I, The Dung Beetle

I find myself in an increasingly familiar location as I write this long-overdue update on our team’s Ugandan prison project and plea bargaining conference – in the KLM Lounge in Amsterdam.  Nineteen days have blown by, and I have only had the time to summarize the first eight days.  Where I left off on Thursday, July 2nd, we had just completed four days of case preparation in three prisons – Mbale, Tororo, and Soroti – all in Eastern Uganda.  In the Mbale prison, more than 75% of the prisoners were “on remand” – waiting for something to happen.  No lawyer, no court date, no sense of the evidence against them, and dwindling hope.

Friday the 3^rd started very early (again), as our group of about thirty-five American lawyers, Pepperdine law students, Uganda Christian University students, drivers, and armed body guards piled into a bus, a van, and a truck for the two-hour drive from Soroti to Lira.  As in the other cities, our morning began at the courthouse where the resident judge in this district hosted a ceremonial launch of our work at the prison.  We always closed these ceremonies with a prayer, usually led by one of our students or lawyers.

From the courthouse, we headed to the prison and broke into our groups, each consisting of a Ugandan lawyer (from the local practicing bar), an American lawyer, a Pepperdine student, and a UCU student.

Insert your own clever quip here . . .

As usual, we had the case file of evidence against some of the defendants we interviewed, and only a flimsy conclusory indictment for others.  Also as usual, Tennessee prosecutor Emily Smith (’10) and former LA prosecutor Alan Jackson (’94) broke off in the late morning for some focused training of the local Ugandan prosecutors.

Around 1:00 p.m., we paused for the typical Ugandan lunch of matooke, ground nut sauce, rice, anemic chicken, spongy beef, and assorted vegetables.  (This same fare was served each evening at our hotel also).   By the end of the week, the American lawyers were eager for something that looked and tasted familiar, or . . . not so familiar).

As was also our custom, in the mid-afternoon, a group of us broke off from the others to re-enact four stages of the plea bargaining process for the judges, magistrates, prosecutors, and defense lawyers in town, which was followed by a spirited question and answer session.  On each occasion, the entire group unequivocally embraced the plea bargaining program that they now understood and could apply.  We always left encouraged.

That evening, we continued our tradition of hosting a dinner at our hotel for the judges, magistrates, prosecutors, and defense lawyers so that the conversation and relationship building could continue.  By the end of the night, we were exhausted, but quite satisfied that we had accomplished our goals.

As we were heading to bed in Lira on Friday night, the second wave of team members were arriving in Kampala.  Federal District Court Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell and California Appellate Justice Tricia Bigelow were given special treatment at the airport – pulled into the VIP lounge and then given a police escort, complete with sirens and honking that parted the gridlocked traffic, reducing the two-hour drive to just over thirty minutes.

A little while later, John Cotton Richmond (US DOJ Human Trafficking Prosecutor) arrived with the film crew, who returned to Uganda to finish the documentary called “Remand” that began last summer.  That crew also received a police escort back to the hotel, which differed greatly from last year’s three-hour detention at the airport.

On Saturday morning, both groups set out from their respective destinations for Murchison Falls National Park for a celebratory 24 hours at the Paraa Safari Lodge.  This weekend served as an appropriate transition point from the intensive and gritty prison work to the philosophical and relational work with the policy makers, high level implementers, and funding sources for the expansion of plea bargaining to the entire country.

After checking into the spacious, western lodge, we hustled the quarter mile down to the Nile River to climb aboard a double-decker river boat for the three-mile cruise to the base of Murchison Falls.  While this was my third such cruise, the first timers were enthralled to be floating on the same river Moses traveled in a basket in Egypt so long ago.  We saw hundreds of hippos and water buffaloes, scores of rare birds, a handful of crocodiles, and soaked in the grandeur of God’s creation.

Murchison Falls

That evening, the team of presenters gathered over dinner to finalize the agenda for Tuesday’s national conference.  Over the course of the week, our plans had evolved away from the “Sage at the Stage” idea of presenting PowerPoints and gravitated toward a full-blown re-enactment of how the plea bargaining process works from arrest through sentencing, supplemented by robust discussion between each scene.

We awoke early Sunday morning for a game drive throughout the park in four safari vehicles.

Lion Cub in a Tree

While the lions, elephants, giraffes, and antelope were great to see, my favorite encounter was with a dung beetle.

I, The Dung Beetle

This little guy worked slavishly for hours (days?) to shape a perfectly round ball of animal excrement about twenty times his size.  His mate then clamped onto the dung ball and went for a ride.  The male pushes the dung along the road until he finds to a place where the female can lay her eggs inside the dung ball where they can grow, the dung providing the nutrients needed.  As we watched, this male beetle rolled his ball of dung for about three minutes until he got to a place he wanted to go.  He then flipped upside down and pushed with his hind legs as the ball slowly moved up the lip of the road, only to shift slightly and then roll back down.  Again and again he tried, only to be met with the same fate.  Eventually, we left in search of other wildlife.  I choose to believe that all of his effort eventually paid off and he was successful in fully accomplishing his task.

While (thankfully) not a perfect analogy, I identify with this little guy as he pushes and pushes, trying to get to the right place with the right people coming along so that the task can be accomplished.  Too many times I have felt the ball rolling back downhill.  As will be clear in my next post, however, I have no doubt that the ball has rolled up and over the barrier and we are now reaping the fruits of our labors.