Our friends... OurResearch Partners
The setup of our program was such that we would live with our research partners all day and all night. My own research partner, Sewula Paul, was the nicest, most caring person I have encountered in a very long time. He was constantly thinking about others trying to be the best person he could. This became immediately evident in the random acts of kindness which he did for me without my asking and without his acknowledgement.
On one occasion, after spending two weeks "being a man" and not sleeping with mosquito net, I realized I was being an idiot and tried to put it up. The only problem? Immediately, tore the net so that it seemingly could no longer be hung up. Resigned to having broken it beyond repair, I left the room with the understanding that I would just purchase a new one. Fortunately, Sewula saved the day without my asking. While I was gone, he rigged up my net using some extra string and a bottle he had lying around. It was fixed, as good as new! When I saw what he had done, Sewula was already asleep in the bed next to me. In the morning then, I woke up to and went through my daily routine having forgotten what he had done. At no point in the day did he even allude to having fixed the net. Finally, that night I realized what he had done and thanked him repeatedly, each time receiving a respond of "it was nothing" and "no big deal". Stories like this happened all the time with all of our research partners. They were such, incredibly good people and are much of the reason why I had such a great experience at Uganda Martyrs University and in the field.
Aside from just their kindness, the research partners offered and easy interface for exchanging ideas and concepts related to each others' cultures. There was one research partner in particular, Muchua, who loved to start a debate. We talked about the role of the west in developing the countries of Africa. A huge fan of philosophy, we talked about the meaning of life and whether or not life actually even existed. Perhaps the longest, most intense debate of all though was on homosexuality. The following is an exert from my personal blog from this past summer detailing our debate:
"I have learned a lot about Uganda’s Culture already through our debate about homosexuality. In Uganda, homosexuality is illegal, punishable by death. Even though I think, regardless of culture, the death portion is ridiculous, his other logic did have some reasonable points (which is not to say I agree with him). I say that his points are reasonable from the perspective of Ugandan virtues and ideals, especially related to marriage. Ugandans believe that Marriage is about being a mutually beneficial relationship. Sure there is some companionship and appreciation, but for the most part this mutually beneficial relationship is centered on child birth and the continuation of the family’s genes into future generations. If you then look at homosexuality from this standpoint, taking this family continuation principle as most important, Muchua’s logic is very reasonable.
On the other side of the argument, I argued to Muchua that homosexuality should be allowed because it has been shown to be genetic i.e. natural. This however was not enough for Muchua, so I defined the basis or purpose of Marriage in the United States. Unlike Uganda where marriage’s purpose is childbirth, in America the purpose of a Marriage is love. Marriage is, more or less, a significant expression of the mutual love between two people. After debating this topic for an hour touching on points like “What is love”, we both came to the conclusion that you cannot judge a society and their actions using your own ideals and virtues from an argumentation standpoint. What I mean to say is that, I was unable to disprove his argument that homosexuality should not be allowed because I was using logic based on my virtues and beliefs which at the core, he did not agree with. Looking at this then, while I think for us as westerners it is self evident that homosexuality should be allowed and definitely not punished, we cannot say that they are wrong because our virtues and ideals which everything we believe is based on, are fundamentally different from theirs. Looking then at Uganda’s homosexuality laws and the western world’s threat to end financial aid to Uganda, the situation is ridiculous because we are arguing the situation using our own ideals and virtues which they do not even agree with!"
On one occasion, after spending two weeks "being a man" and not sleeping with mosquito net, I realized I was being an idiot and tried to put it up. The only problem? Immediately, tore the net so that it seemingly could no longer be hung up. Resigned to having broken it beyond repair, I left the room with the understanding that I would just purchase a new one. Fortunately, Sewula saved the day without my asking. While I was gone, he rigged up my net using some extra string and a bottle he had lying around. It was fixed, as good as new! When I saw what he had done, Sewula was already asleep in the bed next to me. In the morning then, I woke up to and went through my daily routine having forgotten what he had done. At no point in the day did he even allude to having fixed the net. Finally, that night I realized what he had done and thanked him repeatedly, each time receiving a respond of "it was nothing" and "no big deal". Stories like this happened all the time with all of our research partners. They were such, incredibly good people and are much of the reason why I had such a great experience at Uganda Martyrs University and in the field.
Aside from just their kindness, the research partners offered and easy interface for exchanging ideas and concepts related to each others' cultures. There was one research partner in particular, Muchua, who loved to start a debate. We talked about the role of the west in developing the countries of Africa. A huge fan of philosophy, we talked about the meaning of life and whether or not life actually even existed. Perhaps the longest, most intense debate of all though was on homosexuality. The following is an exert from my personal blog from this past summer detailing our debate:
"I have learned a lot about Uganda’s Culture already through our debate about homosexuality. In Uganda, homosexuality is illegal, punishable by death. Even though I think, regardless of culture, the death portion is ridiculous, his other logic did have some reasonable points (which is not to say I agree with him). I say that his points are reasonable from the perspective of Ugandan virtues and ideals, especially related to marriage. Ugandans believe that Marriage is about being a mutually beneficial relationship. Sure there is some companionship and appreciation, but for the most part this mutually beneficial relationship is centered on child birth and the continuation of the family’s genes into future generations. If you then look at homosexuality from this standpoint, taking this family continuation principle as most important, Muchua’s logic is very reasonable.
On the other side of the argument, I argued to Muchua that homosexuality should be allowed because it has been shown to be genetic i.e. natural. This however was not enough for Muchua, so I defined the basis or purpose of Marriage in the United States. Unlike Uganda where marriage’s purpose is childbirth, in America the purpose of a Marriage is love. Marriage is, more or less, a significant expression of the mutual love between two people. After debating this topic for an hour touching on points like “What is love”, we both came to the conclusion that you cannot judge a society and their actions using your own ideals and virtues from an argumentation standpoint. What I mean to say is that, I was unable to disprove his argument that homosexuality should not be allowed because I was using logic based on my virtues and beliefs which at the core, he did not agree with. Looking at this then, while I think for us as westerners it is self evident that homosexuality should be allowed and definitely not punished, we cannot say that they are wrong because our virtues and ideals which everything we believe is based on, are fundamentally different from theirs. Looking then at Uganda’s homosexuality laws and the western world’s threat to end financial aid to Uganda, the situation is ridiculous because we are arguing the situation using our own ideals and virtues which they do not even agree with!"