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 <link>http://consciencestudio.com/travel/index.php?itemid=27</link>
<description><![CDATA[<a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080430-Child Voice International.JPG"></a><br />
<br />
Two days ago I went to ChildVoice International. It all happened quickly. On Sunday afternoon I met Lowna and Diandria. My first impression of the two of them was positive. Knowing that organizations are their personnel I was curious to find out more about their organization. I called Lowna on Monday and asked what her organization was and if I could visit and have a tour. She called me back and said sorry this is short notice, the only good day would be Tuesday, which is tomorrow. So I rearranged my schedule and went to the ChildVoice International office on Tuesday morning to drive out to the site of their program which is roughly a 40 minute drive outside of Gulu on the edge of the Lukodi Internally Displaced People (IDP) camp. The place is for formerly abducted child mothers. Their program is to provide these mothers, roughly 30, and their children with all their needs. The girls and their children live on this compound of ChildVoice International (CVI) and CVI provides them with housing, food, education, health care, and other rehabilitative services. The office in Gulu was nice. It is in a building with a local government agency. It is simple; the material objects like staplers and unnecessary material excess were not filling the office. Also when you enter their offices, they have eight desks arranged around the room in a non-hierarchical configuration. The office is open. Looking at the structure of the office I could see simplicity, equality, and openness. Another aspect I appreciated was how they share their office with another group, a local Ugandan government agency, and also their fence is just a chainlink fence with a single barbed wire running around the top. <br />
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There is an incredible number of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) with offices here in Gulu and for me the fencing of the offices is important. Most NGO offices here are walled around the perimeter. That is the way the majority are. Most of them have one coil of razor wire around the top of the wall. I am making a distinction between razor wire and barbed wire. I do not know how to describe the difference just that razor wire is more high tech. Then some NGO’s have two coils of razor wire around the top of their wall. So compared to other NGO’s ChildVoice International is open. I enjoyed the day, and met good people. I am only left wondering what do I think is the full effect of their presence and efforts here in Gulu. That is a question I have for all the NGO’s and foreigners here including myself. <br />
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<a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080430-Science Exam.JPG"></a><a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080430-PThree.JPG"></a><br />
This week is the last week of school for UNIFAT before a month long holiday. Last week they had their municipal examinations and this week they are having their UNIFAT examinations. From being at the school and doing the art class I have had time to connect with some of the Primary 3 teachers. There are three classes of P3, blue, green, and white, and together they have six teachers. There are three women and three men, and compared with all the teachers at the school, two of the women are on the older side, and two of the men are on the younger side and they joke that the P3 teachers are grandmothers and their sons. It has been nice to sit and spend time with them. I have helped to grade a few of their examinations and I have helped more with stapling and colating their in school examinations. <br />
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<a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080430-Betty.JPG"></a><a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080430-Barred Path.JPG">null</a><br />
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1.This is Betty who lives here at the house. She is sitting in the kitchen in the back of the land. <br />
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2.This is a picture of someplace where the UNIFAT students used to walk through, and myself at time that has now been closed off. After being here for a little more than a week I learned how to walk from the house to the school almost all the way on back roads and dirt paths. These dirt paths cut between buildings and property. This is common here, it is not rude as it might be in the states. If the way to walk somewhere is open people will walk that way, cutting through land and homes, places where there are no roads. In this picture you can see the horizontal pieces of wood, before they were not there and anyone could easily pass through the vertical pieces of wood. <br />
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<br />
The Secondary age young people who live here with Mama have started arriving. In total there will be eight coming, three have arrived. So in total there will be 29 people living here. There is one toddler, 11 primary age children, three young men, four parents (Betty, her husband Ceasar, Mama Abitimo Odongkara, and Joe her son), myself, and one older lady, Serena who has lost her mind, now it will be us plus the eight returning secondary school children who have been away at boarding school. The majority of children here (I think this is the case for all of Northern Uganda, I do not know about all of Uganda) who attend secondary school board at their school.]]></description>
