Sunday, February 20, 2011

Veganism in Africa

I would assume that if you are reading this blog, you are aware that I am vegan and have been since January 2009. You probably have often even been annoyed at my "vegan-ness" and failed to understand why I won't eat a food produce that contains "traces of milk."

Unfortunatley, the whole veganism thing isn't working out too well in Uganda and Rwanda. At the time of this writting, I am still vegan and have not consumed any animal product. The deal, however, is that my body is angry at me. I have been feeling weak, shaky, and light-headed. I have to consume huge amounts of food in order to ever feel full. I have been sleeping a ton but never still always feel tired. I am constantly achy and have had a hard time running.

You see, back in the states I derive most of my protein from green, leafy vegetables, soy products, nuts, and protein-rich grains like quinoa (oh my gosh, quinoa sounds incredible right now). Here, none of those items exist. The only vegetables they serve are cabbage, cucumber, and carrots. These are all great vegetables, but unfortunatley they don't really contain protein. While g nuts (a lot like peanuts) are served here, they're not consistently enough available to be a solid source of protein. The bread here is all white bread, not the grains that would supply me with protein. And I don't think Africans really believe in soy products.

The only source of protein I have had are beans. And beans are great, but on average they have only been served every other day. In the states, I am for about 40 grams of protein a day. Here I don't think I've ever gotton more than 10 grams, and that's at the high end.

Protein and fats is what makes you feel full. When the majority of the foods that I eat are very starchy foods that contain neither protein or fat, I have had to eat a lot in order to ever feel full. And that feeling doesn't last very long. As an athlete, consuming only starchy foods is not an ideal scenario.

I love being vegan. I think it is one of the healthiest choices I have ever made and I feel great when I can maintain a well-balanced vegan diet in the states.

But here, it just doesn't seem to be possible for me to walk 2 hours a day on average, get an hour of exercize (or more a day), manage 8 hours of class a day without getting more protein and a wider variety of nutrients. So, I have decided that I will start incorporating eggs into my diet. I really, really don't like the idea of consuming casein (the protein in milk) so I am still going to avoid dairy, but eggs are high in protein and readily available. Most chickens here are cage free and treated much more ethically than in the states.

So, I plan on ordering an omlete tonight at dinner. Hopefully this choice will make me feel better. But, for those haters who don't like me being vegan, know that this is a choice based on the circumstances and I will most definitely return to my annoying vegan self back in the states.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Rwanda

Two days ago we drove to Rwanda after spending some time in Mbarra, a city in Western Uganda. There we visited a Millenium Development Project Village sponsored by the United Nations Development Program and also visited a refugee camp. This was very interesting and I hope to blog about it later, but right now I want to talk about my experience in Rwanda so far.

The minute we walked accross the Rwandan border, we noticed a difference. The roads were smoother, potholes were filled in. The streets were clean and brick side-walks lined the streets. Shockingly, the city wasn't dusty like Kampala is. The roads had white lines to divide lanes, the main roads had 4 lanes, and the medians were wide and fillled with flowers, bushes, and trees. Granted, this sounds like a typical city by Western standanrds, but after two weeks in Kampala where lanes don't exist and potholes are called "lakes," the sight of a traffic light and lane dividers was shocking.

The buildings were nicely designed with elegant architecture and paint. The round-abouts had artwork and fountains in the center and we passed by several gorgeous parks. The city was just so clean. We kept repeating this over and over in the car, it seemed so strange not to see trash lining the streets and to have anarchic traffic. Instead of the smog and dust of Uganda, there were brick sidewalks and clean cool air with lots of pretty trees.

From the vans we oohed and ahhed at how "nice" the city was. Gone was our appreciation of the hospitality of Ugandans and our gratitude for their survival spirit. Our only gauge now for the merits of the two cities was based on Western conceptions of  modernity and wealth. Several peers stated that they hoped there would be riots after the elections in Uganda so that we could "stay in Rwanda forever." While these benchmarks of the merits of a city frustrated me, I must admit the Western influenc visible in the city (organization, cleanliness, order) comforted me and I felt relieved to be out of the anarchy of Kampala.

This excitement at the cleanliness of Rwanda changed yesterday, however. Yesterday the group visited three genocide memmorials. First, we visited the national genocide memmorial which has been built largely by foreign aid. It's in four parts: the children's memmorial, an exhibit on the history of genocide in the 20th century, a Rwandan genocide exhibit, and then mass graves.

