While our family lives in London for the fall semester we hope to keep in touch with family and friends back home by sharing stories and photos of our adventures.  Our arrival was really a walk down memory lane as we saw familiar places.  We are back living in the Pepperdine House at 56 Prince’s Gate in South Kensington, which is a beautiful area near Hyde Park and several museums (Science, Natural History, and Victoria and Albert).

Kids at Pepperdine House in London

After spending a couple of days getting settled, we took a three day trip to Ireland.  Because Jim had learned how to drive on the left side of the road in Uganda, he was able to drive our family in Ireland around the Ring of Kerry.  Saying that it was beautiful, really doesn’t do it justice.  I think it is best expressed in photos.

Jim and kids at Torc Waterfall in Killarney

Joline and girls at Ladies View of Lakes of Killarney

View from the place we stayed in Killarney

Kids at Blarney Castle where they kissed the Blarney Stone

Cliffs of Kerry

Gap of Dunloe

Within a few hours of our return, Jim’s brother Jerry arrived for his first visit to London.  Our kids have enjoyed taking Uncle Jerry to their favorite museums, places to eat, and monuments.  It has been fun for us to see how our kids have grown up and know their way around the city.  They have done a great job planning the daily sightseeing schedule.  Here are some of the things we have seen.

Uncle Jerry and kids at Houses of Parliament

Joline & kids with Uncle Jerry at Tower Bridge

Jim & kids with Uncle Jerry at Trafalgar Square

Uncle Jerry & girls at British Museum

We look forward to many more adventures with our family and with the Law students and Seaver College students this semester.

My last two days in Kampala (Sunday and Monday) were a blur as the teams wrapped up the case briefing for the 161 prisoners they assisted.  The Pepperdine students serving as interns in Uganda still had one week left in town, so they would be putting the final touches on the briefs before heading home.

Terrorism alerts issued by the United States Embassy in early May had focused on houses of worship.  Consequently, Pepperdine insisted that our students be instructed not to attend church while serving their internships.  The irony of a Christian university forbidding its students from attending church was lost on no one.  I hadn’t yet decided whether I would personally feel bound by this restriction, but it didn’t matter because the film crew had decided to delay interviewing me for the documentary until Sunday – their last day in Uganda.

So Sunday was my day in front of the camera.  More specifically, it was my day to the side of the camera.  Like they did with Henry, they filmed me at about a 45-degree angle.  I think they got my good side, though my kids insist that I don’t really have a good side.

Over the course of about three hours, we covered the entire landscape of Pepperdine’s relationship with the judiciary, my relationship with Henry, and the ongoing projects on which I am working.  It got emotional at times, but I held it together more than I expected.  At one point, the director wanted to go over a subject area again, so he apologetically asked me to wipe the tears off my cheeks “for continuity sake” – things I never would have thought about had I not seen a movie made up-close-and-personal.

Speaking of which, I learned some new terminology during the process.  For example, when they start rolling the cameras, they say “we are speeding.”  The hour or so around sunset is called “blue hour” or “magic hour” when the light is at its best.  And when they film each character looking off in the distance or looking at the camera, they call this “the hero shot” or “the vignette.”  Henry’s “hero shot” was him sitting in a chair by a window.

Henry’s Hero Shot

Chief Justice Odoki’s was standing in his full court regalia against a wall of windows overlooking Kampala.

CJ’s Vignette

For my “vignette,” they decided to go with me doing a cartwheel in the hotel’s sixth floor lobby.  My elementary-school gymnastics training is a gift that just keeps on giving . . .  Thankfully, I have no still photos of this – just have to wait for the movie.

Our Ugandan logistical coordinator, Andrew, and I accompanied the film crew to the airport on Sunday afternoon to ensure they got through customs without the major troubles they encountered on the way in.  Things were much easier on the way out, though their flight was cancelled, so it took a couple hours to get them sorted on a later flight on a different airline.  Nothing is easy in Uganda.

That evening, those who went on the safari returned with smiles, photos, and hunger.  So while the students went back to their apartments, the Goodmans, Detweilers, and I dined at my favorite restaurant in town – the Emin Pasha.  I’m not sure I have had a better steak anywhere in the world.

As I looked ahead at the tasks and meetings remaining before I headed home, I figured out I could get them all done on Monday, so I called Delta to see if I could move my flight up one day and surprise my family.  It turned out that there was room on the earlier flight and the change fee roughly equaled the cost of staying one more day in Kampala, so I booked the earlier flight.

