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In Uganda, all history is political, and so are the secrets. Some surround pain, some surround shame, but the heaviest silences obscure the powers of the present day...
Andrew Rice, "The Teeth May Smile but the Heart Does Not Forget"
Kabul fell to the Taliban one year ago today. I was nearly finished serving in the Peace Corps Response to COVID and was shocked to see the headline on the Al Jazeera website. Over the coming days I read what I could about what was happening in Afghanistan: the harrowing stories of families trying to escape, desperate people clinging to airplanes as they ascended to the skies, and a suicide bomb attack at the airport.
A few weeks later my friend shared that the International Rescue Committee was looking for people to help with a humanitarian resettlement mission. I applied right away, and before I knew it I was working at Fort Pickett, VA as a part of the team. Over the next four and a half months, I was sent on some away missions to conduct special intake interviews, was promoted to being a Quality Control Manager, and made a host of new friends—true humanitarians—who were deeply committed to our work helping Afghan families to get resettled in the United States.
I worked closely with a lot of talented Afghan interpreters fluent in Dari and Pashto (as well as other languages). In the evenings, sometimes I would get to watch a few of them perform traditional songs with a harmonium and drums as accompaniment. My Afghan friends were kind enough to introduce ignorant Americans like myself to card games from Afghanistan, educate us about famous singers, and regularly invite us out to local Afghan restaurants to sample the cuisine.
The mission came to an end in January but by February I was on my way back for the second phase. I was reunited with many friends and made new ones who had served at some of the other bases during the previous months. I stayed there until the end of June, when I left for my new job in Kenya.
Due to security concerns and restrictions, I have very few photos from the ten months that I was a part of the mission (and most of what I do have I was told not to share online). I couldn’t document the friendship and teamwork that was all around me, the cultural events, or the interagency cooperation. Nor could I record the smiling faces of families able to be reunited, or who received the news they would be resettled where they wanted to go. And how do you capture the joy when a young woman learns she will get to attend college, or the dignity of a family mourning the loss of a child?
Instead, I have photos of Afghan food. Vegetarian ‘mantu’ dumplings from the eponymous restaurant; ‘borani banjan’, a delicious eggplant dish; chickpeas, rice and greens from a catered dinner; ‘samaroq’, a mixed mushroom curry that I cooked for my parents after the mission ended; ‘kadoo borani’ a pumpkin dish my mom and I cooked following a recipe; and spicy chickpeas, seasoned beans and rice that one of my friends cooked for me as a farewell lunch. I may not have photographs to remember my time on the mission or each of our successes, but each of these dishes recall rich memories for me.
TBB Editor-in-Chief Andrew Becraft shares how his experience with friends and colleagues in Ukraine has inspired him to show support in even
I am decidedly not a fan of realistic LEGO weapons, but I thought that it was worth noting this creative initiative that sells customized minifigures, accessories and kits in order to benefit medics and other aid workers who are responding to Russia’s assault on Ukraine.
Personally, I would really like to see an initiative similar to this focusing not on weapons of war but the medics and humanitarian workers themselves.
Early in the pandemic, the Peace Corps made a difficult and unprecedented decision to evacuate the nearly 7,000 Volunteers around the world. Now, we return to service–in the United States–for the second time in the agency's history. I am proud to be among the 158 Peace Corps Response Volunteers who have sworn-in to support community vaccination sites! I hope that we will be able to assist in curtailing the spread of COVID-19, and that in the not-too distant future it may be possible to return to our countries of service.
It was a privilege to become one of the more than 240,000 Americans who have served in 141 countries before returning to the U.S. ready to share their experiences, skills and passions for service within their communities. This year the Peace Corps celebrated its 60th anniversary, but just two weeks later I find myself observing a more somber one: today it has been one year since my time in Uganda came to an abrupt end as all Peace Corps operations were suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic. Some of the affected Volunteers identify with *Evacuated* instead of the more traditional “Returned” descriptor because we came back to a country radically different from the one we had left. So much of our work was left unfulfilled or unrealized, and some of us had really only just begun; a lot of people didn’t feel like we had done what we had set out to accomplish. Maybe we would get to go back eventually…but it wasn’t clear when. In the meantime, we had to quarantine for two weeks, and then try to adjust to life in a pandemic. A year is a long time to wait. Many of my colleagues who initially remained so enthusiastic about serving have since gotten jobs or started at graduate school; as the Peace Corps checks our temperature every so often to see who is still interested in applying for re-enrollment, the number is gradually decreasing. Potential departure estimates remain nebulous, but that will probably change as vaccinations continue and coronavirus cases decline. I don’t know what the future has in store, but it would be a great privilege to continue to serve.
