Reunion

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Since arriving in Uganda, I have enjoyed many reunions with people, places, and things.  It has been great to be reunited with our medical team – the Gregston family and our Ugandan friends Dr. Joseph, Faith, and David.  I have enjoyed seeing familiar places and friendly people.  Eating familiar local food has also been wonderful – beans, rice, potatoes, chapatti, pineapple, and avocado.

The other day at lunch, we had the best avocado.  I love California avocadoes, but they aren’t as good as Ugandan ones.  The avocadoes in Uganda are bigger and slightly sweeter than the avocadoes in California.  I’m eating them at least twice a day.  They have the good fat, right?

Awesome avocado in Uganda

Last night, we went to dinner with our friend Steve from Oklahoma, who introduced our family to the Gregston family in 2011, after reading the Guideposts article about Jim’s work in Uganda.  This trip Steve was here for three weeks working with another organization.  We credit Steve with bringing our families together, which has been life-changing for us.  I know Jessica and Jake are thankful that Steve helped bring them together.

Steve with Jake and Jessica

We also got to visit with more friends from Oklahoma, Madison and Savannah Donica, that I met last year when they came to work with the Gregston family.  They are back in Uganda working with another organization on a short term mission.  It was fun to reminisce about our time together in 2012.

Jessica with Madison and Savannah

Today we worshipped at the Gaba Community Church, which is right next to the guest house where we are staying.  It felt like we had never left.  Our old praise team lead some old familiar songs and taught us some new ones.  Pastor Peter greeted the church and made us feel welcome.  We had a guest preacher today, who was good, but we missed hearing one of Pastor Peter’s sermons.

Pastor Peter and the Praise Team at Gaba Community Church

Tonight we went to a cultural dance show, where we saw some amazing dancing that requires way more coordination, athletic ability, and rhythm than I have.  We also saw our friend Tanner from Texas!  He was there with a group of college students on a mission trip he has been leading in Uganda.

Tanner, Jessica, and Joline

At the show, we also met a Ugandan man named Terzao because he was wearing a Pepperdine basketball t-shirt.  I just went up to him and asked him if he had a connection with Pepperdine.  As it turns out, he is a friend of Dusty Breeding (Jessica’s youth minister).  Of course he is – everyone knows Dusty!

Joline and Jessica with our new friend Terzao

It has been reassuring to me to come back to Uganda for a second time because it gives me hope that I will come back again.  There is no shortage of old friends and new friends here.

Picking Up and Setting Off

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Each of Friday’s meetings went according to plan, though the day started off with a regrettable run-in with the local police.  On my way to meet with Uganda’s Director of Public Prosecutions in the morning, I was going to pick up John Niemeyer on the road near where he was staying in town.  As usual, the Kampala “jam” made LA traffic look like an empty hallway.

So I decided to break the law.  I didn’t do so cavalierly, but out of a self-proclaimed necessity.  I called John on my cell phone to report on progress.

Uganda police officers stand on the sidewalks just looking for drivers to step out of line or for cars that could be credibly (or not so credibly) deemed unsafe.  When identify find their mark, they simply step into the road and point at the driver.  Well, I got the point — in more ways than one.

“Uh-oh, cop.  Gotta go, John,” I said as I hung up and slid my phone between my legs.  I put on my good-morning-and-so-happy-to-see-you face.  I usually carry a few of those with me when I get behind the wheel here.

“Where is your phone?” he said as I rolled down my window.

“Good morning officer, how are you?” my Howdy-Doody face beamed back.

“You give me your phone.”

“Sure, here it is,” I said as I handed my bottom-of-the-barrel, cheap-as-they-make-them (Nokia P.O.S. model, and that might actually be a compliment).

“Where is your other phone?” he inquired, insinuating I was giving him this one as a cover to preserve my iPhone from confiscation.

“I have no other phone,” said Howdy Doody.

“You give me your driving license.”

If one plans ahead, one can get an International Driving Permit from AAA.  It is 15 bucks and looks official.  I gave him that one, rather than surrendering my actual California license.  Howdy also told him he was on my way to meet up with the DPP director and I handed him my Ugandan Court business card.

He inspected both of them closely.  “I am going to give you a ticket for talking on the phone, OK?”

“OK, I understand.  I am sorry and will not do it again.”

He left with my driving permit and business card and returned with a ticket book and a pen.  “I am going to give you a ticket and keep your permit.  You can pay the ticket at the central police station and you can pick up your permit there.”

“I understand.  Thank you.”  I knew we were doing a dance, but we had a different step in mind.  He was doing the “give-me-a-bribe-and-you-can-go” dance, and I was doing “I-don’t-need-that-permit-and-I-will-never-pay-you-a-bribe” shuffle.

“You are not above the law,” he said.

“I understand, and that is why you are giving me a ticket.”

He stared, I smiled.

I won.

“You can go, but don’t do it again.”

Phew.

I finally met up with John, and then the rest of the students met up at the Commercial Court and we hoofed the mile in the humid, breezeless Kampala air to the DPP’s offices.

We had a good meeting with the Director, who will be joining the court of appeals next month.  In the afternoon, I met with the Head of the Criminal Division to talk about the next juvenile session we are scheduling, and then the students and I met with the Chief Justice of the Ugandan Supreme Court.  The CJ is retiring at the end of next week (Uganda’s Constitution requires mandatory retirement at the age of 70), though the smart money is betting there will be some sort of constitutional end run to keep in office for a few years longer.  A decision should be made in the next two weeks.

A Fond Farewell to the CJ

Our Students with the CJ

That evening, we took two cars out to the airport to pick up the Pepperdine team flying in.  This included Professor Carol Chase, her husband John Doyle who serves on California’s Superior Court, their daughter Meredith who just finished her second year at Pepperdine Law, their son Harrison who recently graduated from college, Nootbaar Institute Manager Dana Zacharia, and two 2011 law graduates, Jessie Johnston and Sophia Hamilton.  They were all tired, but so excited to be in Uganda.  Thankfully, their luggage all arrived, which is always dicey here.