 <category>Africa</category>
<comments>http://consciencestudio.com/travel/index.php?itemid=27</comments>
 <pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2008 04:14:12 -0700</pubDate>
</item><item>
 <title>The midway point</title>
 <link>http://consciencestudio.com/travel/index.php?itemid=26</link>
<description><![CDATA[<a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080418-Abe n I hands up.JPG"></a><a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080418-Auze Deborah Me Lamwaka Becky.JPG"></a><br />
1. Abe and Myself     2. Auze, Deborah, Me, Lamwaka, Becky<br />
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Here are a few pictures of the 12 children I have been spending time with. The first picture is of me and Abe, pronounced Ah-Beh. I like all the kids, but it has been easy to get to know and spend time with Abe. She is one of the older kids at the house, she is a girl, her English is good and she uses it, and we have free time that overlaps. I like her very much. Her and Auma are both in Primary 7. They are both apprehensive about these test results that they will found out maybe on Monday of whether or not they will take their Primary Level Exam (PLE) from their school, Uper Nile Institute for Apropriate Technology (UNIFAT), or from another school. There are 99 Primary 7 age children at UNIFAT and only 90 of them will sit the PLE from UNIFAT, 9 of them can either choose to repeat Primary 7 at UNIFAT or they can take their PLE from another school. Both Abe and Auma are stressed about this. In fact it is important. They both say though that if they are not selected to sit at UNIFAT they will take the test through another school rather than do the whole year over again. In the second picture is Auze, Deborah, myself, Lamwaka (Santa Lamwaka), and Becky (Abitimo Rebecca Odongkara, the exact same name as her grandmother, the woman I am living with). (The thing is, they have the same name, and the same birthday). In this picture you can see Deborah and Becky the two girls I sleep with each night. <br />
  <a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080418-BB smoke.JPG"></a><a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080418-w guy.JPG"></a><br />
<br />
I have included these bricks burning because this is such a common thing, I see different stages of it everywhere. <br />
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<a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080418-blurry.JPG"></a><a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080418-Ojok Ojara.JPG"></a><br />
1. Auze, Abe, Myself, Auma    2. Ojok and Myself<br />
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I included the blurry group picture even though it is blurry because I like the energy of it. In the picture is Auze (Bodo Paustino), Abe (whose name is Aol Lucy), myself, and Auma (Auma Milly). <br />
The second picture is of me and Ojok (Ojok Ojara John). Ojok is wonderful. I have had a full range of encounters with Ojok. We have played silly games, active games, games with rules, we have been serious, talked, sat, done math, done English, and we have cried, been grumpy, been upset, and been scared. <br />
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<br />
An update on my art class at the UNIFAT school.<br />
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The art class is now half way over. I work with about 80 to 100 different sets of children each afternoon from about 4:20 to 5:20 or later. This means that one child at the school starting at Primary 3, or the third grade, will see me for one or two afternoons only. I have just been passing out crayons and paper and having them draw, telling them they can draw anything they want. I have one young man from the house helping me. He is quiet when we are in the classroom. He told me though that when we got to Primary 6 and 7 that we should begin the time with a lesson, not just drawing, his idea was to teach some math or English, just so that the older students felt like they “got something”. At first I was not interested in the idea, but I was interested in working with this young man, Odong, and listening to him. I also value his insight into what the children maybe thinking or telling him. So, for the Primary 6 and 7 streams I begin with a 3 minute lesson on how drawing is good for your education. My lesson goes something like this:<br />
To excel in school and in your academic work each person needs a developmental foundation. This developmental foundation is built through play. One type of play is drawing. How this works is that you have an idea, then your body creates it, then you see how closely the representation of your drawing is to your original idea. This process expands your mind. This activity helps your brain to relate the concrete to the theoretical, or the abstract.<br />
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I know that because of my accent and because of their being new to me, most of them are picking up little or none of what I am saying. I still give some version of the lesson I just wrote, either shorter or longer, just to please Odong, and that the students also are pleased. I can tell that the students enjoy hearing me talk, even if they don’t understand me. Primary 6 and Primary 7 are the two year levels that I will only see each student once. Primary 3 through Primary 5 I will see each class, or stream as they call it, twice. When I started with the Primary 6 streams I told them “no pencil, and no pen.” From what I have seen in the drawings this direction has significantly increased their creativity, I do not think that is because of the age difference only. The second time I go through the younger years I will also add that direction to them as well, “no pencil and no pen.” <br />