Over the years I have spoken with many aspiring Peace Corps Volunteers, some of whom were so encumbered by the medical assessment costs that they ultimately decided to withdraw their applications altogether. It is wonderful to hear that the Peace Corps is helping to reduce this financial strain in an effort to make service more accessible for more people.
I had only been living in Chebera, a small, rural village in Ethiopia’s Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region for a week or so before the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Cellular service was weak, but sufficient for an SMS to reach me: “Trump wins as Hillary concedes. Republicans control House and Senate. Thank you.” This was not the news that I hoped for. I vividly remember taking in that update, trying unsuccessfully to message other Peace Corps Volunteers to commiserate, and recognizing that my extremely basic Amharic skills would not be up to the task of conveying to my community the deep disappointment I was feeling. That was probably the loneliest moment of my service. Four years later, the United States turned out in record numbers to repudiate the unending lies, division, and shifts toward fascism that characterize the current presidency. Sadly, the victory over delusional American exceptionalism was hard-won…and though Joe Biden was declared the president-elect with the most votes of any candidate in the nation's history, I think his victory is largely due to votes against the incumbent instead of explicitly for the former VP. And despite everything that has happened, more than 70 million Americans still voted for Trump to have a second term. There is much to celebrate today, yet much more work before the country: how can we address the deep political and ideological divisions in a way that is just, empathetic, and builds community? How can we work together to make the country better, kinder, and more hopeful? #BidenHarris2020 #TrumpLoses #RPCV #Hope #Community #ElectionResults https://www.instagram.com/p/CHTjERLgZXR/?igshid=1uk01yvigr15u
Current and back issues of the National Peace Corps Association’s WorldView Magazine can now be read online! It looks like they may still be digitizing the older ones, but there’s a lot of great stuff in here.
Cinema 21 presents A TOWERING TASK: THE STORY OF THE PEACE CORPS, a new documentary by Alana DeJoseph. Narrated by Annette Bening, A Towering Task tells the remarkable story of the Peace Corps and takes viewers on a journey of what it means to be a global citizen. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy gave young Americans the opportunity to serve their country in a new way by forming the Peace Corps. Since then, more than 200,000 of them have traveled to more than 60 countries to carry out the organization's mission of international cooperation. Nearly 60 years later, Americans - young and old alike - still want to serve their country and understand their place in the world; current volunteers work at the forefront of some of the most pressing issues facing the global community. Yet the agency has struggled to remain relevant amid sociopolitical change. More than once it had to fight for its very existence, and now - between COVID, a rise in nationalist sentiment and deep cuts to governmental-agency budgets - the Peace Corps is again confronting a crisis of identity: What role should it play around the world and in the lives of engaged citizens? "Enlightening and uplifting. 'A Towering Task' puts a human face on the Peace Corps - and makes sense of its history of idealism, improvisation, politics, and at times its failings. It is the most coherent and satisfying documentary I know of the Peace Corps, and I can't imagine a better one." - Paul Theroux, Travel Writer & Novelist 107 minutes, 2020 Optional English subtitles
The Museum of the Peace Corps is hosting online screenings of A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace Corps from today until September 30th. Tickets are $10 and available through the attached link. Click here to watch the trailer.
Men–Not Virus–Abuse Uganda’s Schoolgirls During Lockdown
Recently there has been a spate of articles blaming the COVID-19 pandemic for the unwanted pregnancies, sexual assaults and rapes, and forced marriages that schoolgirls across the African continent are experiencing during lockdowns. While it is positive that these abuses are being reported, their prevalence–and the media’s spin of the situation–is concerning.