The next morning, we had breakfast with Justice K before heading west in four cars out of Kampala.  Our full, including David, me, and the students already in Uganda, numbers 18.

Because our work at the prison doesn’t begin until Monday morning, because it takes a few days for one’s body to become acclimated, and because six of the seven who arrived on Friday night had never been to Uganda, we decided to build in some local wildlife to the first-weekend itinerary.

Accordingly, our first stop was at East Africa’s only crocodile farm, situated very near the equator.  My family and I visited this farm last year and I described it in complete detail here.  The highlight for some, and low point for a few, was our benevolent gift to two of the man-eating crocs (one had eaten 18 before he was finally caught) of a couple live chickens.  It is just as graphic as it sounds, and gives new meaning to the term “bone crunching.”

David inspecting what will become a pair of shoes in three years

We made it to the safari “resort” in Queen Elizabeth National Park a couple hours after nightfall.  Those in my car – Dana Zacharia, John Niemeyer, and his girlfriend Sandra Niagaga – joked that I was burning lots of calories just by driving.  Dodging pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, oncoming cars, and breathtakingly large potholes has a way of speeding up the metabolism.

The resort rested on the hippo-laden banks of a lake.  The accommodations were rustic (tents for some and canvas-sided rooms for others) ensured we didn’t get too comfortable.  Also contributing to the discomfort was the stern warning from the staff, who insisted (i) no one walk alone at night, and (ii) no one leave their tents in the middle of the night.  Several in our group reported hearing a quadrupedal locomotion around the tents during the night.

The next morning, David reported that one of the guards saw a lion walking around the edges of camp the night before.  Later that morning on the game drive, we saw three lions lazing away the morning having filled their bellies the night before.

Lounging after a meal

We also saw hippos, elephants, water buffalo, numerous varieties of gazelle, and some warthogs (think Pumba).

After the game drive, our group subdivided, with several of us heading to Fort Portal to finalize logistics, while the other stayed behind for a boat tour around the lake.  They are meeting us in Fort Portal Sunday night so we can begin our prison work in the morning.

I will provide more detail in subsequent posts, but what follows is the crux of what we are doing.  As previously written about, the J-FASTER program we designed and implemented in 2012 has succeeded getting the court system on track to deliver justice in a reasonably timely manner.  The five remand homes in Uganda – facilities where children who are arrested await trial – are slowly reducing in size as children are getting lawyers and case resolutions much more quickly via plea bargaining and fast-tracked scheduling.

On the adult side of the ledger, there are more than ten thousand accused persons “on remand” in prisons throughout the country, many of whom have been held without trial (or even a lawyer) for five years or more.  Given the successes on the smaller juvenile scale, we have been given permission to develop a pilot program for adults.

We are starting with a prison just outside of Fort Portal where over three hundred are awaiting trial.  This week, we will divide into five teams, with each team consisting of an American lawyer, a Ugandan lawyer (from the Uganda Christian Lawyers’ Fraternity), two American law students, and one Ugandan law student (from Uganda Christian University) acting as the interpreter.  We have been allocated 56 capital cases (with more than 70 defendants) for this program.  Our goal is to prepare all 56 cases for trial this week, with the hope that a percentage of them will be resolved short of trial via plea bargaining.  This is the first time such an effort has been undertaken in Uganda, and we have been warned not to raise our hopes too high because of the cultural expectations that such cases will get full trials.

We kick off our efforts with a meeting in the morning with the judge, defense lawyers, and prosecutors in the morning.  From there, we will descend upon the Katojo prison en masse.

Rushere Clinic

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We headed to Rushere (southwest of Gaba) on Tuesday afternoon.  The roads were under construction much of the way, but the parts that were finished were smooth and fast.  Thankfully, we did not get a flat tire on the van (the result of the bumpy roads) until we arrived to the guest house where we were staying.  The guesthouse was located away from the main road in a beautiful country setting with rolling hills and pastures, it served good food, and had comfortable rooms (except for the fact that a bat came into my room the second night and caused me to lose a few hours of sleep).

On Wednesday morning we set up a medical clinic at the small local church (made of mud and sticks with a tin roof but quite comfortable and clean even though the floor was made of dirt).  We saw 200 patients on Wednesday and another 200 on Thursday.  This was a clinic for the local community that would not otherwise be able to afford medical care.  People would arrive in the morning, receive a numbered index card (1-200), and would be called into the church by number (like taking a number at the bakery or deli).  We saw children as young as two weeks and adults as old as 85.

Clinic at Church in Rushere

I spent my time in patient registration, and Jessica worked in the pharmacy and did a little blood work.  My job was to write down each patient’s name, age, and gender in the registration book after our Ugandan coordinator wrote them on their medical form.  The patient was then weighed and given a deworming pill (which kills any worms they might have – it is recommended every 3 months, and I will be taking one before I leave Uganda).  The people waited patiently in the waiting area (plastic lawn chairs set up in rows at the back of the church) to see the doctor (Dr. Jay Gregston or one of the two Ugandan doctors).  Some patients chose to wait longer so they could see the muzungu (Ugandan word for white) doctor.  The patients would then take their paper to the pharmacy if they needed medication.  As their prescriptions were being filled, the patients would go to the corner of the church where the pastors would provide spiritual care.