Monday was blur of meetings.  Farewell to the Detweilers (staying a few more days in Jinja), breakfast meeting with a good Welsh friend who is doing important work ensuring inter-country adoption in Uganda complies with ethical standards, planning meeting with Andrew about the path forward for plea bargaining in Uganda, farewell to Goodmans who were flying out in the early afternoon via Dubai, meetings with High Court Justices in the Family Division (about expanding our Nootbaar Fellows Program this fall to have the first-ever mediator in the country for family cases), in the Anti-Corruption Division (about the impact of plea bargaining on that court), and in the Criminal Division (about upcoming juvenile and adult plea bargaining sessions).

I also had a chance to spend an hour with Justice K’s family and to renew my relationship with my God Son, Mark Kiryabwire.

With Kirabo and Mark Kiryabwire

And on my way to the airport, I stopped at a restaurant to meet Susan Vincent for a goodbye and a delivery of the gift I ordered two weeks earlier for Herb Nootbaar, the 105 year-old benefactor of the Nootbaar Institute under which Pepperdine’s Global Justice Program operates.

Gift for Herb Nootbaar

The three-leg flight home went according to plan, and my sister provided a huge assist in helping surprise my family as she drove me home from the airport.

I very much appreciate the prayers and encouragement along the way.  I will be providing periodic updates about how the cases we assisted with play out, and about how the documentary production schedule unfolds.

Additionally, please be praying for favor with Henry’s medical school applications.  He should begin hearing back as early as next week, but no later than the end of the month.  Also, the land registration process has begun in earnest as he tries to protect his family’s property from the attempted seizure by opportunistic relatives.

We traveled Tuesday night from Hoima to Masindi under a pin-pricked blanket of darkness.  With no electricity along the road for most of the 45 kilometer stretch, more stars were visible than it was humanly possible to count.  Tango and Daniel navigated the rutted and winding road seemingly effortlessly, dodging pedestrians, chickens, bicyclists, and motorcycles as they endeavored to stay out of each other’s dust wakes.  During the stretches of this narrow road that we were following another car, the dust choked out the view and choked up our lungs.  With no air conditioning in the car, we had to choose between either a dust mist with the windows open or a sauna with them closed.

As I stepped into the lobby of the Masindi Hotel, memories flooded back of the week I first met Henry.  Three Pepperdine Law alums and I flew out in January of 2010 to visit a juvenile detention center called Ihungu Remand Home and spent a week preparing the cases of twenty-one prisoners for trial.  Some of them had been incarcerated for nearly two years just waiting for a lawyer, the evidence against them, and a day in court.  Among them were Henry and his younger brother Joseph.

Wednesday morning, Henry made the trek from Hoima to Masindi and then accompanied us to the office of the Ihungu warden, Mr. William.  During the January, 2010 week at Ihungu, I got to know Mr. William quite well, and have stayed in contact with him as the result of a half-dozen return visits to Ihungu.  We hugged warmly, had a few laughs, and the set off down the rugged road to the remand home.

Mr. William had pre-approved the film crew capturing the bleak and raw existence the prisoners at Ihungu endure each day while they wait for the wheels of justice to turn.  So when we arrived, we all walked the entire grounds together as Henry narrated the scene.  Eventually, the camera came out for another walkthrough.  A portion of the story Henry needed tell involved a situation better avoided by Mr. William.  Over the years, he has maintained plausible deniability about the activities of the matron who lived with the juveniles, and needed to be protected from discussions about it.  So the two of us went for our own walk away from Henry and the cameras.  While we walked, Mr. William explained to me that the J-FASTER system we helped the judiciary established is continuing to work – the juveniles on remand used to languish for two years before they were brought to court.  Now, that time period is “just” a few months.  I was pleased to confirm what I had been told, but still there is room for improvement.

When it came time for Mr. William’s interview, he was eager to tell Ihungu’s story.  He quickly got the hang of waiting until after the question had been fully asked to start, and picked up on speaking in full sentences right away.

Mr. William on the steps of the juvenile sleeping quarters

Following his interview, Mr. William went back to town, but granted the film crew access to the entire place the rest of the day.  They definitely took him up on his offer.  At one point, Henry had a chance to address the current prisoners within the depths of Ihungu’s dark and dank dormitory.  He talked to them about his time as the Katikkiro of Ihungu (Prime Minister of the prison government), about life after Ihungu, and about why they shouldn’t lose hope in their future, or their trust in God.

It was an emotional day for all of us, but most particularly for Henry as he re-lived once again the two years he spent teeter-tottering between hope and despair.

