Blue eyed white girls

All set, sound, focus, white balance etc., ready to film the trades men, the small shops and the atmosphere in the main street of Arua. As Danes we are very self confident and convinced that shooting this afternoon will not be any different from any other time; former test shooting in Denmark and Kampala shots from inside a car – how difficult was that??. We are as usual well prepared for challenges that might stand in the way of our next blogbuster (video lib.) movie.
In spite of the very experienced film team that we are, we were advised to bring a local guide, so without further considerations why, we got a hold on Innocent, and we went on very enthusiastic.
Getting out of the car at the beginning of the street, it was clear that we were in a border town with a huge market, lots of boda bodas, smells of smoke and fish and various people talking, laughing and chilling. This was exactly what we were looking for.

After a short look into the crowd our eyes were immediately caught by a certain sales woman. And the second she saw us, she waved madly and made some signs which could only mean that she wanted to be filmed. Very excited we started filming this friendly round woman.

To our big surprise the woman, who’s face was slightly covered by the flour she was selling, lifted her body from the chair and started to shake her behind while making gestures. After a few minutes of professional posing, we turned off the camera, smiled the best we could and thanked her for making the filming so easy for us. As we wanted to leave, we quickly learned that nothing in life comes this easy. Suddenly the woman put out her hand and demanded several thousand shillings for the show that she’d just provided.

Lesson nr. 1: BRING A LOT OF MONEY

African graffiti

Writing on a door in the Amuru IDP-camp.

Images from Uganda

See photos from our stay in Uganda as a slide show here. (Or here if you have a slow connection).
We will up-load more!

Another world

Last week we went to Northern Uganda, more specifically to Gulu and Arua. It was a mixture of a much needed holiday and work. Let’s call it a working holiday.

First we went to see blogger Rev. Willy Akena in Gulu. He works for The Diocese of Northern Uganda, and his work consists of improving the lives of people in IDP-camps and to inform about the situation in these camps. Amongst other things he uses his blog to do this. His primary target group are donors but also people who could be interested in the work of The Diocese.

Our reason for visiting Willy was to get a feeling of the situation in the North. Until then we had only been in Kampala with the other bloggers and they helped show an interesting and unexpected side of Uganda – at least from our point of view. But the question remaining was – would it be right only to show that particular side when knowing that the situation in the North is quite different? We decided no.

There is no doubt that the Kampala bloggers are privileged and only to show their side would be naïve, just like it would be wrong only to show the people in IDP-camps as the whole picture of Uganda.

The Diocese works in the Gulu and Amuru districts which have 450.000 inhabitants. Two thirds of these people live in IDP-camps. In all there are 1.6 million displaced people in Uganda.
Willy took us to the Amuru camp which has a population of 51.330 people. When we drove to the camp we could see an endless number of mud huts in the distance. On our way we passed a lot of people who waved at us with broad smiles on their faces. We wondered whether they were happy to see us or if they just thought that we looked funny.

When we stepped out of the car inside the camp we were immediately surrounded, mostly by children. We were four white girls carrying a video camera. It must have been really exciting or maybe just very strange.
We have never experienced this kind of hunger or poverty and to stand in the midst of it all felt surreal. The children reaching to try and touch our white skin, some of them getting scared. It was a collision of two very different worlds. Willy showed us around and a lot of the people spoke to us but our conversations turned out to be in two completely different languages but we felt welcome and a lot seemed happy to be filmed.

Even though there is peace now a lot of the people in the camps don’t have anywhere to go. Many have been born in the camps or have lived there for over twenty years. They are used to getting help from donors so it must be difficult if they are to return to society one day and make their own living. Who is to solve this problem? Is it up to the government and Ugandan society or should the donors be more involved than they are now?

We had a discussion about donor money with Willy. Aid is certainly needed and people are used to it. Now people in the camps get enough help to stay alive. It would take more money and help to create decent lives for themselves but if they were to get more help isn’t there a risk that people somehow could be pacified?

The experience was definitely interesting in many ways but also sad and tough. None of us really knew if we had understood what we had just seen, in some ways it felt unreal - that there are actually people living in mud huts under the worst possible conditions while we get to go home to our own safe lives.

