I’m Glenna Gordon, an American photographer and journalist, presently commuting between West Africa and Brooklyn. Previously, I lived in Liberia. And before that, I lived in Uganda. I’ve traveled and worked in over a dozen countries in Africa.
I found the scarlett lion on the roof of a friend’s house in Kampala back in 2006 when I went through a crate of discarded items he and a few other artists had gathered. On that day, I was looking for something and I found the lion: a discarded kid’s toy made in China on the cheap, that somehow found it’s way to East Africa. Something about the hollowed out, paint chipped figurine appealed to my understanding of this place: I’d never seen a real lion, after all.
The Economist Special Intelligenct Unit released the World Peace Rankings today. And Uganda is number 104, Norwary coming in first as the most peaceful country. That means Uganda is less peaceful than Ethiopia (103) and Iran (97), but more peaceful than Thailand (105) and Cote d’Ivoire (113). Hmm…. USA comes in number 96.
The least peaceful place on Earth? Surprise surprise, Iraq, at number 121.
But who believes statistics anyway?
See the full report here.
Miss Benguela’s favorite color is sand and though she is currently unemployed, she dreams of one day doing anything. Oh, and she was horribly disfigured by a land mine in 1984 which claimed more than half of her leg. But now she has the chance to be a beauty queen thanks to the new Miss Land Mine 2007 competition to be held in Angola at the end of this year.
You can vote for her or the other competitors by clicking here.
Thought these comments were worthy of their own post. There are now quite a few comments on the TC post, but these two, by Anonymous and my reply, seemed too easily missed by some of my blog readers, so here they are in their own post.
Says Anonymous….
In addition to the Tororo Cement business (see posts below), this morning, the PR rep from Makerere University gave me a call to tell me that he’d been both misquoted and misrepresnted in my article in Sunday Monitor here. After a bit of ranting, during which I could hardly get in a word, I finally told him to write a letter to the paper and I’d make sure it would get published.
Here’s a bit of the article:
When the Ivory Tower crumbles: searching for a job after MakerereGlenna Gordon
After you graduate from the Harvard of Africa, what are your options?
In Uganda, not many, as 36.6 percent of recent graduates are unemployed – the
highest rate of any sector of Ugandan societyAbby Nakkazi has a problem. “When I went to one interview they told me I
was overqualified,” she says. “But at the next I didn’t get the required marks,
the first marks.” Though she finished with second upper marks in her February
2007 Makerere graduating class, she hasn’t yet been able to find a job.“I’m not discouraged,” says the bubbly 23-year-old. “I know one time I
will get a job. If I get discouraged, it means there is no hope for me.” Hope is
there: she has an interview tomorrow at 8:30 am, and plans to arrive at 8,
dressed smartly, but not too smartly.“My parents put a lot in me to earn my degree,” she says. She is
bright, determined, enthusiastic and qualified. She is everything, that is, but
employed. And she’s not alone. According to a study by the Uganda Bureau of
Statistics entitled Labour Market Conditions, graduates of universities have the
highest rate of unemployment of any sector of Ugandan society – registering at a
huge 36.6 percent.
(…) and the quote that enraged the PR guy….
Even Makerere representatives acknowledge that employers have difficulty with
their graduates. “The complaints are that they are too academically oriented,”
says Mwesigye Gumisiriza, Acting Public Relations Officer for Makerere
University.
Yes, he said this. Yes, he also said also things, but no, I can’t include the whole interview.
A letter from Mr. Mwesigye will soon be published in Monitor, and I defend my actions, because yes, he did say this. I have it in my notes.
Did I unfairly target Makerere, as he says? Well, my article was about Makerere, so unfairly or no, I did target Makerere. But I have to have a focus.
I suppose I’m doing something right if my writing is causing a fuss, and hey, at least people are reading…
“If you have it in your heart to help, then please give. Who can give 50,000?” called out Bishop Gilson Costa of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.
“Jangu!” (come) called out the man translating the bishop’s sermon. “Who can give 40,000?” “Jangu!” “Who can give 30,000? “Jangu!”
The calls continued to ring out through $1.3 million church (more than Shs2 billion) until each and every congregant had donated some shillings. Bishop Costa stood behind a cut out sign “Jesus Christ is the Lord,” illuminated by blue neon, complimented by a large neon cross.
The semicircle of hard wooden chairs surrounding the podium were filled with mainly women and some few men, dressed well, dressed poorly, but all willing to give.
“Pastor Gerald always said, ‘Are you ready to give everything to God? Everything?’ But Jesus shed his blood for us – there’s no bigger sacrifice,” says Francis Adroa, a former member of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG) now in the middle of a media frenzy over an unusual case against the church.
Ms Adroa is HIV positive. Last year, the leadership at UCKG promised her that if she made a “sacrifice” during their Mount Sinai campaign, her prayers would be delivered to the holy site and she would be cured of the disease wracking her body.
At the time, Ms Adroa had no assets to give but her car.
“I put my car keys in the sacrifice envelope and the pastors took me home,” Ms Adroa explained during a recent interview.
“They said all of our problems would be over.”
When her HIV status had unsurprisingly not changed, Ms Adroa decided she wanted her car back. She is now pursuing a lawsuit with the help of John Kaggwa and Associates.
“God owns everything in this world, so why does he need my car?” Ms Adroa asks.