The exhibit on genocide in general was more interesting and informative than moving, but it was good to learn how marked the 20th century was by genocid.

Then, we saw the exhibit on the Rwandan genocide. It first showed the background to the events--from the colonization of Rwanda, to Rwanda's independance, to the first tensions between Hutus and Tutsis, the genocide itself, and finally the aftermath. One of the most powerful parts of the exhibit were the videos playing. They had raw footage of the massacres, pictures of churches filled with bodies upon bodies that had been left to rot. Photos of bloodied machetes and the wounds they caused. A little boys machete wound deep in his skull. And a baby being chopped by a man's machete.

We heard testimonies of women who had been raped by 15 men, mothers who watched their children be murdered, children who whitenessed their parents be burned alive. It was chilling.

The pictures of schools filled with the bodies of girls in their school uniforms was haunting. They were so young.

The children's memmorial was also difficult to see. There were about 15-20 profiles of children with their picture and information. Their favorite food, favorite thing to do, last words, and how they were killed. Another room had thousands of thousands of pictures of children who had been killed. It was overwhelming.

The mass graves were endless. 250,000 people are buried at the memmorial.

Then, we visited two churches where people had been killed. This was the hardest part. There were just shelves and shelves of skulls, hip bones, femurs, and the bones of peoples arms just stacked on shelves. In one mass grave that we went into, the bones of 50,000 people were piled 15 feet high, just laying there inches from me. The combined grief and clausterphobia was almost unbearable. The stench of death permeated the grave. It was the most morbid thing I have experienced.

A lot of the skulls were crushed or had machate marks on them. One still had a spearhead through it. 50,000 skulls stacked staring at me with their empty eye sockets.

Then, there were the clothes. Piles and piles of clothes of some 15,000 people who had been killed on the grounds of the church stacked 3 feet high covering the floor. You could see the bullet holes and blood stains on the clothing. It made it all feel so real. To see the clothing ripped from machate cuts just lying there in heaping piles.

Blood stains on the wall, splattered as high as 30 feet.

I held a Tutsi and Hutu ID card.I saw the rosaries they had been wearing when victims died. The ball point pens they had been carrying.

I saw their bones, I smelt their death, I saw their blood, their clothing, the machetes still stained with blood, the bullet holes, and I walked in their grave among the bones of 50,000 people.

How am I suppossed to proccess this? I don't really know what to do with these emotions. Pitying the Rwandans does nothing. Grieving is appropriate, but grief, confusion, anger, regret, sorrow need to transform into some sort of comprehension that I can't arrive at. I cry out at the injustice, but how does that pain alter my life and my future?

I think, the West should have solved this, we had the resources. But it's also arrogant to think that the West (the nations responsible for colonization and diving Rwandans into Hutus and Tutsis in the first place) could have fixed it all. To say, there's major ethnic conflict going on and of course the West can make it all better, it's just arrogant. Yes, let us violate their soverighnty and save the day.

This is a deep tension for me--how do you prevent injustices and genocide or aid a situation without striking a "west is best" colonial tone? I need more academic experienc to answer this question.

Let me leave with this: it was a very, very difficult day. While I started at marveling at the cleanliness of the streets of Rwanda, I ended with imaging the bodies that had once filled the streets and am still haunted by the smell and image of those 50,000 skulls surrouding me.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Quick Post Before Rwanda

I have exactly 6 minutes and 28 seconds before my internet allowance at the internet cafe runs out. I'll have to make this quick.

This week has been cool. I now officially have a Ugandan family complete with a mom, grandma, sister, and 5 brothers. I like them all.

Here's the cool stuff I did this week:

1. Went to the Buganda Palace (a tribal group in Africa) and got to see the torture chambers of Idia Min. Blood splattered all over the walls, death wishes written on the walls, etc. It was a cool part of history that I had studied at GW and I got to see it in real life.

2. Introduce my Ugandan brothers to "99 Problems" by Jay-Z. They thought they liked Jay-Z, but now a whole new level of love has emerged.

3. Intoduce my Ugandan family to BBQ sauce. And not just any BBQ sauce, Gates BBQ sauce. They're in love. And want more.


4. Learn about the Ugandan health care system. It's shockingly bad...the government spends only an average of $10 per person per year...I want to research more about it.

5. Get proposed to by an African man on a taxi ride. I said no...

That's about all I have time for. I will be in Rwanda for the next 3 weeks while the elections occur in Kampala. Hopefully Uganda isn't the next Egypt. I'll have to do a post about how crazy it's been pre-election. But that's all for now...

