The Uganda Convention for Community Development may seem like another nongovernmental organization at first glance. They have a school for the community, women who sew uniforms for the children, a community bank, a hospital, training sessions to learn math and science, and a large security business.
But ask a few questions and a deeper spiritual force rises to the surface. These are the followers of Jjaja Ndawula, a spirit who has shown its followers a new way: a path of miraculous healing, religious rituals, and intellectual empowerment.
“Most people come when they’re sick, then they’re mad,” says follower Roushitrah Matovu. “When you pray, he heals our sickness… The messenger of God may come in different forms. For us we combine and say they are all spirits. We understand what’s good.”
Below are pictures of the community base in Kampala where there are small shrines, training centers, and housing. There are also pictures from “Maureen City,” a compound a bumpy half hour’s drive out of the city, where followers of the sect gather every Monday evening for an all-night ceremony at the large central shrine.
[Note: This story is a work in progress and will be published in the Monitor when completed. I’m working with another journalist who is doing most of the story, while I do the photos. Please click here to be directed to the Picasa site for photo captions.]
17 June 2009
16 June 2009
media, representation, and bazungu
My last blog entry was actually written for a column in the Daily Monitor. It was published on their Web site and got a few interesting comments. This one from "Nyanzi" is my favorite:
"A mzungu taking pictures in Africa means that he or she is going to report negatives,lies about Africa.That has been the order of the the day ever since.No wonder people do not want that no more.
With your experience, do we have any thing good in Africa?.
-Do Africans laugh?
-Do Africans have names?
-Do Africans reason?
Africa deserves a better represantation."
This comment expresses a prevailing attitude that I've heard a number of times. The media that is given to Western [read mzungu] audiences often portrays the starving, nameless African child or the widow dying of AIDS or the mobs of angry black men killing each other with machetes.
This is precisely one of the reasons I'm studying journalism. Journalists are mediators, as an elderly man told me yesterday, and I want to illustrate a different side of Africa. When I'm here, I know there is poverty and corruption and all that, but I don't see it in the people around me. I see smiles. I hear joking. I meet passionate people who are striving to report the truth and work for peace.
Yes, Africans laugh. A lot.
Yes, Africans have names. Awesome ones.
Yes, Africans reason. Reason with intellect and passion.
And yes, Africa deserves better representation.
"A mzungu taking pictures in Africa means that he or she is going to report negatives,lies about Africa.That has been the order of the the day ever since.No wonder people do not want that no more.
With your experience, do we have any thing good in Africa?.
-Do Africans laugh?
-Do Africans have names?
-Do Africans reason?
Africa deserves a better represantation."
This comment expresses a prevailing attitude that I've heard a number of times. The media that is given to Western [read mzungu] audiences often portrays the starving, nameless African child or the widow dying of AIDS or the mobs of angry black men killing each other with machetes.
This is precisely one of the reasons I'm studying journalism. Journalists are mediators, as an elderly man told me yesterday, and I want to illustrate a different side of Africa. When I'm here, I know there is poverty and corruption and all that, but I don't see it in the people around me. I see smiles. I hear joking. I meet passionate people who are striving to report the truth and work for peace.
Yes, Africans laugh. A lot.
Yes, Africans have names. Awesome ones.
Yes, Africans reason. Reason with intellect and passion.
And yes, Africa deserves better representation.
04 June 2009
Ugandan Martyrs' Day
Prelude: Thousands of Ugandans gathered in Namugongo, Kampala yesterday in commemoration of Martyrs' Day, a public holiday that remembers the death of 26 Christians killed in 1886. Pilgrims from across the country and surrounding nations convened for Catholic and Protestant services, many of them walking from faraway towns in solidarity with the sufferings the martyrs endured. The services featured choirs, dancing, prayers, serving Holy Communion and a speech by President Museveni.
----------------------
The Daily Monitor team arrived in Namugongo in the morning, ready to face the crowds. As a photographer for the paper, my task was to capture the festival of senses that lay outside the security gates of the official services.
Looking around me, this first seemed like a daunting request. The roads were packed with pilgrims on their way to the shrine and it was difficult to walk through the crowds. I spotted a man making rolexes (fried egg rolled in a chapatti), which seemed to be a good place to start. Once I made my way over to him, I held up my camera and started to take photos.
But the man and his friend started waving their hands and complaining about the camera. Who was this mzungu?, this white person, they wondered, and where will she take our faces? I was surprised at their reaction, but explained that I’m a journalist. Yes, I’m a mzungu. And yes, I work for the Daily Monitor. They suddenly relaxed and smiled, telling that me I could take any pictures I wanted. Another vendor nearby overheard our conversation and asked me to take photos there too.
I do not know what negative experiences people have had with mzungus taking pictures, but I quickly learned that clipping a big red sign that read “PRESS” to the front of my bag made people relax and welcome my camera aimed at them.
The variety of food vendors and hawkers was truly amazing. There were people selling Martyrs’ Day calendars, crosses, DVDs, books, clothes, fabric, toy bikes, paintings, chapattis, fried white ants, pineapples, mangos, bananas, piles of sugar cane, pork, ice cream, watches, bags and so much more. It was as if the streets of Namugongo turned into a giant market, a carnival of delights.