Tororo Cement Workers Bitter Over Maltreatment
On May 2, Mr Gabriel Okolong was working in the compressor room of the Tororo Cement factory when there was a problem with one of the motors. He tied a neutral wire to the surface of its frame, and then there was a huge spark. Mr Okolong’s left hand was instantly covered in second and third degree burns.
The skin gathered in thick folds around the fingers, swelled around the wrist and charred to the pale baby pink of exposed flesh in scattered places from his finger tips to his elbow.
He wasn’t wearing safety gear. Not because he didn’t want to – but because Tororo Cement didn’t provide it for him. Personnel Director Mwambu Wodulo denied that there was a shortage of safety gear. “We have some workers who don’t put on uniforms no matter how many times we tell them to put them on,” he said. “Workers are given uniforms annually, two pairs each.”
However, when Mr Mwambu produced an order form as evidence, there were only 137 pairs of safety ware on order – despite the fact that Tororo Cement employs over 900 people – and the paper was entitled “Management Order Form,” he said.
“We started with this bunch, and we are in the process of making other arrangements.” He could not produce additional order forms, including any from previous years, to show more orders of safety ware.
Three journalists were imprisoned in Ethiopia for five days and one of them was my old roommate Vanessa Vick, a photographer. They were never told why they were arrested, all of their equipment was confiscated, they were threatened and held and gunpoint and Vanessa was kicked in the back.
There are several write-ups of the situation, but the most informative is on AllAfrica here.
(I don’t think you need a log-in for it, but if you do and you’d like to read the article, email me and I’ll copy the text of it in an email to you as I’d rather not quote at length here because some things are just better off my blog and away from Google’s evil search engines.)
It’s a big world for journalists to explore and discover to share with others, but the world feels very small when incidents like this hit so close to home.
Vanessa, I’m wishing you peaceful nights with your puppy Tommy when you get home to Muyenga.
Got a call from London this afternoon asking me if I’d like to be on air tonight with BBC. They found my Kiboko story on Huff Po and liked it enough to invite me to join them on their show. Very excited, and worried about stuttering…
I didn’t think it was right, but I did it anyway. Or rather, I wasn’t sure if it was right, but I did it anyway. I was taught it wasn’t right, but everything I was taught in a classroom doesn’t work so well outside of a room bordered by a chalkboard.
“Give her some money,” my friend demanded, insisting I paid the woman we’d been speaking with for a future article I’m now at work upon.
I explained that wasn’t how I did journalism, but he explained that was how journalism was done here.
But here I was, with a Ugandan journalist friend of mine who was translating for me, and he was insisting I give the lady a thousand shillings or so. Already, our styles of reporting had clashed and I could tell I wouldn’t get what I needed to write the story I wanted to write. And since he’s a friend, I was trying to keep things smooth and easy.
“You create good feelings when you pay and it’s better that way if you come back,” he explained.
Things I didn’t explain: that I thought people should talk to me because they wanted to tell their stories; I talk to so many people that even if I only gave a thousand shillings or so, the costs would soon pile up; that I thought I wasn’t supposed to.
“You’re going to get paid for the story, right?” he asked.
It was a valid point.
In some ways, it makes sense – another economic transaction in a system based on economic transactions. In other ways, it goes against what I thought journalism should be about. But things are never actually about what they should be about, and the fact was that I was talking to a very impoverished lady supporting a large family in a slummy neighborhood of Kampala.
What would you do with a thousand shillings?
New Vision ran a story, HIV-positive children: Who is to blame? on May 20 about HIV positive children.
My favorite quote from the article:
In his presentation, Dr. Emmanuel Luyirika, the director of medical services at the Mildmay Centre, said: “If there were no adults, children would not be HIV-positive.”
If there were no adults, there would also be no children. Period.
I have a decade long business relation with this multi-national company. This company has always taken care of its employees through their HR department. When they can spend millions on social cause why they will not reimburse the medical bill of one person? During this month, May 2007 they have donated one medical centre to the local community!!
The journalists should properly cross check whether the information provided is genuine or not.
It is very disgusting to observe that ‘Lion’ has acted on the information without proper verification.
May 28, 2007 5:50 AM
Dear ‘Anonymous,’
I’m wondering a few things about your post…
1. Why you didn’t sign your name if you find it necessary to make such harsh accusations against me? If you’re going to say such things, you should identify yourself.
2. Why you find it necessary to put ‘Lion’ in quotes, as if who I am is only partially true.
3. What makes you think I don’t have verification? I did indeed SEE the order forms for safety gear that specified they were only for managment, and the personnel director was unable to produce others.
4. What is your relationship with the employees? Because I spoke with a lot of them, and not too many were happy, so I’m wondering what makes you think that TC treats the employees well. Again, this brings me back to my point, of, who are you? What are your interests in TC? And why don’t you identify yourself? I think you’re holding an awful lot back…
5. Don’t you think TC not paying the bill of one person is symptomatic of a bigger problem?
FINALLY, this is MY blog, and I don’t appreciate my work being called things like “disgusting.” That is insulting, mean, uncalled for and unnecessary. I’m not deleting your comment because I appreciate a lively discussion, however, I hope you, anonymous, choose your words more carefully in the future. Not just words like “disgusting” but all the words you aren’t saying…
Please refrain from defaming me on my own blog. I’m happy to have a conversation, but I won’t be insulted.
Also, please come forward with more information about your identity, motivation, and source of information so we’re all in the clear as to just why it is you find my work so “disgusting.”
The only thing I find “disgusting” are the burns on Gabriel’s hands, the threats doled out by TC, and their unwillingness to pay his medical bills.