Yesterday, I traveled with colleagues to Pawel, Atiak sub-county, Amuru District, Uganda. This is a tiny little village about 25 kilometers from the Uganda-Sudan border. 25 kilometers by the way, that takes 1-1.5 hours to drive on the lovely dirt road, incidently known as the Great African highway that connects Cairo to Capetown. Let me tell you that when I watched Ewan McGregor try to motorbike it, I truly understood.
In Pawel we gathered for the land agreement signing related to one of our warehouses being built. Through the services of our implementing partner, Centre for Reparations and Rehabilitation (CRR) - a fantastic local organization made up of Acholi women lawyers, we have been working to ensure land tenure security where we are building warehouses for our cooperative farmer groups. I feel proud of this project, because while everyone's running to build things: warehouses, roads, schools, we're trying to look at ways to do this that are sustainable and even avoid future conflict. If, for example, there was no land agreement - no intentional formal process of understanding the relationship between the person who gifted the land and the farmer group that built the warehouse - the land owner could conceivable claim back the land, now with a shiny new warehouse on it. Maybe he'd wait it out a bit, say once my 3 yr project is gone.
Such is the way with so many good intended, short term projects. Things run smoothly (or relatively smoothly) while we're around, but without realizing it we cause new challenges for the community. This is do no harm 101. In a humanitarian setting it's a little easier to spot. As we move toward development projects, however, it becomes less clear. Warehouses are good. It means more capacity and moving beyond subsistence farming. But looking at the entire picture is key. And that's how we decided to ensure that the land where we're building warehouses is clearly identified and secured for this purpose.
So the scene was a typical one for northern Uganda. We were greeted by a lovely chorus of ladies singing a song that I believe they made up for the occasion: "Pawel welcomes you and thanks you for the warehouses." The signing event literally took place under the mango tree, a well-known meeting spot and image in the African country side. There was even the usual cacaphony of an obnoxious rooster, a flea bitten dog and a billion half-dressed super cute schmoopy kids.
There were speeches galore; another important Ugandan tradition that begins: "I don't have much to say." And then ends many many minutes later. The local government officials were there and the LC3 did not miss an opportunity to schmooze his constitutents and fund raise. Agnes and Mike from my office did a fantastic job trading MCing responsibilities, switching from Luo to English with a few giggles as they tried to translate words like "reparations" and "land tenure."
With much pomp and circumstance, the signing finally commence with one last speech; this time from the land owner. He ended his speech with a very earnest, very sincere: "I am doing this for God and my country." Inspiring stuff indeed.
We toured the warehouse next, which was a little ways away from the mango tree. It's a pretty cool building, complete with a room for a rice huller and grinding mill (see how far the girl is outside of NYC!) The LC3 was getting into it - at one stage he had a tape measure out so that he could corroborate the size of the gifted plot to what was specified in the land agreement. Hilarious.
Walking back was a bit tricky and I had a brief moment of disorientation which only made me think of poor lost children trying to escape in the bush while running from rebels in a place where every turn looks like the last. Probably in this very place, only a few years ago...
We took a group photo, which I'll try to post here, and then headed back on the bumpy road to Capetown. Stopping a wee bit before, in Gulu.
