If Music Changes to Reflect a Changing Culture what Does it Say about Our Culture?

I love metal music. It is something about the primal loudness and emotional release of the words that transforms me from prim and proper to relaxed and creative. Ask any child from the 1990’s what good music is and you will notice how most good music contains fragments of metal.  Somehow we associate this “depressing music” with happiness. Play it in Uganda and you will get a completely different reaction.

Walk into a nightclub like Ambiance in Masaka, Silk or Bodaboda in Kampala and you will be greeted by the upbeat music of Brandy, Alicia Keys (and I swear the Fresh Prince of Belaire).  If you try to play metal, rock or even Johnny Cash you will get mournful stares and requests to change to the local station.

After listening to the local music of Julianna and Good Life for the past 3 months I went to the office and plugged in my headphones and started to listen to AFI and a Perfect Circle on my computer. It felt overwhelming and oppressive. I tried again a few days later and it felt foreign to me. I remembered back in Canada when I used to tuck myself away in a room with an art project and blast their songs over and over, yet here I was, wondering how listening to aggressive music could have ever made me feel peaceful.



Only 16 days left until I return to Canada...as always love to moosmas, dad, my sisters, brothers and friends.

The Africa you saw in National Geographic is set to Disappear

Experiencing Uganda as an outsider allows me to watch the colonization and cultural genocide happen over and over here. It is no longer the British, but the people themselves with internalised racism continuing a harmful cycle. As a First Nations woman I can see the many comparisons between loss of indigenous culture in Canada and Uganda. How is this change occurring? Through the ritualised use of foreign religion that pervades their culture, the disappearance of traditional appearance and a pulling away from traditional values to Western ones.

Western religion is everywhere in Uganda; schools, homes and communities. Christian churches are numerous across the rural and urban areas of Uganda and boast high numbers on Sundays with people often spilling out into the street to listen. Anecdotally I would estimate 95% of people I see in Uganda wear a necklace with a pendant bearing the image of Jesus Christ. During a debate about the importance of foreigners in Uganda a teacher rose and said “We have foreigners to thank for religion because now we have a God we can see,” she looked to me for support and I merely bowed my head to the ground. This was not my shame to carry but I still felt awful that these people, like mine, had been forced to give up Gods that their ancestors had prayed to for thousands of years. Another man stood up and said “How can we see this God? We cannot. Now that we have given up our traditional Gods we no longer have anyone to pray to for rain.” When He said that, I understood clearly that just as each building must suit the lands conditions, so to must a religion fit the people.

            Foreign religion is not just in communities it is also in schools; “Spare the rod and spoil the child,” is often quoted from the bible when caning students in school. Talking to Martin, a URF staff member he commented “You know they used to cane us in school when we spoke English.” This sets off Goosebumps on my arm as I think about the many children of Residential schools in Canada that experienced the same thing. The only difference is foreign nuns and priests caned us for speaking our language, the people of Uganda are now doing that to themselves.

While sitting in a taxi heading to Masaka I saw an image of two women that defined the loss of culture to me. A mother and her daughter were walking into the sun, the mother wore silk of orange and red, peaked material at her proud shoulders and a traditional scarf upon her curly head gleamed in the sun while the younger woman next to her wore black jeans and a pink top from America with chemically relaxed hair. Women traditionally wore the Gomez every day but for the urban and rural younger generation it is only worn on some special occasions. They are instead choosing to wear the latest western clothing. This is a small thing but it signifies a disinterest in following cultural practices and a preference for western clothes. I believe there is also a growing stigma against wearing the Gomez because the women still wearing the Gomez are generally in their fifties or older and have an absent or limited formal western education.  As young people want to be seen as forward thinking they see the Gomez as the uniform of the uneducated. The country of Uganda is embracing western ideals of beauty in their hairstyles and clothes and rejecting traditional ideals as old fashioned. In a few years the Traditional Gomez may completely disappear from the Ugandan landscape.

I admire cultures that have rejected Western ideals and built their countries by valuing their own culture.  Both China and India have managed to retain their long history and cultural alive while still competing on a global market and managed to prosper. What I wish for the Ugandan people is the same as my wish for my own people; to value their own culture and believe they do not have to be western to be successful. In some ways I feel the Ugandan people are better off than my own: everyone knows their traditional language even if they do not choose to speak it and while my own culture has died out with some elders, never to be discovered again, their culture is still intact, if fragile.