I miss everyone back home in the states!

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

My Name is Not Muzungu

Well, I've now been in Uganda for 10 days. A lot has happened and it seems more like ten months than 10 days since I've been home.

The first week we stayed in a hotel at the center of Kampala. That week was "orientation week." We learned a little Luganda, talked about the World Learning sexual harrassment policy, and had to promise not to drink the water.

Last Thursday we did the "drop-off." This meant that we had to wander around the streets of Kampala for 4 hours with a partner to research a subject and then find our way back to the hotel. I was partnered with Jen and we had to research religion and education in Uganda. We visited a local elementary (or primary) school, went to Makerere University, and went to a local church to talk to random people to research. We learned that it is almost unheard of not to go to church in Uganda. 85% of the population is Christian (about equally split between protestant and catholic) and 15% is Muslim. Most families pray before every meal and go to church every Sunday. Our culture classes also taught us that most Ugandans don't understand the concept of atheism.

As far as education went, we learned that almost all schools in Uganda are private. The government funds very, very few schools and they are in very bad conditions. Most Ugandan students graduate from secondary school around the age of 18. Children wear uniforms to classes and girls and boys must have shaved heads (so you'd fit right in Erin :).

On Saturday we went to Jinja (another city in Uganda). Along the way, we stopped at a Buganda cultural site that had a gorgeous waterfall. We learned some of the Buganda (a tribe in Uganda) traditions. For example, you never say that a king "died" you say that his "fire was put out." They also make beer from bananas which I thought was really cool.

At Jinja, we visited the source of the Nile. It was really pretty and very picturesque--lots of cool African trees and the water was gorgeous. We also saw monkeys there! They are as common as squirrels here, but for us Americans it is shocking to see a monkey just standing ten feet away from you.

One of the most fun things about last week was going out in the evenings. The group went to several fun bars and just relaxed and got to know everyone. There are 18 people in our group and it was fun to try to get to have conversations with everyone.

Sunday we started our homestays. My family is huge! There's the mom, grandma, sister Ginny, the house maid, and then my brothers Dennis, Kennedy, Arthur, Alex, Serembe, and Regan. They're all really fun to talk to--especially my brothers.

We don't have running water so I bathe using a bucket and a jug of water and you use an outhouse for the bathroom. This has been interesting but luckily years of camping in Colorado prepared me. They also don't have electricity a lot of the time so we have to do almost everything by candlelight after 7 pm. It might sound strange to hear that they don't have running water but they have a house maid. This is actually common in Uganda...I'm not exactly sure why.

The food is the same every single meal. They eat a bread called chipate which is DELICIOUS. The other staples are matoke (imagine mashed potatoes but instead made from bananas), rice, beans, posha (crushed corn meal in the shape of a hashbrown that mostly tastes like a ball of tightly compacted rice), ground nut sauce (purpley-brown looking sauce made from crushed nuts), and jinka (really salty kale). Luckily, I really like the food here, but some people are really getting sick of eating the same thing every meal.

Most families here don't eat dinner until 10 pm. This has been difficult because I have to be up at six to go to school and run, so it is hard to stay awake that long!

Classes have been really interesting. We start class at 9 am and end them at 3:30. However, it normally ends up being 4 or 4:30 instead of 3:30 because Africans do not really keep time.

I take three taxis to get to school in the morning and back home in the evening. Taxis here are 15 passenger vans that are more comprable to the bus system in the US. It's pretty crazy to navigate, but I'm getting more used to it.

Probably the most difficult thing here has been being a "mazungu" or the Swahili word for "white person." Everywhere I go, people point, stare, and yell "mazungu." I've never received so much attention and never want to receive this much attention again. There is no virtually no tourism industry in Uganda, so it is very, very, very rare to see a white person here. Thus, I'm a spectacle or a novelty. Children, businessmen, college students, shopkeepers, everyone stops what they are doing and yells "mazungu!" It is really, really exhausting to never be able to blend in and to always be stared at. I don't know how exactly to describe how exhausting it feels...but it just is.

I also am treated better by people since I'm white and that has been difficult to deal with. Shopkeepers will attend to me first, even though I'm behind other people in line. Let me note that I don't allow that to happen, I refuse to be served out of turn. The other day I was walking home and 5 little children literally bowed at my feet to greet me. It just makes me very, very uncomfortable and it feels so very wrong.

But, other than that, it has been really good so far. I miss everyone back home and love getting messages to let me know how everyone is doing. Hopefully I can post again soon!