The Risks of Movement: Pader (Pah Day)

A "better" Road

The drive to Pader district from Gulu takes hours on bumpy unpaved roads on a normal day, but that drive gets extended immensely as you find yourself having car trouble and saying good-bye as a downpour begins. The quantitative research team that I was paired with for travel had encountered two flat tires on their way to Gulu, and even after those repairs, the car was making strange noises. Rather than leave me to work at the hotel, I was picked up promptly to be deposited outside of the car in a “repair shop” or more honestly repair lot. There was not much one hitching a ride could do, but the other assistant and I sat near the front of the car patiently making chit-chat. There was a lot of work being done, and finally we thought things were just about done. The repair man hopped in the front seat to take it for a test. For most that would mean backing out of the lot and driving it, but apparently not for the repairman! Luckily for me, the assistant Ester grabbed me to the side (still seated in the little wooden chair) as the car rolled forward.

It really is one of those miscommunications that could come from anyone, anywhere, but it comes with the warning, don’t go on auto-pilot too often. With that near hit, I decided I was going to go get tea (especially since the noise was not gone yet after more than an hour’s work). Ester and I headed to a place “nearby” that was not so near, but we got seated and I was able to get to work. I have become so used to patience involving having a million things to do, and always having something to fill the time when it pops up. This has come with a persistent desire not to waste time and therefore a need to maintain my patience where work cannot be done.

newly paved road!

This trip was a reminder that travel time does not always equate to work time or productive time, sometimes it is just to be devoted to experience and silence. While the car work was being done I was able to do some work, but the drives were so bumpy enough that there was absolutely no way to do work or even have a conversation with someone in a different row of seats from you. It is ironic where opportunities come for self-reflection. The trips to and around Pader might be better seen as “hold on tight”-style meditations!

rocks being used to prevent people driving on the new road.

There is time to consider the prospects for education and how critical infrastructure is to the opportunities available to rural communities. The car we were in had been through a heck of a lot, and leaving the last school on Tuesday we drove through a rainstorm with leaking sun roofs (this car had 4 strangely placed ones) and almost spun off the road in the mud that was becoming soft and slippery. We needed to get to our hotel to keep things dry, and our bumper ended up in the very back seat after trying to pull off the road to a school the next morning. With infrastructure and repairs being needed so consistently, why would anyone want to invest in bringing big businesses to Uganda? When the accidents at the side of the road were 75% large (maybe overloaded) semi’s, would you want to invest in massive trade? Not until the roads were wide enough for two to pass without driving one another to crash along the canals at the side of the road trying to keep the road from washing away all together.

sign denoting the almost buried in dirt tracks

Additionally, there are train tracks and rail road crossings, but as you will be able to see from pictures hopefully, they clearly haven’t been used in quite some time and have grass and dirt built up high enough that you would derail anything that tried to run along the route. What if these routes worked? What if people actually could transport themselves and their goods by train to and from Kenya rather than by bus, car and truck? There would be a massive change. Fabrics in Uganda aren’t made there, but imagine the following supply chain: White fabric is made in Congo, sent across Uganda to Kenya to be tie-died via machines and then sent back to Uganda and Congo where it is sewn into clothing locally and sold in Kampala (and far less frequently in other towns’ markets). This is not only inefficient in terms of transportation costs, but it requires a risk to cargo on the roads in both the northeastern direction and the southwestern direction. Trains working on the railroads that pass through the Gulu and Pader districts wouldn’t solve their trade problems, but it would open up markets in a whole new light. Supply chain efficiencies are being considered for hospitals and medical supplies, but to increase the ability of small farmers to get goods to big markets and to facilitate large scale business to operate internationally in Africa there needs to be significant infrastructure progress made.

So let me describe the town of Pader for those who’ve never made it past Gulu or Lira. Pader is a sleepy town and only 2 streets wide and about 3 long. There are many small guest houses and tons of bars, but keep in mind that neither serve food regularly at night. When we arrived the first night we were directed to a specific restaurant by our hotel’s staff. On our second night Ester and I were feeling bold and wanted to try somewhere new for a change of scenery. After entering at least 7 places that clearly had TVs and alcohol, we gave up on finding food anywhere else and headed back to the one little eatery with its tables and chairs set up like a classroom facing the TV. Pader town didn’t seem to have any formal market just a few ‘general stores’ as you might imagine from the old mining towns of the American Southwest. A row of general house repairs, one of snacks and another of basic cooking supplies, period.

downtown pader

Staying in Pader we didn’t meet many locals outside of the schools. Our hotel staff members were luckily pretty good at English, so I spoke with the handyman/bar keeper in the evenings about living there. Steven hasn’t been there long yet clearly knows the place in an out. He’d lived all over Uganda and was seemingly well schooled, friendly and clearly hardworking. Seems like he won’t be staying indefinitely, but that for now it pays his way.

Innocent assisted us in conducting surveys in the Pader district and hearing her take on leaving for school only to return home had me impressed that she was able to readjust to village life. She hoped to go to the city again (Kampala) but would have to wait for work to take her there so that she could afford to live there- which after school fees was a non-option for her. Imagine trying to look for a job in a city a 4 hour bus ride away without constant internet access, job sites or even a newspaper (since most villages don’t even get that); it makes the village almost a trap when you get back there. You can’t afford to leave, and your lack of being able to just “tread the pavement and knock down doors” means that when people are hiring you may not hear about it.

Education is good. It gives a person hope, and if followed up with sound advice can prevent one from making poor decisions, but in some cases education also glamorizes opportunities out of the terms of reality.  Half the Sky is a book talking about women and starts out in discussions of trafficking and moves into maternal mortality (definitely recommend reading it if you haven’t). The point is that if you are educated you are less vulnerable to these schemes, if you are poor you still might chance it, but education helps to send up the red flags. Promises of work in the cities, Europe or even America are prevalent and very real for Ugandans. From posters in the city with “Want to work in America? PH:#######” are present and extremely tempting. In Uganda, being Caucasian comes with a sincere amount of clout, and so one offering work abroad is hard for one to imagine. One of the people I spoke with this trip asked my advice about taking up a man about this type of offer. So much risk for a group with so little to lose and seemingly everything to gain. Can you blame the chance they take?

Part of the challenge of development work is that its presence gives a false impression that things in the United States are all roses – for everyone. It is so far from the truth. One of my grandmothers used to ask, “why do you have to travel half way around the world to help people? People need you right here.” It’s true- very true, and trying to express that to the people abroad who are considering the risky choice of chancing a move to the US need to understand that as a piece of their education. Urban poverty shows the stark contrasts of the rich and the poor, but rural poverty creates a bubble that makes disparity look like the difference between having 2 cows and none rather than living in a slum vs having a flushing toilette.

urban prices in nowhere?! no way...
passing up chickens sold on the roadside

Misunderstandings about America are rampant, but when traveling humility and being willing to discuss issues of American poverty are important. Knowing your own country must happen before you can truly talk of poverty and opportunity. One of the most important things about driving across the USA as a learning experience is seeing the LA, Amarillo, Little Rock and Billstown differences and trailer parks along the way. In the US we see a broken down looking house an assume it is abandoned at first thought, but often that is not the case in places like Appalachia- urban migration has not dragged everyone out of them quite yet!