Blogger's happy hour tonight

Tonight's the night we're gonna make it happen, tonight we'll put all other things a side.

Tonight is the night of the Ugandan blogger's happy hour. It starts at 18.30 at Mateo's, and we will be there. Our plan is to film some of the happy hour but of course we will only film those who would like to be filmed!

Be there or be a bear. or something.

First of all we have to thank the lovely deeinanutshell for coming up with the cool name for our new and improved blog. And we hope that the new name can be the beginning of a more active blog!
The posts below are from our previous blog called "learning by blogging". Here you can still read the comments to the different posts. Thank you learningbyblogging.blogspot.com for a lovely time..

The species of blogren...

Originally 16/4-07

TAK..

This Saturday we held a workshop with our newly found blogren (we already love the very special language in the blogosphere). To be honest we had no clue how many people would show up and we wouldn’t wanna be considered cheap so we were prepared with soda and biscuits that could feed at least one troop for a couple of days.

Well well, only 6 made it. But luckily, the ones who did show up were up for it and so much more energetic and enthusiastic than we could ever have hoped for. Thank you guys - you are so cool! For once we held this seminar to get a sneak peak into your universe, to find out what drives you and what it is that brings you together? Kind of like an anthropological study of the species ‘blogren’. So what are the results of our studies so far? What is the blogosphere and what are the blogren? Following here:

[Blogosphere] is the collective term encompassing all blogs as a community or social network (wikipedia). The Ugandan blogosphere is a small community consistent of mostly young, sexy, cool and intelligent blogrens. The community is little and privileged, concerning 1,74 % Ugandans have Internet access (according to our latest numbers, can´t figure out if its from 2005 or 2007, see). And, so far, an unknown number is considered blogrens.

[Blogren] the term was invented and introduced by the Ugandan blogger the 27th comrade on February 6. 2007 to respond to his fellow citizens (please correct us if we’re wrong). What the blogrens have in common is their love of writing and their opinionated minds. Besides that they are very different indeed and they have very different motives of writing. Following some of the motives: release/therapeutic (public diary), escape of the mundane, to meet people, rebellion, to get connections and networking, to get publicity.

What we also have experienced is that the blogren is a very social and caring specie, it treats its fellow blogren with respect and a lot of looove, a lot of flirting is going on between the blogrens, we do not know though how far the flirting leads.

These are the results based on thorough studies of both interaction on the blogosphere and interaction between the species live/in person.

All right, now we know a little bit more about the blogrens and their community, please post us comments and corrections, before we post it on to wikipedia.

[Blogumentary] The other reason for the gathering was, as we said at the seminar, to get you to create the storyline for the blogumentary, so that we spend the rest of our time in Uganda enjoying (=sipping drinks by in a swimming pool, safari, nightlife Kampala, any ideas?). That went well: The blogumentary is about young, sexy and intelligent blogrens, they think the west's picture of Africa is a farce, so they will instead give us sex, drugs and Rock’n Roll! – is that correct understood?? Questions to consider: How can we picture a ‘true story’ of Uganda focusing on you guys, an intelligent and privileged group of Ugandans? Are you guys the true picture to send to the west?

Fill in…

Ugandan bloggers rock!

Originally 12/4-07

So we finally met the people we've been reading so much about, and they were as nice as we thought they would be. Maybe even nicer.

We met at Mateo's around eight and even though the get together was arranged in only one day, nine bloggers showed up. They were: Carlo, Darlyne, Chantal, Dennis Matanda, Dennis Muhumuza, S.A.G.E., Revence, Peter, and Ivan. We had fun. And we hope that the bloggers had fun as well!?

We arranged to get together again on Saturday around two o'clock to talk more about blogging and ideas for the documentary, and we're really looking forward to it! Untill then we will keep working hard, especially on our tan, since we're white as chalk.

What is it about?

Originally 6/4-07

We would like to explain more about why we’re doing this documentary! When we started this semester at university we all felt like doing something different than just writing the usual paper. Luckily MS (the Danish association for international cooperation) had just sent out an email to different universities in Denmark saying that they had ten scholarships for students wanting to do a documentary with the theme ‘democracy in everyday life’, and we could choose between going to Nepal, Guatemala or four different African countries, Uganda being one of them. The criteria for the documentary were to be innovative and different – to do something that the Danish people would find exciting to watch.

