Good Afternoon (or Irye Maber in Luo),

We’ve been absolutely terrible at posting information about what has been happening here.

There has been a ton of amazing things that have gone on here and we want to share all of it with you. There is also some exciting news about some of our films and we’ve had a healthy surge of volunteers organizing Play Soccer So They Can events in the US and Canada.

In the coming days, we will properly end our Radio Silence and start to bring you all back in the loop.

Until then, enjoy the start of the World Cup!

Apwoyo matek

Gavin

By Erin Hunt

By Erin Hunt

I’ve been a little busy lately but I’m getting back to writing about changes that I noticed in Gulu when I returned in 2009, with OA. To get back on track (and ease myself into it), I thought I’d talk about everyone’s favourite topic – food!

In Gulu Town there are a few ‘grocery’ stores which I can most relate to you as sort of like the average corner store but most of your fresh food you buy at the market or “owino.” Actually almost anything you want could be bought at the market but the centre (physically) of the market is the food area. There’s the meat section, the fish section (which I tend to avoid), the fruit and vegetable ladies (including a second section that is almost entirely bananas) and the dry goods ladies selling things like millet, soghrum, rice and beans etc etc.

Now when I first arrived in Uganda, the market was intimidation personified but once you sort of figure out how much stuff should cost and what the layout is, it’s fine. There was one restaurant that made western food but I preferred to cook for myself. Since I could rarely find ‘western’ food in Gulu back then, and I didn’t know how to cook local food, I made frequent trips to the market for rice, vegetables, and fruit (including delicious pineapple and passion fruit). I also frequented the one bakery that sold “salty” bread, which I prefer to the more popular sweet bread to combine with staples I’d bring up from Kampala like pasta sauce or once a box of Special K.

Fast forward to last spring (2009), the market layout remained pretty much the same, though the fish section had moved, but what I did notice is that there were a lot more food available in the market. It seemed like there were more variety in the types of food available in all sections of the market, which I thought might be a sign of increasing agriculture in the area as people return home. Costs had risen dramatically but that might be a topic for a later post.

The biggest food change I noticed, though, was the increase in restaurants in town. Where before I knew of only a couple places that made any non-local food, all of a sudden there were at least half a dozen of places that made western inspired food, or Asian food. Although we tended to stick to our local dinners of rice and beans, sometimes with boo in sim sim paste (greens in nut sauce), I couldn’t believe the options for those nights when that just wasn’t going to cut it. Still though nothing could beat going to the market buying a pineapple and just cutting right into it when you get home. (Ok I better stop writing this – all I can think about now is market fresh pineapple with some passion fruit juice!)

What do these changes tell me? That people are secure enough in the current peace to invest their money in new businesses and that farmers feel safe enough to expand and diversify their production. I’d say those are two good signs in the overall rebuilding of northern Uganda.

By Erin Hunt

This week I want to share an informative online radio piece I found about women and peace in northern Uganda. The first half of IRIN Talks’ Bulletin 5 (from Nov 12, 2009) includes conversations with Betty Begombe and Santa Okot about women’s involvement in the peace process in northern Uganda.

While it will give you some background on the two women who they interview, here’s what I know. Betty Begombe was a Ugandan MP and Minister from Gulu when she headed up failed peace talks with the LRA in 1993/1994. She also participated in later peace talks in 2004-2005. Santa Okot was a negotiator in the Juba peace talks for the LRA. The LRA approached her to represent them at the negotiations.

Now I’m not quite fancy enough to link this posting to the actual file so you’ll have to find it on the IRIN Talks web site or for free via iTunes - it’s “IRIN Radio” under podcasts. It’s Bulletin 5 from November 12, 2009.

I find it interesting to hear about the experiences of these women at the negotiation table. We’ve been working at the grassroots level to support the inclusion of female youth in grassroots peacebuilding activities. To have strong role models like these two women is very helpful in demonstrating that women are essential participants in peace talks and mediations.

Anyone have additional information to contribute to this conversation?

By Erin Hunt

I’ve been talking about the changes in northern Uganda between when I first arrived in 2006 and when I went back this year with OA, but this post is going to be a bit different – a bit more personal.

By Erin Hunt

(post #4 of Looking back into northern Uganda with OA).

We’ve been talking about the changes I saw in northern Uganda between when I first visited in 2006 and when I went as part of OA’s team last spring. One thing that the conflict was known for were the night commuters. During the height of conflict, the Lord’s Resistance Army was abducting children so frequently that many children would walk each night into the major towns to sleep on the street because it was relatively safer than sleeping at home.

Oddly enough this is not something I knew that much about when I first arrived in Gulu in August 2006. I had heard vaguely about night commuters but hadn’t given it a second thought. I noticed that every evening a steady stream of children walked up the road in front of the compound and a lot of covered up people sleeping on the street (it took me a week or so to realize that all the people sleeping on the street were children). I slowly learned that the children were night commuters and there was a shelter for them across the street from where I was living.

Every trip up north after that I was conscious of the children sleeping on the street, in the shelters and everywhere else. Being conscious of that meant I noticed that as the ceasefire took hold and the security situation improved fewer and fewer children were sleeping on the street. By the time I left in 2007, there was only a trickle of night commuters – mainly children who were fleeing violence at home not the possibility of abduction.

Flash forward to this spring. The security situation has improved even more and OA and the Youth Coalition for Peace have selected the field at Laliya Primary School, which is a few minutes north of Gulu Town for rehabilitation. I don’t know if the rest of the OA team realized at that time but they had selected a school where most of the students would have been night commuters. Three years ago they would have been hurrying into town after school to find some shelter and hopefully some safety instead of playing soccer with their friends on a rehabilitated field.

I think that is part of why I love what I do with OA – I’m constantly shown that children, youth and communities are unbelievably resilient.

By Erin Hunt

So last week I mentioned a  bit about the physical rebuilding that is going on in northern Uganda and some of the changes I saw between when I first arrived in Gulu back in 2006 and coming back this spring with OA.  There is another type of rebuilding that is going on in the Acholiland (the main tribe in Northern Uganda is the Acholi) but it is much harder to see than new buildings.  People are rebuilding themselves after traumatic events from the war.

Due to the nature of the conflict it took quite a toll on the mental health of some people.  I won’t get into the kind of atrocities that occurred here but you can check out the SWAY reports to learn more about the experiences of youth during the conflict, needless to say some people in Gulu are dealing with issues of trauma.

Our local partners, the Youth Coalition for Peace (YCFP) are all trained in peer to peer counselling to help provide support to others in their communities.  I’ve seen them in action and they can be very effective either as counsellors or as a referral to other mental health resources in the community.  This is one of the reasons I was really happy to be working with the YCFP again.  We didn’t know the background of the children who were coming to the camps so it was great to have mentors who also had experience counselling.   The links made at the soccer camps have given the children another adult who they can turn to if they need it.

This is true too!