Shock Value

July 22, 2008 7:15pm

 

Who you are

One nation under a thug and bullet sky

Young nation no revolution and no cars

Young nation young black and dangerous by far

Young nation just trying to get this

Before I left for Uganda I created a play list on my I-pod that was 7 hours long to last me through the plane rides I had to take. I picked songs I love, new songs I had bought, and some songs that I had but had never listened to before. Interestingly enough, one of the songs was from a mixed tape I had, a song by 2pac that was mixed with some of his lyrics after his passing. The lyrics above are the hook to the song, and they hit kind of close to home after being here for 5 weeks. I’m not really going to get into it, I think it’s self-explanatory, and everyone here may not agree with me, but everything is comparable to your own perspective.

Yesterday right before lunch Casey and I were sitting in the staff room with two other teachers, a female geography teacher and a male student teacher from Gulu University. It was fairly quiet, Casey was listening to her I-pod and writing in her journal, I was reading my book, and the other teachers were doing work. I was sitting by the door of the staff room at the end of the table, Casey was in the middle and th other Ugandan teachers were at the far end of the room. In a matter of seconds the air in the room went from a calm reticence to brutal violence as the one teacher I can’t stand, stormed into the room holding a S2 student by the collar, and threw him onto the ground. “Lay on the floor, he screamed, lay on your face!” This was a student who I had just finished teaching in a classroom that was jovial and happy. We played a jeopardy game and joked around, I even did a curtsey to applause as I walked out of the room. It was one of those teaching moments that warms your heart, the exact opposite of what I was about to witness. From what I could understand from the conversation that was half in Lwo and half in English, the teacher, Mr. LaBongo, was furious because he walked into the classroom after I had walked out, and there was a funny picture drawn on the chalkboard in the back. It was a picture that was up the whole time I was teaching, of nothing important, a silly cartoon that was in no way vulgar or consisting of any obscenities. It was probably the result of a semi-artistic student and a boy who stayed 7 hours a day in the same room, artistic boredom perhaps.

As I was digesting the fact that this teacher was hazing this student like a frat pledge, the student was trying to explain to the teacher that he didn’t draw the picture; it was another student in class, Okello. LaBongo then screamed at the student to stay where he was, and stomped out of the room to get the other “offender”. The boy was literally a foot away from where I was sitting, and to make the situation that much more unbearable, he looked up at me with scared eyes, said “Madame?” and handed me the composition books from the class for me to grade. As my heart was breaking from the combination of his innocence mixed with the violence that still hung in the air, I decided to try and talk him through it. Not the smartest idea, I know, but I couldn’t ignore him, I just couldn’t sit there and pretend like nothing was happening. I asked him what had happened, tried to get him to sit up a little bit and talk to me, but directly after I saw the shadow of LaBongo in the window of the staffroom and whispered, “get back down, get back down!”  The second student was thrown down next to the first, and after a minute of listening to their panicked explanations, LaBongo reached by the wall of the staffroom and picked up a large, thin stick. He beat the students three or four times each, on their backs and on their hands that they held up to protect themselves. Every human being has specific times in their life when they have an internal emotional battle, and I definitely did. I wrestled with the idea of walking out of the room in protest, or staying and documenting everything I could to tell the Invisible Children staff. It was right next to me, and in the end I stood up because I couldn’t take it, but instead of walking out of the room, past Labongo, I walked to the back. I pretended like I was carrying books from one end of the room to the other, but I’m sure it was obvious that I didn’t know what to do. The female teacher caught me eye and said, “The students are used to this.” I looked her dead in the eyes, strongly said, “I’m not,” and she looked away.  Labongo let the students go shortly after that and I went back to my seat, confused and reeling from what had just happened.

However, as if that wasn’t enough, as if Labongo was on a roll or hell bent on showing the American teachers what he was capable of, he then grabbed two female students and brought them into the room. By brought I mean he took one of the girls by the arm and threw her into the room so she stumbled and almost fell, the other followed them in. From what I could gather from the “conversation”, Labongo was furious that one of the girls was wearing a yellow scarf, which was not part of the school uniform. When he asked her for the scarf she originally said no (I wonder why), but eventually gave it to him, which is when he grabbed her and tossed her in the room. She was definitely strong willed, and tried explaining to him that she had arrived at school at 6am when it was cold outside, and she had the scarf to keep her warm. I think by that point his anger was boiling to a rage, and he made both girls kneel on the floor of the staffroom. Thankfully more teacher were in the room by that time, and were talking to the girls as mediators, but the way he grabbed the girl and threw her was almost harder for me to watch than the caning.

What was even more shocking to me than what I had witnessed was the care free attitude of the other teachers while this was happening. It just seemed as if they didn’t care, the one female teacher, Doreen, was actually smiling while Casey and I had looks of horror on our faces. Afterwards, when all of the students were gone, Casey’s teacher Dennis looked at me and almost laughing said, “Allison, you looked scared,” to which I said, “Scared isn’t what I’m feeling right now,” with Labongo sitting right next to me. Yes, it was a lie, but because I couldn’t say anything to him directly; my unconscious was demanding that I make my opinion know in any way I could.

Caning became illegal in Uganda last year or two years ago, with some teachers still feeling as if that is the only effective way of disciplining a child. Even though it is illegal it is still practiced, and rarely stopped by authorities. However, St. Mary’s College, where I work, is partly funded by Invisible children, who do not condone acts of violence such as caning. I thought that when I told Amy she would agree that something should be said, but after we left, as I’m afraid Labongo might confront me on the issue. Amy is going to address it to Sister tomorrow though, because she wants to do it personally, and is traveling back to JFK with the rest of us. We’ll see how that works out.

When I got home I told Sarah what happened, and we both decided that we needed to go to town and treat ourselves. We went to the Internet, where we met up with Casey, and then the three of us went to Mac café for a while and just sat and talked. Although I’ve been homesick at times, now more than ever I’m excited to be going home. I’ve had so many wonderful experiences here, but I think 5 or 6 weeks away from home is long for anyone. Even if I was on a beautiful tropical island I think I’d be ready.