’t really see anything, and was completely useless, so I stood there clutching my shin as he frantically got buckets of water and extinguished the beast. Once the fire was out, the smoke kept up for at least 30 minutes. The stink was awful…if lung cancer has a smell, that was definitely it! Turns out that Sam had lit two candles - one in my room, and one in the adjoining room on top of the frig. Sam was tired, and I never noticed it, so the frig got the best of us both. The next morning, I came outside to see what was left, and all that remained was an amorphous blob of metal and plastic. For those who have heard my Mardi Gras exploding car story, you will know that fire and I have a very special relationship!

A few weeks ago I trekked up to Gulu in northern Uganda. I was going up to watch and photograph my friend Abramz from Kampala (teacher in Begonia’s NGO) teaching a breakdancing workshop to a group of disadvantaged youth. Up until the last few months, (peace talks going on now) this area has been dangerous, as there has been a civil war going on for years. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has been fighting government troops in the bush, mutilating villagers by cutting off their noses and lips, and abducting children to use as soldiers. It’s been a horrible situation. There are millions of Ugandans in refugee camps around the Gulu area, and because of that, there is a large relief presence. It's a different world up there, with UN trucks everywhere, and gigantic World Food Program warehouses along the road. The first day I was there, I was walking through the market, and met a young American woman who told me about a place to stay called the Invisible Children house. Turns out there was a documentary, Invisible Children, made by three San Diegans in their early twenties about the night children that would leave their homes in rural villages every afternoon to come sleep in Gulu town. The film showed the children crammed onto the floors of several large buildings, packed in like sardines. The children were so fearful of being abducted, that they would walk for hours every day to sleep in any protected spaces they could find. A whole movement has formed around this film, and the house where I eventually stayed is actually staffed by employees of the Invisible Children organization. It houses and coordinates volunteers for different projects around the Gulu area. The first night, I had dinner with about 20 Americans from many different walks of life. Missionaries, filmmakers, social workers, volunteers, etc. who were staying in the house for part or all of their stays in Uganda. The film was surprisingly good considering it was made by young twenty somethings – if any of you get your hands on it, stay with it through the first 15 minutes or so..the tone of the film changes dramatically after the intro. I also got to meet and have dinner with several of the Ugandan youths featured in the film! They are all being sponsored now, having their school fees paid by the organization. When the filmmakers were finishing their project, they promised to come back and help these kids, and they did. Although I was the oldest of the group at this house (except for a very nice gentleman who bore a striking resemblance to the late “grate” Jerry Garcia), it was nice to be around a large group of really good-hearted Americans (hey, you know, like my friends at home, eh?)

I have become the man of a thousand titles. When I first got here, I was just mzungu. As people started to get to know me, it became Papa Justin. Then, the official title that Sam and the Board came up with for me before I arrived, Program Associate/Technical Assistant, came into play. Somewhat absentmindedly, I started calling myself Technical Consultant, rather than Technical Assistant. And finally, as I have taken over many of the day to day operations of the organization, most people are calling me CEO, even though Sam is technically the CEO. It’s relaxed here. People at home are asking exactly what it is that FDNC does. Here’s a quick summary of our six thematic areas:
1. Vocational Training School – carpentry, tailoring, masonry, computers, sustainable agriculture, art and design to start next trimester
2. Special Projects – marching brass band, traditional dance troupe, and hopefully youth orchestra in the coming year!
3. Paralegal Advisory Services (PAS) – education about legal rights in prisons and juvenile detention centers
4. Kisakye Memorial Special Needs Center – school for mentally and physically disabled children 5. Youth and Community Development – child sponsorship program to pay for school fees and basic needs for very needy children and youth, community health work for health education and basic medical treatment and disease prevention, and income generation activities training and assistance, such as fuel saving stoves, beekeeping, poultry farms, piggeries, brick making, etc.
6. Finance and Administration