Jessica taking blood sample

Joline & Jared working at registration

As I said, the purpose of this free clinic was to see people who could not afford to pay for medical care.  But we did have a couple of people come who could clearly afford to pay.  These people were from the Bahima tribe (the same tribe as the Ugandan President and his wife).  I learned that the people in this tribe are often given government positions and are considered the ruling class.  Interestingly, they can easily be identified because they are bigger (taller and heavier) than the other people living in the area.  At the end of the day on Thursday, we saw a couple of these people (someone had held a number for them and their drivers drove them up to the church when it was time to be seen).  After we had seen patient #200, more of them showed up, demanding to be seen (demanding may be too strong of a word, but they were certainly pushy).  Our Ugandan staff explained to them that all of the numbers had already been given out and we needed to pack up and leave.  When one woman wouldn’t accept this explanation, I was asked to talk to the woman.  So I gave the same explanation and further pointed out that the rest of people we saw had been waiting all day to be seen and they couldn’t come at the end and ask to be seen.  I was glad that they listened to me and left without arguing.  We had talked as a team at one of our morning devotionals about the importance of doing God’s work in our clinics and not worrying about who we might make happy or disappointed.  In this case, we couldn’t show favoritism, especially not to those who could afford to pay for care somewhere else.  (James 2:1 “Show no partiality. . .”)  It was uncomfortable to turn people away, but in the end, we felt that we were doing what God called us to do.

If you want to hear about one patient in particular who stood out to us in this clinic, please visit the Gregston’s website:  here

I Bought a Rolex . . . and Ate It

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I Bought a Rolex . . . and Ate It

On Wednesday morning, I went for a run on a dirt road by Lake Victoria – the largest lake in the world.  The air was clean and crisp, if not a bit muggy. What seemed like such a good and healthy idea quickly turned south.  The morning vehicle traffic on the road stirred up so much dust that my vision clouded, my lungs constricted, and legs morphed into pillars.  The thronging children in their cute school uniforms all smiling, pointing, and chiming in chorus “mzungu!” added to the obstacle course atmosphere.  After fifteen minutes I was spent.  Pitiful.

The rest of Wednesday was fairly uneventful, and intentionally so.  David and I continued to nail down the logistics for the upcoming adult prison session, and I picked up gorilla trekking permits for my colleague Professor Carol Chase, her husband Judge John Doyle, two of their children, and four of our Pepperdine students here.  Since the prison we are going to is in the western town of Fort Portal, and since the world famous mountain “gorillas in the mist” are in southwest Uganda/northern Rwanda/eastern DRC, a subset of our group decided to take advantage of our proximity to Dian Fossey’s old stomping grounds by introducing themselves to these highly endangered beasts.  I am waiting until Jennifer, my youngest, is 15 – the minimum age to trek – so we can do it as a family.

I did have a chance to catch up with my friends in the Criminal Division of the High Court, where I worked during my six-month sabbatical in 2012.  Big changes are coming, and I will admit to being a bit nervous about how the transitions will affect our ongoing work.

The Ugandan Judiciary is critically understaffed.  Last year, a Judicial Services Commission was established to nominate a large group of judges to fill the growing vacancies.  They submitted the names about nine months ago.  Uganda’s national budget is stretched rather thin (the 2012-13 budget consisted of 25% foreign aid), so there hasn’t been money allocated to plug the holes.  Early last month, President Museveni announced a total of nearly thirty new appointments to the three court levels (High Court, Court of Appeals, Supreme Court).  These appointments take effect on July 15th.

The Criminal Court Registrar – the person who is primarily responsible for scheduling court sessions in Kampala – has been appointed to the High Court bench, but outside of Kampala.  And two of the four High Court judges in the Criminal Division are being rotated into other departments.  Compounding the threat to the momentum we have built is the fact that the Director of Public Prosecutions, Richard Buteera, has been appointed to the Court of Appeals.  Director Buteera has been very supportive of the J-FASTER program, and will be replaced by an unknown commodity.

On the positive side of the ledger, word of the multiple successful J-FASTER sessions we have run has spread such that the growing consensus among the judges seems to be that this new structure is here to stay.

I beat traffic out of the city back to where I am staying and caught a late afternoon nap before venturing into Gaba outdoor market in search of dinner (Joline, Jessica, and the Gregstons are still on the road – they treated over four hundred patients at a church in a rural town on Wednesday and Thursday).  I found what I was looking for – a Rolex.

My Rolex Chef

Eating Ugandan street food is one of the wonderful cultural experiences all visitors should sample – road meat, chapattis, roasted cassava/bananas/corn, and Rolex.  When I was here in 2012, I read an article about the derivation of the rather curious name.  As the moniker obliquely suggests, it is a phonetically challenged combination of roll-eggs.  Two scrambled eggs spiced with tomato and onions are poured onto a concave skillet, on top of which is placed a tortilla-like piece of flatbread called a chapatti.  The eggs cook and adhere themselves to the chapatti, which is thereafter rolled into what vaguely resembles a breakfast burrito.  Delicious.

Like Wednesday, Thursday was another day of planning and logistical preparations.  I had a chance to watch part of a trial of Chinese national for trafficking in children – he is accused of kidnapping and selling Ugandan village kids to the Far East.  Quite disturbing.

David and I had tasty and heart-warming dinner with Dan Owens, one of the Directors of Sixty Feet — a stellar NGO dedicated to improving and redeeming the lives of Uganda’s imprisoned and vulnerable children.  He had been in Africa for two weeks, including a two-day stint to Malawi, where he and their resourceful and visionary legal intern Abby Skeans (Regent Law student with whom I worked closely last year) met with top government officials about potentially expanding J-FASTER (the implementation costs of which Sixty Feet has been generously funding here in Uganda) into Malawi.  Please pray for this exciting new possibility, as the remand homes in that former British protectorate are also badly swollen with detained juveniles awaiting trial.  The work Sixty Feet is doing here is truly amazing, and it seems to be finally recognized as such by the too-often too-bureaucratic administrative agency tasked with overseeing Uganda’s imprisoned children.

I got to spend an hour or so with Joline, Jessica, and Gregstons before bed as they returned to Kampala to resupply and recharge after two intensive clinic days.

