07/30
2007
2007
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.
I took a boda to the taxi park, and then a taxi to Kawmpe, some kilometers outside of town beyond the Northern Bypass. I was far from town, far from anywhere I usually visit and the comforts of
I thought about how I had just blogged about the $100 computers on their way. But would these kids ever get computers? I can’t do anything about the fact that they don’t have a computer. I can feel bad, but that isn’t even productive. I’m not going to give away my computer, or stop using it out of guilt, or do much of anything – I can hope those $100 laptops work out.
I wish I could do something, and it makes me feel impotent that I can’t.
Does anyone know??? Would LOVE to have the answer….
1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
AND NOW….
1. I don’t like shoes and socks. My feet feel confined. I’ve always like wearing flip flops and sandals. The real reason I moved to
2. I really enjoyed watching 27th, the ultimate Sinophile, macking on the Chinese girl who showed up for BHH. He was in his element. Plus, it kept us from arguing too much. The most interesting thing was the disconnect the girl felt from a dictator like Chairman Mao who probably starved her grandpa and 27th saying NI-HAO! They got along well, as she practiced her English and 27 imagined what their children would look like. He promised to look at her blog, even though it’s in Chinese.
3. I’m glad I work for local media to have that experience, but I don’t plan to do that forever. I would like to get one of those fancy jobs one day.
4. Also at BHH, some told me that they thought the Scarlett Lion was a man. What to make of this? I thought the header was pretty girly, but then it occurred to me that it’s such a heavy graphic that maybe it doesn’t even load on some people’s computers. And maybe it isn’t even that girly. Anyway, here it is… (with Davey)
5. Nga obuze, you are lost. Ugandans know it: a common expression that they say even when they haven’t seen you in some few days. But someone once said it to me in a different way. You are lost, not you are lost you’ve been away, or you can’t find the way from one place to another, but you are lost here, in Africa, waiting to break a big news story to help you find your way, waiting for something or someone to anchor you in the process. It was true and not true. It hasn’t been one big story, but a series of small ones, mpola mpola, slowly by slowly. And then when the noise and chaos was so much I thought I was too lost to find my way, there was a punctuated quiet. And now if someone said to be nga obuze, I might say neda, but that would be true and not true. I’m waiting not for a better job, but to be a better writer. To live a more confident and adapted life here. But nga obuze? Neda, I’m finding my way.
6. I don’t just write and take pictures, I make jewelry. I scrapbook. I make collages. I do all sorts of projects. I’m not a sitter. I’m a do-er. I like having something in front of me that I’m engaged in.
7. Sometimes I think my friends at home have forgotten about me, but in some ways, I fear it’s my fault for not writing to them enough. I don’t know why I don’t do it more, I can make excuse after excuse, but I think of them all the time – and if any of you are reading this back in New York, or California, or wherever life has taken you – I miss you, and I think of you, and I mean to write you and I feel horrible for not writing and the more time that passes the worse I feel. I feel out of sight and out of mind.
8. Lots of people ask me about the lion. I’ve done enough explaining here, so the lion, well, the lion’s the lion.
AND NOW…
TAGGING: David, Pernille, Kelly, Timothy, Ishta, Rebekah, Dennis,
Hannah.
This article in the New Vision says there’s a brain drain in Uganda, which is unsurprising to me, since there aren’t many jobs for educated Ugandans just waiting to be filled.
UGANDA is among African countries most hit by ‘brain drain’, the emigration of skilled workers to rich countries. In 2000, one in five Ugandans who finished tertiary education, or 21.6%, left for greener pastures, according to the just released report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
But I wrote this article, When the Ivory Tower Crumbles: Searching for a Job After Makerere, sometime back, that says this:
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 society
Abby 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.
The New Vision article says there are some perks to the brain drain – namely remittances, which have gone up to about $500 million today, and have drastically strengthened the shilling.
However, this statistic, also from the NV article, is SHOCKING,
“In 2002, there were 175 Ugandan doctors living and practising in the US, compared to 722 in the whole of Uganda.”
How many doctors are there in Uganda today? Spent a good amount of time googling and couldn’t find any number more up to date than 2002, so we’ll have to go with those numbers.
