Uganda in the News

Well, Uganda is all over the news these days! Well, if by ‘all over’ you mean once in a while there is an article about the country somewhere on the “Africa” page of the New York Times website, then yes, they are all over the news! There are US troops coming in, a new/ old bill in the parliament and Mussevini has a bunch of protestors- pretty much a wildly exiting place to live- huh?

First things first: America. There was an article a while ago saying that the Obama was sending in 100 troops into Uganda to see how to deal with the Lord’s Resistance Army led by Kony. There has been more recent news that makes sure to state that there will be no combat, it is just some troops seeing what the situation is. The reason this is so weird is because there hasn’t really been a “situation” in over twenty years. There was definitely a bloody fight in the 80’s up in Northern Uganda, but since then- not much more than a peep out of Kony. This brings about a great deal of suspicion that the US is mainly here not to see about Kony but see to see about a new place for drilling oil- eh, 6 of one, half a dozen of the other- right? Not really…

There has also been some frustration with the government here- it’s no “occupy” movement, but people are beginning to protest. No worries, I have not attended anything even resembling a protest, namely because there haven’t been any large gatherings. People, instead, are walking to work as in protest of the rising gas prices.  Only in Uganda, where you take a matutu four bocks would a walk be considered some type of protest. Apparently people here don’t walk much so actually walking to work is a big deal! I haven’t seen much of this, however and the day it was supposed to start was the day I was 20 minutes late to work since there was a huge traffic jam, so it’s unclear what will come of this.

 There is also a bill that has been reopened in parliament. It says that being gay would be illegal and punishable by death. There is actually very little support for this bill (which is good news) especially from countries who give aid to Uganda so it can never pass, but why they would even reopen it makes no sense to me! It is also interesting to see the different views when it comes to homosexuality in this country. There is not a great deal of support for this bill, but still it is quite stigmatized to come out of the closet. There are a few who have done so in Uganda but many more cases of men who are married but still have sex with other men. They do not want to say they are gay, since this practice is not yet accepted. However, it is common to see two young men who are friends and walking down the street holding hands or two men holding on to each other on the backs of motorcycles. In the US (or at least northeast US) it is not AS stigmatized to be gay, however, when I see two men holding hands, I assume some sort of homosexual relationship. (I know ass, you, me, I know). No Ugandans have a problem with the hand holding but many still consider sex between two men to be unnatural, especially since its from the bible and damn, do Ugandan love them some bible!

The good news is that the Ugandan Little League team whose place in the world Little League series got taken away when they couldn’t provide correct birth certificates to the US may actually get to play! This was the first African Little League team to get to go and then they couldn’t provide the correct papers so they had to sit and watch in Uganda. Then a woman in Canada said that if the funds were raised to bring them to North America, they could play a few games in a different league in Canada! It would be amazing and so exciting for this team!

Things here are going famously and time is at the same time flying by and crawling by (probably depending on where I am at the moment.) Hopefully I will get to write a little more this week and tell you all about Kampaloween- yup, you read that right- and a gorgeous Baha’i temple we visited. For now, I was trying to show you how worldly I am, and also how much time I really spend reading the paper every morning (hint: it’s usually more than an hour)

Love and miss you all!!

Shira ZK