I would say my biggest successes so far have been sorting out the financial picture of the organization by computerizing the tracking of income and expenditure, as well as creating a simpler payment requisition system, and creating a new banking structure for the org. Also, I have opened bank accounts for all employees so salaries can be directly deposited into the bank, rather than the org having to transport large sums of cash. This will also promote saving amongst the employees. I have also made sure employees are being paid on time every month. I’ve instituted an employee of the year award, which I think Roman originally suggested, and I’ve also arranged for a Christmas bonus next week for all employees. The Vocational School now is running in the green, rather than the red which is how I found it. The Special Needs School has funding now for one salary for one year. A $25,000 grant I applied for through the Global Fund for Children has been awarded. I am most excited to start working closely with the Y & C D program, creating individualized work plans for all of the villages we serve and empowering Community Health Workers to improve the overall standard of health and living in their communities. This will also involve upgrading the health clinic at the Voc. School. We have two registered nurses coming in the next six months…one from New York, and one from Australia, so this will be a huge boost for the clinic. Most satisfying for me, however, has been the process of promoting a management culture that stresses respect and empowerment of employees, while expecting increased accountability and responsibility.

Biggest challenges: 1. Lack of consistent power significantly reduces efficiency and productivity. 2. We can’t help everyone…everyday people come in my office asking for support for their villages, and we aren’t even adequately supporting the villages we currently serve. 3. Communication – Some of our staff and most of the Community Health Workers don’t have phones, so mobilizing is very difficult. 4. Manana time to the Nth degree. NOTHING ever starts on time. It’s standard that meetings start hours late. People have started getting the message that when I am involved, that is not going to be tolerated, so things are getting better. 5. The obvious – lack of all resources. We need everything…from mobile phones, to computers, to paint for the offices, to bicycles, to mosquito nets to medicine…if you can imagine it, we need it. But things could be much worse. We have some great donors, from Global Fund for Children, to American Jewish World Service, to Church World Service, and many individuals. And the band brings in revenue, so we are not completed dependent on donations.

After finishing off 24, I rediscovered the ancient lost art of READING. I picked up Kite Runner again and finally finished that. Beautiful book. I also read the Alchemist which I have heard about for years. I read The Last King of Scotland (who saw the movie?!) about Idi Amin’s tyrannical reign, and then I delved into The End of Poverty. I had first seen this at Heidi’s months ago, so it was on my radar. It’s considered Development 101 by anyone in that world…I may be on the fringes of that world, but I don’t really consider myself part of it. Sachs’ main premise is that solving the problem of extreme poverty is well within our means as a global community, but it requires a complex differential diagnosis for each country or region that takes into account many factors, including geography, infrastructure, disease prevalence, governance, etc. He also points out that the poorest 1 billion people cannot lift themselves out of extreme poverty and get their feet on the first rung of the ladder of development without substantial help from rich countries. I strongly recommend this book…it’s easy to read, and challenges many longstanding ideas I know I had and I’m sure many of us do. I also plan to read White Man’s Burden, which is supposedly somewhat of a rebuttal of this book. Next I will read Banker to the Poor, written by Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize this year.

Other news on the home front:
-Lona has been taking her medication, and is doing well. Her mind and her smile are back.

-Conso will be coming to Mbale to do the mural in mid-January!

-Abramz will be coming to the Voc. School in Feb. to do a breakdancing workshop here!
-The Voc. School staff is slaughtering a bull on Christmas Eve for meat for everyone. He is grazing right outside my door now. We had a great run together my friend.

Details on the pictures...
1. Pre circumcision...smeared with yeast and goat doo
2. Post circumcision...first of the day I saw
3. Mother of one of the boys...smeared with yeast
4. Pre circumcision...four boys and the father of one boy in the front
5. Group drinking the local brew made of maize and millet

Here is the info on the cheap calling card that Dave has been using. My phone should work in Tanzania, so I can take calls anytime. Dial 011 256 753222298.
http://tinyurl.com/yzgrwa

Speaking of Dave...if you see him and his eyes are dilated, and he looks pale and zombified, he has been busily working away on the website, which will be ready very soon. Many thanks to you my friend. Looks fantastic! I'll blog again when it is ready. Thanks Jeff for helping out as well!

As you might imagine, I have plenty of time in the evenings to reflect, and I think of many of you. I keep you all close to my heart. I hope everyone has a peaceful, relaxing, and joyful holiday.

I am off...Zanzibar calls!

In solidarity,

Papa Justin