The hand that rocks the cradle........

Women in a quarry

Promoting gender equality and empowering women is goal no. 3 of the MDG.  This goal is strongly pursued in this part of Africa. 

Mobile hammock?

In one of our volunteer training courses on the subject, a video was played where in the household, mother and young daughter were doing all the
household chores, while the father and young son were sitting in front of a television set, or were first served
meals before mother and daughter could eat what was left.

Women sit on the floor

Kitchen chores are a woman's job here, even for working wives with some household help.  In offices, women are tolerated to be late for work or to leave work briefly because they have to prepare meals at home.  I have no personal knowledge of what goes on inside the household here as there could be exceptions.   But someone told me that to let a Ugandan or a Kenyan man share work in the kitchen is a cultural taboo.
Some statistics were published that in the primary education level the number of boys and girls who attend school is initially equal.  As they reach the age of puberty, the number of girls in school dwindles. 
Reasons cited were that the girls are given more and more work, or the parents are afraid for their safety.  Another conjecture is that the young girls feel embarrassed to go to school during their monthly periods as the modern type of sanitary protection is just not affordable.

It is not common to see men with head cargoes.  In some villages, seats are reserved for men.

Hopefully, gender equality will be a perfect balance. 

How I got to Africa

Fetching water for home

In our pre-departure trainings, volunteers were always reminded that despite their skills and competencies they should not expect to produce miracles in their placements.  We are there to share what we have and not to impose.

Chickens come home to roast

I have not accomplished for others anything inexplicable but I had recent personal experiences that I can describe either as serendipity, good luck or miracle. 

Prisoners on the way to court

My getting into volunteer work in Uganda started with the chance reading of the VSO ad in an

in-flight magazine during our return flight from a family holiday

Papyrus stringed into mats

last December 2009.  New year's day found me filling-in the forms for sending online on the first business day of 2010.  I thought this was a 

wonderful gift to me because volunteering was something I wanted to do some years back.

Highway vendors

Initially, I was to go to Vanuatu, formerly known as New Hebrides. The prospect of living in the South Pacific Islands attracted me until I accidentally met a stranger in one of our trainings.  I started our conversation by telling him that I admired the intricately carved wooden cane that he was using.  He said it was a gift from a tribal chief in Vanuatu.

Shot of the moon taken at high noon in Gulu

That's when I learned that he volunteered in Vanuatu, a place that he could circle on foot in one day. (He could be exaggerating because of his limp.) I then changed my topmost placement preference to Africa.  I was not disappointed.   I think at this moment that with these two unexpected occasions, Someone up there where the sun and the moon are, had given me the choice of serving time in Africa - now. 

Acholi dressing

The folks in Gulu are smart dressers.  Despite the midday heat, men commonly wear long sleeves and blazers with occasional neckties.  Notwithstanding the muddy or dusty roads, men manage to keep their shoes clean and shiny. Children who go to town are also dressed up.

I read that this penchant for smart dressing was unconsciously influenced by the colonial masters of the past.  The local men aspired to dress-up like them and be dignified. If I'd be asked what makes an African male distinctive, I would say his shoes.











Women who go to work in town usually wear western clothing with blazers.  But less ordinarily, women wear gomesis or kitenges.

The gomesi is the official dress in Buganda, and the tribes people known as Baganda were considered high-class, had good upbringing and been through school.

A less formal wear is called kitinge.  Western clothing is commonly available from stalls that sell pre-owned clothes.  But most ethnic wear is tailor-made.  
What makes an African woman distinctive to me is her headwear or turban.  They wear this, not for religious reasons but more to hide what otherwise would be a problematic hair.  

Kitinge and turban

Despite the weather, men and women do not wear walking and sports shorts.  Perhaps because of the heat, plunging necklines and display of cleavages by women who wear western clothing are ordinary views.  

I have not attached a picture of these views, lest this blog be censored.

Some rural houses in this global village

The assembly is covered with dried grass,  then set on fire to bake the bricks

Gulu is populated by the ethnic group Acholi, who are originally Luo people from southern Sudan. Their traditional dwellings are circular in shape, literally one door/one room, low with no upper floors.

Foreground is the out-house

Latrines and bathrooms are "out-houses" and shared. There are also rectangular structures consisting of several doors; each door is one dwelling.  I understand that this housing used to be the workers' quarters during the colonial period.  Bungalows and houses with upper floors are very few and some mid-rise buildings are currently under construction.

Houses in town

Uganda has a decentralized form of local government with two parallel hierarchies - that of the politicians, and the technocrats or civil servants. The smallest unit is the village which belongs to a parish which in turn forms a sub-county.  The sub-county (or division) belongs to a county (or town) which comprises a district.

Everyone belongs to a village

Outside town, the dwellings are mostly circular huts. In some villages, tribal chiefs

Village of a prominent person

still live and rule among their people.

Interior of a dwelling

Compare the village huts to the wigwams of the American Indians, the igloos of the Eskimos, the boat houses and nipa huts in the Philippines. 

    Newly built hut

They have their own unique designs and make - suitable to the weather conditions, the terrain, and the available building materials. I noticed though that none of these Acholi dwellings have make-shift walls or roofs made of scrap materials - a common sight in some areas back home.

A child in his home

Isn't the world one global village where we live in our peculiar dwellings with our own tribes and rulers?  Some people though in this modern age have the choice to live in recreational mobile homes, camping tents, luxurious yachts, high-tech mansions, and furnished tree-houses. They are, perhaps a new tribe..........