It is now Friday morning, and today is packed.  I have meetings today with Mark Riley (Welshman who is doing transformative work here in orphan care through his Alternative Care organization), Justice Chibita (Fort Portal judge with whom we are working on this pilot adult prison program), Justice Mukasa (head of the Criminal Division), and soon-to-be-retiring Supreme Court Chief Justice Benjamin Odoki.

Thereafter, David and I will be heading to the airport to pick up the Pepperdine team flying in for an intense week of prison work.

More on the identity of the team and our specific work in the next post.

One Short of a Dozen

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On Sunday, Joline, Jessica, and I hopped on a flight out of Los Angeles bound for Kampala.  Since we returned from our six-month sabbatical in Uganda, Jessica and Joline have been yearning to get back to the medical clinic work with which they were so heavily involved previously.

Jessica graduated from High School (bound for Pepperdine) on Thursday, so Sunday was the earliest reasonable date we could travel.  As some of those reading this will recall, we spent our six months here in 2012 with a wonderful family of five from Oklahoma (our Twin Family – The Gregstons) who operated a mobile medical clinic all over Uganda.  During this transformative six months, our oldest (Jessica) fell deeply in love with their oldest (Jake) and the two have been “together” in a long-distance relationship ever since.  Jake flew in for Jessica’s graduation and then joined us on our flight to Africa where the rest of his family had flown two weeks earlier.  Our younger two, Joshua (15) and Jennifer (13) are cousin surfing for the 25 days we are gone – three sets of cousins and one set of grandparents for roughly one week each.

While this was my eleventh flight to Uganda since January of 2010, it doesn’t really get any easier.  The thirty-hour door-to-door odyssey is quite taxing on my aging body.  Joline adjusted to the time change quite well, as did Jessica and Jake – they are happy wherever they are as long as they are together.

The Gregstons picked us up from the Entebbe airport late Monday night and brought us back with them to the Guest House where we are staying on the shores of Lake Victoria in Gaba.  Ambien whispered me to sleep, but I was awakened a couple hours later by my sleepwalking daughter, who is still an ambien rookie.

On Tuesday, I parted company with my wife and daughter, as they headed west with the Gregstons for a medical clinic about four hours away.  I reconnected with David (law school alum and Nootbaar Fellow in Uganda), our seven Pepperdine Law students who are working for various Ugandan judges this summer, and with my good friend, Justice Geoffrey Kiryabwire, who manages the Pepperdine internship program from this side.  David and I also met with the Deputy Head of Prisons for Uganda and received the final sign-offs for our deep dive into a rural prison filled with those charged with capital offenses who are still, after several years, waiting for a lawyer and a trial.

I ended the day with a dinner at one of my favorite restaurants with our students and David, as we finalized plans for the pilot program we are going to initiate next week.  A team of Pepperdine lawyers flies in on Friday night.  Saturday morning, we leave for an overcrowded adult prison in the foothill town of Fort Portal somewhat near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.  More on that program in the coming days.  On the way home from dinner, I, of course, got lost as I drove myself home in the Toyota Land Cruiser I rented earlier in the day.  So a thirty-minute drive home swelled to ninety.  I did, however, get back into the swing of driving on the wrong side pretty quickly, even if I accidentally climbed into the passenger seat a couple times – “Hey, who stole the steering wheel.  Oops!  It’s over there.”

On Wednesday morning, I was unceremoniously awoken by a neighboring rooster announcing it was time to get up and begin the day.  I rolled over and clicked on my phone – 3:38 a.m.  Apparently, this rooster is one short of a dozen himself – sunrise was not for two more hours.  The others roosters responded by threatening to kick him in his is cock-a-doodle-pie-hole.  I could swear I heard one of them call the premature announcer “Punxsatawny Short Bus” in a rather derisive tone.  I, for one, don’t approve of that sort of insensitive humor.  I think PSB got his revenge, however, by head-butting his heckler with his helmet-protected noggin.

Sleep eluded me from that point forward, however, so I caught up on e-mails and wrote this first daily trip report.  Today will involve a series of meetings with judges and other judicial officials as we prepare for another juvenile prison session following our trek to Fort Portal.

I covet your prayers, especially for the safety of Joline, Jessica, and the Gregstons as they gallivant all over Uganda trying to bring relief to the suffering.  Joline will also be providing daily reports under her tab here.

We’re here!

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We have arrived safely in Uganda.  We are excited to join the rest of the team.  The Gregston family is pictured on the left (Jake, Jay, Jayne, Jill, and Jared).  Their friend from Oklahoma is the tall guy in the back row (Kyle Mueller).  We are on the right (Jessica, Joline, and Jim).

Our team in Uganda

We are staying at a guest house in Gaba, near the headquarters of Africa Renewal Ministries (the organization with which we are working).  We woke up this morning to a beautiful view of Lake Victoria.

View of Lake Victoria from guest house

The team is heading to Rushere today to do a two day community medical clinic.  Jim is staying here to start his work with the Ugandan judiciary in Kampala.  We will all be on the road quite a bit this month.  We’ll update from our various locations as we are able.

We appreciate all your prayers and well wishes.  It means so much to know we have friends and family cheering us on.  Joshua and Jennifer are part of our family that is back home, staying with family until we return.  We love and miss you!

Back to Uganda

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Today is the day we head back to Uganda.  It is hard to believe that it was nearly one year ago that we left Uganda, after living there for six months.  The people and the places are still fresh in my mind.  But much has happened in that time.  We have changed and I suspect we will find that our friends there have changed too.

Our children had a great year at Oaks Christian School.  They made good friends and did very well in their classes.  They were their own carpool with Jessica at the wheel.  Joshua rode shotgun, to prepare for taking over the driving next year when he gets his license.  Actually he probably slept more than he picked up driving tips from Jessica, but it was a good bonding experience for them all.

