The end is near

Wow. Leaving in two days. It’s kind of starting to sink in a little bit. Tonight we have a group dinner, then tomorrow we have discussions and free time in Kampala, and then on Sunday we leave for Entebbe, where we’ll see the Botanical Gardens and have our farewell dinner before boarding my flight back to Boston!

The past week has been pretty relaxing. I got to Gulu on Sunday night and spent most of the night finishing up the final touches on my paper and preparing my presentation for Monday. I stayed with some of the girls who had stayed in Gulu for the past month, in this great house with electricity, running water, and even a kitchen – definitely different from my last Gulu experience! We spent all day Monday listening to each other’s presentations. Even though it was a good way to learn about what everyone did, I’m glad they separated the people who did research in Uganda from the people who did research in Rwanda – it would have been way too much!

With my presentation done early Monday morning (gotta love alphabetical order…), I had nothing to do for the rest of our stay in Gulu, so I spent some time exploring the market and got a couple of dresses made. Somehow, after Kampala and Kigali, muzungu café didn’t seem quite as wondrous as it had before. I have to say, I’m not a huge fan of Gulu. I had thought that it would be so cool, after hearing about it all the time and because it’s got the highest concentration of NGOs anywhere, but it turned out to be a lot different from what I expected. I think part of it is that I’m a city girl, which isn’t going to change just because I go to a different continent – Gulu’s a little too small-town for me. The town also doesn’t have a lot of natural beauty the way places in Rwanda do – everything is flat and dusty/muddy. I think I also expected that the small town aspect and the high number of NGOs would make it a very strong community, but honestly, I didn’t get that feeling. I didn’t feel like I knew a large portion of the population, and the NGO workers sort of had their own clique. A lot of the people in our group loved Gulu and thought of it as home, but I really didn’t feel that way.

So it was a bit of a drag to be back in Gulu, instead of exploring Kampala, but I’m glad that I got to go back to my homestay family for dinner on Tuesday night. Of course, they were thrilled to see me again, and quizzed me on my Acholi vocabulary (I didn’t do very well in this quiz). Somehow, there were even more children and extended family members there than before – it really amazes me how big families are here. Mostly it was nice to go back to remind myself of how long this semester has been and how incredibly much I’ve done/seen/learned while I’ve been here. When I was sitting in my usual chair in the big sitting room in the pitch dark, it reminded me of the reality of living without running water and electricity, which I’ve been fortunate enough to have at least partial access to ever since I left Gulu. Living in Gulu permanently would be so different from visiting it for a month, knowing that sometime in the near future you can leave and enjoy the luxuries you’re accustomed to.

I think one of the most striking things about being back in Gulu was how very different Northern Uganda is from Rwanda, or even Western Uganda. Even little things like accent, which people had told me was really distinct in Northern Uganda, but which I hadn’t been able to pick out until I went back there… The level of underdevelopment relative to other places we’ve been is both shocking and unsurprising (given that the region has been in conflict for the past 23 years), and consequently, day-to-day life is completely different. I think there’s such a tendency for people to think of Africa, especially Sub-Saharan Africa, especially two countries that are right next to each other, as one homogenous place, even though there are so many differences.

Anyways, my overall impression of returning to Gulu was that sooooo much has happened in this semester, and it’s going to take a long time for me to even really understand all of it.

On Wednesday, we left Gulu for Murchison falls. On Thursday we went on a mini-safari and saw giraffes (which I think are really gorgeous), elephants, lions, baboons and gazelle-like animals. One baboon actually tried to climb in the window of our bus! Then we went on a boat ride to the waterfall, which is the main tourist attraction of Uganda. We saw a lot of hippos and crocodiles on the way, which frankly was much more interesting than the waterfall…

Now we’re here in Kampala, wrapping up our trip! I’ll write more soon as I keep thinking about everything that’s happened this semester.