The Daily Monitor reports that “more than 2,500 [Ugandan] schoolgirls have been made pregnant, and another 128 married off across the country...” citing figures obtained from district departments of health and education, and probation and social welfare. Thousands of teenagers, most well below the age of consent, are now at risk of not returning to their academic studies once the lockdowns have ended. “The four months of lockdown since March has so far claimed [only] two recorded COVID-19 deaths in [Uganda]...but the same quarter has thrown our schoolgirls into the deep end of life without proper guidance...the consequences have been calamitous...”.
Media accounts are quick to attribute these instances of gender-based violence to the pandemic. “This is partly attributed to the lockdown that created redundant time for learners...” explains a Monday, July 7 piece in the Daily Monitor; “this means the closure of our schools on March 20 for fear of spreading COVID-19 has now caused more disaster for our young girls than COVID-19 has directly done”, argues the paper’s follow-up from July 29. Only one other culprit is implicated: “parents are largely blamed for engaging the pupils into forced labor where men have taken advantage of them”.
Throughout these reports, schoolgirls are treated as passive objects, subjected to abuses by those around them in the scholastic vacuum left by the pandemic. The only time they are afforded any agency at all is to critique their participation in “risky behaviors”, a callous blaming of victims, most of whom are too young to legally consent. These are crimes: girls are raped, assaulted, impregnated or forced into work or [often illegal] marriages. Curiously, while these crimes have victims, the media is only too content to saddle the coronavirus with the bulk of responsibility. Are we to believe that these abuses are committed by a situation, and not perpetrators?
Men must be held responsible for their actions (and their crimes). Unfortunately, many victims are reported to have “found it hard to walk long distances to police posts or stations, courts and medical centers...as a consequence, many of [the girls] have given up pursuing their cases to get justice, with the majority of cases not prosecuted”, and in other cases, “simply dismissed for lack of interest” according to the Daily Monitor. Justice mechanisms clearly need to be more accessible to girls, but communities also need to protect, support and empower them better.
It is wildly unprofessional that a media outlet would offer up the pandemic as a scapegoat to deflect guilt away from rapists. Cursory scrutiny of this claim quickly reveals that data is being skewed: some of the statistics being offered by the Daily Monitor actually pre-date the country’s coronavirus lockdown. And according to a 2018 report from UNICEF, “more than 1 in 3 girls experienced sexual violence in childhood [and] more than half of girls...who experienced sexual violence experienced the first incident before the age of 16″. The same report cites that “1 in 4 girls...experienced sexual abuse in the past year”. Sexual violence is not a new phenomenon that the pandemic has imposed upon girls, but a lingering specter that continues to haunt them.
Although the Daily Monitor argues that time away from school is partly to blame for an increase in defilement and pregnancy, UNICEF’s report articulates that “violence against children...commonly occurs on the road and in the afternoon and early evenings as many children are forced to commute to and from school alone and in the dark”. Wherever they are, girls are vulnerable. Thousands of teenage girls who have become pregnant or been subjected to early marriage will likely not be able to return to their academic studies when the lockdown has ended. This is the result of poor educational policy, and especially at present while e-learning and homeschooling options exist for Uganda’s students, it makes little sense to deny pregnant students educational opportunities which may offer them brighter futures.