We spent a long time discussing different ideas and agreed that we weren’t interested in doing the usual documentary about Africa – only showing poverty, sickness etc. We believe that we can picture a diverse country that people aren’t used to seeing. Obviously poverty and sickness are also a part of Africa, but we want to do something that shows a stronger and different side also. As the 27th Comrade says in his comment on the “Back to high school” post, it would be to show the wrong Africa if we don’t show other sides than for example the poor.

Then we got in contact with Pernille (I’ve left Copenhagen for Uganda). She threw the idea of doing something about blogging at us, and we were immediately turned on. We spent a couple of weeks working hard on the application for MS, and it paid off. They had 27 applicants, and we were chosen as one of the 10 lucky winners. One of the reasons why we found this topic ‘blogging’ so perfect was, among others, that it gave us the opportunity to picture Kampala’s everyday life from the perspective of some skilled and resourceful bloggers and this by letting the bloggers tell their story. All this will of course be related to the context of ‘democracy in everyday life’. So what is it we want to do while in Uganda? Well, we haven’t yet decided exactly how to put the film together, since it depends on the persons that choose to participate. So we hope to find inspiration and maybe get our own ideas turned upside down when we are in Kampala or now for that matter. Any critique, advice or ideas for certain pictures, topics, facts of the community, interesting persons etc. are more than welcome – we really hope to get inspired by the experts, Kampala’s bloggers. But amongst other things we would like to film during the UBHH, if we’re allowed that is. And then we would like to interview and do portraits of a couple of bloggers, who have volunteered. Nokia has been kind enough to sponsor an N93 video phone so that the bloggers can film their everyday life. That way they become co-producers of “their” part of the documentary. Because our target group is young people we especially want to use local music as a means to make the documentary interesting. We’ve heard that hip-hop and RnB are very popular in Uganda, and it would be really cool if we could get our hands in some local stuff. If you have any ideas please write:)

Back to high school

Originally 30/3-07

Today we went to a high school in Copenhagen to do a group interview with six students since they are part of our target group. It felt good to be "back" in high school, and we secretly wondered if any of us could pass for someone actually going to high school. Unfortunately being between the ages of 26 and 27 we agreed that we probably couldn't.

The interview went really well. They had a lot of good ideas on how to make the documentary more innovative and exciting, and they think that blogging in Uganda is a cool and interesting topic. They were surprised though that people actually blog in Africa, and they seemed very interested in reading these blogs.

We're getting more and more ready to go to Uganda and do this documentary!

It's all good

Originally 23/3-07

We're taking classes, we have to hand in papers before we leave for Uganda on the ninth of April, and we have so much practical stuff to do. It can get quite stressed! But then we talk to people who have been to Uganda, and they tell us of this beautiful and fertile country where it rains just a little bit everyday, about Kampala being a really cool city with friendly people, and we remember that we're actually going to Uganda to do a, hopefully, really cool documentary about bloggers.

Yes, it sounds corny but that doesn't mean it's not true! Now it's Friday, and we're having the weekend off to relax (and study just a little bit). We do hope that we're getting smarter, but you never know.

Introducing...

Originally 20/3-07

Maria, Annette, Sara and Kirstine - all this blogging is new to us, but we fear nothing and are ready to venture into the blogosphere.

We are four Danish students from the faculty of Communications at Roskilde University, and we are going to Uganda to do a documentary on blogging. We are very excited about this since we know little about blogging and have never been to Uganda before. We're really looking forward to learn, hopefully, a lot about both! We would like to get in touch with Ugandan bloggers to learn more about why they blog and what blogging can do - what kind of opportunities does blogging create for communicating in Uganda, and to the rest of the world? What effect does it have on Ugandan society, if any? We are the amateurs, and we need help from the professionals - you, the Ugandan bloggers. Only you can tell us what blogging means to you.

When the documentary is finished, it is to be used as educational material on developing issues in Danish high schools. We want Danish teenagers to learn about Uganda from another angle than the usual - through blogging, which has never been done before. If you are a Ugandan blogger and you have ideas for the documentary, would like to participate in any other way or just have questions, we would love to hear from you!