Part 1: Update from the fields

July -September of this year, we hired in labor to clear and plant 65 acres of land that had lain fallow for the past 2 decades. The first harvest should be starting within a month or so - groundnuts (peanuts in the USA) will be the first crop to be ready. Week before last, my kids and I went up to Gulu to escape the crazy CHOGM meetings in Kampala, and the two older boys got to camp out at the Opok Farms worker's camp for two nights. What fun! There are pictures over here, where you can see the fields and get a feel for how about 15 of the workers are currently living there full time - another 5-10 workers come in regularly on foot or by bicycle.

The sunflower crop is just lovely with lots of bees buzzing everywhere, the cassava is doing better now that it's been weeded, and the groundnut crop is thriving with this year's extra rains. The bad news is that we've lost almost all 12 acres of yellow beans we'd planted. The general consensus seems to be that the fields they were planted in needed another plowing. Weeds took them over too quickly and all the leaves turned yellow with brown spots. Weeding the fields is taking up most of the workers' time - since this is the first time the land has been planted in 20 years, there's a lot of extra stuff in the soil. The variety of weeds is amazing! We've also got maize growing, but termites seem to be eating quite a lot of it. (BTW - It's on my list of things to do to look up some organic repellants for termites. If anyone with better connectivity than I have would be interested in researching that, it would be of such great help!)

There's lots of dead wood around the forest, so selling firewood and burning already dead wood into charcoal is keeping the workers paid until the harvest comes. We're all very excited that my mom is bringing a new chainsaw in her suitcase when she comes to Uganda for Christmas - she can buy a highly recommended one in the USA for an amazing $169 - that's a whopping $600 less than the cheapest one we've found in Uganda! Voila - a small but significant first investment in farm machinery at Opok that will really help alot. We're also thinking bicycles would help to make the firewood collection easier.

The biggest persistent challenge on the farm is that so many strangers are cutting down our living forest to burn charcoal. Clear-cutting for charcoal is definitely illegal in Uganda, but there are no local law enforcement resources available to send out into the wilderness to help us, and the culprits simply don't stop when Norbert or the workers confront them and ask them to. So they (a faceless many) are able to keep cutting down acre upon acre of virgin forest. It's tremendously sad to see the forest destroyed, and leaves me with a very helpless feeling to see it get so much worse every time I visit.

Several more strangers have also moved in and planted their own fields. Heated discussions about the farm boundary, or people claiming that Norbert's granddad had given pieces of land away to their granddads have taken up a lot of time and seem to go nowhere toward resolution. Coming from a Western culture where private property is usually respected, it's sometimes frustrating for me personally to understand the disregard for private property rights that seems to reign. That we'd hoped to protect the environment within the farm boundary is simply meaningless to the local population, and the more we appeal to local authorities for help, the more political it all seems to unfortunately get. We are trying to at least introduce some rules for how people living within the farm boundary should agree to use the land, but it's tough.

A few weeks back, the workers were surprised to wake up and find piles of elephant dung on the road, about 25m from where they sleep. They estimated that 10 or more elephants had passed by in the night. So far, we haven't had any sightings reported of actual elephants - only their leavings. And fortunately, it doesn't look like they've done any damage at all to the fields.

All in all, things go well out on the farm. If the new ebola outbreak doesn't keep us from traveling after Christmas, the boys are planning another family campout at the farm (with Grandma and their two cousins this time) just after the New Year. Stay tuned for some harvest pictures around then!

Meanwhile, earlier this week I attended a presentation at UNICEF by the SWAY-Uganda research team. Anyone with an interest in the issues surrounding war affected youth in Northern Uganda will definitely be interested in their findings. More about the relevance of that report on what we've got planned for the Opok Farms Community in the next part of this update.

Hoping all is well wherever you are...

Christina

http://lifeinafrica.com

Thank you for such an interesting update, Christina.

The photos are great ... and the kids are GORGEOUS!!!

Thanks Gayle - and I agree! My kids are gorgeous! More pix of our family fun out at the farm are over here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kir abo/

Christina's kids are gorgeous and well mannered gentlemen to boot. Hugs to all three from Thailand!

I am waiting for the SWAY report with bated breath.

Those photos are fantastic - thanks! http://www.flickr.com/photos/kir abo/

Well, it's been a helluva week out at the farm...

The trouble started the weekend following my last update, when we got news that all of the workers had abandoned Opok camp because they'd heard there was a rebel attack in the area.