]]></description>
 <category>Africa</category>
<comments>http://consciencestudio.com/travel/index.php?itemid=26</comments>
 <pubDate>Sat, 12 Apr 2008 04:03:50 -0700</pubDate>
</item><item>
 <title>We did it! Indonesians run AVP basic workshop in East Aceh</title>
 <link>http://consciencestudio.com/travel/index.php?itemid=25</link>
<description><![CDATA[The Indonesia Initiative of Friends Peace Teams is overjoyed to announce that Indonesians have done the first Alternatives to Violence basic workshop on their own without any facilitators from the outside!<br />
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The team that conducted this latest workshop was comprised of facilitators from both sides of a life-long armed conflict. They conducted the workshop in East Aceh, an Acehnese nationalist strong-hold, where Javanese farmers were born, raised and run out of. The participants were from Peureulak, East Aceh, considered the "heart of the war" that has a very hard, fishermen’s culture in which people are easily suspicious and hateful of outsiders.<br />
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This was the first time perpetrators were brought together to participate equally with victims of the war. One of the Acehnese facilitators told a story about experiencing transforming power on a night he was certain he would be killed. It turned out that two perpetrators of the violence that night were in the workshop! He says it was really powerful to sit in the room and share what was going on for each of them that night. The Javanese were able to see that they were not the only ones who felt like they might die that night. The meditation at the end of the workshop was amazing. <br />
Since August 2005, four adult and four young adult Friends from New York Yearly Meeting who are Alternatives to Violence facilitators—Nadine Hoover, Dean Hoover, Deb Wood, Pamela Hawkins, Sarah Mandolang, Molly McLellan Tornow, Karilyn Valesko and Steven Slining Haynes—have been going to Aceh and North Sumatra, Indonesia to conduct three-day Alternatives to Violence basic workshops and three-day training for facilitators. <br />
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The first workshop took place in East Aceh Indonesia one week after the Peace Accord was signed between the Free Aceh Movement and the Indonesian government in Helsinki, Finland. In 1965, the U.S. government orchestrated a coup de tat in Indonesia that “wiped out communism” in three days, but also was less known for attacking the Islamic power base in Indonesia—Aceh. Never fully recovering from having its own military turn against them, in 1976 the Acehnese initiated a war of independence from Indonesia, which has been in large part funded by U.S. military aid. After nearly thirty years of war and a massive tsunami, most of the people we work with are young, in their twenties and thirties,  who have suffered major traumas in their lives. <br />
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During the war, Javanese farmers who had been brought to Aceh under colonization to work on Dutch plantations were run off the lands they had worked all their lives and are now in camps in the mountains, unrecognized by any government. The fear and resentment between these people and the Acehnese is great. <br />
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As we have conducted AVP workshops, we have brought people from both sides of the conflict. At first they thought they could not be in the same workshop with each other. At times participants did not sleep for fear other participants might try to kill them in their sleep. But every time, they have become bosom buddies by the end of the workshop, learning they have mutual relatives and trading cell phone numbers. <br />
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This latest workshop that they conducted on their own brought tears to my eyes and touched me on so many levels when I heard this news. They felt so successful, not just as facilitators and as a team, but in bringing together people who may not have otherwise touched each others' hearts for generations if ever again. I am SO grateful that we could be part of this, that we could be part of bringing this about in the world, that we could give back to a people who have suffered so much in the wake of the coup of 1965, that our intolerance contributed so heavily to at that time.<br />
What redemption for us and for them. Thank you to everyone who has so graciously supported our work over the last few years!<br />
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In peace,<br />
Nadine Hoover, Coordinator<br />
Friends Peace Teams Indonesia Initiative<br />
<br />
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To support this work, please: 1) travel with us to meet our friends in Indonesia (see <a href="http://www.friendspeaceteams.org" onclick="javascript:window.open(this.href, '_blank'); return false;">www.friendspeaceteams.org</a> for details), 2) send donations to Friends Peace Teams,1001 Park Ave., St. Louis, MO 63104 designate in the memo line: Indonesia Initiative, and 3) check to see that your monthly meeting makes an undesignated contribution to Friends Peace Teams to cover core administrative costs. <br />
<br />
]]></description>
 <category>Indonesia</category>