Joshua & Jessica

On Thursday morning we attended Jennifer’s middle school awards ceremony.  Jennifer was awarded Outstanding Science Student by her 7th grade science teacher Ms. Johnstone.

Ms. Johnstone & Jennifer

On Thursday afternoon we celebrated Jessica’s graduation from Oaks Christian High School.  She worked incredibly hard in school and graduated in the top ten seniors and received awards in English Literature and Bible.  We were pleased that Grandpa & Grandma Gash, Jessica’s boyfriend Jake Gregston, and Jessica’s youth minister Dusty & his wife Cecily could attend her graduation.  Jessica is looking forward to attending Pepperdine University in the fall, where she will major in Biology and room with her cousin Alannah in the dorms.

 

Jessica with family on Graduation Day

But before we pack for college, we get to return to Uganda.  Jessica and I will spend most of the month of June with the Gregston family (our twin family), working with Africa Renewal Ministries’ mobile medical clinics.  Jim will also be working in Uganda for the month, but will be working on plea bargaining at various prisons.  So we will be traveling in different directions most of the time, but we are thrilled to be getting back to work in Uganda.  We would appreciate your prayers for our safe journey and that we will be effective in helping the people there.

Where are Joshua and Jennifer?  You might be wondering.  They are spending the month with their grandparents and uncles and aunts, helping with their younger cousins.  They will be having an adventure of their own!

Reflecting on the year

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Hi, readers! I’m 13! I can’t believe I’ve been blogging ever since I was eleven. So much has happened to me since then. I’ve lived in a third world country for 6 months, survived 6th grade, (phew!!) and now, I am almost done with 7th grade. It is really hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that I am almost an eighth grader. My spiritually journey throughout 7th grade wasn’t NEARLY as interesting as my 6th grade one! A few weeks ago, my Bible study leader asked us what we felt like our spiritual journey had been this past year.

I took some time to think about that, and realized that I haven’t really grown this year. I haven’t been the best sister, daughter, friend, and encourager that I could have been. On my watch, three kids IN MY GRADE left from bullying. And I was just… there. Almost oblivious to what was happening. And yet, I knew that it was wrong, but it’s so easy to not notice every single detail or be there all the time with someone. I guess I’m just trying to say that there is only so much one person can do. Even though I prayed for these people, God had a different plan. Even if I try to help, they can still just push me away.

I know that all that I’ve experienced, all my doubts, all my fears, all my victories, and all of the times that I made someone else feel wanted, have been for a reason. God has used me in so many ways this year, but I can see how some people would see my year as pretty uneventful. The Lord has used me in so many ways that I never thought possible and put me in just the right places at the right time. Even though my faith hasn’t really increased, I believed that I have helped others on their spiritual walks, which is something that I wouldn’t have been able to do as well at a public school.

I hope that this helps you to reflect on your year, and all the feelings that you have felt, and all the times when you weren’t quite sure what God was doing with you. Maybe, now you will understand that even though we will have trouble in the life, but it’s gonna be okay because God has had a plan for you for such a long time.

Tomorrow is my last Friday as an seventh grader, my last multicultural art class, my last lunch as a seventh grader, my last full day as a seventh grader, my last day using locker number 5061, my last day bringing a backpack to school as a seventh grader, and the last day I will listen to my history teacher’s crazy puns.

However, tomorrow is the first day I will live my life unburdened with the “what-ifs” of seventh grade. Tomorrow, my eyes will be opened, and I won’t let anything just slip past me, and if something does, I will just move on! I know that getting your 7th grade yearbook signed is not the most important thing in the world, and my yearbook doesn’t even matter to God. Or my hair. Or my shoes, or my nails, or anything but my heart.

Love Always,

Jennifer Gash

 

 

Moving Forward, Heading Home

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Since we started the J-FASTER juvenile justice project early last year, the Uganda Christian Lawyer’s Fraternity (UCLF) has provided legal representation for the children imprisoned in the remand home in Kampala.  Just before I left Uganda last June, Shane Michael (Nootbaar Fellow) and I prepared and submitted a funding proposal to the Danish government on behalf of UCLF that would allow UCLF to staff up and provide legal representation at all five of Uganda’s remand homes.  Shortly thereafter, the proposal was granted, and UCLF began expanding its reach.

When I was here in January, David, Kirby (from Sixty Feet), a UCLF attorney, and I visited four of the five remand homes and connected the wardens with UCLF so they would know that the kids have lawyers.  The fifth and final remand home is in Western Uganda in a town called Fort Portal.  So that is where David and I (and Daniel our driver) were headed after the oral argument at the court of appeals on Tuesday.

On our way out of town, we stopped at UCLF headquarters and picked up a UCLF attorney named Docus.  As she had just started at UCLF, I had never met her, but when she climbed into the car, I thought I recognized her from somewhere.

The five-hour drive to Fort Portal was both uneventful and beautiful.  Fort Portal rests in the foothills of the Rwenzori mountain range, and is thus a bit cooler than muggy Kampala.  David and I checked into on inn run by a Dutch couple situation just on the outskirts of town.  Daniel and Docus ventured into town in search of a more “local” place to sleep.  Before dinner, I walked into and around the entire town over a half-hour period, checking out the local scene and reflecting on the days’ events.  I didn’t see any other white faces.

The next morning, David, Docus, and I met up with another UCLF attorney named Regina who is based a few hours outside of Fort Portal.  She is representing the juveniles currently confined in the Fort Portal Remand Home, and is funded by the two-year grant UCLF received last year.  The four of us then went to the judicial chambers of Justice Mike Chibita, who is the Resident High Court Judge in this area.  Justice Chibita is the former President of UCLF and is a stellar individual and judge.  He was just starting a combined adult/juvenile court session and was fully on top of the challenges faced in delivering justice efficiently to Ugandans.