         The Metis, First Nations and Inuit of Canada have something the Ugandan people do not; the beginnings of breaking out of internalised racism. We have cultural schools, teachers like Kathy Manuel in T’Kamloops Secwepemc Territory that go into our elementary schools and teach traditional languages, we celebrate in Pow Wows, Sweat Lodges, Big Houses, Naming ceremonies, Potlatches, Sun Dances because we value our culture revival and stability. Many of us have lost our culture and found a way back to it, and the very act of losing something shows us how important it is to have. We are fighters building back our culture and communities through the development of programs like Surrounded by Cedar Child and Family Services, Friendship Centres and this Aboriginal Youth Internship Program. We know what we have to lose so we are fighting for it; I just wish Uganda did not have to lose their culture first with the possibility of reclaiming its value later.


I would like to dedicate this article to my mother who has spent her life and passion dedicated to uncovering our roots and helping our communities. She is a true inspiration and the best mother I could hope for. Happy Mothers Day.

An Introduction Ceremony

All weddings start with a love story and this Introduction was no different. Tovas, a 45 year old blond haired man from Sweden and Sheba, the 30 year old bride from Uganda met online. Sheba is an extraordinarily beautiful and prayerful woman that grew up with her father and step mother after her mother passed away in her childhood. Her parents did not give her much attention and were absent from her secondary school graduation ceremony. Ever hopeful that she would meet the right man she waited until she met Tapas. After coming to Uganda for a 3 week visit and meeting her for the first time, Tapas proposed. The only catch was he wanted her to accompany him to Sweden and live there. After driving to the airport with only 15 minutes until her plane left she cried “I do not know what to do! I want to stay but I also want to go...it was so easy in the beginning.” Luckily for Tovas she did get on the plane. Now, two years after their Swedish wedding they returned to Uganda with their new baby son in tow, to have a traditional wedding. Upon commenting on their marriage, friends say that the two are very in love and happy. Sheba has many friends in Sweden, visits Uganda occasionally and finally has all the attention and love from her husband she never had from her parents.


We caught a bus from Kampala to Homi, Uganda. It was scheduled to leave by 6:30 am but we left at 8am to adjust to late arrivals. Ugandan time and Indian time is not much different  I thought. Before we entered the ceremony we had to change and the women were led to a hotel changeroom. Inside we madly changed into our robes and gomez dresses. Many times I heard someone cry out from between a sash and makeup kit by saying Oh! What bad African girls we are, we forgot how to tie the Gomez....this would elicit peels of laughter from the other women.

Walking into an Introduction ceremony is a ritual in itself. Men and women partner up and are greeted by the uncle of the bride. A man, Ian, claimed me as his partner for the night but cuddling up close and grabbing my arm which made our bridal party burst into laughter. If the uncle refuses you entry to the ceremony you must not enter. Men wear a traditional white cloth called a kanzu and a suit jacket over top. The buttons on the jacket must be closed to signify a peaceful meeting. If the buttons are open it signifies that the men are here to fight. The women wore traditional dresses form all over Africa; robes tied on the shoulder are in Rwandan style and Ugandan women wore Gomez’s.

The ceremony started with the separation of seating arrangements. Tovas’s wedding aprty sat on one side while the bride’s family sat on the other. As the event started the local villagers came, plates in hand, to crowd around the edges of the tent and watch the proceedings. Tovas’s father walked over the the brides father with a case of pepsi for drinking. “It is important to wet the fathers throat so he is not thirsty for wedding negotiations of the bride price,” Ian whispered to me. In the weeks before the ceremony the two families had met repeatedly to discuss the amount of gifts that would be given in exchange for the bride. The fathers spoke for both sides of the family with much bantering back and forth, gifts of solar panels, chairs, couches, a fridge, 3 goats, 2 chickens, pop and umbrellas were brought forward by the grooms party.


I did not know the bride or groom before the wedding and was invited by the brides close friend Claire. Claire and I work together at the Uganda Rural Fund and I spent the weekend at her house in Kampala in preparation for the wedding. The wedding took place in Homi, Uganda which is a 200km (4 hour) trip outside the Bugandan Kingdom.  We were set to leave for Homi at 6:30am. Not knowing the bridal party did not stop me from being invited to make a speech by Tovas’s father. I stood with a microphone in fron of the hundreds large crowd and introduced myself, my traditional name and territory, my companions Greg, Leandrea and Claire, how I knew the bride and wished them my best. I was then the only Muzungu to be invited to sit at the high table (6 chairs) to eat with the bride and groom. We had a special dinner prepared and served to us that contained traditional foods only to be eaten by married couples. The other guests at the event ate a buffet style dinner with potatoes, matoke, chicken and goat. I felt awkward at first surrounded by the bride, groom, the grooms sister, friend and Ian but soon started making jokes and we had a really nice meal.

