Election Time

On February 18th, Uganda will hold elections for it's president and parliament positions, along with other local seats. The last few weeks have been witness to many political rallies and you can definitely start to feel the tension in the air as the actual voting day approaches. Although we plan on staying out of Kampala for the next few weeks to avoid any potential repercussions of the election results, it has been interesting learning about the election process here as well as witnessing political rallies Ugandan style.

The current president is Museveni, and he is running for what I believe would be his fifth term in office should he win. When Uganda first broke free of Idi Amin's rule, parliament passed a law stating that the president could only serve for two terms. However, Museveni apparently disagreed with the reasoning behind that law and managed to retract it during his time in office. He has said that this year will mark the last time he runs for president (where have we heard that promise before? Oh yes, Egypt's president), but whether or not that is true remains to be seen.

While there are at least six different people running for president (including one woman!), Museveni's main contender is Besigye. He also ran against Museveni during the last election five years ago, and lost. However, Besigye challenged the legitimacy of the election results in court, saying that the ballots had been miscounted (probably true), but his case was thrown out.

Although Besigye presents Ugandans with a legitimate alternative to Museveni, from everything we've heard it is very unlikely that Museveni will lose. Museveni is the face of the biggest political party here, the National Resistance Movement (NRM). While many voters aren't particularly fond of Museveni, they don't think that any other candidate is as qualified as he is, so they are essentially choosing the lesser of two poor options. Museveni did bring a lot of peace and stability to Uganda over the past twenty years, but since he has remained in power for such a long time he has become somewhat of a dictator, even if a peaceful one.

The rallies and propaganda have been nothing short of hilarious. Rallies here consist of huge trucks mounted with speaker systems blasting music, supporters shouting phrases in Luganda into microphones, and posters of the candidate whom they are campaigning for plaster to the sides, fronts and backs of the trucks. Politics may sometimes seem serious and/or dry in the U.S., but here they are just one big party!

We've also seen some pretty funny posters of the politicians, especially Museveni. He comes from a military background and although he is probably in his sixties now, there are posters of him in which he has a bodybuilder's physique, his head photo shopped onto the neck, and gripping an AK-47. Can you imagine seeing Obama's face plastered onto something like that? The best part is, the voter's love these posters!

Well, that is the current political climate here in Uganda. It's been entertaining so far and we are anxious to see the results of the election. I am hopeful that everything will remain peaceful, I don't want the turmoil that is currently taking place in other countries in Africa to spread to Uganda as well!

Mouse Hunt

It all started about a week ago, when Heather saw a little gray mouse dart across her bedroom floor one morning. She let out a shriek and ran into the hallway, but when Adam and I checked in on her to see what was wrong, the mouse had already disappeared. Fortunately, when we were in Kampala later that afternoon we were able to purchase some rat poison and scattered little pieces of it all around our house that evening. Well, the mouse consumed the poison, but apparently didn't die because we were unable to find a body the next morning.

After getting out of the shower later that day, I was rummaging through my suitcase to find some clothes to wear, when I saw the mouse burrowed in amongst my belongings. Naturally, I screamed and ran into Heather's room and jumped onto her bed. Adam went into my room to try and take care of the mouse problem, being the man that he is, while Heather and I stayed in her room. He managed to get it out of my room, but was unable to track where it ran next.

About half an hour later, Adam was ironing his clothes when he felt the mouse run across his foot. That proved to be the last straw, and we decided that we needed to get rid of this pesky little mouse once and for all. We closed all of the bedroom doors, except for Adam's, sealing the space between the doors and the floor with spare tshirts to prevent all escape routes. Then, Adam tried to usher the mouse out of his room and into the hallway where I was waiting with a cooking pot to trap the rodent inside. Our plan worked perfectly, and despite my uneasiness surrounding the mouse, I managed to swallow my fears and timed the dropping of the pot onto the mouse perfectly as it sprinted out of Adam's room. Since we lacked a more humane way to dispose of the mouse, we simply kept it inside the cooking pot and piled a bit of weight on top of it, allowing the mouse to starve to death over the course of a few days. Mice may be cute as pets (not really), but they are definitely not cute when they most likely contain rabies and are trying to create a nice, comfortable home within your own home. So, thus went the mouse hunt. Our house is currently mouse-free and we are hoping it will stay that way...but if it doesn't, we kept the cooking pot to use again for that purpose just in case (don't worry, we will never use it for cooking again).

The Start of Term One

February first marked the start of a new school year in Ndejje. I am very excited that the kids are back in school now because it means that we get to start working with the different classes at HOPE again and our schedule will take on a sense of normalcy as we start regular training sessions for boys and girls soccer as well as daily programs at the Youth Center. Our goal for this term is to establish more of a consistent schedule, so that the kids will know what to expect each day when they show up at the Youth Center. Last term, we allowed the kids to do whatever they wanted when they came to our afterschool programs, which meant that there were a million different activities going on at once. For our sanity, as well as for the benefit of the kids, we are going to have specific activity days this time around.

Thanks to many donations that were given to Adam and myself to bring back when we were home during December, we have a plethora of new books, puzzles, and art supplies for the kids to use. We are going to take advantage of all of these materials by having reading day, arts and crafts day, and game day at the Youth Center Tuesday-Thursday each week. Additionally, we will start having girls and boys training days during the week, as well as a combined practice on Saturdays in the hopes of forming actual teams within the next month or so. We are hoping that by establishing this consistency and stability, the kids will come to our programs knowing what to expect and will be excited for the different activities that we are presenting them with. We are also offering homework help each day and soon we will hopefully be purchasing a projector with which we can have special movie afternoons every once in a while!

So, those are the plans for the Youth Center and SWB within the next month or so. I'll let you know how everything plays out!