I’m pretty sure that the “blind leading the blind” is intended to be a statement implying absurdity, but after visiting a school for blind and visually impaired kids in Mukono, I find the concept breathtaking and giving.

Just the other day, Anonymous got really, really mad at me for a posting that questioned the efficacy of work by people like Rankin, a celebrity photographer who went to Eastern Congo to “raise awareness” and get some good PR for himself and for his sponsor Oxfam.

Low and behold, one Brit with studio lighting did not manage to prevent the humanitarian disaster currently going down in Congo.

Despite Rankin’s best and most (maybe) earnest efforts, Laurent Nkunda’s forces are fighting with the FARDC (Congolese army), MONUC is incapable of doing much, and anyone who can leave has left. Great summaries of all this, and “How the hell did we get here?” at ever snarky Wronging Rights.

Rankin’s intentions may or may not have been good, but that’s just not enough even in the best of circumstances. (And we all know where good intentions lead.) What’s happening is an amalgam of Central African governments getting in each other’s business, combined with way too many weapons for any one’s good.

Does Rankin’s work help this? Nope. Does it hurt this? Also probably no. Rob Crilly posted a bit on this, saying that the Devil’s in the Details:

It surely has to be a welcome thing that the likes of Rankin, Mia Farrow and George Clooney have got involved. Precious few people give a toss about African civil wars and it is down to the work of filmstars and a few musicians that Darfur has generated headlines far beyond its fair share (based on comparisons with deathtolls in the DRC etc). If it takes Michelle Collins (a second-rate British soap “star” – for my overseas readers) to visit Kenya to highlight hunger, then so be it. (Incidentally, her trip for a charity was hurriedly cut short because a Sunday paper was about to reveal lurid details about her lovelife, according to my sources with the NGO T-shirts. Officially, she was unwell.) A story read by millions in The Sun is worth a lot more in terms of raising money and putting pressure on world leaders to do something than my output in, say, the deep inside pages of The Times.

But does Rankin’s work actually raise money? And what does that money do? I’d love a statistician to find that out empirically for me, or for someone else to a venture a guess at these questions:

1. How many people donated money, goods, or other support after seeing Rankin’s photos?
2. How many of people in question number one did so who didn’t previously know about Congo?
3. How much money did Oxfam spend on this stunt?
4. How many people could benefit from other means of spending Oxfam’s money in question number three?
5. How much of what’s going on now can be helped with money and goods?
6. If a bunch of people who don’t know much about Congo suddenly feel a sense of outrage because of Rankin’s photos, or a new brief sans context, what do they do with that knowledge?

I’ve been nominated for a Best of Blogs sponsored by Deutsche Welle. According to the site, 8,500 blogs were nominated and have been filtered to 176 blogs in categories like Blogwurst Award, Best Weblog Persian, and others, including my category – Best Weblog English.

I guess it’s hard to categorize my blog. Obviously, I write in English. About Africa. But I’m not African.

They describe me as: A reporter, writer and photojournalist describes life in Uganda, through touching stories and amazing photos.

On a similar but slightly different note, Afrigator also recently created a list of 45 top female bloggers in Africa. Well, the original email I got informing me that I’m #10 of said top female bloggers in Africa. The Afrigator page said Top 45 Female African Bloggers.

In her review on Pambazuka, Sokari of Black Looks says:

Unfortunately the term “African women bloggers” is somewhat misleading as many of the blogs, particularly the non-South African ones are actually written by non-Africans. This is a real shame as there are so many excellent blogs written by African women from across the continent and in the Diaspora none of which are listen in the top 45. A more efficient way of finding out who is writing a blog is simply to include a box for gender and country of origin.

I understand the frustration. I think that a better poll would have included lots of great blogs that somehow aren’t on Afrigator, but I didn’t make the poll so they didn’t consult me about parameters. And I do think it would be silly for Afrigator to create one list of female expat bloggers in Africa and one list of female African bloggers in Africa. I don’t think Sokari is suggesting this, but maybe the best solution right now is to encourage other female bloggers in Africa who are actually African to register for Afrigator.

Anyway, if you want to vote for me for a German Best of Blogs where I’m nominated in the English category, since there isn’t a category for Best Weblog by an American about Africa and Appreciated by Germans, please do so here.

You’ll also notice that this slight blogging identity crisis has prompted a new succinct blog description under the lion’s photo.

Thanks for voting!

The Refugee Law Project, through the Beyond Juba initiative, is having a film festival and discussion sessions on Thursday and Friday of this week at National Theater in Kampala. Entrance is free.

RLP is one of the only organizations that is advocating for the rights of internally displaced persons who live in urban settings both locally and internationally. (Remember Stephen?) While IDPs in the north receive government and non-governmental assistance, the same is not true of their urban counterparts who are more vulnerable than most slum dwellers.

Meeting Point International (supported by AVSI) also works with urban IDPs, and Siena also started a blog to raise money for a sustainable tailoring project in Kireka.