This is the risk that was always there.

Groundnuts are ready for harvesting already, but now there's nobody there to pick them. If there are rebels in the area, their Modus Operandi for the past 20 years has been to strike at Christmas time, when the bush is thick from the season's rains and food is starting to be harvested.

Not really knowing what to do, Norbert went up to Gulu to try and figure things out and find out what was going on. After talking to the workers and some of his relatives in Koch Goma camp, it's become apparent that a former rebel commander is camped with a community of 30-60 men, women and children from the Kony forces, about 7 kilometers south of the southernmost border of the farm. Koch Goma is the largest camp in the area, and they became known in the camp when they came in the middle of the night once to fetch a midwife.

So now rumors abound and people are quite obviously afraid of what this group might do. But there are no confirmed reports of any attacks having taken place. A common rumor is that they stole some cassava from a farmer's field, but that they also specifically told the man they had no intention of hurting anyone. That said, nobody seemed to know exactly which farmer that was, and both the military and police deny having received any reports of suspected rebel activity in the area.

False alarm? Given that all the other reports we hear indicate that the Kony command has pretty much fallen apart, my own suspicion is that this group drifted away from the Kony forces together because they all wanted to get away from that, not because they were sent or because they have a rebelious agenda. If that's the case, this commander would not be the first we've heard of who has left Kony over the past several months.

Unfortunately, the fact remains that the workers have been spooked away and now the groundnuts are sitting there... Luckily there is a decongestion camp that's been populated with about 100 families over the past 3-4 months at Kalang, not far from the eastern boundary of the farm. The old road to Opok from Kalang (which we tried and failed to find 1 year ago) is now in passable shape, and day labor recruitment efforts in Kalang have apparently gone well over the past couple of days. The harvest will cost more than we'd hoped, but there's no giving up now!

For me, this particular experience brings into focus a couple of the key points that were highlighted at the presentation I recently attended at UNICEF by the SWAY-Uganda team. The Survey for War Affected Youth has included 1000 households in a 2 phase survey to get a grip on how Northern Uganda's youth are faring. The intent is to help inform donors and local development actors in the region on where the gaps and overlaps are in what we're all trying to do to support youth in the region.

One main issue was that too many programs are targeting programs based on the childrens' past. We are categorizing the children into groups that keep them tied to the past they are trying to move on from. There are programs for former child soldiers, programs for child mothers, programs for IDP camp youth - very few of those programs actually target the most vulnerable youth within those broad categories, and it can be argued that granting advantages to people based on these social categories does not facilitate peace but actually reinforces social divisions. That said, most of the youth who had at some point been abducted are reporting that after an initial period of reluctance on their community's part to accept them, they have managed to settle back comfortably into community life. Only 6% report persistent estrangement from their communities; only 7% report persistent estrangement from their families.

Generally speaking, Northern Uganda's youth are doing amazingly well - better than we outsiders tend to expect. The SWAY team suspects that the strong family structures in Northern Uganda have added considerably to the childrens' general ability to cope. Various indicators of well-being show that there is no evident pattern of higher challenges among any discernable group of youth. The level of trauma experienced by an individual, combined with their personal support structure and coping mechanisms all combine to produce very individual abilities to recover from whatever they've experienced - the youth in this region have all experienced a lot. Perhaps because everyone has been affected by this war for so long, the vast majority seem to be dealing with their lives relatively well.

Some other quick points from the SWAY team:

• Primary school enrollment is about equal for boys and girls, but there is a high female primary dropout rate. There is also a low transition from primary to secondary school.
• Across the region there is an overemphasis on aid for skills development and an underemphasis on finding sources of capital to create sustainable livelihoods. For every 10 trained tailors there is only 1 that actually has access to a machine to use their skills.
• Adult literacy and numeracy programs are too few and too small for the region's needs.

Some of the very acute needs for some youth in the region which the SWAY team feels are not being addressed adequately - if at all - include:

• Severe persistent injuries, particularly back, neck and chest injuries from carrying heavy loads and shrapnel pieces that have lodged in people's bodies.
• Community estrangement is a crippling challenge for the few who do experience it. Indeed, the story I started this update with points to a lot of fear remaining in the camps about what's going to happen when the rebels come back.
• Those youth who are dealing with persistent emotional issues are debilitated by them. While there have been lots of psycho-social programs for communities and groups of youth, there are too few if any that provide meaningful emotional/phsychological support on an individual level.

