Slave trading in Fort Baker

Slave trading was hidden behind this hill

I would not know what places of interest to recommend to a visitor in Gulu.  Perhaps the St. Mary’s Hospital in Lacor ( where some doctors sacrificed their lives treating  Ebola and HIV/AIDs

The Pope said mass here

patients in 1996 and 2000) or the former camps for internally displaced persons (designated in 1996 and disbanded in 2006).  There are no buildings with interesting architecture or history, although I have heard that the cathedral

former IDP camp

of the Archdiocese of Gulu is worth-visiting.  The grounds where Pope John Paul II held mass in 1993 has no marker at all and is in a sorry state.  For want of a historical place to show for,  I can mention Fort Baker, named

Fort Baker marker

after Sir Samuel Baker, appointed Governor General by the Queen of England in 1869  to stop the Arab slave trading in the area.   He built the fort in the trading camp in Patiko where the Acholi people were forcefully enslaved.  People were sorted out as to those who were fit or unfit to be sold as slaves;  those unfit were brutally murdered.

Slaves lie down to be measured

Beheaded bodies littered the area and blood painted nearly every little rock around.   Patiko is about 2 hours of

Ravine for rejects

rough roads from Gulu town, and the pictures here are the scenes that await the visitor.  Except for the faded marker, there is no

Symbolic structure

other literature in the place, and no one is on site to speak with authority what the whole place is all about. It seems that people do not want to talk much about this sordid past although a school had been named after Samuel Baker - a reminder that he was the protector of the Acholi people from the Arab slave traders.

Behind the rocks was the sorting area
Watch the film Amistad (Morgan Freeman and John Hopkins) for related info.

Gulu, the best district

The current Gulu District Council

Not that I have anything to do with it, but Gulu was recently awarded the Best District (2009-2010) in the whole of Uganda by the accredited rating agency of the Ministry of Local Government.  Indeed, Gulu

The prize

deserves the award which gives a top score on good corporate governance.  She has capable politicians and technocrats.  The former district chairman ran for president (but lost) in the last general

The former chair (L)

elections held in February 2011.  Two former district department heads have recently been appointed to positions of higher responsibility.  Gulu

Building front view

District had become an object of curiosity by other districts.  What is it that Gulu is doing right?  How can Gulu be Uganda's best

A newly paved road

district when her roads are bad?  The answer - those roads are maintained by the central government.  What about the rubbish, the poor drainage?  The answer - it is the responsibility of the town, not district council.  So to the uninformed visitor or admirer of the district, watch out.  The air you breathe does not belong to the district.

The new chairman.  He has a tough act to follow.

Sitting allowance

NGOs get topnotch consultants

In a previous post (September 2011), I described how Gulu became an NGO town.  A recent visitor from the UK said that he wanted to come to Gulu to see for himself the parade of 4 x 4s used by

NGOs work hard

international NGOs.  He wasn't disappointed; SUVs are the vehicles of choice here considering the poor state of the

Sign-up and be counted

roads.  Part of development work entails training of beneficiaries, and what's typical is that they are not only educated but they get paid too, to attend the training.  It used to be called a sitting allowance, but

Participants at work

because it had a bad connotation, some NGOs now openly announce the payment of transportation reimbursement and/or

Lunch line-up

lunch allowance.  A commotion arose once when an NGO decided to categorize the transportation reimbursement based on the distance from the work station to the venue of the workshop.  The participants affected complained that there should be no such distinction, and the NGO relented for fear that next time, they will no longer attract good attendance.  Some big men and women register for these workshops, disappear the whole time (perhaps to go back to work), and return to have lunch and/or collect the

Disappeared seatmates

allowance. This can happen anywhere in the world, but in a place where development partners stoke the local economy, you just see too many ways of how donors' funds are put to use - some small time, others big time. No reason to  rock the boat because the paperwork is in order.

Reimbursement queue.  Thanks for attending. 

I read a joke that goes, when you throw a stone in Nigeria, it will definitely hit a university graduate.  When you  throw a stone in Gulu, it will hit an NGO. (P.S.  The joke is about population density.)

Amazing Rwanda

Rwanda with her verdant hills

For the holidays, I chose to visit Rwanda because it had the cheapest visa fee at USD30 compared to USD50 of other East African countries... and visa application can

City centre:  no litter

be done online and

Bus terminal:  no litter

obtained within 3 days.  While Rwanda is poorer than Uganda (GDP rank #209 and #203, respectively), she is richer in so many ways to the eyes of a visitor.  Kigali, the capital is a super clean city (and so are the environs).  Use of plastic shopping bags is illegal.  Every last Saturday of each month is a national cleaning day from 7am to 12noon.  Buses don't ply until 12noon on that day.   

Helmets:  a must

Drivers of commuter motorcycles (called boda-bodas in Uganda) wear protective helmets and carry a spare for the passenger.  Policemen are visible in almost every corner of Kigali, and I understand that crime rate is very low.  Rwandans speak French more than English and drive on the right side of the road (Ugandans on the left side).  Traveling around Rwanda sheds no blood, sweat and tears as buses are clean, leave on time, are located in one central station in Kigali - and there are no potholes.

with Josefa (standing) - a Twa pygmy

Rwanda has a beautiful and well-curated National Museum in Butare.  It was awesome to see the men, women and children in

Off to the fields

rural Rwanda walk to the fields before sunrise, carrying their farm implements.  Every arable land seems to be planted with crops.  With a population of 11 million, small can indeed be beautiful.   Go visit Rwanda - her landscape is a great feast to behold.

Lake Kivu

Small victories

Our office is on the ground floor, almost fronting the reception desk.  By way of example, I introduced the open-door policy.

Before

Out of 10 rooms on the floor, I managed to infect only 3 doors.  It can't be helped as those who could not keep themselves busy for the entire working hours read

After

newspapers or daydream.  I took it upon myself to be the patroness of aesthetics in the workplace - to the best I can.  I showed them how to use blue tack instead of

Before

masking tape for posting notices on the wall, and make somethings more presentable and orderly.
I also act as a receptionist by asking people in the lobby how I can help them and direct them to the right places.  The telephone manners that I never practiced in my corporate life back home, I

After

have applied them here by saying  "Hello, good morning.  This is Eve speaking.  How may I help you?"
That's  one thing volunteers can do: use the power of example.

Rubbish no more

But one thing I enjoyed most was when I saved my few days' allowance to buy a full-length mirror for the comfort room.  What encouraged me to donate the mirror was the sight that every time my colleague arrives in the morning, the first thing she does is open her laptop and use the monitor as mirror.

After the laptop ritual

Now the comfort room is experiencing heavy traffic.  Staff from other floors and guests of the building use the comfort room on the ground floor because of the mirror  - strategically hanged to serve both genders.

It is a hit and a home-run.

Common sign in water closets