<comments>http://consciencestudio.com/travel/index.php?itemid=25</comments>
 <pubDate>Tue, 8 Apr 2008 12:15:55 -0700</pubDate>
</item><item>
 <title>Listening Efectively to Children in Uganda</title>
 <link>http://consciencestudio.com/travel/index.php?itemid=24</link>
<description><![CDATA[I have been reading Listening Efectively to Children by Patty Wipfler a publication of the Re-evaluation Counseling Communities.<br />
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The thing that struck me was the section on healing Children’s Fears. This is a paragraph from that section: "When a child feels frightened, she has difficulty staying in close contact with her loved ones. She can’t hold your gaze for long, and will either be slow to experiment and to trust people, or will be constantly “on the go,” unable to slow down and enjoy your presence in a relaxed way. Fear also makes children edgy and hard to please: things have to be “just so” or the frightened child flares with impatience or anger. Life does not roll easily from one sunny pastime to the next for the young child who is afraid."<br />
I have spent hours with these 10 primary age kids at home and I have seen some of what is in that paragraph. I have seen some be “slow to experiment and to trust people” I have seen a lack of ability to relax some times. I have also seen, not children being hard to please, but holding grudges, and holding them over things that make no difference one way or another. Some of the things are not true from the paragraph that I’ve seen. The kids are expert at not showing their feelings. Or some way hiding their feelings. When they do not get what they want they go some where else. The kids here do not beg or even ask the adults around for any attention. They entertain themselves and if an adult is around they do not ask them for their time, but they will play with an adult if that person chooses to play with them. The kids are suspicious, I can ask them some question and they want to know why I am asking.<br />
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I have put to practice some of what I have read from the fear section and the playlistening section. Actually one of the 10 kids here does not go to primary school, she is too young. I would guess that she is three years old. She was petrified of me when I first came. She would leave if I came. Or scream if I came to close. Not that I tried to approach her at all, just that in doing my business and her doing hers we would physically become close and that is when she would scream. I do a lot of things in the compound. For a time she watched me while leaning against her mother, betty. She has watched me wash my clothes, wash dishes, eat food, fill water cans, playing and talking with the other children, and other activities. For a while we had this game where she would look at me and laugh or scream and cover her eyes. A kind of hide and seek. Then I would cover my eyes and act surprised to see her and then she would laugh/scream. And then she started to walk towards me one time and I cowered away, which is something the book says to do, to let the child take the larger role, and she would run away to her mother and laugh/scream. And that was the next game, for her to act as if she was going to touch me and I would cower and she would run away and laugh/squell. And after that game not all at one time but for several days over many occasions. Then the next step was the same game but she would actually touch me. And at first she did seem scared, brave enough to touch me but scared still. And then it was the same game as she gradually became feeling safer to touch me but still running away and laughing. That is the point at which we are at now. But this morning she was standing somewhere and I had to walk by her to get to the house and she looked at me and had no response at all. I think that is a good sign that she is moving away from her fear of me. I am glad of this. And it is exactly what I have been reading about in the book from Reevaluation Counseling.]]></description>
 <category>Indonesia</category>
<comments>http://consciencestudio.com/travel/index.php?itemid=24</comments>
 <pubDate>Thu, 3 Apr 2008 10:21:00 -0700</pubDate>
</item><item>
 <title>UNIFAT School in N Uganda</title>
 <link>http://consciencestudio.com/travel/index.php?itemid=23</link>
<description><![CDATA[Yesterday I attended the Primary School Athletics Compition. I do not know if it was nation wide or just the district. The stadium was just a large area closed off by the concrete wall surrounding it. The track was just a circle of worn out dirt and grass. There was nodifinitive line between the watchers who circled the track and the track itself. There were dull black lines about two feet wide to show the starting point for each person. I watched relay racing, and there were four places on each corner of the track where the starting places were staggered, that is why they used the black lines. The crowd was around the track watching. Each school had a tent connected to the outer wall, not a tent, but a large piece of plastic connected to the outer wall and then connected to two large sticks or poles stuck into the ground away from the wall. This provided shade and a designated area for different schools. The crowd was detirmened by these tents. The viewing students from each school sat roughly in front of their school tent expanding or contracting depending on the number of students at that school and the neighboring schools. I watched relay racing and javelin throwing. Relay racing seemed to be more important because it happened by itself, and then javelin throwing and some other thing at the other end of the field happened at the same time. It was difficult for me to realize when things were starting and ending and what was going on, I’m not sure if that was because it was unclear or because I don’t understand the language and therefore did not understand the announcer. Though English was used some of the time. I heard the announcer say, Heads of School take note tomorrow all P1 to P4 classes must go to school, classes will resume. Or something to that effect. <br />