Pick Up Lines

I thought I would give out the best ones that I have heard ... I hope they work better for you than it did for these men:

"I am a fortune teller. I read eyes, and I can tell that soon you'll be calling me husband."

"I've decided this year I'm going to marry a beautiful woman, so how about it?"

"Do you remember my name? No? Well I have a feeling you will be saying it every morning for the rest of your life."

These lines may seem funny but once you hear them everyday or in business it can wear on you. It is a well known fact that marrying a Muzungu or getting an invitation to another country is often the only reason behind a flirtation. I remember going into a salon and having a man named Kitto do my nails. He was using every line in the book on me, which was especially funny because he was also queer. ( I use the word queer from the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Transexual , Two spirited  and Queer (LGBTTQ) gender positive language.)

The idea that a queer man, would attempt to achieve a relationship with me for the purposes of leaving the country really suprised me at the desperation some people feel about living in Uganda.

So That is What Evil Tastes Like

Caroline was sick and not taking her medication. It wasn’t that she refused to take it; she was just conveniently absent every time someone mentioned it was medicine time. I swear the sound of her feet disappearing over the nearest hill could be heard every 4-6 hours.

Just as she was about to pull one of her disappearing acts I caught her by the elbow and said, “Wait up, let’s take your medicine together. I am not sick but I will suffer through the doses with you.” Just as Caroline agreed the sound of Charles manic chuckling at the doorway caught our attention. He was holding the traditional remedy and smashing the water and aloe vera leaves together.

The green leaves were mashed and strained into a deep green coloured drink and placed before us on the kitchen table. “Don’t smell it,” Charles warned. Caroline and I prepared ourselves and positioned a glass of passion fruit juice nearby for a chaser.

“One, two, three...” I counted down and swallowed. The mixture hit my tongue like a spoiled drink and after a few gulps I reached for the passion fruit juice. Caroline was still chugging her drink back with a facial expression one has before vomiting. Once the aftertaste kicked in I though this is what evil must taste like. Caroline put her drink down and looking disoriented, she forgot to have the passion fruit juice. “Drink it!” I urged as she grabbed for the glass I was holding up to her. After a lot of tongue sticking out and gagging I looked over at her and with a wink, asked “See you in four hours?”

Reintegration

I have adjusted to life in Uganda; the smells, sounds, people, food and culture have become familiar. I have a place to live, an identity and status amongst my friends and community and have found peace. I know that I will return to live here for at least a year after my degree is finished in Canada. It has been a character building experience coming here and will also be a process to return to Canada.

Part of me does not want to go back just yet but I know that it is a 5 month internship, not a 2 year one. The reintegration into Canadian culture is going to be a mental, physical, spiritual and emotional adjustment. In Uganda I analyse, journal, write and critically reflect on everything I see to help understand the culture and my reaction to it. By reflecting on these experiences I have learned more about myself and what I want out of life. In Canada the need to continue reflection is less relevant and this process may become indefinitely suspended.

Physically I exercise every morning at 6am here and have a 30minute walk to the nearest village. In Canada I will undoubtedly be turning in my running shoes for a convenient bus pass or automotive transportation. I also find myself running out of time or motivation during the day to go to the gym or for a run after university classes, work and socialising.

Spiritually I am surrounded by positive ideals, religion and the common held belief in gods existence in Uganda. My favourite phrase is "God knows the truth," people say that here when they are troubled by anothers actions or do not feel the need to defend themselves. By simply saying, "God knows," they relieve themselves of stress or getting caught up in dramatic social situations. For many young people they choose to date but not have sex before marriage and this relieves some stress from romantic relationships as well.