During my last visit to Uganda two months ago, I had dinner with Justice Chibita and pitched the idea of running a pilot program in Fort Portal this summer, whereby we would take the J-FASTER model we have been using for juveniles and apply it to the adult realm.  To succeed, we would need a progressive and organized judge, a big backlog at an adult prison, cooperation and assistance from that prison, cooperation from the prosecutors’ office, and a team of Ugandan and American lawyers.  I had heard there was a large prison backlog in Fort Portal and knew Justice Chibita was exactly the judge we wanted.  After we discussed the idea, Justice Chibita was in.

Providentially, Friday’s local paper ran an article decrying the huge prison backlog in Fort Portal and quoted Chief Justice Odoki as saying that he would look into solutions to this problem.  The timing could not be more perfect.  So the purpose of this trip to Fort Portal was to secure buy in from the necessary constituents.

We first met with Justice Chibita on Wednesday morning and agreed upon a number – we would try to handle 60 of the cases in a session scheduled for July.  We decided that the team of American lawyers (and Pepperdine Law students) would work hand-in-hand with a team of Ugandan lawyers and law students to prepare the cases for trial, so they could be plea bargained in advance of trial.  Since I am going to be in Uganda with Joline and Jessica from June 3-26, and since seven Pepperdine students will be in country during this time as well, we settled on the week of June 10-14 for an intensive time of case preparation.  The task ahead was then to convince the prison, the prosecution, and the central judicial authorities in Kampala to go along.

From Justice Chibita’s office, we headed five miles out of town to the Katojo prison for a meeting with the warden.  Katojo had been built to accommodate 283 prisoners; it currently houses just over 900.  The prisoners fall it three almost evenly divided groups – those who have been arrested and committed to the High Court (the prosecution is ready to proceed with trial), those who have been arrested and have not yet been committed (the police are still investigating the case), and those who have been convicted of crimes and are serving their sentences.  Our focus is on the first group, many of whom have been waiting for more than three years for their promised trial.

Over the course of an hour-long meeting with the warden and deputy warden, everything was worked out.  They were thrilled with the prospect of moving the cases forward and pledged their full support and cooperation.  Now we needed to convince the prosecution and the top judicial brass in Kampala.  Our meeting with two of the three prosecutors in Fort Portal went exceptionally well.  They understood what we were trying to accomplish, and pledged their support and cooperation, as well.  So all we had left for the leap of the J-FASTER program from the juvenile realm to the adult realm was the approval of the Chief Justice, the Principal Judge, and the Head of the Criminal Division, all of whom are headquartered in Kampala.

Before we left town, we went to visit the Fort Portal Remand Home.  As noted previously, this is the only remand home I had not yet visited.  The grounds and buildings were habitable and relatively clean, though clearly aging.  We met with the warden first, and she informed us that there were 34 juveniles on remand – 33 boys and 1 girl.  Justice Chibita has things moving well, and only one boy had been there longer than the statutory limit of six months.  The biggest challenge has been the speed at which the juveniles are committed to the High Court – the police seem to have a challenge completing their investigations in a timely manner.  We were immediately impressed with the warden, and the juveniles seem to look to her as a mother figure.

Among the challenges she identified was the difficulty in getting fuel money from the central office in Kampala.  Without fuel for the remand home van, they cannot transport the kids to court, and cannot transport them home when they are released.  The warden informed us that they were in a crisis situation at the moment – they had no fuel to get to and from court in the morning, and they certainly didn’t have any fuel to resettle two boys who had been released by the court.  She went on to tell us that one of the boys had been released two weeks earlier, but they didn’t have the 250,000 shillings (just under $100) necessary to transport the boy back to the remote village where lived.  The 14 year-old boy, she said, cried himself to sleep every night, and was refusing to wear the prison uniform, reasoning that he was no longer a legitimate prisoner.  Within minutes, two phone calls were made.  The first call was to UCLF, who agreed to provide funds for the fuel to and from court from the grant money they had (we had built fuel costs into our original proposal, just in case they were needed).  The second call was to Sixty Feet, who have been funding the J-FASTER sessions, and providing loads of other assistance to the remand homes throughout the country.  Predictably, Sixty Feet again stepped up, and agreed to provide the fuel to get the released prisoners home immediately.  David and I had a chance to pull the two aside before we left and let them know they were going home.  There are few better moments than these.

The warden then gathered all the kids together and introduced us.  They were polite and playful.  They had lots of questions and several requests.  Many of the requests concerned food and educational activities.  We are going to work with Sixty Feet on seeing what can be done to improve their conditions.  Previously, I had learned that they didn’t have a soccer ball, so I asked them if they wanted one.  The response was predictable – there is little else more important to Ugandan kids than soccer (football).  Within an hour, we had bought and delivered a shiny new ball.

At one point, they went around the room and introduced themselves to us.  About two-thirds of the way around, a rather awkward and tentative boy stood for his turn.  It was immediately clear that this boy was three standard deviations from the IQ mean – to the south side.  He stumbled and stuttered his way through his introduction, which clearly took all the concentration he could muster.  The other kids laughed and nudged each other.  I guess cruelty toward those less fortunate knows no borders.  David immediately jumped in and thanked the boy for introducing himself and telling him he did a good job.  The other kids got the point of David’s compassion.

Most of the questions were handled by David, Regina (local UCLF lawyer), and me.  At the end, one of the children wanted to hear from Docus.  She stepped forward and said what do you want to hear?

“Sing them a song,” I jokingly quipped.

“Do you want me to sing for you?” she asked the kids.

“I was kidding,” I jumped in, trying to give her an out.

She didn’t need one.  She took a deep breath and belted out a gospel tune.  Now, Docus is five foot nothing and can’t see 100 pounds with the Hubbell telescope, but her voice filled every inch of the large room in which we had gathered.

Then it hit me.  That’s where I had seen her before.  In July of 2010, I had visited Uganda Christian University with Tim Perrin and we had attended a noon worship time of about 1,500 students.  The leader of the worship time was a little lady with a huge voice who looked just like Docus.  And she had sung that same song.  When Docus was done, everyone clapped.