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This morning all the younger kids bathed, dressed, and got ready then left for school. At this time I bathed and when I came back out and went out back all the younger kids had changed clothes into their home clothes and had returned, I asked Ojok, No school today? And he said no. I have no idea why. <br />
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Mama left yesterday because a baby died during delivery and she is going to the burial. She says she won’t be back until Sunday. I have walked many places in Gulu. The downtown is quite small. I am not sure how large an area the surrounding housing areas are. I know they are large and some not very nice, this is due to the fact that so many people have homes in the small villages around N. Uganda but have come to Gulu or other centers to avoid the violence. Ochen told me that the young girl whose baby died during delivery is younger than 16, that she is very small. I read in my Oxfam book that in order to avoid AIDS older men have taken younger and younger female partners and in so doing have given females 13 to 18 a higher percentage of AIDS than 13 to 18 yr old boys. I saw a billboard in Rwanda that had a picture of an older adult male and it said something like, you would not want him to have sex with your teenage daughter, so don’t have sex with his. <br />
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Another thing from the Oxfam book that I have seen is the taking of bananas by the helpers of banana owners. So, when I was on the Postal bus from Kampala to Gulu we stopped in a small area and next to us were people moving banana bunches out of a truck and then down into the market, and I saw the guys taking single bananas off from the clumps and placing them somewhere else. The Oxfam book explained that those men do not get paid but instead get to take those bananas and sell them or eat them or anything, but that the bananas are their compensation for their work instead of pay. Ochen does not like Betty, the woman who lives here, I am not sure why but Mama must trust her to some extent because Betty has a key to Mama’s room, which is locked while she is away.<br />
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I have met with a group of abducted women that have children from their abduction and are rejected by society that got together and formed a group that now helps other abducted women. <br />
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Yesterday I ate lunch with the builders who are working at the school. One of them, Tony, lives here. The first day I saw him working at the school I waved to him, he saw me but he did not wave back. But then on later occasions when seeing each other we have waved. Then the other day he said, you must not have come to school, you did not come say hello. So the next day I made a point of going to say hello, and I ended up entering a room where they were all having lunch. One and then the others agreed that I was invited to have lunch with them, but since food was being prepared for me at the main part of the school I declined. Then the next day, which was yesterday I went there to eat lunch. I saw 12 people also eating lunch not including myself. This group of people do not work together all the time. Some are masons, and some are carpenters, and all of them found this job on their own. When this job is over they will all separate and look for new jobs. Though they find work individually I suspect that they know each other since they have the same profession and Gulu is relatively small enough that I think that some of them could have overlapped on other jobs, or at least be able to find a mutual aquantance. The lunch was porsho (sp?) and beans. The porsho is white corn ground into flour mixed with water and made into a hunk of white stuff. The beans are boiled and are in juice. I am not sure what else is involved. This is a fairly typical meal. I am taking a one a day pill, but it has almost no iron in it and I think my diet here is lacking in iron. Gulu is starkly different from Kampala. Kampala is huge. It is a real city. I think I could buy any western item I wanted there. Gulu is not like that. Even the nicest places are not that nice, well the public places at least. Maybe some of the private homes and offices are nice. The nicest internet place is not all that nice. It is just some computers in a room with seats. I asked Jamie, who has been here for almost two years, who works for invisible children and is from the USA if there was a nice internet place that I had not yet found and he said no.<br />
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When I was using the internet two white people came. I said hello to them. One of them is working in Rwanda and the other came from Washington DC. They have come here to Gulu for only a few days to do some prospecting. Tha is how they described it. I gathered that from them that they are looking at the possibility of starting a program in Gulu, they said depending on how the talks go in Juba. I wonder if and how foreigners have been treated in N. Uganda during the war time.<br />
