What's happening in Sudan

After enduring years of violent attacks by their own government and being treated as second class citizens in their own country, southern Sudanese (mainly black and Christian or animist) began 6 days of voting on the Referendum of Independence on January 9. This vote will decide whether or not the south will secede from the mostly Muslim north. The vote was called for in 2005 in a peace deal ending the 23-year civil war between the two regions.

Sudan has been war-torn for almost the entirety of its independent existence, which it gained from Britain in 1956. The Sudanese president's regime, based in the North in Khartoum, has been accused of unleashing Arab militias, known as janjaweed, against rebels in the Western Darfur region which have committed atrocities against ethnic African towns and villages, killing hundreds of thousands. Similarly, there is suspicion surrounding Khartoum’s support of the once-Uganda based Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) led by indicted war criminal Joseph Kony. Enough Project explains an LRA-Khartoum alliance wouldn’t necessarily come out of left field for the two became partners during parallel wars in northern Uganda and southern Sudan in the 1990s when Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni began supporting the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the main rebel group in southern Sudan and in retaliation, Khartoum provided the LRA (then based in Gulu, Uganda) with intelligence, arms, and training, and allowed the LRA to use southern Sudan as its base of operations. Aljazeera has reported as recent as July 2010, Kony has been suspected to have made contact with the Khartoum government, this verified by testimonies from escaped LRA soldiers.

It seems Khartoum would benefit from increasing instability in southern Sudan, especially post referendum vote results, thus leaving the region focused, among other things, on a renewal of an LRA-Khartoum union. Tracking the LRA’s whereabouts, Ugandan military officials view this as highly unlikely; though with the dense jungles of southern Sudan and neighboring Central African Republic, it may not be that straightforward. This is also particularly of interest to us as Ugandan’s presidential elections will be taking place beginning next month. More on the election soon.

Southern Sudan itself is among the world's poorest regions. The entire France-sized region has only 30 miles of paved roads. Because only 15 percent of southern Sudan's 8.7 million people can read, the ballot choices were as simple as could be: a drawing of a single hand marked "separation" and another of clasped hands marked "unity." However, one beacon of hope for the south is most of Sudan's oil lies within their claim; however, the pipelines to the sea run through the north, ultimately tying the two regions together economically. The South’s secession would likely deprive Khartoum of most of its oil reserves, no doubt sparking much controversy. The central region of Abyei has been and will continue to be the most likely place for north-south tensions to erupt into violence as it straddles the dividing line (residents of the Abyei region were promised their own referendum on whether to join the north or the south but leaders could not agree on how to run the poll and the vote did not take place as planned on January 9).

South Sudan Referendum Commission (SSRC) has said that the initial results of the referendum would be announced on January 31 (as of Jan. 21 reports still seemed this was possible). Should the vote be in favor of secession, Sudan, Africa’s largest nation, would soon become two, with Southern Sudan becoming the world's newest nation as early as July. More to come after the results are announced...and left wondering if an African country can truly hold to its initial deadline.

PART 2: GHANA go travelin'

Christmas Eve Eve I made my way to Ghana to meet my friend Bright, who although was born & raised in Ghana, moved to NYC at 15 and this was his first time back since he left. Soon after I arrived, we headed North to his hometown in the Volta region. During the holidays it's customary to walk the streets and greet everyone and this kept Bright especially busy since no one had seem him in about 10 years! I was there for moral support I guess you could say. There were a couple of younger girls, Bright's cousins, who were staying with us at the house and naturally, I found myself hanging with them a lot, too. They were a hilarious, fun, smart group of girls. We had a lot of fun dancing at the many, many parties up through New Years.


Greeting the town on Christmas Day



Dancin' into the night


Traditional celebration

Christmas we ate & ate lots of food and in one of the soups I found...a goat SKULL. It is a delicacy (along with the meat cooked in the goats blood...) and of course not wanting to be rude I indulged.. I even ate the eyeball...it was GROSS; don't let the exotic-ness fool you as I did. The meat actually tasted much like a brownie, is that uncultured of me to say? Much of the rest of the food was spicy and delicious, though. A nice change for my recent Ugandan palette! The women, Bright's aunts, were amazing and cooked tirelessly, which to be honest felt uncomfortable for me; I felt like I should help but wasn't allowed. I had to protest even to do my own laundry (which I hate doing in the first place, but hate even more someone else doing it for me!). They were happy to have me hold a baby though..


