Wakanda, Uganda

Peace Corps Blog 5

Safe Space Guidelines/ Acknowledgements:

My blog, my reflections, my words are my own, informed by my experiences, perspectives and ideologies, they do not and should not be taken to represent peace corps, peace corps volunteers or Uganda and Ugandans.

I am being vulnerable in sharing my reflections and experiences, however I would like to acknowledge that some of the things I write, and share can come from a place of judgement, privilege and ignorance. I ask you to take everything with a grain of salt and to give me compassionate and constructive feedback to help me understand and realize these things.

I would also like to say this blog is not a place for me to lecture, educate or inform the world or a people from. This blog is truly a safe space for me to deconstruct and digest my peace corps experience, solely.

Thank you,

Wakanda, Uganda

Ugandan proverb: “It takes a village to raise a child.”

I think European, white colonialist would also agree, it takes a world to allow for the demise of a people.

Wakanda could be real. The Wakandans could walk this Earth, proud of their blackness, resilient in their innovation and compassionate in humanities embrace.

There is no Wakanda. On this Earth, not in this universe… but there could be, one day.

Teaching in Uganda is about hoping and setting the groundwork for that one day.

I go into my class, where just like any class around the world, there are children and teachers, all in pursuit of knowledge, education, a key to a brighter future.

However, unlike the places I grew up, some children sit barefoot. Others hunch in their seat, stretching their school uniforms around their body attempting to shield as much of themselves from the cold. And like the US, there are some pupils who sit with clean fresh pressed uniforms. Sweaters with no holes, working zippers and sweater hoods with cat ears. There are pupils who complete their work first because they did not have to beg their partner for a pencil then wait in a line of 10 to have it sharpened.

And like the US there are some pupils who don’t care anymore. Who have become complacent and comfortable in never learning. They don’t stand up and ask for a book. They don’t bother looking at the board.

I keep comparing schools in Uganda and in the U.S. Wondering what systems were in place to make both places so distinct yet alike.

How is it that here success in the classroom is determined, once more, by the money in your pocket not by your willingness to learn. Are those things synonymous? My fellow teacher tells me that Ugandan kids don’t want to learn. That they don’t bring pencils or books because they are lazy. I want to ask her who told her this.

In Wakanda, a woman is respected and admired for choosing a life of activism over a life as a Queen.

In some Uganda communities, a woman is expected to be at home, cooking and feeding her family. Female teachers are expected to serve their male peers. And all women kneel at the feet of men.

How did a place that could have been Wakanda turn into Uganda? A place where the president’s army awaits with tear gas at polling places and teachers get transferred from school to school depending on bribery, greed and corruption. A place where the sexual assault of children is normalized to a shoulder shrug and a man beating his wife is seen as a loving husband’s discipline. Where canning children keeps them quite and in schools and being of lighter skin reflects on your professionalism and ability to succeed.

Wakanda, a place where growing out your natural hair proudly isn’t a sign of insanity, dirtiness and lice.

I want to scream and shout and point my finger at colonialism and glee with the satisfaction of uncovering the wicked boogeyman. I want to turn towards capitalism and say look at the world you have created, the people you have bred, the injustice you have perpetrated.

I look in the mirror and see the complacency and self-importance making me turn my eyes and be silent, still.

Uganda could be Uganda. I see traces of its growth, (r)evolution. I hope it will be different. I hear stories of successful Ugandan women like Kansime Kubiryaba Anne, who has started a foundation for low-income youth to go to school, Winifred Byamima heading the international NGO Oxfam, and Rebecca Kadaga breaking ceilings and empowering young girls to follow in her footsteps as Speakers of Parliament. I see the growing embers of passion growing in pupil’s eyes when they challenge their teachers. I read it in my pupil’s letters talking about breaking chains and reaching success where few have before. I see the shackles of beauty being torn free in the curls of my program managers hair.

I see the pride being flamed in Ugandans souls as they ask themselves, why isn’t Uganda more like Wakanda?

How could we make it so?