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Because Mama is away Rebecca and Deborah slept in the girls room in the back. Which must have made it crowded, because there are only two small mattresses, and there were 6 girls in there. So I slept in the house alone, and was told by Donka and Auze to lock the door. The door is locked every night. So in the morning I woke up to Ojok right outside my window saying, Sera wake up. I woke up and immediately went to go unlock the door. In came Ojok, Rebecca and Deborah, but then Ojok left, and I know it was Rebecca and Deborah who needed to come inside, but I wonder why they themselves did not wake my up but instead Ojok. I know that those two girls could have done it, they would not have been afraid.<br />
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Though I have been here for more than two weeks the little Rebecca is only just becoming used to me she is no longer afraid of me but she is not yet comfortable with me. I wonder if by the end of the two months I will be just another person to her.]]></description>
 <category>Africa</category>
<comments>http://consciencestudio.com/travel/index.php?itemid=23</comments>
 <pubDate>Wed, 2 Apr 2008 09:11:00 -0700</pubDate>
</item><item>
 <title>Gulu, Uganda</title>
 <link>http://consciencestudio.com/travel/index.php?itemid=22</link>
<description><![CDATA[So much has happened. I have come to Uganda. I am living with Abitimo Odongkara and the many relatives and orphans that she supports. The school, Upper Nile Institute for Appropriate Technology (UNIFAT), is not 1,500 orphans as I had thought, but somewhere around 1,300 or 1,400 children, some of whom are orphans or returning child soldiers. The returning child soldiers may or may not also be orphans. Abitimo and I arranged for me to lead an art time during the schools midday break and after school. This has not started yet but hopefully will begin on Tuesday after Easter. The times of the art class will be from 1:30 to 2:15 and 4:00 to 4:45 Monday to Friday. <br />
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Living here at the compound with me are 11 primary school age children and one three year old. I have been playing and working with them. This morning I spent and hour and a half shelling peanuts with three of the older ones: two girls, Auma and Abe, and one boy, Auze. There were two kinds of peanuts. The two girls and I were shelling one kind of peanut and the boy another.Then they decided to have a competition and made four piles one for each of us to see who would end first. My pile was smaller, I think that was a handicap. Looking at the piles I thought the boy's was a smidgen larger but no one said anything. We started and the boy finished twice as fast as the rest of us. Then the game was disrupted by an old lady, Serena, and ended. I thought possibly the boy went so much faster because maybe the kind of peanut he was shelling was easier. After we finished shelling all of our kind of peanut we went to finish the other kind, and I found that my guess was not the case. Those peanuts were just as difficult to shell. <br />
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I have met many people who are orphans, who have lost close relatives, and who have been abducted. One man that I was talking to, while telling me about his life said that he had been abducted. This surprised me because he was older. I thought the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) abducted younger ages like 7 to 15, but he was 26 when he was abducted. I am not sure which year but maybe that was earlier on during the abductions, and maybe the LRA took younger people as the years progressed. Many people I have spoken with are questioning whether it is safe yet to return to their villages. Of course many of the people I meet are here in Gulu, so I won't meet anyone here in Gulu who has decided to return to the village. <br />
<br />
During the rush from Rwanda to Uganda and since coming here I have not posted, not had time or electricity. Now that I am here and settled I hope to post once a week. This week has been hectic. A young relative of Abitimo's baby died during child birth and so Abitimo has gone to help her during this time, she left of Wednesday. Also this weekend is Easter weekend and people have been returning home for their Easter break. <br />
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Also last week during the primary school athletic competition 2 or 3 children died in the stadium and 30 some were injured from a lightening strike. So the competition was postponed and set for this week. So this week there was school on Monday and Tuesday morning. Tuesday afternoon there was a memorial time for those children who died and so no school, and then Wednesday and Thursday were the competition, so no school and Friday was Good Friday and Monday was Easter. So there has not been school basically all week, and so there are many children and things going on at the house and this past week it has been non-routine.<br />
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Let me tell you about some of the other things. The food is excellent. The most common meal is what they call Porsho (I do not know how it is  actually spelled) and beans. Porsho is made of ground corn flour and water that congeals into a solid kind of starch. The food here is good. Lots of peanuts are used. I have had peanut sauces many times. I have had pea soup, fish, rice, meat, cassava, and samosas. They also have another staple food like the corn thing except it is made with millet or Sourgum (sp?) flour mixed with cassava flour and water and is like the white corn thing but is brown and of a slightly different consistency.<br />