Chokin down the eyeball


At 26, the women always ask why I don't have a kid yet?

As I said, many of the nights we were down at Bright's grandmothers, dancing and partying away to traditional Ghanaian 'high life' which is awesome music. As the sole white-person a.k.a. "obruenie" (or as Bright insisted, a "guest"....ahem) I posed for many pictures, danced with many strangers and even had to give a few speeches. Pretty wild, but fun nonetheless...


With Bright. You cant tell from this pic (thank goodness) but the girls braided my entire head...Safe to say it wasn't a good look on me..

One day we went trekking through the jungle for palm wine (straight from the trunk of palm trees!), which was so cool to do but to be honest I have to say it tastes rather like sweet, warm urine...woof. Sorry Bright. After I couldn't take anymore of the palm wine, some of the women brought me food and were entertained while we ate together; so surprised an obruenie would eat their food - but I loved most of the food there!! Midway through our meal, some rough and tough guys rolled up on motorbikes and minutes later a scuffle broke out... Just as I asked one of the women if it'd turn into a fight, a few kids ran passed into the house and sure enough I was ushered in right after. I was in the middle of a tribal war!!! The neighboring town and thus a different tribe, wanted to protest an election the following day, and decided to attack the very house we were at! I felt safe enough inside but what an afternoon!! A drawback to this occurrence you ask? We couldn't watch the Arsenal v. Chelsea game because the town that attacked us was the only town nearby that had the tv station!


Workin for our "wine"!


Spearin a fish (totally staged, too..)

Our time in Bright's hometown was really fun & very interesting and I got to learn a lot about the traditions, customs and ways of life. It was interesting to see many of the similarities to Uganda, but also the different ways the people adapted to life. Family ties run deep, and there's a real communal feeling amongst the people. Many of the kids are raised by other family members and it's quite something to witness what many in the community do for others; The women particularly interested me. I found many very selfless which was inspiring to see. It was also encouraging to see the difference in lives of women there while most of the time they were tending to the cooking, cleaning and child rearing as in Uganda, they also seemed to have a bit more freedom and the community was a bit more open to shows of affection between couples. I never once saw a woman bow to a man, and unfortunately I've seen it in Uganda a few too many times. For me this brought up the importance people place on "tradition", but often times I feel the label can be applied a bit too liberally: Scarring babies faces at birth to identify their tribe, female genital mutilation (still done in parts Northern Ghana, not to mention other parts of Africa), or the practice (??!) of having more than one "wife" for men. This is a whole other blog entirely, but definitely something I tuned into right away...

A couple days after New Years we left his hometown & went back to the capital city, Accra. We had fun exploring the town, but the traffic was KILLER. Combined with the scorching heat, taxis that never had working windows in the back seat, lack of any tarmac roads and extremely dusty 'shoulders', we were always in for an interesting ride. Usually though my car ride entertainment was due to the seemingly endless stream of street vendors hoisting their wares into our faces (I guess the lack of window access was a good thing?). I'm used to the absolute craziness of Kampala's vendors trying to force any-and-everything on me, but in Accra, it seemed like there was nowhere safe; while in Kampala most of the vendors are confined to the market, in Accra they ran wild...literally. They dodged traffic trying to get you to buy a loaf of bread or they were sprinting after our car to get us some High School Musical stickers. My most curious encounter was a man holding a dead rat on a string and unfortunately for this particular ride, I did have a working window... And although I could get used to the drive up convenience of it all, I did wonder how much money these vendors could honestly make? Like I've seen before in Uganda, people really have a survival instinct, but not in the typical sense we think in the West - it's as basic as making enough money to eat for the day, be it just $1 worth, it doesn't so much matter.

The city has a lot more Western influences than I was expecting; we even went into a real mall. And in Accra again, lots of delicious food, none of which I could begin to cook for myself. One day we also took a drive out to a animal rehab/monkey sanctuary and got up close & personal with some animals. I tried to hold a monkey but it wasn't having it and bit my arm-ouch!