“You went to UCU, right?”

“Yes.”

“When did you graduate?”

“September of 2010.”

“And you led singing during the worship time, didn’t you?”

“Yes, how did you know that?”

“Your voice.  I remember you!”

I think this freaked her out more than a little bit, and I don’t blame her.  Later, in the car ride on the way back, I pull out my daily report from that day and let her read the paragraph I had written about how great the worship time had been.  Small world, big God.

We had a good trip back, but long car rides on bad roads are not good combinations for bad backs.

On Thursday morning, David and I met with Chief Justice Odoki.  Unsurprisingly, he enthusiastically endorsed our Fort Portal plans.  I later got ahold of Principal Judge Bamwine, who was in South Africa, and he also threw his support behind the project.  At noon, we met with the Head of the Criminal Division, whose endorsement completed the trifecta.  All is a go.

I am now at the Nairobi airport on my first of two layovers on my way home.  As usual, it was great to be in Uganda, but it will be good to be home also.

Game Day

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The day I have been praying about and preparing for over the course of three years finally arrived.

This morning I awoke at 2:00 a.m. to the kind of thunderstorms I have only experienced in Africa.  They are Biblical in proportions.  In addition to the bunker-busting thunder strikes, I could hear the showers ricocheting off the roof, the side of the house, the window, and . . . pieces of paper?  After a few moments, I remembered that there are screens above the windows not covered by glass, and the side-winding, cloud-borne sprinkler system pelting the side of the house was also penetrating the screen . . . onto the papers I had foolishly left by the window.  I scampered out of bed and moved the court papers I needed later in the morning.  Fortunately, nothing important was damaged, and I was back in bed within a couple minutes.

As I lay there listening to the thunder and rain, I wondered whether this was the final angry gasp of a three-year storm, or whether it was the opening another darker chapter.  I dozed off and on until 4:00 a.m., then got up to run through everything one more time.

The driver picked me up at 5:30 a.m., and we picked up Henry at 6:00.  As I climbed into the back seat of the taxi with Henry, I stepped in a mud patch and caked my shoes.  Brilliantly, I then set my backpack on the floor of the taxi at my feet.

Unsurprisingly, we encountered no significant traffic, so we were into Kampala by 6:45.  Since the hearing wasn’t scheduled to start until 9:30, we had some time to kill.  We decided to do so at David’s office in the Commercial Court.  When I went to open my backpack, I cradled it against my body.  Big mistake.

“Oh, sorry, sorry,” said Henry as he pointed to the mud streaking my stomach. I spent the next five minutes trying to wash out the red stain on my tuxedo shirt, which is what Ugandan advocates wear when they appear in court.  I met with only limited success.

Ugandan Red Dirt on a Tuxedo Shirt

I had brought along a Flip video camera, so I interviewed Henry for a few minutes so we could capture the moment.  Henry then said it was my turn to answer questions, and that he wanted to make sure we never forgot how we were both feeling at that time.

Since the court of appeals does not video the arguments, I decided to tape myself doing one last run through with Henry at my side.  At 7:45, we headed to the court of appeals and had breakfast in the restaurant next door.  Before we left the restaurant, we spent some time praying together.

At 8:45, we walked into the courthouse.  I felt much more calm than I had expected – prayers and preparation proved rather beneficial.

At 9:00 a.m., the court staff confirmed there was a full three-judge panel ready and that everything was a go.  Two weeks ago, the panel was announced, and it included the acting Deputy Chief Justice (DCJ).  The DCJ has been rather sick and has been inconsistently appearing in court.  And when she is not there, the cases on the panels to which she is assigned are adjourned until the next session, which is typically three to six months later.  Compounding this problem, the DCJ’s brother died last week.  He was the Deputy Prime Minister, so this created the additional risk that the DCJ would not attend the hearing.  But by 9:00 a.m., the court staff had confirmed that the DCJ was being replaced another judge on the panel today, so I thought everything was a go.

At 9:15, Edward Sekabanja (local counsel working with me) arrived and helped me tie on the requisite silly neck scarf and put on the robe.  Still no sign of the prosecution lawyer.  Still quite calm.

At 9:30, another lawyer with whom I have worked on the juvenile justice projects arrived, as he had a matter before the court this morning also.  This lawyer told me he had spoken with the prosecutor the day before, and she was considering not contesting the appeal.  Excellent.

At 9:45, the prosecution arrived.  I introduced myself, told her I would be arguing the case, and tried to make small talk, hoping she would tip her hand.  No dice.  Edward had a little more luck, but my heart sank when he reported to me what she said.

“She will be asking the court to adjourn the case.”

“Why?”

“She says she is not prepared for the hearing.”

“Why not?”

“She says she didn’t think the hearing would take place today, so she didn’t prepare.”

“Wait.  What?  How long does she want to the delay the hearing?”

“Until she has time to prepare.”

I knew this session was ending on Thursday, so I feared the worst.  She would be seeking to kick the can down the road . . . again.

Just before 10:00, a loud “boom” echoed throughout the courtroom as the judges were “knocked in” by the court clerk.  My own heart aftershocked the “boom” as the judges filed into the courtroom.  This was it.  As they sat down, I became a magnet for the six judicial eyes who appeared not to have expected a mzungu to be sitting among the other robed advocates.  Not that I could blame them — no American has ever appeared in the Ugandan Court of Appeals, or any other Ugandan court.

On the docket for the day were four cases.  We were third in line, and the fourth case involved six co-defendants, whose families had all come to watch.  The first two cases were summary proceedings whereby the defense lawyer moved that the cases be remanded to the trial court in light of a recent Uganda Supreme Court decision casting doubt on the sentences issued in those cases.  The prosecution did not oppose these motions, so it was game time.

