Most textiles and clothes are made in Asia, sold to the West, discarded in the West, and donated to charities who have too many dresses to know what to do with them. Then the charities send them to Africa. For example:

Fictitious Original Owner: Cindy Showalker’s 8th birthday party in Miami, 1993. Cindy and her mom went shopping at the local strip mall and found this doozy on sale. Cindy really loves the color pink, especially when there’s an iridescent sheen involved. Mrs. Showalker thought it was expensive, even on sale, but she swiped the plastic anyway since Cindy only turns eight once. Cindy only wore the dress once, and then Mrs. Showkalker gave it to their Hispanic maid, who already had so many party dresses that she passed it on to Goodwill.

Actual Current Owner: Lucy Mugisha, Gayaza District, one hour east of Kampala, Uganda, 2008. Lucy loves this dress when she rides bicycles with her friends. She wears it everyday since it’s her only dress besides her school uniform. Lucy just turned seven, and was getting a bit old to be running around the village without any pants on. Her tata (dad) bought it at a used clothing market in Kampala when he went to find the family a new frying pan. Incidentally, he is color blind. (more…)

On November 7, 2007, I got an email from a man I had never met before.

It began:

Dear wife to be, Glenna Gordon, It is in the name of Jesus Christ, I am writing to you this message in order to let you know about my proposal wish just to you.

And that was the beginning of my relationship with Joseph Mozi (not his real name), who likes reading but not swimming, and thought of our imminent marriage as “DURATION OF PROCESS: Is from now after each other agreement. No time to waste for nothing.”

I’d just reported on Congolese refugees in Uganda and had given my business card to more than one person, which means that lots of people in Congo have my email address. I did think it was strange that he referred to “Partner Donor Father Robby Gordon,” since my dad’s name actually is Robby Gordon, though I usually don’t address him as Partner Donor Father.

Then Joseph called me. Twice. (more…)

“There’s a man here with one leg, five women, and thirty-two children,” Sarah Shambe tells me, on the day of Rosh Hashanah, as we walk away from Eid prayers to her two-room home in a suburb of Kampala, Uganda.  Sarah spent the morning praying in an open field with thousands of other Ugandan Muslims. Now that the praying is done, she fills me in on the neighbours.

I didn’t know Sarah before about an hour ago, but now she’s invited me to her home. This is after prayers where small kids ate ice cream in shades of bright pink and pastel orange, and music played in the background while friends and relatives greeted each other, and everyone wore their best clothes for Eid, and people prayed in a clearing under the clouds in front of the Kampala skyline.

This is how I spend my Rosh Hashanah in Africa: observing Eid. (more…)

Last week while I was waiting around in a rural area in Northern Uganda, I was speaking to a friend on the phone and sitting nearby family of ducks in front of someone’s hut—eleven little ducks and a mom. My friend told me to take a photo. They are sweet, here together as a family, but they are dirty, not very photogenic, I said. Ragged and brown where they should have been yellow and fluffy. And they were drinking from a small container of murky and opaque water, more brown than clear. My friend asked if it made me sad. Not really, I said. This was my umpteenth trip North. I was hardened, and I’d seen worse, after all. And ducks weren’t people, after all. People need clean water more urgently, I thought. (more…)

GULU, UGANDA—A man in nicely pressed yet worn shirt and slacks stands in the cramped bus aisle, jostling for space among ladies selling candy, young boys with loaves of bread, hankies, knickknacks, bottles of juice—anything a passenger might want to buy before setting off from Kampala to Gulu, a town in Uganda’s northern region.

The man in slacks is selling one booklet with illustrations of anatomy and another, an English-Swahili phrase book. He reads the phrase book aloud, though it’s unclear if this is an explanatory or sales tactic, or both. My seatmate, a man with distinct Northern features, inquires about the anatomy book. Five k, or about $3, such a high price because the book was printed on South African paper, the man in the slacks says.

Unlikely, I think.

(more…)

The safari jeep stopped in front of a small group of mud huts surrounded by a hand-made fence. A few Masai men, the tribe that lives in this part of Northern Tanzania, came out to greet us. They wore thick beaded necklaces and red and blue cloth wraps, with Nike running shoes and North Face jackets underneath their traditional clothes.

We were there to see the village, a side-stop on a five-day safari.

I’d lived in Africa for two years before my parents came to visit. I’d never before been on a safari. I’d seen baboons on the side of the road in Northern Uganda, I’d seen cows strolling down the dirt lane where I live, but I’d never seen lions or giraffes or zebras. (more…)

KARAMOJA REGION, UGANDA—We took the hospital by storm—half a dozen cameras, twice as many reporters, all zooming in on a few scores of malnourished children and their petrified mothers. Someone was supposed to have told the hospital administration that the press corps from Kampala was coming with our video recorders and tripods and tape players and questions.  But the message got lost somewhere between the town where we were staying and the place where we arrived. (more…)

KAMPALA, UGANDA—When you Google “Stephen Batte,” you get over 600 hits. That’s a huge number of Internet references for a nine-year old Ugandan orphan, who up until recently didn’t have enough to eat, shoes, clean clothes, or a blanket, let alone a web presence.

But, now that he’s famous, in part thanks to me, he’s got an online following and about a dozen American and Canadian couples anxious to adopt him. (more…)