Uganda: A Prologue

"So what are you doing right now, Jocelyn?"

"I'm sitting in the international lounge at JFK because I missed my connection and now I have to overnight it here for the first flight out tomorrow. SUCKS. But I thought I might as well go ahead and start posting the Africa updates while I'm here."

"Word."

So, we will, as usual, start with the random things that will not fit into any of the ongoing stories. They are numbered for convenience.

1. The Princess Pictures
So Franki, thinking he is a smart ass, throws out this challenge that I have failed in Africa if I do not come home with pictures of me "getting down with local and/or wild life while wearing a princess tiara." He clearly has no idea. The best ones are below. The full collection can be seen here.




Let me also say that this challenge necessitated a trip to Wal-Mart, which Slappy took with me. Slappy DOES NOT go to Wal-Mart. The vision of the agony in his face as we walked through Wal-Mart is still with me. No African child has ever suffered as much as that man suffered in our fifteen minutes in Wal-Mart. That is all.

2. You Will Need to Meet James
James was our driver for all twelve days of safari, though we preferred to affectionately call him "Jamsey." James was a patient man, as he must be, as anybody who will ever have traveled with Lis or I will tell you. He patiently waited through bathroom breaks, perfect photo breaks, late mornings, chatty girls, cranky girls and thunderous rain storms and mudslides to get us wherever we wanted to go. He thought something was wrong with me because I often skipped lunch. He would look at me and say, "But eet is paaaiid for." Once he tried to tell me that men are confused when what they want is a skinny girl because when you go to the grocery store to buy a chicken you don't look for the skinniest one. I tried to explain to him that I was not a chicken in a grocery store, but no go. There are many other funny stories about James that we'll talk about later. Here's a picture.



Actually, here's one more James story. James has a little portable dvd player that he takes on the road with him. It cost him $370,000 Ugandian shillings, which is more than twice the monthly salary of a school teacher, and teachers are paid pretty well there. It's his pride and joy. He likes Nigerian films, but he also likes some American films. I thought I might send some dvds to him (by which I mean two copies of every dvd I send so customs can keep one and James can get one). So I ask what kind of American movies he likes.

"There is this American actris...alllliii bari."

"Halle Berry?"

"Yes! She was in this one movie, and she did a very strong job."

And then he starts describing the movie and, no joke, it's this.

Don't worry, James, "Die Another Day" and "Catwoman" are on their way.

3. So That You Don't Need to Wait Till the End for an Answer
You know, the big discussion before I left, with just about everybody, was "Where do you stand on the idea that the best aid for Africa is no aid for Africa?"

And you know, I admitted that I didn't know where I stood. And also, Uganda is only one country and I was only there for a little over two weeks, so it's not like I'm some kind of expert. But I did come back thinking that the best aid for Africa is no aid for Africa unless you have a super great idea on how you're going to skip the government "filtering" process and get your dollars directly to the people. There's no denying that this is an area that's primed for corruption. Imagine having all of the corruption of competing political parties, but compound it by the fact that there are competing political systems as well (a westernized government from when Uganda was a British colony and a traditional royalty structure for each tribe and then the unified tribes). It's a country where I could be in a village of ten mud huts and get a Coke or a Guinness, but don't ask anybody where the nearest place to get Mephaquin is or, if they did know where the nearest place to get medications was, how to get there without functioning roads and systematic public transportation. It's a country less than thirty years removed from the tyranny of Idi Amin and still skeptical of any power structure. As they should be given that their current President wants to be a lifetime president. It's a country where torture camps and places where children were burned to death are still pointed out by your driver. It's a country that was given a billion plus dollars to prepare for CHOGM and, from what I can see, must have only spent money on signs that said "Are You Ready for CHOGM?" Because I can assure you, billions of dollars of improvements were not made in that country for the upcoming heads of government meeting.

And so that's the problem. The country (and lots of the continent) needs aid, but financial aid is actually going to make the problems there worse. It will get a percentage taken off the top by the government officials. And that percentage will be the majority percentage and will in no way go to creating the infrastructure and resources and programs needed to improve health and prosperity in Africa for the masses. It will just further stratify and increase the power of the few while doing nothing for the people you believe you're sending aid for. And that's the most depressing thing you take out of there with you. Though I've done some research, and Ashleigh is doing a fund raiser, and I'm going to give you some places later on where you really can impact change if you want.

That is all.

4. Except That That Is Not All
Because, really, the lesson learned in Africa can be summed up by this part of a conversation I was having with somebody in Heathrow today.

"I live in Vegas. All I see all day long is people coming there to escape from their day-to-day life because they're miserable and unhappy in it. And every way in which they escape involves spending money. You see the most miserable people in Vegas, and you watch money in absurd sums just roll in and roll out. And then you go to Africa. And the people have nothing, they really have nothing. And they're happy. They're so much happier than you could imagine. "

That REALLY is all. Tomorrow we begin story telling.