The crew filmed straight through the day and all through “blue hour” (also called “magic hour”) when the light is at its best as the sun is setting.  The closing shots added a bit of metaphorical flare at the expense of Henry’s lungs and John’s (the director of photography) back.  Henry ran up and down the road just outside Ihungu fifteen or twenty times.  John chased him with the special MOVI camera for a while, then hung out the back of Tango’s van the other times.

On the move with the MOVI

(Incidentally, as the sun had started to set, we discovered that Tango’s van wouldn’t start.  After an hour of Daniel (court driver) fiddling with the motor, it finally got going.  Just in case, Tango left it running during dinner and while he refueled it for the journey home).

We finally set off for Kampala at 9:30 and stumbled into the hotel back in Kampala just after midnight.

Throughout the day, I checked in every couple hours with Andrew, Susan, and Dana who were out at the prison complex with the students and attorneys.  As the initial interviews with the inmates at Luzira Maximum wrapped up, those at Murchison Bay and Luzira Women’s prisons ramped up.  By late Wednesday afternoon, the eight groups of American and Ugandan lawyers and law students had completed the interviews at all three prisons.  In all, they totaled approximately 150 – about 50 prisoners more than we had even allowed ourselves to hope we could help.

But now comes the really hard work.  Following the interviews each evening, the Pepperdine students and Pepperdine lawyers convert their notes into a narrative report for each prisoner, which will be provided to the Ugandan lawyer who will represent the prisoner in plea negotiations with the prosecution over the next few weeks.  That work was ongoing into the evening and will continue in earnest for the next several days.

Like Tuesday, a few of our students spent much of the day at the prosecutor’s office reviewing and scanning police reports and other aspect of the prosecutors’ files to supplement the interviews.  Thank you, Apple, for the app that eliminates the need for a copy machine and paper that exists in Uganda in short supply.

As we looked ahead to Thursday, we weren’t sure how things would develop as we waited for additional files to be located and brought the prosecution’s headquarters.   But it wouldn’t be Uganda without uncertainty.

A Little Help

A mesmerized whisper of “wow” involuntarily escaped the lips of most of our team who ascended the hill on Monday to “Luzira Upper,” Uganda’s Maximum Security Prison, home to 3247 inmates. 

The first to arrive were the Revolution film team of Andy (director), Michelle (producer), John (cinematographer), and Tyson (camera assist/editor), and me.  Michelle and Andy had spent a relaxed and friendly afternoon and evening the day before with the Officer–in-Charge (OC) of Luzira, so he was warm and friendly and welcoming.  It only took us twenty minutes to get through security as we skipped two of the steps due a call from the OC to the guards.

The OC welcomed us into his office, which had been modified from the day before to add another eight to ten chairs, thus increasing its seating capacity to about eighteen.  A few minutes of small talk and family-photo-sharing later, he assigned a guard named Ogwang to accompany us on a location scouting tour of the prison.  At this point, we had no cameras.  After being let through the final two layers of security, we were led into the main rectangular courtyard large enough to hold a near-regulation soccer field.

Adjectives and adverbs crowd into my throat, but none can precisely fit the shape of my open mouth to describe what we saw.  A few that are competing for prominence are “raw,” “disturbing,” “unsettling,” and “hopeless.”  Yet at the same time, it is impossible to shake the notion of sameness – when we look into the eyes of these abjectly poor and visibly needy prisoners, whether guilty or not, we can’t help but see ourselves reflected in them in big and small ways.  I don’t want to too sappy, but the film crew has traveled the world and has been knee and neck deep in some of the most challenging conditions in developing countries, and they were quite moved.

We visited the kitchen, the place where prisoners are admitted, and one of the cell blocks where they sleep.  A room the size of a four-car garage housed almost 250 from lock up at 4:00 p.m. until 5:00 a.m. the next morning.  Many had mats resembling carpet squares, while others just head to toe and shoulder to shoulder space.

If each video image John and Andy later captured is worth a one Uganda shilling, we’ll all be shillionaires when the film is complete.

While we walked, a prisoner carrying a smooth cylindrical stick (two feet long, one inch thick) walked about three feet to the side of Michelle.  I didn’t notice right away, but she pointed it out to me when our walk was concluding.  She was understandably quite concerned about what appeared to be an armed stalker.  In an effort to reassure her, I explained that he was probably protecting her from the other inmates, but was not entirely sure this was true.  Later in the day, I chatted with this friendly fellow with “RP” emblazoned upon his yellow uniform.

“What does ‘RP’ stand for?” I asked.

“Regimental Police,” he said proudly.

“Ah, you are a police officer among the prisoners?”