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Ok I told you about the hectic nature of last week and this, I did not post again this weekend because Saturday I waited all day to go to the village thinking we were going, Sunday I went to the village, and Monday there was no electricity. Today is Tuesday. Things are now underway, not just with posting, but with my schooling, daily routine and the art class. I will be posting regularly.]]></description>
 <category>Africa</category>
<comments>http://consciencestudio.com/travel/index.php?itemid=22</comments>
 <pubDate>Tue, 25 Mar 2008 06:20:25 -0700</pubDate>
</item><item>
 <title>Kigali, Rwanda</title>
 <link>http://consciencestudio.com/travel/index.php?itemid=21</link>
<description><![CDATA[Due to limited time, I will upload pictures now and add stories later. <br />
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<a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080223-coal making.JPG"></a><a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080223-computer room.JPG"></a><br />
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Left: smoke from coal making, Right:the computer room where I am right now.<br />
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<a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080223-George Fox School.JPG"></a><a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080223-meal 1.JPG"></a><br />
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Left:George Fox School, Right: A meal<br />
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<a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080223-houses on hill.JPG"></a><a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080223-john damascene.JPG"></a><br />
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Left: houses on a hill driving to Cyangugu Right: John Damascene (I'm not sure on the spelling)<br />
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]]></description>
 <category>Africa</category>
<comments>http://consciencestudio.com/travel/index.php?itemid=21</comments>
 <pubDate>Sat, 23 Feb 2008 07:06:54 -0800</pubDate>
</item><item>
 <title>Kigali, Rwanda</title>
 <link>http://consciencestudio.com/travel/index.php?itemid=19</link>
<description><![CDATA[I have added pictures to the two older posts in the extended sections.<br />
<br />
Here are some new pictures:<br />
<a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080217-c2 17 08 Kitchen Tatiana.JPG">Tatiana</a><a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080217-c 2 17 08 Kitchen table.JPG">Kitchen</a><a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080217-d 2 17 08 w Monika.JPG">Monika</a><br />
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I have been spending time in the kitchen. (sorry the two pictures on the right are too small, I will get better at knowing what size to make them.) Tatiana on the left, the one you can't see, is roughly my age. Like me not yet married and without children. She is here at the Church where we are staying to help do the work involved with hosting us. She has been teaching me some Kinyarwanda. today she taught me 4 through 10. 1 through 3 I learned yesterday. Monika on the right, is somewhere in the middle age region. Her one child is 14 years old. I have yet to ask what her place is with the church but I think she has a permanent role. <br />
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Yesterday I spent half an hour with Theoneste, the coordinator of Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities workshop in Rwanda. We talked about HROC in Rwanda, his involvement, and his general life story. The parts I found interesting in the HROC workshop that he told me about were first the community celebrations. What happens is, in one area, after a set of workshops have been done there, some basic workshops and some workshops for Healing Companions, they have a celebration for anyone who attended any of the workshops. Then that celebration is opened up to extended family members, local authorities, and the general public. He emphazised how the workshops helped bring people together who previously would not associate, and how the community celebration was a time for the community to see what change had come and for that change to be celebrated. The second part that stood out to me was the Healing Companions, people from the community who have extra training to help the people in their community after the facilitators leave. So, they are not facilitators, they are supporters of the community who took the workshops.<br />
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I enjoyed talking with him. He speaks english well. ]]></description>
 <category>Indonesia</category>
<comments>http://consciencestudio.com/travel/index.php?itemid=19</comments>
 <pubDate>Sun, 17 Feb 2008 05:54:34 -0800</pubDate>
</item><item>
 <title>Kigali Rwanda</title>
 <link>http://consciencestudio.com/travel/index.php?itemid=18</link>