In the midst of the chaos, I saw a small crowd gathered around a man who, I was told, was performing miracles. He had a stick on fire that he stuck down his pants, put in his mouth and touched with his bare hands. Miracles! He also performed a trick on an envelope and paper with much drama and waving, proving to the growing crowd that he had special powers. A man selling photographs, who introduced himself as John, thanked me the mzungu for being there and wanted me to stay. “When the people see you,” he said, “they are like, ‘eh! Wow!’ So stay around because we are making money.”
Indeed, everywhere I went the crowd seemed to grow bigger. I stepped inside a tent where there was music and soon there were many more people inside. I stopped at a cell phone tent to take pictures of a woman dancing, and when I looked behind me there was a circle of young people watching us. As a mzungu, it is impossible to disappear in a crowd. You always feel like people are watching you, because they are.
Over the buzz of the crowd I picked out a familiar melody that reminded me of the US. It came from an ice cream bicycle, and I could sing along: “Santa Claus is coming to town.” In the middle of the Martyrs’ Day crowd, in the middle of Kampala, in the middle of Africa, these Christmas medleys seemed both out of place and strangely familiar and comfortable. I stopped, raised my camera, and clicked the shutter.
Story in the Indiana Daily Student
Daily Monitor coverage
Daily Monitor
----------------------
The Daily Monitor team arrived in Namugongo in the morning, ready to face the crowds. As a photographer for the paper, my task was to capture the festival of senses that lay outside the security gates of the official services.
Looking around me, this first seemed like a daunting request. The roads were packed with pilgrims on their way to the shrine and it was difficult to walk through the crowds. I spotted a man making rolexes (fried egg rolled in a chapatti), which seemed to be a good place to start. Once I made my way over to him, I held up my camera and started to take photos.
But the man and his friend started waving their hands and complaining about the camera. Who was this mzungu?, this white person, they wondered, and where will she take our faces? I was surprised at their reaction, but explained that I’m a journalist. Yes, I’m a mzungu. And yes, I work for the Daily Monitor. They suddenly relaxed and smiled, telling that me I could take any pictures I wanted. Another vendor nearby overheard our conversation and asked me to take photos there too.
I do not know what negative experiences people have had with mzungus taking pictures, but I quickly learned that clipping a big red sign that read “PRESS” to the front of my bag made people relax and welcome my camera aimed at them.
The variety of food vendors and hawkers was truly amazing. There were people selling Martyrs’ Day calendars, crosses, DVDs, books, clothes, fabric, toy bikes, paintings, chapattis, fried white ants, pineapples, mangos, bananas, piles of sugar cane, pork, ice cream, watches, bags and so much more. It was as if the streets of Namugongo turned into a giant market, a carnival of delights.
In the midst of the chaos, I saw a small crowd gathered around a man who, I was told, was performing miracles. He had a stick on fire that he stuck down his pants, put in his mouth and touched with his bare hands. Miracles! He also performed a trick on an envelope and paper with much drama and waving, proving to the growing crowd that he had special powers. A man selling photographs, who introduced himself as John, thanked me the mzungu for being there and wanted me to stay. “When the people see you,” he said, “they are like, ‘eh! Wow!’ So stay around because we are making money.”
Indeed, everywhere I went the crowd seemed to grow bigger. I stepped inside a tent where there was music and soon there were many more people inside. I stopped at a cell phone tent to take pictures of a woman dancing, and when I looked behind me there was a circle of young people watching us. As a mzungu, it is impossible to disappear in a crowd. You always feel like people are watching you, because they are.
Over the buzz of the crowd I picked out a familiar melody that reminded me of the US. It came from an ice cream bicycle, and I could sing along: “Santa Claus is coming to town.” In the middle of the Martyrs’ Day crowd, in the middle of Kampala, in the middle of Africa, these Christmas medleys seemed both out of place and strangely familiar and comfortable. I stopped, raised my camera, and clicked the shutter.
Story in the Indiana Daily Student
Daily Monitor coverage
Daily Monitor
02 June 2009
The King and I
Today I met the king of Busoga, one of the kingdoms in Uganda. At least, he claimed to be the king. Sadat Nkuutu is only 13 years old and still speaks with a high voice. I asked him why he wants to be king.
"Why do I want to be a king?" he asked, surprised. "Because I am a king."
How do you know you are a king?
"Kings have to be born with two umbilical cords and the millet seeds."
Millet seeds?, I asked, getting back "duh" stares. Apparently kings are born with millet seeds in both hands. The father of the "king" was also there and even produced two dried-out umbilical cords. Proof!
But there is opposition to the king in Busoga, with others also claiming royalty. "I don't know what will be done," Nkuutu said. "Justice will be done."
Today I also photographed the Minister for Relief Disaster Preparedness and Refugees, and met the ambassadors of Egypt, Sudan, Algeria and Burundi. Tomorrow is a huge public holiday -- Martyrs Day. More to come!
"Why do I want to be a king?" he asked, surprised. "Because I am a king."
How do you know you are a king?
"Kings have to be born with two umbilical cords and the millet seeds."
Millet seeds?, I asked, getting back "duh" stares. Apparently kings are born with millet seeds in both hands. The father of the "king" was also there and even produced two dried-out umbilical cords. Proof!
But there is opposition to the king in Busoga, with others also claiming royalty. "I don't know what will be done," Nkuutu said. "Justice will be done."
Today I also photographed the Minister for Relief Disaster Preparedness and Refugees, and met the ambassadors of Egypt, Sudan, Algeria and Burundi. Tomorrow is a huge public holiday -- Martyrs Day. More to come!
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