The emotional adjustment is the most daunting to me. I have made close friendships with many people here, and after spending the last 3 months living as family, visiting each others homes, confiding in each other and working together I will have to leave them for an undetermined time. Many I am sure I will never see again. Another adjustment will be the one of self identity. Our adolescent years and 20's are a time for self discovery and definition; in Uganda I am a Muzungu who volunteers for the betterment of women, children and people living with HIV/AIDS. I know where I live, my community, my friends, I know the office and work culture and feel connected. In Canada, who will I be? It will not be so easy to determine when I move every four months and switch university programs. Recently someone asked me what my hobbies were and all I could respond was "I have been studying 5 hours a day, in university classes and grocery shopping and doing laundry the rest of the time...I do not have time for hobbies and cannot even remember what they were."

Water

I know that when I return to Canada I will hear other people taking 30 minute showers and I can already tell it is going to erk me. The idea of 2 billion people not having access to clean drinking water while 33 million in Canada can waste water and not think twice about it is going to be a HUGE adjustment. 

If I want water here I get it from a water tank or the rain. I have bucket showers with no more than a 4 glasses of water in it and conserve every drop for washing floors, doing dishes and laundry. Some people walk or bike up to 20 km with a jerry can to collect safe water while others drink directly from brown swamps.

The Chicken that Loves People

There is a certain chicken at Uganda Rural Fund that makes me laugh. He likes to be pet and He thinks He belongs in a house; indeed, even in our beds!

On Looking Forward to 2012

Before leaving Canada I had a healing session with a T’Souke Elder. She told me, among other things, that during my trip to Uganda, I would meet a traditional male spiritual leader, dressed in brown robes and he would be my spiritual guide and mentor. Not one to disagree with an elder I thanked her and waited to meet him. The opportunity came in April at a surprise mini summit on the topic of First Peoples.

“As oppressed people, the first thing colonizers get out of you is your commonsense, so what are you left with? Common nonsense. Any country that cannot stand on the shoulders of its history is a slave. What you must anchor your education with is your own history and culture. Other languages should just be forms of communication. Our ancestors built a knowledge and developed a language and now it is time to “stand on their shoulders” and incorporate new knowledge into the ancestors knowledge. When the first peoples of every country do this to their culture, it improves the world. Work hard to recover what you have lost. Form a bridge from each of us to broaden and deepen our respective places (He speaks of all the first peoples of the world forming connections). A new age is upon us is moving towards indigenous knowledge. Together we can build a new world.”
–         A compilation of Quotes from The Afrikan Black Nation and The First Nations People of Canada Mulembe Mutinzi Mini Summit at the Source of the Nile Saturday 7 April, 2012.

As a proud Saulteaux First Nations woman I believe that there is a mutual experience of oppression among many First Peoples. (I say “Peoples” because we are not one homogenous group of people, the Canadian aboriginal population compromises the Inuit, Metis and First Nations and even among those groups there is great difference in cultures and traditions.) Much of our known history is based not in our culture, but what was done to us by colonizers. It was a tragedy that cannot be undone and there is healing that must happen for our people. But survivors are still here because we are a tough and articulate people.

After sharing my families experience of oppression with the others the spiritual leader remarked upon what I had shared and said “You are so proficient in what you said, your people are so articulate in English, imagine if you spoke in your own language.” This made me think that although our languages are dying, less than 2,000 people may speak a traditional First Peoples language but that if other youth become interested, we can revive these languages.

Why would I take French in school or do a French language exchange if I could go to my own people, to stay in the communities of my aunties and uncles in Saskatchewan and do a “cultural exchange?” Where I could learn my own language, my own traditional crafts, hear my own history in University? Why not take shawl dancing instead of ballet class? Learn to make bannock instead of cupcakes?  Learn to drum, and beat out the creator’s heartbeat instead of the saxophone? Learn traditional spirituality instead of going to a Catholic Church that shares ideas from another people and another country? Those religions are worthy and I respect them, religion is a wonderful gift, but it is not my gift, it is theirs. That religion comes from a history and culture of another people that are not my people. While religion is good to embrace I believe it is important to have a firm understanding of your own spirituality and culture, otherwise what will anchor you to your own culture?

In Uganda there are two types of weddings, they are called a ‘Traditional Wedding,’ and a ‘White Wedding.’ A traditional wedding is the same as it has been since pre-colonization by the British.  A white wedding consists of a white dress and marriage ceremony in a church. We, as First Peoples of Canada can also do this, we can celebrate marriages and love in traditional ceremonies; it is our right. Let us think differently about our culture, let it not be a way to separate ourselves from others, but let us use it to gain equity so that we do not think of ourselves as ‘oppressed peoples,’ but as peoples of a strong culture and education that can extend love and understanding as equals to any other person.

