Uganda Perspective

The Reality of AIDS Part 16: Behavior Change Continues

It is 2008 and changing the behavior of a population continues to be the primary too l applied by  Uganda in its battle to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.  For more than 20 years - nearly two generations of people here in this society- the message has remained the same - abstain from sex until married, be faithful to your spouse during marriage and use a condom if there is a chance you might become infected. 

The current campaign is directed at stopping the "Sugar Daddy" phenomenon where a college girl or young woman links up with a successful older man who takes her to restaurants and clubs and gives her stuff - clothes, a phone, air time, bling bling, in exchange for sex.   In her 2005 article, Helen Epstein relates: One of the women's dorms on Makerere campus has a reputation. "Go there some Saturday night," said a professor I knew. "That's when the men in their big cars come and pick up the girls and take them out. Sometimes you just see men sitting in front of the entrance, waiting. They call it ‘benching.'"

Epstein says she tried to find the phenomenon but did not.  Instead, she wandered over to where Pastor Martin Ssempa was playing to an overflow crowd at the University Swimming Pool - pushing abstinence as he does every Saturday night - driving the point home.

Billboards installed throughout the country in multiple languages are designed to both build the self-esteem of young women and also inflict a sense of shame on the Sugar Daddies themselves.  Check out these two examples seen in Kampala in December, 2008. Is it working?  Apparently so.  Interviews by Uganda TV talk show hosts with young women were full of revelation:  "I didn't know I had a choice about it but since I do, I choose to take care of myself," one said.  "I've seen a lot fewer old guys in cars on campus," said another.  There were no interviews with Sugar Daddies.

Ugandans Gaga Over Obama

I began receiving excited emails from Ugandans about Barack Obama weeks before Americans went to the polls.  People were engaged, hopeful, energized at even the possibility that a Blackman [sic] could be chosen for the most powerful job on earth.  Now, a week after the election, the gushing about Obama in the East African media with its giddy sense of hope continues unabated. 

Calling Obama's election the "Triumph of Humanity," Jerry Okungu seemed amazed that a blackman [sic] could win the American seat of power.  'For the first time," he wrote, "America proved to the world that their system really works..."  As if America hasn't worked for more than 200 years to become the most powerful nation on earth.  Jerry used Obama's rhetoric and McCain's concession speech as examples of how people of differing opinions can get along - unlike many tribal factions in East Africa.  And he quoted the popular U.S. TV evangelist T.D. Jakes who quipped: "Now I can die, knowing my children will be fine," revealing the smoldering sense of resentment apparently felt and fueled by blacks worldwide.  Echoing this sentiment was Rebekah Heacock on 11/5/08, a white blogger in Kampala whose page simply featured the word "Yes" and a high school photo of B.O.

A New Vision writer likened Obama's eloquence to Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King and lauded America's overcoming its racial divide - interesting because apparently the world sees the U.S. as racially divided.  The writer also lauded the Obama campaign for its "grass roots support" much like Museveni's National Resistance Movement (NRM).  The lessons of opportunity - that any person could be elected to such an office were voiced over and over.

Within days, we saw hopeful stories about "AIDS funding to be expanded with Obama" - where the George Bush PEPFAR program would be extended and expanded only this time, "without restrictions to ideology (abstinence and being faithful)."  The article reprinted Obama's speech made on World Aids Day 12/1/06.  Author Charles Wendo played up the hope and expectation but did insert all is possible "if the U.S. gets its economy working." 

To all those who are euphoric about our new President-elect, I must advise take a "wait and see" attitude.  This man is not a messiah; he is a Chicago politician.  Half the voters in America did NOT vote for him.  If he enacts all of his economic reforms and social programs, there will be few dollars left to send abroad, maybe some change.  I have lived in Chicago all my life.  I have seen too many good-looking, smooth-talking, big ego politicians of all races promise things they cannot deliver just to occupy the seat of power.  I pray to God Obama is not another one.  

The wisest comments I found were written by Paul Busharizi who said, "As a continent, we need to ask not what Obama can do for us, but what we can do for Obama, so he can help us.  Whether Africa reaps a dividend from Obama’s presidency is really up to us. "
(Hat tip to NewVision/ Rastoon for the graphic.)

