Going out in the field

During the last week I’ve followed the project officers from UMWA out on two different projects. Last Friday we went to Mukono - a district about 20 km south west of Kampala.  As part of the international campaign - 16 days of activism against gender violence -UMWA has been going out to different communities to do role-plays and do community dialogues about domestic violence. When we arrived in Mukono it seemed as if t the ones responsible for assembling people for the event hadn’t done a very good job since we found the tent like this:

 But after some hours a number of people turned up and it ended up being a quite good event:

 On Wednesday this week I went on another project in Wakiso (also quite close to Kamapala). This project specifically targets kids who have dropped out of school. Wednesday was the first of three day training where our project officers, accompanied by personnel from ISF (International Solidarity Foundation) would take the kids through exercises in areas such as gender, human rights and domestic violence. On Wednesday the young ones started with introducing themselves, and telling the group why they had dropped out of school. Then, May (one of our project coordinators) took them through an exercise where they reflected upon the typical daily life for an African woman. The group then identified some of the challenges that a typical rural woman in Uganda meet. Then they went on to the concept of gender, looking at the different characteristics, responsibilities and roles that are normally expected from Ugandan men and women – and also what kinds of characteristics and behaviours that are accepted. The discussion got quite heated as one of the boys told the group that it was a woman’s responsibility to do the work at home (watch after the children, cook, clean and so on) and that he didn’t think it was right that he, after a long day of work making money for the family, should have to help out with even more work at home.

He was met by heavy protest from some of the girls who thought this was old fashioned thinking – the men should also help out. “If I am making tea, you can watch after the kids”, one of them asserted.

Why I love being a journalist

Last Thursday I was introduced to a young ugandan lady called Tshila. Tshila is a computer engineer – but since 2005 she has spent most her time composing and performing music. Last Thursday I saw her perform at the Emin Pasha in Kampala and decided that I wanted to make a feature about her and her music for the program Jungeltelegrafen on NRK P2.

Since then I’ve spent some time with her and her friends  and I’ve been reminded why I love being a journalist. I love my job because it introduces me to people that I wouldn’t normally meet and puts me in situations I wouldn’t normally be in. Like on Wednesday when I spent two hours in a tiny appartment in Mengo listening to Tshila and her fellow musicians as they were rehearsing for another concert.

Mama FM - the voice to listen to

Last week I participated in a workshop at UMWA. The training was for the radio staff in Mama FM, and it was great chance to brush up on my knowledge about press ethics and journalism skills. Somehow it seems as the codes of conduct and journalistic principles can never be repeated to often. We discussed and brainstormed on “simple” questions such as “Who is a journalist?” and “what is a good radio program?”. Some of the staff at Mama FM has no formal training as journalists, so for them this was an extremely useful exercise. But for me as well, although I just finished my degree in journalism – rethinking what my profession actually entails and what defines good radio was valuable.

Moreover, the workshop was good opportunity to learn a whole lot more about Mama FM and my fellow colleagues. I did know a few things about the radio even before the workshop. I knew that it was set up by UMWA in 2001 as a way of disseminating development information to engage and empower marginalised and impoverished women. I knew that it was the first women radio station in Africa (and the second in the world after the Norwegian RadiOrakel). But throughout the workshop I also got further insight into the different programs and presenters, some of the challenges they face and some of their hopes and wishes for the future.

One of the programs that we took a closer look at in the training is Abakyala Tweyogerere (Women Talk Back). The program is on from 6:00PM – 8:00PM every Sunday and focuses on women’s activities, aspiration and achievements in politics, economic and social arenas. It gives women the opportunity to exchange ideas, offer advice and present solutions to problems that affect women’s development. The objective is to encourage women to speak out about what they are doing to improve their livelihoods and share experiences and ideas on attaining recognition and status in society.

The program is hosted by some very lovely and talented ladies; Brenda Namaganda and Rebecca Birunji (in the picture).

Another show at Mama FM which is important is the morning show. In Luganda it is called ”Ssubi Lya Kunkya” (Early Morning Hope). The morning show focuses on issues affecting disadvantaged people and encourages these people, especially women, to stand on their own and build their self-esteem. It also updates people on important local, national and international happenings that have occurred during the night. There are numerous other programs that deserve a closer description here. Most of them do in some way or another engage in the fields of health, law, politics, human rights or religion. I am sure I will write more about them later, but if you are interested you can also read more about them on the website: http://www.umwamamafm.co.ug/mama-fm-1017/programs. 