[illustration from Uganda’s Daily Monitor]
I finally got a pack of playing cards from @gakondocards! Their deck celebrates and is inspired by Rwanda's culture and heritage, replacing the Eurocentric depictions of kings and queens with that of Rwandan royalty. Also featured are some iconic objet d'art, such as agaseke baskets, a kalabash for milk, a shield with spears, and a traditional woven mat. #Rwanda #PlayingCards #GakondoPlayingCards #culture #heritage #games #MadeInRwanda https://www.instagram.com/p/B_2iiaSAIPR/?igshid=1ltyic7ytzpbv
Uganda’s President Museveni closed all of the country’s schools on March 20. At my teacher-training college, this meant that the student teachers were sent back to their families. Some had only just arrived and begun their courses; those in their second year who had started their “teaching practice” within primary schools in our area had to put that crucial work on hold. I am still in my college’s WhatsApp group, so I know that a lot is going on behind the scenes to prepare for the term’s eventual return, but in the meantime students of all ages are stagnating as they idle at home. I have been thinking a lot about how much students–and in particular, those in primary school–enjoyed the DEAR Day activities back in March, and how many of them probably don’t have access to many books anymore. While their school does not allow students to borrow books overnight or take them off of the school compound, having access to storybooks five days a week is just one more service cut off by sheltering in place. While many (most?) other countries are also temporarily without libraries, books themselves are frequently accessible: in one’s own collections, from online retailers, and at stores that happen to sell them (even my grocery store has a small selection!). I wonder if there are enterprising book hawkers showing up to open-air markets with titles suitable for kids, and if parents (perhaps furloughed or laid off or just out of work due to coronavirus) are in a position to purchase any for their children. I wonder if kids are finding time to write and illustrate their own stories. And mostly, I wonder if literacy is going to be a casualty of the pandemic in some areas. I hope not. But teachers are going to have their work cut out for them when teaching resumes. One thing is for sure, books should be deemed essential. #PeaceCorps #Uganda #read #books #reading #literacy #DropEverythingAndRead #libraries #coronavirus (at Mpigi, Uganda) https://www.instagram.com/p/B_p2U4Xgel9/?igshid=ioo4xnrp6rjh
Thank you, Director Olsen for continuing to support the ePCVs during this very awkward “readjustment” period! This was a very welcome announcement while we wait to hear specifics about reinstatement.
Back before the coronavirus interrupted the school term, some of the classes at my college were taught outside. This photo shows but a small fraction of the students on the lawn, some of whom were sharing textbooks and all of whom were eventually collaborating on group projects. The teachers would wander around the students as they spoke so that all of them had a chance to hear, but it was unwieldy and the thought of spacing everyone out six feet from each other would not be realistic with the space we have. I already felt blessed that the college had comparatively small class sizes; some Volunteers in my cohort teaching at the primary level talked about having 1-200 students per class! Even if the whole social distancing thing gets to end and schools resume teaching next year, I expect that the primary schools are going to be in rough shape. Classrooms choked with students and lacking desks for the ones they already had may find themselves having to accommodate influxes of students from the preceding grades, at least at the early levels. An entire year of teachers in training are being held back and may not be able to begin even their student teaching practice when scheduled, further exacerbating the strain on Uganda's education system. I hope that the country will be able to return to teaching as soon as possible and that innovative solutions will be found to address these challenges. #PeaceCorps #Uganda #education #school #SocialDistancing #teaching #coronavirus #TeachersOfInstagram (at Mpigi, Uganda) https://www.instagram.com/p/B_QcbTdAdZd/?igshid=tuef6sgkyze
Is it just me, or does that "snake" look a lot more like a tapeworm? Could confusing teaching materials such as this one from my college's demonstration preschool class be contributing to the East African predilection for killing snakes on sight? In Rwanda and Ethiopia I would beg people to spare at least the harmless (and helpful) ones, but no one wanted to hear a muzungu defending snakes. Yes: some of the snakes in East Africa are extremely dangerous and deadly. I understand that. But isn't there something troubling about the notion that it's just easier to kill them all than take the time to understand snakes better and identify which actually pose a threat? In Uganda I never saw any living snakes, but I did find one smashed baby black mamba. Because I was born and raised in California, I was instilled with an awe and reverence for animals. When I came across a rattlesnake on a hike or a camping trip, I would give them space and admire them from a distance, and make sure not to threaten them. I never got bit, but if I had, it is probable that I could have relied on emergency services to get me to a hospital, or wilderness first responders could have triaged me in the field and then gotten me to help. If I needed antivenin, there's a pretty good chance that the hospital would have it in stock. These safety nets are less likely to be accessible in East Africa. A snake bite could easily be a death sentence, especially since they have some of the most deadly species on Earth. Education would be valuable here, and demystifying local serpents could save lives: the snakes, as well as humans. "Safety" need not only come from the blade of a machete or the strike of a stone: I hope that it can also come from understanding. #PeaceCorps #EastAfrica #Uganda #snake #snakes #education #understanding #SnakesOfInstagram (at Mpigi, Uganda) https://www.instagram.com/p/B_GLMoSAEV_/?igshid=43g9agnp862u
