IDP Camp - Gulu

IDP Camp - Gulu
Originally uploaded by An Smith

The second camp we went to this week held 11,000 people. It was absolutely massive. It's a mother camp (differs from where we were the first day which was a satellite camp and is closer to their original village and means people have shifted from the mother camp and are getting ready to go home but are still in need of protection and assistance). The camp has been in existence since 1986! Honestly, it's more like a village now, despite the cramped conditions and lack of land there are businesses and bars and a market. I guess after that duration of time normal life is bound to happen.

I was wrong about the food rationing in my last post - I did the weighing and recording yesterday (more like spot checks to make sure it's being divided evenly) and it works out to about 4kg of maize, 1 kg of peas and 0.5kg of oil per person for a month. Do the math.. it's not that much. People who are considered 'extremely vulnerable' (the elderly and those with illness) get about three times that much because they can't do cheap labour to make money to buy more food.

We visited a third camp and helped to remove the 50kg bags of food from the truck. It's complete madness. All the men stand around and do nothing and the woman are lugging these things around with a baby strapped to their back! It was 38 degrees. Honestly, African woman are the strongest (mentally and physically) than any other woman in the world. I was helping as lady who was twice my age and she had ten times more strength and energy than me. It was hilarious!

While we were walking around one of the camps a very intoxicated man came up to Denise and I (and very politely and quietly) offered us 200 shillings each to have sex with him. That'll buy you a banana (should we be insulted??)!! Anyway, we politely declined and he wandered away without a problem. That's just the way things work here..it's not the first time (or the last) that we've been offered money or livestock for marriage and so on.

When we were wandering around we came across the soldiers (who are supposed to be protecting us!) and they were a few buckets deep into the local brew known as "Marwa". It tastes like warm beer and it is made from this grain.. anyway, it's revolting but I guess like anything, you acquire a taste for it. We took some shots of them (which I will post eventually) and the soldiers were really concerned that their wives and our husbands (we always say we are married) will see the pictures and we will all get in trouble. HA. Amusing :)

Leaving Gulu back to Kampala and then we will see what happens next I guess. No plans yet.