Currently, Mama FM reaches out to cover a population of 3 million people in 400 km across eastern, central, south-western and western parts of Uganda. In the workshop, when the radio presenters and producers were asked about their wishes for the future, national coverage was on top of most people’s lists. Another wish was on funding. Today UMWA and Mama FM depend heavily on donor support. Some donations are short e.g. one year or just a onetime event.  This is a major limitation to the organization’s activities. A strong independent financial source is therefore something that most of the presenters, producers and reporters wish for, especially those who work as volunteers (and they are quite many!).

The staff at Mama FM

As resources are scarce, most programs on Mama FM are prepared, produced and presented by one or two people. (That is quite amazing when you compare it to some of the programs at NRK. One hour of Her & Nå, the news and “current affairs” program at NRK P1 in Norway, requires intensive work from at least 8 or 9 journalists). (My impression is that) pre-produced edited features tend to be a bit too time consuming, so most programs are based on a “talkshow-model”. The presenters research a specific and current topic (for instance divorce or maternal mortality – or the nomination for the election). Then they present relevant statistics and facts about the topic, and talk about the current situation in studio. Then they might invite two or three relevant guests for a debate or a conversation about the topic, and then, very often, receive phone calls from listeners to hear their stories and opinions. There are some vox pops and preproduced interviews, but in most cases the “talking in studio” is the way the program is produced.

I believe Mama FM could earn from getting more “out of the studio”. As I’ve been taught at NRK - it is important to bring the listeners out – out in the villages, on the market, in the streets. Of course it is hard, if not impossible with such limited resources, but maybe that is one area where I can contribute in some way or another in the ten months that I’ll be working here.
 

Learning Luganda

Although most people I have met here in Uganda speaks good English I have decided to learn as much Luganda as possible. My colleagues at work communicate in Luganda, people in the matatus, in the shops and on the market communicate in Luganda. And most importantly,  a majority of the programs at Mama FM are in Luganda. The language (which has a pronunciation not to different from Swahili – though a bit more complicated), is the most widely spoken of the of 33 different indigenous languages in the country. Actually, more than ten million people speaks Luganda, so it is bigger than Norwegian.

I started the classes about a week ago. First on the list were the  basic greetings, as they are a very important part of a conversation here (the simple and informal ”hei” that we do in Norway will simply not do).  When you meet people in the morning you should say ”Wasuze otyanno nnyabo?” which means something like ”How did you spend the night, madam”? The person will answer ”bulungi, nyabo”, which means ”Well, madam” and then pose the question back for me to give the same answer; ”Bulungi, nyabo..or ”bulungi, ssebo ” if I am talking to a man. Another greeting that is quite common here is the ”Gyebaleko” which means something like ”thank you for your work” or more like ”well done”. People say this to each other all the time. My colleagues keeps saying it to me, although I don’t feel I have done much work here yet.

Apart from bringing big smiles to peoples faces and quite a bit of laughter learning and speaking some Luganda is also a way of learning more about Ugandan culture. There are at least a couple of aspects of the language that I find fascinating. One is the group of words that describe family. In Norwegian (as well as in english and portuguese as far as I know) we call the children of our brothers or sisters nephew or niece. In Luganda, however they don’t, in terms of language anyway, separate your brothers children from your own. You simply call all of them ”my child” –”mwana wange”. Nice, isn’t it? And it says something about the different ways of thinking about family.

Then there is the 10th class of the nouns. It is a class where there is no singular/plural distincton. It’s used for mass nouns, usually in the sense of 'a drop' or 'precious little”. For instance there are two different way of saying water. If you are talking about water in big amounts you would say ”mazzi”, but then there is "tuzzi" , a little drop of precious water. It can also be used about milk.If you are talking about lots of milk you’ll say ”mata”, but if it is only a little drop, so it is precious,  you’ll say ”tuta”.

And for alcohol, for those of you who would like to know how to say my precious little drop of alcohol in Luganda. It's ”twenge”.

A rainy day in Kampala

Arrive alive

Since I didn't have any plans for my first weekend in Uganda I didn’t hesitate when my colleague Moses invited me to join him for a Karate event in a town in western Uganda. Not because I am such a big Karate fan ;-) but I just couldn’t say no to the opportunity of seeing more of Uganda. The karate event would be in Fort Portal, a town situated close to the border of Democratic Republic of the Congo. After a four hour drive from Kampala we arrived and I was surprised  by the wonderful view of the Rwenzori Mountainsand by a pleasant temperate climate – more like a norwegian summer evening than a Ugandian one.

