Uganda: Serendipity

Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art.

Freya Stark

The other night, my first real "night on the town" in Gulu, I partook in "Mexican night" with a group of expats, went to a house party, and continued on to BJ's, the most popular bar/club in Gulu. Among the night's interesting happenings was an encounter with Jacob, a major subject of the original Invisible Children documentary. Jacob is no longer the twelve year-old who movingly breaks down recounting his abduction and his brother's murder by the Lord's Resistance Army. He's 21 and studying law in Kampala. He's also, as it were, a bit of a player, evidenced in the very direct attention he paid to a friend of mine that night. We chatted briefly, mostly talking about our mutual interest in human rights law. The encounter was so unexpected and the context so strange that it took me a solid 30 minutes or so to process the experience of meeting him.

To give further pause to my months-long cogitation on Invisible Children's Kony 2012 campaign, I spent much of my Saturday morning enjoying banana pancakes and conversation with an IC staffer who has worked both in IC's San Diego office and, for the better part of the past year, in Gulu. For me, our conversation was valuable in that it required that I take some giants steps back and listen before I addressed the issue. Our discussion hinged on her experiences working for IC, the impact of the widespread criticism of Kony 2012 on the organization, and our respective thoughts on those criticisms. For me, it was the most productive conversation on Kony 2012 (among many) that I've engaged in so far.

If perpetual consideration of IC's methods and the positive and negative impacts of the Kony 2012 campaign for the past two+ months has taught me anything, it's to get comfy dwelling in the gray. Practically speaking, those of us engaged in work that deigns to improve the lives of others need to acquire the ability to get very comfortable existing in the realm between black and white, where moral and ethical questions don't always have concrete answers and practical considerations sometimes trump hard-and-fast standards.

At the same time, something that I think has been missing from my graduate education has been an emphasis on the imperative of embracing constant self-reflection when engaged in questions of humanitarian intervention and the promotion of and advocacy for human rights. I wonder if professors get so comfortable in their silo-ed environments, full of kindred types, often far removed from the contexts and conflicts we're considering, that the primacy of ethical considerations eventually gives way, if it existed in the first place, to other topics of concern. Perhaps that's unfair. Maybe it is a failure for a school that professes to train professionals. I'm just not sure. I do know that I've gained more from conversation with my peers than from conversation with professors concerning this topic.

On a lighter note, this morning I had a chance encounter with four Americans I'd met Friday night. As I headed out of my hotel to a nearby cafe to do some reading, they were preparing to visit a dance troupe, associated with their NGO. The Child is Innocent pairs sponsors with students in northern Uganda to facilitate educational opportunities for those who would not otherwise have access. Kevin and Fred, two of the founders (Kevin is American, Fred is from northern Uganda), invited me to join them on a visit to a beneficiary who is about to graduate from teachers' college and founded a dance troupe comprised of youth from her neighborhood. It was an incredible treat to watch them perform. I took some video, which I'll post when I have better internet access. Until then, some photos...

Thanks for reading! 'Til next time.

One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.

Henry Miller