Refugee children find freedom in free time

MBARARA, UGANDA — As I sit here on the steps of my porch looking at the hibiscus bushes, palm trees and countless other plants and trees I can't name (look, I did animal behavior, not botany), I reflect on how different my life is from all of yours. Yesterday I thought it might rain as I headed out on the rough red road to camp, but instead of a dark storm front, it turned out to be an intense heat haze. No snow here, and definitely no skating on Lake Carnegie, though today it is finally cooler. Overcast. I can't believe it. We are in the short dry season of year (the longer one is over the summer) and it has been hotter than ever, until this morning that is. Well, so much for today's grand plans of going swimming at the local "country club" on my day off. Perhaps the next rainy season will begin soon.

I work with Right to Play (Olympic Aid) as an implementing partner of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the Oruchinga refugee settlement. I work as part of a project coordinating pair implementing sport, play and health programs in Oruchinga to improve child development and community capacity in the refugee and surrounding local populations. What that means is that I train people to be coaches and encourage them to play with the local children and youths.

Some days it is the coolest job in the world. I've been an athlete for as long as I can remember, and to have a job that lets me share that joy with other people far less fortunate than myself can be extremely rewarding. But other days, it is incredibly frustrating. Couple in your mind the concept of African time (one to two hours behind schedule or more) with the refugees' handout mentality, and you might just begin to understand that the business of playing games with refugees is not as simple as it seems. When I find a reward in a laugh, demands for incentives in the forms of T-shirts, sodas, pens or lunch can get to be disheartening. They have so little, yes, but with monthly food distribution from the World Food Program and other donations through the Red Cross, they are better off than many of their Ugandan neighbors. It is hard to make sense of everything — there is so much that is unjust.

I just had to chase Bertha out of our house. That hen will eat everything, especially Fang the cat's food, and loves pecking around inside where she does not belong. Kiro, the goat, also has an obsession with being indoors, but unlike our carnivorous chicken, she has all she needs to munch on outside in our huge tropical yard. I have strange pets. I have an unusual life.

I live in Mbarara, which is allegedly the second or third biggest city in Uganda. You would not think it by looking at High Street, but it has taken giant leaps forward since Right to Play first established itself here over a year ago, when my current boss came in to set up the project. You can actually withdraw money from your Visa account at a local ATM machine! There are now more than three local grocery stores and I've even been able to find tampons on the shelves, but no condensed milk unfortunately. So much for making the famous McLean Banoffee dessert.

'Mzungu'

I am a mzungu — a foreigner — here, but in case I ever forget — meaning if I am ever able to ignore all the cursory stares — I would be reminded by the dozen or more "Mzungu!" shouts I hear a day on my way to those grocery stores or to the bank. At least in camp they know enough to call me by name.

Oruchinga is located about 60 kilometers (about 40 miles) along a rough red dirt road from town, and it takes us about an hour to drive there in our Land cruiser truck. Matoke (savory green bananas, a Ugandan staple food) trees and pockets of clustered buildings line the drive. Goats and cattle frequently slow our progress, as do slow-moving open-backed lorry-trucks carrying mounds of yellow plastic jerry-cans, towering piles of mattresses, heaving masses of Ankole cattle with their unreal long curving horns or curious staring people.

It is awful to get caught behind these, especially now in the dry season as the dust rising from the tires lingers thick and choking. The once shiny leaves of the matoke trees are caked red with this organic rust. We drive on the opposite side of the road here as it is an ex-British colony, but it is not unusual to pull a left-sided overtake — you take the path of least-resistance on these roads. And you don't see me complaining anymore. I've come a long way since my arrival five months ago.

Language lessons

My slow Ugandan accent comes naturally when I am speaking with any non-mzungus. I don't even notice it anymore, though Judas, our driver, commented yesterday about it and how much I've improved. People have no qualms about talking about me in the local Ugandan ruyankore language, or the Rwandese kinyarwandan, so my housemate and fellow Canadian, Crystal, and I have developed our own "local" language when we feel the need for some privacy in our conversations — accelerated English works like a charm.

Most of the refugees, even though they are from Rwanda, speak no French, and even fewer speak English. So we use high school boys as our translators. They are the people in camp who are the most educated and who can best communicate with us. It is humbling to reflect that some of my best friends here, most trusted volunteers, coaches or children, are people that I have been unable to directly speak with aside from the traditional "hello, how are you."

True, we share much more. With the children it is beautiful, and words are not needed. Smiles. Winks. They tug my long straight brown hair. They touch my legs. They rub the red nail polish on my toes, wondering how it stays. They look at their reflection in my Oakleys. They pile into my lap or hang with me from a tree. They giggle and writhe uncontrollably when I tickle them. They've learned to tickle back. I love them. I've gone from recognizing them from their worn, dirty, torn clothes that they wear to recognizing their faces.

A long running joke is that we all look the same to them. We laugh at this because this is what we mzungus say about them. So funny. It is a lie. It is only because we had never bothered to look. It takes more time to look, to see, but it is worth it. When I went home for Christmas, my father asked me to tell him some of their stories. I knew so few. I was ashamed. Yes, I knew faces, but I did not know all the names and stories. There are so many — about 5,000 and counting. But I have begun to learn more. I have begun to try harder.

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I had thought that they had all been in Oruchinga since the war in 1994. The genocide. They use the word so easily that which took the West so long to admit. But for many, this is not their first home as a refugee. Many were in the Democratic Republic of Congo until they had to leave there, too, because it was so unsafe. Southern Uganda, where we are, is stable so hopefully they will not have to move on, and they could even go back to Rwanda but many will not until a true democratic election is held there. They will not feel safe otherwise. For now they will stay here, and so will I. And we will play together and try to forget the past and try to build hope for the future. Wish us luck.

Nicole "Chinook" McLean '02 is a former rugby player and Outdoor Action leader who majored in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. She is currently working with Right to Play (Olympic Aid) in a Rwandese refugee settlement in the South West of Uganda as a Princeton-in-Africa fellow and a consultant to the United Nations.