Thursday, 30th October

3.00 Trapped in Anguish – an informed account of the war in northern Uganda, its humanitarian implications and the process of return and reintergration of former combatants

3.30 Ekisil - a graphic docu-drama on the culture and values of the Karamojong and their struggle to find a lasting peace in the region

4.20 Panel discussion on the conflict in northern Uganda and the situation in Karamoja, with David Pulkol, African Leadership Institute, Naome A. Mao, filmmaker, Giovanni Dall’Oglio, filmmaker, and others

5.50 Uganda Rising - this multiple award-winning film, featuring interviews with Betty Bigombe, Samantha Power, President Museveni and Mahmood Mamdani, amongst others, gives a ground-breaking account of the 20-year war in northern Uganda

Friday, 31st October

3.00 What about us? - the Beyond Juba Project launches its documentary on urban IDPs and their exclusion from IDP policy, to be followed by a discussion with the IDPs themselves

3.30 Panel discussion on the return of IDPs and the challenges faced by their urban counterparts, with Apollo Kazungo, Office of the Prime Minister, a representative of UNHCR, and others

4.15 We didn’t know - the process of truth telling is unravelled in this insightful documentary on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa

4.40 Panel discussion on justice, truth and reconciliation in Uganda with Ofwono Opondo, NRM deputy spokesperson, a representative of the South African High Commission, and others

5.40 Red Dust – an award-winning drama exposing the complexities of truth telling at South Africa’s TRC through the disparate lives of it witnesses.

This woman is blind. She lost her sight when she was three years old, though it’s unclear to her exactly how or why. For more information, visit Uganda National Action on Physical Disability.

Photo from Telegraph

“It is crazy that we hear nothing about the Democratic Republic of Congo. The level of suffering there is horrendous, but it hardly makes the news. I heard awful stories of young girls being raped and people fleeing attacks on their villages. Despite the suffering that they have been through the people of Congo are just like us and need our help. I hope the exhibition will wake people up to what is going on.”

The NGOs, for example, get barrels of money thanks to the images that photographers generate of mortally sick or malnourished children, money that they use, among other things, to expand their projects… If I ask a local African what he would really like to do professionally, I often get the answer that they want to work for an NGO, because in their country, NGO workers live a rich life in comfortable houses.”

“In fact,” continued Martens, “I find it a very hypocritical situation. Not because journalists and photographers would be just a gang of profiteers exploiting others’ poverty by turning it into attractive or impressive images and making piles of money, but because none of the profits that these images generate return to the people that deliver the raw material: the poor allowing themselves to be filmed. This makes the exploitation of filmed and photographed poverty a perfect double (analogy) for rubber, coltan or slave labour. The economical value of these phenomena is denied to the local population, and consequently, they get hardly anything in return. The poor are never involved in getting anything back from the exploitation of their poverty, they have no ownership over it, they are mostly not even aware of the fact that their willingness to be photographed brings in huge amounts of money for the NGO’s.”

On This is Not a Safari

On November 7, 2007, I got an email from a man I had never met before.

It began:

Dear wife to be, Glenna Gordon, It is in the name of Jesus Christ, I am writing to you this message in order to let you know about my proposal wish just to you.

And that was the beginning of my relationship with Joseph Mozi (not his real name), who likes reading but not swimming, and thought of our imminent marriage as “DURATION OF PROCESS: Is from now after each other agreement. No time to waste for nothing.”

I’d just reported on Congolese refugees in Uganda and had given my business card to more than one person, which means that lots of people in Congo have my email address. I did think it was strange that he referred to “Partner Donor Father Robby Gordon,” since my dad’s name actually is Robby Gordon, though I usually don’t address him as Partner Donor Father.

Then Joseph called me. Twice. I told him to please stop contacting me.

The next email explained,

Is not from confusion I got the contacts and made decision to be in touch with Glenna Gordon, jus be aware I got her isssues from my Partner Donor again as his Heir Son from Father Robby Gordon when I have proposed to Him to get married with one of her daughter. And is Him who sent to me the web site of Glenna, so is from there I got those contacts of Glenna.

My dad lives in Irvine, a suburb in southern California . The next time I spoke to my dad, I asked about Joseph. And it was at this point, Partner Donor Father Robby Gordon revealed that he had not just been emailing with Joesph, they’d been speaking on the phone once or twice a week for at least two months. Joesph had found my dad’s website, where he advertises his services as a financial advisor, and had called him. They’d developed a rapport, and according to my dad, he’d mentioned that I live in Uganda and had given Joseph my email address.

I told my dad to never give any strangers my contact information. Ever. This may seem obvious to some, but my dad still wears the stonewashed jeans he purchased in 1983 on vacation in Jamaica, and hasn’t really moved ahead in time since then. I’m not sure email and stonewash have ever existed together in the same room, besides in my father’s house. The story continues…