Next we traveled a couple hours West to Cape Coast, which was a sweet little Rastafarian town on the beach. We visited Elmina Castle and Cape Coast castle; both used by the Dutch, Portuguese and British in times of slave trade. It was pretty unsettling to stand in the Slave Dungeons - they were dark, stuffy and very small. Hundreds were packed into a room no bigger than most "master bedrooms" in the US; this is also where the inhabitants went to the bathroom, too, so one can only imagine the smell that permeated those dungeons. We walked through the underground tunnels to the "Room of No Return" which is where the slaves that survived the dungeon, would exit to be herded onto the ship and sent off.

Once we returned from the Coast it was time to head back to Uganda and after landing back in Nairobi, I loaded up for a (agonizing!) 8 hour bus ride to the Ugandan border. I was met with the oh-so-familiar"mzungu" calls, the money changing vultures trying to scam me at every chance, and the border patrol overcharging me for my visa. I was even greeted by a family of baboons on the side of the road! Even with another 5 or so hours til I was back at my house, it felt good to be back in Uganda. Yesterday was especially great because I got to visit some of my kids houses and surprise them since I was back a bit earlier than I had first told them. It was so wonderful to see them again and very humbling to see their huge smiles as they ran up and into my arms. It was a really special feeling and made me feel good about being back here, ready to take on the second half of my time here. These kids are so special and absolutely remind me while all the traveling this month was fun and I was fortunate to be able to see and experience what I did, they are the reason why I'm here!!

Thank you to you guys who sent cards, holiday greetings and good wishes. It really made me feel good and loved from lands fah fah away. I'm sending some of this sunshine your way in hopes you are staying warm in the winters of Chicago and NYC or wherever else you find yourself. Know I'm thinking of you always!

Oh, and GO BEARS!!!

Thanks for reading,
Heather

...And we're back - PART 1: KENYA dig it

Phew what a month! It's been a while since I last got to post as I found myself getting a bit of traveling in but not a lot of internet time - as it should be, I guess! I hope everyone had a great time celebrating the holidays..pretty crazy it's 2011 already and although there really is nothing quite like Christmas time (in NYC!) or with family and friends at home, I did enjoy myself over the holidays and got to do, see and EAT some things I might never have otherwise...

Mid-December I found myself in Kenya where I met Felicia in Nairobi. We stayed there for a few days to explore the city. I really liked it there; it reminded me of some European cities I've been to, most especially Rome! The streets are wide & tree lined, roads were a bit more organized, if not still chaotic - very different from the overcrowded, polluted streets of Kampala (and as I'd later see, the vendor-filled, dusty streets of Accra). After tasting some of THE best coffee we'd ever had, we hoped on Eastern Africa railways for a overnight train ride to Mombasa, on Kenya's Eastern coast. The train ride was definitely a experience.

Felicia on one of the couch/bed/seats

Checkin out the Kenyan landscape

Mombasa is on the Indian Ocean, which was really beautiful and the beach was peaceful minus the vendors that would attack the second you got to the sand. Some good humor and fast walking though usually did the trick. In the mornings, the tide would be so far out, you could walk along sand bars maybe a 1/2 mile out..

By 11 or so, the tide was back up to shore, crashing on the beach. One afternoon we found ourselves hiding in the room after a sneak attack by some hungry monkeys, and one wanting to plan our night for us:

Our new friend

We got to ride this crazy, pirate-like ship on the Ocean and another afternoon we took some jet skis out after a 1-minute crash course on how to ride them. Of course I freaked out the whole time as we were speeding and bumping along; exhilarating but not being able to see the bottom of the ocean made me nervous (my family can attest to this..when we were in Hawaii scuba diving I clutched onto my brother the whole time...)! Jet skiing was awesome, though. Another highlight was our camel ride on the beach!!

Alex, our trusty camel

We also were treated to delicious, huge meals and the swim up bar and Joseph the bartender kept us in good spirits. It was very refreshing to eat some real food (and not have to cook it myself, to be honest!). One of the last nights, we took a dhow ("canoe" of sorts) to Fort Jesus in old Mombasa town and had a cool historic show and dinner in the fort itself. Of course we both got steak which came with world's most delicious sauce ever. It was a GREAT, memorable vacation and a perfect way to start off my holiday in Africa!