A beautiful calm, cool night in Gulu yet I am feeling restless

So here I am in Gulu for the rest of my program with the wonderful, lively, bubbly, free-spirited Gracie—also a curly haired, ginger with the last name of BURGER.  she’s a riot. Not to mention she’s studying prisons in Uganda, which is fascinating. I’m so happy shes here in Gulu with me.

A lot has happened since my last entry. Instead of working for an NGO, I am solely doing research on the impact the government and NGOs are making on water provision in the post-conflict zone of the Gulu District in northern Uganda.  

The past two days have been emotionally exhausting and physically draining.  My new adviser, Raphael, has been nothing but wonderful for helping me with my research…it is just that these days have taken so much out of me.  The heat, the sun, the flies, the mosquitoes, the dust.  Not only did I get SO sunburned being outside all day, but the intense sun and constant heat took a toll on me.  God, I am so weak, I feel so awful because here I am complaining about how I can barely handle two days on these field visits when these are the conditions these warm, welcoming and self-less people live in every. Single. Day.

 

Raphael and I drove all day to four sub-counties within the Gulu District yesterday (Pece, Koro, Laroo and Bar-dege)to observe the different types of water sources (bore holes, protected springs, shallow wells, hand-dug wells, motorized solar panel pumps, unprotected springs, etc) and to interview district officials and the primary respondents—the beneficiaries using the water in these rural areas.  It was so interesting to hear from some of the officials about what they say they are doing to improve the accessibility to clean water and sanitation in these rural communities…and then talk to the actual people living in these villages and seeing firsthand these ‘improvements’ of these water sources, or lack thereof. The water points we visited are awful. 

memorial futball stadium-our view from our hotel room, our home for the next month

But I am really struggling with doing this research right now.  When Ugandans spot us ‘mazungus’, they instantly assume that we have money.  When I show up to some of these water sources looking to conduct a few interviews, many times the villagers are hopeful that I have arrived in their village to give them funds to build/repair a new well simply because im white. I understand research is helpful in many ways, but it is difficult to leave these places without feeling completely terrible for not doing something more.

Throughout the 20 years that northern Ugandan was in this civil war, so many NGOs flooded Gulu for assistance.  Yet now that the war has ended, the majority of NGOs have left to find other emergency areas like congo, southern sudan, etc.  So that leaves a huge challenge for the people living in Gulu who have heavily relied on these NGOs that now have to fend for themselves.  Many of the NGOs during the conflict came in, drilled boreholes, and left.  Now many of these boreholes are broken and pump dirty water because both the government and NGOs did not efficiently train the community members on proper maintenance.  What’s the point of spending thousands of dollars drilling these water points when they end up breaking and no one knows how to repair them? It’s just frustrating.  

It amazes me how strong these women and children are.  The last sub-county that we went to, Bar-dege, was really difficult to see.  The one water source was a protected spring.  (note: protected springs, also known as ‘springs: protected’—SPs, consist of a concrete wall leading to a pipe that emits underground water into a stream)  The condition of this SP was atrocious.  Garbage filled the brownish, flooding water with flies swarming the area—the trash just baking in the scorching sun.  And that wasn’t even the most disturbing part.  As we were approaching the SP, the sun was blinding me and it wasn’t until we walked closer that I realized who primary fetched this dirty water—children.  Giggling and playing in this stinky mess were about 10-15 children between the ages of 2-10. Each child was filling up their own family’s dirty yellow jerry can and helping one another lift the cans on their heads to deliver to their homes (usually they travel 1-3 km every day, same routine).  This happens every day—that is, if there is water.  Both wet and dry season are challenging in Bar-dege.  The wet season (right now) is difficult because the SP floods regularly, as I witnessed, and contaminates the clean ground water with the rain water, trash, animals, feces, everything.    And in the dry season, the ground water is very low and often will not even come out of the SP.  

  

 

Okay that is all for now, these days take so much out of me. I have so much I want to share, to talk about, to just try to wrap my mind around all the challenges here… but right now I really have no energy to even think. Bedtimeeeee:)