On Becoming a Better Person

I have been walking around with two quotes in my head:

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do. Every time you are scared and do that thing anyway, you will gain strength, courage and self confidence.”

                                                                                                -Unknown

“Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.”

                                                                                -Golda Meir

Being in Uganda is, besides being born into a wonderful family, the greatest gift I have ever received.  It has given me time, space and experiences to help me evaluate what is important in life. I once asked my Stepmother Kim what she would do if she won the lottery and she told me something I never forgot, “I would work in an orphanage and then decide what was really important in life before I spent anything.” In Uganda I have had the wonderful opportunity to volunteer in an orphanage, to live in a rural village where many people survive on less than $2 a day, walk up to 20km to gather contaminated water and where formal education is at a premium. Never again will I think the same as I did before this trip.

I have been here for about 2.5 months now and can feel growth in my self-worth, goals, and personality and a lowering in my stress levels daily. How odd it is, to be surrounded by low economic standards and human suffering but to be so much more at peace than I ever was in Canada with healthcare and instant internet at my fingertips.  I share more, I go out of my way to greet people and genuinely care how they are, I value different types of education and experiences, sustainable living, have changed my university major and applied for another program in sustainable development, I place higher importance on keeping in touch with family and welcoming new people into my community, I even value different things in male partners and am excited, instead of stagnant, in my thoughts about the future.

For the first time I have role models; the local staff here all have very diverse academic backgrounds in social work, computer science, business and philosophy and serve as a constant positive influence on my desire to finish my university education, even if it is not my Midwifery in Health Sciences Degree. My grandmother always told me that everything happens for a reason and I see signs everyday that I am meant to be here. At the 2.5 month check in, I feel open to change and cannot wait to discover what lessons are next.

Home on the Range

Display any questionable behaviour as a youth in Uganda and you will be sent to the field for agricultural work as a punishment. You don’t have to be Ivan Pavlov’s dog to know that this behavioural conditioning is going to make the youth grow into adults that associate agricultural work in rural villages with an undesirable profession. As these young men reach the age range of 19-30 years they often inherit and sell their farms for 5 million shillings ($2,500) and use 3 million to buy a bodaboda and move to a major city like Kampala. Once there they spend their remaining funds on rent and food. As the young men who should be working on farms leave for the cities and the elders remain the primary food producers, the cost of food overinflates. Thus you earn a higher wage as a driver but spend up to 95% of your income on expensive food. To further complicate matters, when your bodaboda breaks down or you lose your office job you have no way of feeding your family because you sold your farm and must move into a slum. While farmers living in a rural village do not earn as high of wages, they also do not spend any money on food because they produce everything they eat. While the men in the slums now wish to return to their farms, they have been sold and they never learned how to effectively cultivate them to begin with.  The knowledge has largely been lost and while many researchers in Kampala have done extensive surveys to collect agricultural knowledge, the information is not dispersed or simplified into an easily digestible format for local farmers. The solution is to make farming fun and to present informed agricultural workshops in rural villages and to present farming opportunities to displaced men in the cities.

An Inconvenient Truth

 “The trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.”

                                                                                                -Erica Jong

Every few years I have the pleasure of meeting someone that I immediately connect with. Usually this person is a woman my age, but this time it was a man. A volunteer originally from New Zealand, David spent a week on a sustainable teaching farm in Uganda that is run by relatives of the Uganda Rural Fund. The farm is an agricultural training project deep in a village without taxis, bodaboda’s or running water, each trip to this area costs $20 in fuel and the use of a car. What struck me most about David was his passion for the world. He is currently in the middle of a 6 month world tour stretching from Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, to Uganda, England, India and beyond. I met him when he only had two days left in Uganda but he still managed to join us for a night of dancing at Ambiance Nightclub on a Sunday, a day of work Monday and give myself, Charles and Ben a tour of the farm, the new water sanitation project he helped install and 500 orange and mango trees.

 After trying to organize a visit Tuesday, which proved impossible due to delayed text messages, nightfall and transportation. He is scheduled to leave Wednesday night out of Entebbe, Uganda Airport. This inability to organize inexpensive transportation, easy communication and saying a permanent goodbye to international friends highlighted to me the many small inconveniences that people experience in Uganda. It also builds a maturity of knowing that each person has their own life adventure they must pursue, even if we will miss them. I am sure his trip will be full of many adventures and growing experiences and I wish him the best.