Rwanda's Week of Remembrance is celebrated from April 7-14 each year, commemorating the 1994 Rwandan Genocide Against the Tutsi, which left a million dead after just 100 days. Each year Rwandans gather to remember those who were killed, tell stories of their experiences and come together in the spirit of reconciliation. "We are all Rwandan" is the country's restorative mantra, with the hope that future generations of Rwandans will identify as a nation instead of as ethnic groups. While traditionally a social and collective event, this year's commemoration was unavoidably much more individual due to COVID19. The government responsibly cancelled the yearly Walk to Remember and a candlelight vigil to the country's National Stadium, and even Rwanda's Genocide memorials had to suspend their tours. These memorials are an important part of national culture in the country, and a way of giving dignity to the dead, rescued from mass graves and other anonymous resting places. This year instead of bringing flowers to leave, Rwandans had to follow the national commemoration events on tv and social media. My host papa tells me that families spent time looking through photographs of friends and loved ones who were killed during the genocide, and that children got a lot of extra time to ask their parents questions about what had happened. While quarantines and lockdowns kept Rwandans (and much of the world) physically apart for this past week, let us count our blessings that we are able to connect remotely and appreciate that virus or no, turi kumwe–we are together–in ways that count. [While obviously I was not in Rwanda for this year's events (and Rwandans were unable to come together physically), I thought I would show my solidarity by sharing this photo from Kwibuka20, when my papa and I attended the opening of Nyanza's new genocide memorial in 2014.] #Rwanda #RPCV #kwibuka #kwibuka26 #kwibuka26🇷🇼 #WeekOfRemembrance #NeverAgain #genocide #GenocideMemorial (at Nyanza, Rwanda) https://www.instagram.com/p/B--KoDKALpS/?igshid=13lrl4e2q53ip
Misguided fears of bats as disease carriers threaten a valuable and important species.
Like all of Uganda’s educational institutions, the teacher-training college that I was working at as a Peace Corps Volunteer suspended its term the day after I was consolidated. The students–some of whom had only recently arrived–were told to pack up their belongings and return to their parents; the tutors who had homes and family to stay with left the college as well. The campus is now nearly deserted, with just a skeleton crew staying there until the lockdown passes.
While the faculty and staff are scattered, socially distancing themselves from each other, we have been keeping in contact through WhatsApp, and there are daily updates and discussions from our college personnel. A few days ago, one of the tutors brought up the scourge of stray dogs in the village, which have apparently been causing trouble and scaring people. My Deputy Principal weighed in, supporting “the idea of eliminating them”...and then added her own concern, saying “we also need to fumigate and get rid of the bats. When you read about the coronavirus, bats are potential carriers.” Although I do not often add to the group conversations, I felt I needed to contribute in this case.
My colleagues already knew that I love bats, so I focused solely on the facts. I told them how I had read that “when a bat is stressed–by being hunted, or having its habitat damaged by deforestation–its immune system is challenged and finds it harder to cope with pathogens it otherwise took in its stride” in a CNN article. I expressed that as far as I knew, leaving bats alone reduces the chance of getting sick from them; seeking them out and threatening them would only increase that likelihood. I tried to impress that it was people that we needed to be distancing from right now.
The discussion then pivoted to the stench that the bats cause in our college’s library: I concede that this is something the college should address, but killing the bats won’t remove the festering guano that fills the ceiling. I offered tips on how guano can be harvested and used as fertilizer, something that many of the tutors would have use for. And I shared schematics for multi-chambered bat houses, not to tell everyone that they needed to construct them, but to show that this is something people do. I had hoped to build some bat houses during my time at site, and perhaps in the future I will still get that chance.
Merlin D. Tuttle says that “blaming already unpopular bats only increases already severe threats to their survival, despite scientific certainty about the enormous benefits they provide to both the environment and societies. Care about bats or not, we should see COVID-19 as a grim reminder that human well-being requires responsible stewardship of nature, not just dominance.” Scapegoating bats is–and has always been–about fear and ignorance, but misplacing blame and lashing out at convenient targets is not going to make the world a safer or healthier place.