One Day Film Actors and musicians

One day? how about TODAY.

I have to say, my choice at late has been pretty narrow when it comes to music. But HW might have to step aside for a while as I have discovered a new, young African sound that I just can’t get enough of. One thing that has been very appealing to me is the sounds of the local instruments here. Traditionally, the sound of this area is based on a lot of drums and a local guitar. Also the thumb piano that I introduced you to in the Women's Day posting. Women's day also introduced me to the fantastic culture here of dance and story telling… not theater in our traditional sense, but a much more rich and expressive culture here of music combined with dance.

One day last week, while reflection on how theater and plays would be such a great communications tool for the youth here i wrote some ideas in my little journal about a play I would love to see about how the war here affected the communities. Anyone that knows me understands that i am not really a big theater person, but lately it seems to be intersecting with my life enough for me to start paying attention. So I wrote down some ideas while I was waiting for a friend to arrive, and put the “play” aside.

As fate has it here. And there seems to be a lot of fate happening here these days for me. I was sitting in the same cafe a few days later when i ran into a friend, Carolyn. She is a war orphan and hers as well as other stories I have heard were most likely responsible for my new found interest in plays as expressive art. She was reviewing movies taken by two men, Isaac and Moses, and I could clearly see these were acted movies. As I watched I found them so amusing I had to know a bit more about what they were doing.

They have a group of youth named “One Day Film Actors” who have been creating local movies and music and its really quite fantastic. They invited me out to meet these youth, and presented me with a CD of their videos/music. I can’t really say enough about how young and vibrant a sound this is. They are using music and movies as a way to get their own messages of the challenges of life here in Uganda to other youth. The musical sound is happy, positive and extremely catchy. Their movie themes are of HIV/Aids awareness and how to live a positive life, even if you are positive, and just typical stories of a poor man going to town for the first time and being discovered as an actor. This is the story of many of them, and it is so uniquely this area of Uganda, specifically Lira, and so very very funny. Its in Lwonglish as I call the hybrid language that many (including me now) speak.

HIV/Aids is higher in this area of Uganda than anywhere else and although its “officially 8%” everyone knows its much much higher. And because it affects here women and youth, the message coming out of this group I think is something that needs more widespread exposure. Everyone of the actors I interviewed were either affected by the LRA war, or HIV/Aids or both.

and last night I went to a local bar… Capital Teso Bar, to see their first ever play/music/comedy/movie night. It was quite a hit with the local folks and although I barely understood anything going on (it was in Lwo), I certainly understood how the crowd reacted. Isaac has done an amazing job in giving these youth a chance to have a voice through music, acting and comedy. I think this will be the beginning of a very different concept here. At the beginning I could see the crowd rather restless with this idea of a play on stage in a bar, but they had the crowd rolling in the aisles after the second skit. A pretty dramatic turn around from someone yelling “we are not here to watch plays”. At first I was a bit worried it could become a hostile crowd, but everyone loved them and I think now it will be a regular Friday night thing. 

I had an opportunity before the performance to sit down with many of the performers to interview them and create profiles for each for the blog I am creating for them. Can’t wait to get this project started (yeah another on the side to keep my nights and weekends occupied) and introduce everyone to these fantastic artists here from Lira. We will also get some things posted on Utube and Ustream to share this music with everyone.

Field Visits

As our project is agricultural development for youth groups I thought it appropriate that I go out and meet youth groups and see what types of agricultural projects are being done here.

Kenneth was great enough to take me out last week (on his motorcycle) to Aromo where our project will be operating. It was a dusty hour long ride out there but in the end it was well worth while. We met with two groups, both youth groups, to discuss their needs with respect to agricultural projects. Youth groups form as a collective to work together. They are formal, registered, have a mission, membership lists and fees, secretaries, regular meetings and many go on to become active working groups that support each other and the community.

The first group was large and mixed of both men and women. Everyone here was under 26 (the definition of youth in Uganda is late 20’s). We met in the middle of the village and had a good discussion before moving on to under the Mango tree a bit of the way up the road

for the second meeting. It was a great opportunity for the community to tell me specifically what their needs were, and they were very good at expressing themselves and had many good ideas of how to improve things. In the picture below Kenneth is the one second from the left.

Then Wed it was off to visit a farmers group with Patrick. We first visited the field where they are cultivating orange flesh sweet potato which is a new crop for them here. Then we visited the 30 member group in the village (this farmers group were mostly older individuals,many handicapped) who have been formed for many years. They greeted us as we entered the village with a lot of trilling and very warm welcomes. I can certainly see how well loved these small NGOs are in the communities they help. We went to see their flour grinding machine and apiculture field. Then it was off to see his office where they have a seed/farmers store. There is even a provision for a bakery where they will sell products made from these sweet potatoes.

 

Thur John took me off to see a CBO, Community Based Organization (still really trying to figure out what the differences are) who are doing apiculture (they make a commercial honey in jars) and orange trees. The honey here is very dark and thick and seems to be a growing industry.

He offered me some dried white ants, i had heard of these, so I thought i should try them. sort of like dried soya beans, probably same protein content too. little sandy, could use some salt.

AND…. this weekend Patrick came back from Kampala with my Caustic Soda… 25Kg of it! Enough for 75 batches of soap.

Global Challenge

Global Open Challenge is a project hosted by Global Giving where selected and invited NGOs can post approved projects for one month in an attempt to get some well needed funds. I have recently assisted Children's Chance in posting a project as part of my special work projects here to expand the use of communication technology within the area. This is not directly part of my project, as my project is concentrating on the District ICT, but in the evenings I have quite a broad range of friends now that I spend time with, and as much as I can; I share my skills. Most recently I have been helping many of them with blogs so they can actively share their projects and experiences with donors and other partners.

When Kenneth first showed me about the potential for him to post a project on this site as part of a one month challenge, I assisted in whatever way i could with editing and putting together the project information.

http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/send-150-war-orphans-to-school-in-northern-uganda/

The benefit to small NGOs like Children's Chance is if they are able to achieve a set goal ($4000) of donations during this challenge period they can become a permanent member of the website and post other projects.

So if you can pass on this site, please do. If you have been looking to donate to projects like this (child school sponsorship) believe me it is as close to the ground as one can be. And I personally will be involved with Children's Chance in the selection and work with these children. This is just one of my side projects that I feel very strongly about here.