Yesterday’s Drama – The Ups and Downs of Research

There were some kids in the camp who had been rehearsing a drama about the massacre. They had invited us to go see their rehearsal after the Martyrs Day/Memorial Prayer Ceremony that had gone on for four hours. I was glad to have been invited, if only because it helped me understand why I had seen so many boys and girls wandering around with wooden toy guns.

Late in the afternoon, after much waiting around and me asking me repeatedly what we were doing, the group’s leader blew his little green whistle that called all the kids of the drama group to him. They began to gather around Ojibu and I, and Ojibu played with the kids while we waited (for what, I still don’t know). At the same time, one of the ladies of the camp approached us because she had cooked a meal for us (this happened the day before as well – people who own nothing but the shirts on their backs insisting that we share a meal at their expense). Ketty tried to explain that we couldn’t come straight away because we were meant to see the drama group, and this caused some sort of furor as well. I felt really bad about this, but I couldn’t communicate (I don’t know where my translator was at this point) and I was just waiting for the rehearsal to start.

A man then came up to Ojibu and started talking in a very animated way, and they were going back and forth at each other getting louder and louder while the kids watched. I was getting incredibly frustrated no understanding what was being said. Another man came up and joined the conversation (now an argument for sure) and through much questioning and insistence I found out from Emon and Ketty that the first man was angry about the drama and the toy guns. He was quite drunk and was accusing us of promoting and encouraging violence. The first man had said that he had been abducted by the LRA and was insulted by the drama, and the other man apparently defended the drama. No one asked the kids (most of whom had also been abducted) what they wanted, and they never got to show us their play. We decided (or rather, I was told we were) to leave. We walked back to the car and I hounded poor Emon the entire way trying to figure out who said what. Once we got back to the car, the drunk man came and yelled at us some more (home brew in hand) and Emon told me that he was blaming us (“you researchers”) for encouraging bad behaviour. It was pretty upsetting, particularly as I didn’t entirely understand everything that had happened and couldn’t really participate in the conversation.

So this is fieldwork here. People are variously suspicious, angry, afraid, welcoming, talkative, friendly, or chatty. You never know what you’re going to get, and it also shows the great diversity of opinion and experience in the people that live in northern Uganda. I’ve spent many days already going on wild goose chases to talk to someone, or getting the run-around, or been confronted with one-word answers to every question. It can be incredibly discouraging, and then someone will practically fall in my lap unexpectedly and give me some sort of mind-blowing insight into whatever it is I’m looking for. And when that happens, I feel like I’m high.

But I wasn’t on a high by the end of that day. After we got yelled at, I promptly got sunscreen in my eyes that would not come out. I had a horrible sunburn in spots on my back and shoulders (missed by my best friend, SPF 55) and my eyes started to water. I also had to pee and had bird crap on my head (that happened in the morning when I was given the ‘seat of honour’ and was promptly crapped on in front of several elders). So I got in the car, crying and unable to open my eyes, and we began to drive. We stopped about twenty metres up the path by all the masses of drunk camp residents (there’s not much else to do after the prayers are said). Emon and Ketty got out of the car to do something and talk to the people who had prepared us food and were upset that we weren’t staying. I felt really bad, but I couldn’t see a thing, I was so frustrated, and I knew that I couldn’t handle another meal of gwen (white ants). To top it off, there was also a chicken flapping in the seat behind me (the second day in a row of random livestock purchases by other members of the research team). It added insult to injury. A whole group of pissed-out-of-their-trees granny and grandpas came to stand outside of my car window, singing, shaking my hand until I thought it would fall off, playing little finger pianos and other homemade instruments, and dancing. It was nuts.

We finally left, and that was the day. I then went and got harassed in Lira market for being the only white girl in town. “Y’all act like you neva seen a white purson before!” was something that popped into my head a lot.

The end.