<description><![CDATA[I am having a wonderful time. People here do not stare/hassle/try to sell things. It is much different from Indonesia in that regard. I have met wonderful people. This morning we met with at the Friends Peace House here in Kigali, I met Joyce (I don't know her last name) who does AVP here in Rwanda. I have not yet had a chance to talk with her. I also met the people doing the Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities (HROC) workshop. I did not have time to chat with them either, though I'm not sure how their english is, but I did get their phone numbers and told them I would like to come back to Rwanda to do a HROC workshop. At the House we also met Ceaser who is the  coordinator. He spoke about their programs. They have programs with trauma and helping ethnically different people live with one another, a program with street children, and some others. After we went there we went to the Friends Church where I am staying and met with the Clerk, (who is Antoine, also the head of the George Fox School) and somebody else important, but I'm not sure what is his official position. Tomorrow we, the Friendly Folk Dancers, are doing one dance, a wedding dance, at a wedding. That will start our tour here. <br />
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An interesting thing I noticed today is that, in Kinyarwanda the language here they pronounce some W's as wg, with a g sound. I think this depends on what other letters it goes with. But in the case of Rwanda when they say it, it often sounds much like Uganda. I think that is neat. Also the name of their language you pronounce i's like e's. So when they say Kinyarwanda it can sound like kenyaganda. A combination of Kenya and Uganda. <br />
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There is so much to say. Mostly I am enjoying meeting the people. I have learned good morning=Mwaramutse and good afternoon=Mwiriwe and I have used them with people, it really brings smiles and helps people feel comfortable. <br />
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Here at the George Fox School they have about 30 computers. They seem to all have internet. <br />
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I have only seen the high school here. There is a primary school and I have yet to see it, though I am excited. <br />
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There is so much more. I love being here. I am taking pictures but have not been able to download them yet. I will as soon as I can! <br />
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For those of you reading this from Rochester NY, Ruth Hyde sends her greetings. <br />
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For now, love, <br />
Sarah Mandolang]]></description>
 <category>Africa</category>
<comments>http://consciencestudio.com/travel/index.php?itemid=18</comments>
 <pubDate>Fri, 15 Feb 2008 04:34:30 -0800</pubDate>
</item><item>
 <title>Kigali, Rwanda</title>
 <link>http://consciencestudio.com/travel/index.php?itemid=16</link>
<description><![CDATA[Well I have already posted today, but then the electricity went out. Yesterday I arrived. It is hot and breezy here. At night it is cool. at four am this morning there was an earthquake. It woke me up, then I couldn't go back to bed. So I woke up and "talked" if you can call it that to the two security guards and the gardener. The gardener knew some English but not much. Yesterday when I arrived I went to the church where I am staying and took a cold shower. Then me and Antoine, the head of the George Fox School went shopping. <br />
Here are some of the pictures from the road. <br />
<a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080217-e 2 17 08 road n ppl.JPG"></a><br />
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Click on Read more to see more pictures.<br />
<a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080217-f 2 17 08 ppl uphill.JPG"></a><br />
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<a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080217-g 2 17 08 store sign.JPG"></a><br />
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<a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080217-h 2 17 08 armyheli.JPG"></a><br />
This interested me, it is a camafloage helicopter.<br />
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For breakfast I had fried eggs with onion and tomato, hot tea that I added sugar to, and a jam sandwich. For dinner last night I had half a chicken that I couldn't finish, fries, and a mayo salad. Yesterday when we were out shopping the car in front of us hit the car in front of them. Shopping was fine. I bought a phone. 250 03353536. It may be that the 0 in front of the three is not needed, I don't know. I bought a sim card and minutes. I also bought a mosquito net. I changed 100 dollars for 54,000 Rwandan francs. Somebody look that up and see if I did alright! Hehehe. <br />
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<a href="http://consciencestudio.com/travel/media/2/20080217-b 2 17 08.JPG">Kigali Rwanda</a><br />
This is a common view to see out over the city.<br />
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It is hilly here, the hills have nice rivets. (Is that what I mean to say? They are not smooth hills like in western NY they are bumpy edged hills.) The dirt is red. The roofs are red and blue and some light green. There is a lot of green foliage, at the Nairobi airport it was much more dry so I could see the difference. <br />
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I have met people from the church Antoine, David, the Pastor and some of the working people, Monika, Polinari, Viyani, and Tatiana. The ones with the last letter a are female and with the last letter i are male. ]]></description>
 <category>Africa</category>
<comments>http://consciencestudio.com/travel/index.php?itemid=16</comments>
 <pubDate>Thu, 14 Feb 2008 01:39:39 -0800</pubDate>
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