One figure that stuck with me was that 11% of the youth surveyed reported being haunted by spirits - experiencing nightmares, breakdowns, emotional blackouts and bad thoughts that all get attributed to spirits haunting them. According to the SWAY team, the key to improving efforts to help Northern Uganda's youth is to toss all of our categories away and spend more time identifying the most vulnerable youth who really need what we've got to offer. In the context of imagining what we might achieve over time at the Opok Farms retreat center described at http://www.givemeaning.com/proje ct/OpokFarms, I am finding myself particularly interested in how we might help this 11%.

I'm also finding that there's more than 3 parts to this 3 part update I'd planned! Since this post is already so long, I'll break here and promise to continue when I can (soon!) about some of the program development activities that have been happening, and where we are with the Opok Farm Village project.

Hoping your holidays are happy so far!

Christina

P.S. - the chainsaw arrived safely! Norbert is very excited to test it out soon.

"Well it's been a helluva week at the farm ...." is a bit of an understatement, sweetie!!!

Christina, I can't thank you enough for the time you take to not only post transparent details of the LiA projects and progress/challenges but the style in which you choose to frame the updates.

The very real, very human and (as such) very inclusive narrative is something I've always loved and enjoyed enormously .... and should have said so publicly much sooner.

Thank you :)

Hi Christina - wonderful report, and wonderful work you are doing in Uganda.

I note particularly your observation about the potential barriers created by programs being tied to the childrens' past - interesting point.

Yep ... it's a very interesting point, Jon and one I've personally struggled with and been constantly motivated and inspired by in the past regarding my work.

In my case it's so often been about developing needs-based service delivery options for people with Intellectual Disabilities that enhance, support and encourage the growth of the ability part - without disregarding the impact the disability part has on measurable progress.

The ongoing balancing act. Or in my personal language, always looking for "the AND"!!!! :)

I think the report Christina shared is invaluable in it's mention of these concerns in this context.

The past impacts upon the present and needs to always be considered ... but it doesn't need to fully define the future.

There is a big, fat "And* in there ... and it really is a balancing act type of challenge; but a challenge identified and named is a challenge halved.

I'm looking forward to reading the full SWAY report shortly.

Chris Blattman, writes a post on his blog The Advocacy Trap and it seemed to tie in with some of Christina's observations.

It's the time of year to proclaim peace. Peace to you always.

Great link to an interesting blog - I intend to read further, Chris has some insightful views.

Thanks John!

Chris Blattman is the SWAY-Uganda team leader. I'm glad to know that my paraphrasing of his team's report rings true to what he's saying himself :)

It's interesting to me personally that development professionals are finally starting to blatantly say the kinds of things Chris is daring to say publicly about the aid world's mistaken assumptions about so many things. I love it that his blog has quite a following, letting lots of people have a closer critical look at what's really happening on the ground.

thanks so much for these good updates christina and the SWAY summary/info. just finished reading Ishmael Beah's 'A Long Way Gone' today and trying to imagine the reintegration...and that 11%...:(

I hope you had a great Christmas - it looks so green out there!

Thanks Ben - likewise! I don't know if it's still as green as it was end November when I took these pix. we're heading back up toward the farm tomorrow. will spend a couple days on a wildlife safari along the way and bring back more farm pix by the weekend.

Christina... great to have this update!

Students at three schools made hammocks with me before Christmas, and we talked about what could be done at Opok Farm. I have enough money now to buy ten sewing machines, but there is still a lot of work to do to find large orders for hammocks. If anyone can help with that, please.

Good to have this fact from you: "For every 10 trained tailors there is only 1 that actually has access to a machine to use their skills."

That will help get support. I'll forward this update through my networks and keep you posted on my progress.

Linda said she is not planning to go to the farm anytime soon due to fear of conflict, and that you may leave the farm.

It is a very snowy new years eve here. I'm safe and warm... drinking a micro brew beer while making pizza in the kitchen with my girl friend. Uganda and the issues you speak about seem very far away, but I'm happy to be part of this team, and will do all I can.

The school I start work at in a week is open to creating a cultural exchange with Uganda using computers and video, so if any of you have ideas on we can do this, please let me know.

2008 will be great!

Keep believing!

-Cor

First I was late... and then it was 2008!

http://www.ned.com/group/opokfar ms/news/11/