When our case was called, Henry was led to the dock and I stood before the court.  I introduced myself, my co-counsel Edward, and the prosecuting attorney (as is the custom).  As soon as I introduced her, she asked to be heard on a motion.  Edward gently pulled down on my robe, indicating I should sit.  Apparently, they have a one-lawyer-standing-at-a-time rule.  Good to know.

The prosecutor proceeded to request an adjournment on the grounds she was not prepared because she did not expect the court to sit today.  The judges just stared at her blankly, and then one asked “Why not?”

She explained that she knew the DCJ would not be here, and no one contacted her office to tell her the hearing would still proceed anyway.  To put it gently, they were not impressed.  “So you want us to adjourn because this is not the panel you wanted?”  They asked her if she could be ready tomorrow.  She hemmed and hawed and ultimately agreed she could be, if necessary, but preferred a longer adjournment.  Then came my turn to stand.  I calmly, but unapologetically requested that we proceed with the case as scheduled.  I explained we had provided extensive briefing well in advance of the hearing, and that it was very difficult to get Henry out of school for today’s hearing.

The judges conferred amongst themselves for about a minute and then the judge in the middle began writing.  Three minutes later, he was still writing.  One of the other judges who had been leafing through the record turned to Henry and said with a warm smile,

“How old are you?”

“I am nineteen.”

“I see you will be twenty very soon.”

“Sir?”

“When were you born?”

“I was born on the 18th of March, 1993.”

The judge nodded and smile widely back at Henry.

“It was a Friday at 7:00 p.m.,” Henry said with an even bigger smile.

The audience of about forty erupted in laughter.

“How do you know that?” The judge playfully responded.

“My mum told me.”  More laughter.

This back and forth cut through the heavy tension in the room, as we all waited for the court’s ruling on the prosecution’s motion.

When the laughter died down, the judge in the middle began to read his ruling.  He reiterated the request and the supporting reasoning, . . . then denied the motion.  The hearing would proceed.

Now, both energized by the ruling and relaxed by the banter, I stood again and re-introduced myself, explaining I was appearing pursuant to a Special Practising Certificate (that’s how they spell it here) and I was ready to proceed whenever directed to do so.

“Where is your certificate?”

“Right here,” I responded and handed it to the clerk, who brought it to the judge in the middle.

He inspected it, nodded ever so slightly, and handed it to the judge on his right.  She inspected it, nodded approvingly, and passed it back to the judge on the other side – the one who had been chatting with Henry.  He squinted at it and then pointed to one portion of it as he handed it back to the judge in the middle.  He squinted as well, shook his head, and then passed to the third judge.  Crap.

I knew exactly what they were looking at.  It was the first thing I noticed when I saw it for the first time.  It has my name, the date, and the necessary signature.  But the space for the identification of the single case in which I am authorized to appear . . . is blank.  My heart sank again.

Can you find the blank spot?

“Why is the case not included?”

The one-lawyer-standing-at-a-time rule turned the bench into a gravitational field and sucked by butt straight down.  Up popped Edward, who proceeded to explain to the court the number of difficulties encountered to get the certificate issued in the first place, and that his office had not gone back to the law council to fix the mistake.  That argument struck me as about as strong as the prosecution’s motion to adjourn the case.  At that moment, it seemed like it would meet with the same fate.

The judges again conferred, and then the one in the middle declared that since the special practising certificate did not contain the name of the case . . . it would be deemed to be a general practising certificate, which contained no limitation.  The magic words “you may proceed, counsel” followed.

“May it please my Lords, I would like to request 30 minutes for my opening submission, though I hope to conclude in less time.”  What I heard in response was “you may have twenty minutes,” though David Nary assures me he actually said “you may have thirty minutes.”  (I still occasionally struggle with the accent).

Somewhat surprised, though not shaken, I replied, “Thank you, my Lord.  I will conclude within twenty minutes.”

During my time as a law clerk on the federal court of appeals, and during my time in DC at Kirkland & Ellis, I have seen a handful of stellar advocates argue before the courts of appeal and Supreme Court.  I could easily imagine someone who saw my argument say, “I know Ken Starr.  Ken Starr is a friend of mine.  You are no Ken Starr.”  And I would agree.  Without reservation.

That being said, I truly feel like things went as well as I could have hoped or imagined in my opening argument.  Whatever level my potential is, I reached it.  And I could ask for nothing more.  I (mostly) overcame my tendency to speak quickly, and didn’t feel nervous even for a moment.  Prayer and preparation.

The judges didn’t ask a single question.  As I sat down, I glanced over at the prosecutor and noticed she had several pages of notes she had taken while I spoke.  She would not be conceding.  Over the next fifteen minutes, she made all the points I would have made in response to my argument, and she made them well, even citing to several pages in the record to make her points.  She was prepared after all.  Why had she sandbagged?

On rebuttal, I got in and got out on about six different points over the course of about six minutes.  I felt like I hit back hard on each of her strongest arguments.

And then it was over.  Relief washed over me.  The case was now where it has always been – in God’s hands.  He has entrusted it, however, for the time being, to the Ugandan Court of Appeals.

Adrenaline coursed through my veins for the next half hour as Edward, Henry, David, and I replayed the action while we talked outside.  Edward said he feels good about the likely outcome, but what is he going to say?  “You sucked and we are going to lose?”  Another lawyer there said he thought the court could go either way.  We shall see, though likely not for another several months.

We took some photos, hugged it out, and then I put Henry into a taxi back to school.

Post-argument team photo

David and I are now on the way to Fort Portal to visit another juvenile remand home and an adult prison to see if we can be of assistance in expediting the cases of those awaiting trial there.

Henry and I have been so blessed and overwhelmed by the outpouring of prayers and encouragement.  He specifically asked me to thank everyone who has been praying for him, and to tell them he loves them.  I echo his sentiments.