"hip hop saved my life"

June 27, 2008 Friday

 

It’s about 7:45 am and I was the first person up this morning to take a shower, pretty out of the ordinary for me. I think I found the cure to a life without red bull, and that’s taking a shower standing up in a tub. There isn’t a shower faucet, just the faucet for the tub, but no plug, so I stand up in the shower, take cold water from a nearby Tupperware, and pour it all over myself. Then I soap up, and take another cup of cold water and rinse myself off. Washing my hair is a whole other process all together. The girls have paired up in teams to wash each other’s hair because it takes a lot of cups of water and some serious scrubbing. The roads here aren’t paved and very, very dusty, so when I come home at night I’m always covered in what we call the Gulu spray tan. On our way up here form Kampala in the bus I put on sunscreen thinking that my arms would get really sun burnt if I hung them out the window. When we finally got up to Gulu, like an idiot, I told Josh who was sitting next to me that I was stoked because I actually tanned and didn’t burn. It wasn’t until I took a shower that night and watched my new “tan” run down the drain that I realized I was just dirty. I thank my lucky stars now that I was a dirt ball at times in the dorms because it has made my adjustment to every day Africa life a lot easier.

 

 

This morning we are traveling to the IC house to have another language lesson this morning, and also another lesson with Dennis, the man who spoke to us about colonialism yesterday. Tonight at dinner we are going to meet our teachers from Gulu that we will be working with, and I’m really excited to see what my teacher has to say, and to discover what the kids are learning in class now.

 

Hopefully I can make it to the market today. I’ve seen women with beautiful scarves wrapped around their necks and around their soldiers and I definitely would like to tak home a few.

 

Since I have been here my mind has been racing with possibilities of what I can do to help in the future. So much work needs to be done here that it is almost impossible to regard this trip as my last. I feel like these 6 weeks will just be orientation and after that I might have an idea of what I can REALLY do to help.

 

I spoke to Sara, an ESL teacher from IC last night about special education in Uganda, and she told me that it doesn’t exist. The teachers look at deaf students, blind students and other physical handicaps as “special education”, but a student with dyslexia for example doesn’t stand a chance, and will not make it to high school, as every student’s chance to move forward is based upon an end of the year test. Gulu town has one special education office and there is one person working there to serve all of Northern Uganda, it’s unbelievable.

 

I also got a chance to meet an amazingly dynamic group of people in Kampala, the Bavubuka crew. They are a group of hip hop artists including the best rapper of Uganda, Silas B, (I guess their Jay-Z) who have a house in Kampala that they open up to youths on the holidays and weekends. There was even a girl living with them from Philadelphia who came over to help teach African dance, hip hop and theater to the kids. I can honestly say that they were the first group of people on this trip that inspired me to do something, and to go further with teaching to help whomever I can. They told me that I was always welcome, and that they would love for me to come and help whenever I have a break from school. If you get a chance, try and You Tube the Bavubuka crew, they’re amazing. They told me that their influences are socially conscious hip hop, like Talib Quali, Common, Mos Def and Lupe Fiasco. I can’t wait to spend more time with them in the future, we’ll be seeing them again when we return to Kampala.