It’s Time to Update “Invisible Children"

The powerful documentary Invisible Children, still being shown in high schools across America is now so far out of date as to be history. The war depicted in the 2003 movie ended in 2006. It’s like Spielberg showing Saving Private Ryan to raise funds for the poor displaced people of bombed-out France.The I.C. organization raised more than $7 million in 2006 from this film and apparently is spending the money on worthwhile projects in Northern Uganda, yet the image people have of today’s Uganda suffers when young people at yet another school are emotionally moved to set up an Invisible Children Club to help people who no longer face the issues depicted in the film.

The movie’s subject, Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Revolutionary Army had the dubious distinction of having waged the longest running magic war in African history. Over 22 years, Kony's LRA kidnapped an estimated 20,000 children for use as fighters or sex slaves. As part of their initiation, these children were often required to kill their own parents so they would have no homes to return to. Once kidnapped, children were used as pack mules, carrying LRA supplies until they were too weak to walk, at which time they were killed or simply left to die. Kidnapped boys served as targets and decoys, sent to the front lines -- unarmed -- whenever the Ugandan Army engaged the LRA. Kidnapped girls that Kony or his senior commanders found attractive became their "wives" (Kony is reputed to have 60). Troublesome captives had noses, lips, and/or ears cut off, and were then made to eat their own flesh. More than one million people were displaced as the result of Kony’s terror. For years, the city of Gulu was a prison of fear as the LRA would scour the streets by night for new recruits.  But no longer.

Today, Kony is a fugitive from the International Criminal Court, hiding in Congo. His generals are on trial by traditional courts, undergoing rituals of re-entry into the village. The people in the displacement camps are returning to their land. My friend Dennis Ndyabawe recently visited Gulu which he says, “is so full of mzungus, it’s hard to find the natives.” The mzungus – white people – are aid workers from the UN, WorldVision and dozens of other NGOs including I.C. helping people to recover and re-settle.

The Kony War is another Idi-Amin-esque piece of indelible history that hinders Uganda’s progress as a nation. So, with all this peace, why is the I.C. organization still showing the original film? A reworked film would be as much a lesson in the courage of the people who lived through the war as the current one is a lesson in tragedy for those where were in it… only the new version would be the truth. And Uganda would benefit from that tale.

 

This Blog is Long Overdue

This is a blog about one country in Africa. There are 48 others situated on or near the continent. Each has its own story, but this one is exceptional, a surprise.

If you count from the day the government was wrested from the control of idiot dictators in 1986, the Republic of Uganda is only slightly more than two decades old. As a region, however, people have lived in this part of the Great Rift Valley since the beginning of mankind, developing an orderly society of tribes and villages, culture and skills, trade and warfare. Its story is one of a people who, over the last 125 years, have endured Colonialism, corrupt leadership, famine, disorganization, rebellion, disease, the Sexual Revolution, the Cold War, the UN and warring neighbors, to become a productive nation of faith and enterprise. It is the story of how this one nation has become the world’s shining example of how to deal with the AIDS pandemic. It is also my story, a personal journey, one man’s intimate venture into another culture and an unexpected safari into faith.

I confess I went to Uganda not as an evangelist or a missionary but as a traveler curious to see the place. I wanted to discover the truth about AIDS in Africa firsthand. I wanted to see the Sally Struthers children with fly-blown faces, babies with bloated bellies, the emaciated dead lying in the gutters. I wanted to duck the bullets of wild-eyed rebels and walk among the throngs of withering refugees. I wanted to taste the anti-American venom of Mogadishu, see the blood-stained streets of Idi Amin, touch the squalor of apartheid, smell the fear of brutal tribal war of Rwanda, feel the blind, government-fueled hatred of white citizens by the impoverished blacks of Zimbabwe and witness the ostentatious results of blatant thievery of public funds by President Monarchs driving Rolls Royces.

Imagine my surprise when I found none of these things. 

Come with me over the next days and months as I share my experiences and insights of this exceptional country.  Together we will roam the President's palace, the slums, the schools; we will see children transformed from hopeless despair to immense joy, we will witness the people of the abundant West as they attempt to help their neighbors in the impoverished South and we will marvel at the overwhelming beauty of the land. We will watch as it evolves.  Though most Americans hardly know where Africa is, over time, you will come to see this country as no tourist ever will.