Update from the Life of a Recluse

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I'm sure you will all be happy to hear that I have become a hermit and spent the last two nights at home watching E!. I now know more about their many reality TV stars than I ever thought I would. For example, did you know that Bordy Jenner is Kim Kardashian's step-brother? Well now you do! I also straightened my hair for the first time since I felt I had to look presentable at the ICC Review Conference in early June. And I painted my nails. Although I don't actually go out every night and have been known to stay at home and watch Kendra (I know, horrible) there is something about the self-imposed restriction of movement that is making me very restless and resentful.

I did, however, go to the country club to go to the gym yesterday. Security threat or not, I am climbing Kilimanjaro in under 3 weeks and I would prefer not to collapse on the mountain. The gym has really ramped up their security - every car that drove in was checked underneath, in the trunk and thoroughly inside with flashlights for bombs. We also had to walk through a metal detector and get our bags checked in order to get in. After all that, the spinning teacher didn't show up because she was feeling sick. Instead I decided on the stair-master because what better way to train to climb a mountain than walk up endless flights of imaginary stairs! It actually reminds me a lot of living in Israel (the security, not the stair-master). In order to get into the Hebrew U campus we all had to show our ID cards (no getting in if you forgot it), walk through a metal detector and get our bags checked. Then, and again now, it makes me think of how vulnerable we all are to terrorists attacks, especially in Canada where our security is slim to none. For example, think about ferries - hundreds of people and cars on a boat and not one of them is checked. Of course increased security is cumbersome, takes a great deal of time and will not be implemented until something happens resulting in a reason for it to be. I'm guessing that the increased security measures here in Kampala will last a few weeks and then peter out when people feel the threat is less than the inconvenience incurred. There is an African Union summit in Kampala from the 19-30 June which will surely be under tight security but it is taking place on the outskirts of town in the same complex as the ICC Conference was held.

In terms of concrete news, as I mentioned in my previous post, al-Shabaab (spelling varies, I'm going with the one on Wikipedia) claimed responsibility for the bombings about a day and a half after they occurred. Some people are speculating that because they immediately came out in support of the bombing ("Whatever makes them cry, makes us happy") but waited a day and a half to take credit, the bombing may have been carried out by an affiliate group. The toll currently stands at 74 dead, with over 70 injured and there are still some people missing. Apparently police brutality is up at the moment, especially on the night of the bombings when the police were roaming the city enforcing a curfew (through beating civilians at times I heard). The spokesperson of the Somali community in Uganda has claimed that Somalis in the city are not suffering any backlash. I am inclined to think this is a lie to avoid inciting the further wrath of unhappy Kampalans and the police. Apparently people have been calling into the radio stations and saying pretty unpleasant things about all the Somalis in the country. I went for lunch on Monday and there was a truck with a loud speaker yelling something about cockroaches. After feeling momentarily ill, I realized they were advertising "Doom" the household spray which gets rid of bugs rather people as I had originally thought (flashback to the Rwandan Genocide), thank goodness. On Tuesday the police found an unexploded bomb (I believe it was a bomb belt hooked up to a cell phone that was incessantly ringing) in a night club which they then detonated safely - this was supposed to go off at the same time as the three on Sunday night.

Some of the international news reporting that has been going on has been pretty shotty - in particular a BBC article that stated "many - if not most" of those killed were internationals. This is not true, while some expatriates tragically lost their lives (a number of Ethiopians were killed at the Ethiopian Village) the majority of those killed were Ugandan. In addition, it seems pretty clear that the bombers were not targeting internationals - in particular Westerners as some papers have suggested. If anything Ethiopians were a target but something tells me that is not who the BBC was talking about when they were trying to whip up international interest in the bombings. There are many other bars here that were packed to the brim with expatriates - including one that is owned by a Dutch guy that has had over a hundred viewers, most of whom are European/North American, throughout the World Cup especially for games in which the Netherlands. Rather, the bombs seemed to be more symbolic in target - an Ethiopian restaurant and to ignite fear within the country as a clear message to Uganda to get their troops out of Somalia. At the moment, Uganda comprises about 2,700 of the 6,000 or so troops the African Union AMISOM mission in Somali. The mission is approved by the UN and operated through the AU but there are no mandatory troop contributions making Uganda's troop commitment voluntary.

There has also been a lot of talk about what this attack means for future al-Shabaab activity and stability in the region. I don't really enough about either of the topics to comment. I am a little put off by the number of articles I've seen, mainly from American news sources that have titles like "Why We Should Care" that go on to cite oil and increased instability in the region. While this may be a realistic way to look at people's apathy towards events in Africa/the developing world, I find it nauseating that people need to be implored to "care" about the death of over 74 innocent civilians and the only way certain newspapers feel they can ignite this "caring" is by bringing in American interests. Sigh. I can't decide if such a tactic is pragmatic, insulting or both.

Those are my thoughts, I continue to comb both the international and local news as well as talk to Ugandans (taxi drivers are a rife of knowledge) and journalists on the ground to figure out exactly what is going on. Until then, I will dolefully continue my life as a recluse.

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Comments

[sonja]

love to you
tamara, so happy to hear that you're okay and safe. i loved reading this blog- it's so nice to get a different perspective from someone that's there. the papers here give such a skewed impression. keep writing please!