Negri Village, Gulu

Day one of the rural home-stay was easily one of the most exciting days of my life.  I met my host family and toured around their village.  We first drove into our compound through a patch of sweet potatoes which they use for their own consumption as well as for selling in town.  We then drove into a whole set of huts with grass tips and brick and mud base surrounded by so many fruit trees.  Our first tour from our britheres Charles and Kellie were of the vast amount of fruits all within 1 kilometer of our hut.  It was basically heaven.  My brother Charles is 27 years old and he started an orphanage and is trying to start an NGO for the education of people effected by the war.  He also is a teacher at the school, and he writes music for popular Ugandan artists!  Cool guy.  He played me some of the music, and the stuff is actually quite good~  I told him i wanted to help him bring his music to America and maybe help him make some money for his school, because currently he is using his own money and has no funding.  My other brother is 20 and went to school in Kampala to study community development, but is delaying it in order to send his sister to school.  They both helped a lot with my research.  I decided to make my research topic on the difference between Government development programs, and NGO's, and discovering if and how it is benefitting (or not benefitting) the rural villages and community members.

Anyway, we started off with out tour of the village where they literally showed us everything.  They showed us the market, all the free fruits and veggies and other resources that are public for the community.  Some of these include guava, potatoes, matoke, avocado, jackfruit, sugarcane, eggplant, maize, millet, sorgum, rice, beans... the list goes on forever.  all these resources were RIGHT THERE!  They showed us the school and the bishops farm.  Then we headed back to our home, and Kellie  chopped us up some fresh from the ground sugar cane and ate some... it was AMAZING.  We proceeded to talk for a few hours on just life.  Half the time I was talking I was saying, "do you realize you are living in paradise??" and he said yes it is very nice here.  In my head I kept thinking, what's the point of development of rural areas if they already have all the basic resources they need, and their lives are happy?  Possibly its the government that just has this alterior motive for their own benefit to develop the economy.  Rather, their main focus is on economic growth of the rest of the country through the ability of rural areas to produce commercial goods, rather than focusing on the peoples needs and wants. All in all, i have learned way more in half a day there than I have my whole time in Uganda.  Rural life is the good life.  I had no other thoughts in my head as we were sitting under the bright moonlight eating potatoes, beans and rice right from the ground around us.