So all the Ugandan doctors leave Uganda to go the States, and then US medical students come here to learn medicine… hmmm… wonder what 27 has to say about that one….
From LA Weekly, the son of Fela Kuti, Femi Kuti speaks with the magazine:
What’s your take on Bono and concerts like Live 8 that campaign on behalf of Africa?Bono doesn’t need to tell us that we are poor. We know we are poor. All these concerts come and go and nothing changes in Africa.
According to this BBC article, production of $100 will soon go into about 1 million machines.
The XO is built to cope with the harsh and remote conditions found in areas where it may be used, such as the deserts of Libya or the mountains of Peru.
For example, it has a rugged, waterproof case and is as energy efficient as possible.
“The laptop needs an order of magnitude less power than a typical laptop,” said Professor Bender. “That means you can power it by solar or human power.”
Jumping Jacks????
Governments that sign up for the scheme can purchase solar, foot-pump or pull-string powered chargers for the laptop.
Okay, I knew that wouldn’t really be viable, but I’m still excited.
This is my VERY favorite part of the article!
“We keep laptops in the oven at 50 degrees and they keep on running,” said Professor Bender.
On a more serious note, Blackademics had this to say:
Some activists question the relevance of introducing laptop technology into countries that have other priorities such as electricity, clean water, health care, genocide and food.
It is difficult to ignore the incredible potential of the XO Laptop, but can it really help breach the digital divide? As we discovered in our July Interview with Firoze Manji, less than %2 of the African population has access to the Internet – and the speed of that Internet is still extremely slow. What good is a laptop (even a cheap one) while discrepancies in connection speeds and bandwidth still exist?
Here’s my comment on their page:
I just spent two days in Luzira upper prison, in Kampala, Uganda, with prisoners condemned to the death penalty. They all said very different things, but each of them mentioned the fact that the prison had just gotten seven new computers. Forget the fact that they might die any day, or the fact that 1000 people shared the computers, or that they didn’t really know much about what to do with them yet, they knew it was part of the outside world infiltrating their walls.
I’m not saying by any means that prison and schools are the same, but poverty is certainly a kind of prison of exclusion. Kids want computers. They know other people have them, and they know that computers are one of the ways to learn how to fix bad water, treatable diseases, sensitize against genocide, or to one day make computers for everyone that aren’t just bandaids.
Pernilla at I’ve Left Copenhagen for Uganda wrote a post a little, um, angrier than mine about the “Stop Trying to Save Africa” article. I’ll just quote a bit here, but you can see the whole thing here.
But come on! – Iweala’s argumentation is threadbare and his arrogance makes him speak on behalf of all Africans. Categorising them all in one go, as well as he does with the whole group of ex-pats trying to save Africa. No doubt that a change of the Western way of saving Africa is necesssary. No doubt that a lot of ex-pats, whatever reason they are in Africa for, can be a pain in the ass (I know some). But I also know a few Ugandans who would never put their feet in West Nile and Kampala youth who would never date a ‘Northener’ because of tradition and the history – and the image! The stereotypes and lack of information thrive within Uganda, Africa and among Africans. It is only Africans who are well off who can afford rejecting support to Africa. They cannot speak for the rest.
“Mzungu! Mzungu! You bring potio! You bring bread! We from Congo! We bring gold! We bring diamond! Mzungu!”
I was behind the Refugee Law Project, in Old Kampala, where a makeshift refugee camp had formed over the past some months. The Congolese ladies called out to me as if we were in a market making an exchange, casual, these things of equal value. As if I had potio in my pockets and they had gold and diamonds in theirs.
As if we could save each other.
Though the NYTimes has run a few pieces saying most hospitals and schools were connected to the net, this piece seems most realistic…
But as of mid-July, only one-third of the 300 schools covered in Terracom’s contract had high-speed Internet service. All 300 were supposed to have been connected by 2006.
Over all, less than 1 percent of the population is connected to the Internet.
The piece goes on to detail how an American company seemed to have gone bad on its deal with the Rwandan government, and also couldn’t really handle the unanticipated challenges of working here. But apparently they’re back on track and trying to turn Rwanda into an information society. We’ll see.
