Monday June 4th 12:00
am
Today did not really go the way I
expected it to. We had our typical morning of breakfast at MUBS and then loaded
up Big Blue to start our day. We spent our morning at the Uganda Parliament. We
learned a lot about how they elect the members of their parliament, the role
they play in relation to the president, and how corruption plays a role.
As always, it is interesting to
hear what they have to say in their presentations and then debrief it with the
MUB students. One example is when our presenter told us that members of
parliament were paid a salary that is on the lower end in Uganda. When she said
this all of the MUB students laughed. When we asked them about it, they told us
that they are given money for their district, but in reality most of them
pocket it for personal gain so they are actually making more than their salary.
After a somewhat boring
parliament session we went back to MUBS for lunch before heading to the Luzira
Prison. I’m not going to lie, I and many others, were a little nervous and
freaked out about this opportunity. Luzira is their high security prison here
and we really had no idea what to expect. Before we even entered the prison
they told us that most of the inmates were there for murder, rape, or some kind
of aggravated assault (as if we weren’t nervous enough). Then the other thing
that had a couple of us on edge was there “high security prison” was a gate we
walked through and a security guard that kind of patted us down.
Once we entered the prison, we were
literally walking amongst the inmates. We entered a courtyard where there were
inmates gawking at us and they could come up talk to us, touch us, or whatever
they wanted to do. The prisoners were wearing two different color uniforms,
white for those on death row and yellow for those who could be sentenced up to
310 years in prison.
Our time at the prison was spent
mainly learning about the education system they have set up. Prisoners can go
from being completely illiterate to earning a university level education. They
also offer vocational training such as carpentry. Inmates can reduce their
sentences by using their skills to give back such as teaching the other inmates
and even some of the staff.
There aren’t really words to
describe everything I saw and took in today. I learned a lot about the prison
system in Uganda and myself in general. We ate dinner at a Chinese restaurant,
had a sing-along on the bus, some good cabin talk, and now it’s way later than
I anticipated. Tomorrow is the day we teach, so here goes nothing and an
extremely early morning. Looking forward to telling people these stories in
person!
3 more days in this beautiful
country.
~Mary
No comments:
Post a Comment