Fort Portal with the Rwenzori Mountains at the horizon.

 

Fort Portal is the seat of the Toro Kingdom and the circular building on top of the hill is the kings palace.

My colleague Moses.

Sunday was the day of the big event. More than 40 Karate-kas had come from Kenya, Rwanda and various places in Uganda to compete. First, the white, orange and blue belts had to show various sequences of movements that I believe they called Katas. Then there was a competition where there was some actual fighting. It was kind of funny that my first experience with "live karate" would be in western Uganda.

5 year old  Mpuuga, the son of one of the Karate instructors.

Moses and I were planning to take a bus back to Kampala at 4 pm. But the event dragged on and by the time we got on the bus, it was 6 pm and already starting to get dark. I knew that I should avoid travelling in the dark, but since we had to get back to Kampala I closed my eyes, laid back and tried to relax and hope that the driver would drive carefully.

He did not. On the contrary he was going 200hm/h, barely making the turns, overtaking every vehicle in front of us. My pulse started rising as I looked as Moses who was just as uncomfortable as I was. As an exchange student in Brazil in 2001 I came across a few really bad accidents and as we were speeding through the landscape some quite unpleasant pictures kept popping up in my head. If loosing the grip at that speed we would all be....ketchup, and I did not intend to end my life on the Ugandian highway 26 years old (at a certain point I was even imagening the headlines ”Norwegian woman dies in traffic accident crash in Uganda” ”only five days after arriving”,”body not recognizable” etc). Moses tried to talk to the conductor, but he just laughed at him. I figured that the reason for driving so insanely fast was to save money so I offered some money to try to convince the driver to slow down ,but again we were just met with laughter (now also from the other passagers who apparently wanted to reach Kampala as fast as possible). In the end Moses decided to call the director of the bus company. The director talked to to the conductor, but not even that slowed them down. At this point I was crying, and I was about to tell the driver to let me out of the buss (I would rather stand alone in the dark in a remote village than continuing on that death trap). Fortunately, we reached a part of the road where there was some construction work and the driver was forced to slow down, and I was so happy that the road continued like that until we reached Kampala and the jam made it impossible to drive that recklessly.

 

Kampala bus station

 

On my way from the airport to Kampala on my first day in Uganda a road sign caught my eye. The message was short but effective: Arrive Alive! On Sunday evening I really doubted that I would reach Kampala alive. It was a terrible experience! Statistics indicate that some 17,000 traffic accidents are recorded yearly in Uganda and road accidents claim up to 2,000 lives annually. And reckless driving is not only a problem in Uganda. According to Ronnie Kabuye Ssebunya, a road traffic safety expert at Lund University Sweden, almost 1.2 million people in the world are killed each year and 20-50 million are injured or disabled. Out of these, 85 percent are from developing countries, but ¾ of these causalities is from the sub-Saharan region. The reasons: poor road designs, failure to observe traffic laws and general lack of information on how best people can use roads.

For me it was a traumatic end to an otherwise wonderful weekend. I hope I will go to Fort Portal again, but I will strongly consider to rent a car, or at last travel during the day.

 

Over: The girls from Eric from Rwanda has a black belt in Karate. Here we are trying some capoeira.

Ankomsten

Jada!! Så var jeg framme i Kampala. Har vært noe døgnvill siden jeg landet på Entebbe International Airport klokken 07.45 i går. Ble møtt på flyplassen av Rita, som er en av mine mange framtidige kollegaer i Mama FM. Vi dro innom Mama FMs lokaler for å hente nøkkelen til huset og satte igjen bagasjen, før vi dro ut på handletur. Nå er huset utstyrt med både dobørste, stekepanne, nudler og sengetøy – og jeg tror jammen jeg begynner å finne sjelero i stua. 

Jeg har ikke kommet i gang med jobben enda. Første møte med journalistene og resten av personalet er i morra. Så jeg fatter meg i korthet, men legger ut noen bilder så får dere et lite innblikk i mine nye omgivelser:

Huset/leiligheten jeg bor i.

Soverommet

Kjøkkenet

Stua

Her inne holder Mama FM til.

Resepsjonen og Grace som jobber