US vs. Uganda

It is difficult to not continuously compare life in Uganda to life at home in the United States. I compare the two for obvious reasons. Life in the United States is my default. It is what I know and what I am used to. And life in Uganda is unfamiliar and for the first 22 years of my life, unknown, distant and foreign. I try my best to not create a battle between the two completely different societies. It is not only better for my psyche, but better for my experience to not pick a favorite and to not allow my home to win every comparison.

On Friday, myself and a few of my colleagues at APP visited Kigo Women and Men's Prisons. APP is looking to start a reading group in the women's prison so that the women with babies in prison with them can learn to read to their children. The presence of small children in prison is a very foreign concept to me and definitely comes along with many benefits and many disadvantages. The benefits revolve around the basic principle that babies should not be separated from their mothers, yet children living in prison lack adequate nutrition, socialization, and stimulation.

The men's prison is right next door. They were expecting us, but our greeting was far from friendly or welcoming, which is odd in Uganda where welcoming someone is of the utmost importance. We were eventually escorted in to the deputy officer in charge's office. Our interview with him was fruitful, but the tour afterwards was even more informative and even encouraging. Kigo's mens prison is very overcrowded and lacks basic resources many take for granted, such as medicine, bedding, and books, yet they are somehow making the best of what little they do have.

They have converted a dark and meek corner room in to an arts and crafts room, where four inmates and a few staff members teach candle making, tailoring, papier mache, and weaving. Two inmates have founded a primary school and a secondary school where over 100 inmates are working on a daily basis to gain basic education skills for when they are reintegrated with society. The inmates freely grow vegetables in the yard and have been granted the privilege of accessing individual pots and pans to use the vegetables to supplement the maiz and beans they are served three times a day everyday.

At the end of the tour  the headmaster and founder of the primary school, who is also an inmate, came up to me and asked me about prisons in the United States. My default answer to this questions is "veeery different". He craved more information so I stopped and explained how American inmates are kept in cells, their socialization is limited, violence is rampant, and that they are viewed and treated as dangerous. I said that I thought both systems had advantages and disadvantages. He asked if American inmates had beds to sleep in because most Ugandan inmates sleep on blankets on cement. I answered yes.

He paused and in his quiet and kind English said "I'd rather be in prison in Uganda."