“Yes, and I provide security.”

“Oh, so that is why you have the stick?”

“This?  No, it is ceremonial.”

It then hit me that I have seen police parades in Uganda and the guy at the front is always carrying one of these.  It was touching and reassuring that the prisoners took it upon themselves to provide security to Michelle and the rest of the team.

We cut the tour short so the crew could be in position when the students and lawyers arrived.  They had a much more time-intensive experience with security than did we. 

Security at Luzira Upper consists of seven layers.  It is situated on a larger compound of land that actually houses three prisons – Luzira Upper, Murchison Bay, and Luzira Women’s – the latter two of which are medium security.  The first layer of security is an outer vehicle gate to the entire compound where the students exited and were searched.  After reentering their vehicles (a mini-bus and a mini-van), they proceeded uphill for a quarter mile to a guard shack where security personnel stopped the car to question the drivers, and then directed them to a parking lot beyond the outer gates of Luzira.  About thirty yards from the parking lot, they passed on foot through a locked, cut-out prison-bar doorway in a large metal gate that can be opened for vehicles, and then proceeded toward the metal detector and pat-down search area.  The film crew got in among the crowd of nearly fifty Ugandan lawyers, Ugandan law students, American lawyers, and American law students.

The ID-check, pat-down, and metal detector drill took nearly thirty minutes.  Finally, we all marched up to the outer walls of the prison and ducked through a heavily guarded and fortified metal doorway into a fifty by thirty foot holding area.  While we didn’t go directly into the courtyard with the inmates then, if we had, we would have proceeded to a doorway quite similar to the one we had just passed through, but only after the door behind us was securely locked.  The doorway in front of us led into a fifteen by fifteen foot cyclone-fence enclosed box protruding slightly into the courtyard.  The gate behind is locked and secured before we are finally let into the courtyard through another metal doorway manned by a couple guards.

But rather than proceeding directly into the courtyard, we were ushered into the warden’s office where the eighteen chairs mocked the fifty people entering.  Another ten chairs were squeezed in, but it was still standing room only as the warden welcomed us to Luzira.  The crowd shielded the rickety fan and blocked the open windows so as he spoke, I sweated.  A lot.  Beads were racing each other from my shoulder blades to my beltline.  Another set were dive-bombing the northern edge of my socks from the southern border of my undies.  All the while, a piercing “beep, beep, beep” was emanating from the back-up power source to the OC’s computer warning him the prison’s power had once again failed.

Andrew and I stood next to OC as he talked.  Just over the OC’s shoulder was a poster that has become the theme of this trip, at least for me.  It read:

“A little help is better than a lot of sympathy.”

The more I reflected on it, the deeper it burrowed into me.  I spent the first forty-two years of my life quite proud of my sizeable sympathy.  Not anymore.

When the warden finished his overview of the state of the Luzira prison, he led us into a classroom where seventy inmates were seated, quietly waiting for their opportunity to move their cases toward a just resolution.  Andrew opened with a background and overview of the process, and I followed with greetings, introductions, and more specifics.  Ten minutes later, eight teams were interviewing individual inmates.  After months of planning, the Luzira Project was finally in full swing.

From there, Andrew and I headed to the medium security Murchison Bay prison within the same compound.  We sensitized them to the project, after which the OC of that facility began the process of registering those on remand who would like to participate in the plea bargaining process.  By the end of the day, fifty had opted in.

While Andrew and I were at Murchison, the film crew broke into two groups.  Andy stayed with the groups and filmed B-roll and short snippet interviews with students about the cases and their impressions.  Craig Detweiler, Pepperdine film professor who was instrumental in bringing this film project from the idea phase to reality, has been providing technical and advisory assistance to the team.  He stayed with Andy and operated the sound boom.  John, Tyson, and Michelle spent two hours capturing life inside Luzira.  The inside access they were given was unprecedented and the footage they captured was nothing short of amazing.  I don’t have still pictures of what they filmed inside the depths of the prison, but here are a handful from places where the interviews were taking place.

Late in the day, just before we left, one of the prisoners took me for a walk to talk about his case.  He wasn’t part of the group participating in the program (because he is claiming actual innocence on a charge of human trafficking), but we had met last Thursday during my prior visit.  As we walked, he explained to me that he has a PhD in Economics and was a professor at three different universities in England before moving back to Uganda in 2011 to serve as a consultant to the Ministry of Finance.  His British accent, perfect teeth, and intellectual demeanor made his background story perfectly credible.  After a few minutes, Andy appeared with a camera to my right.  I asked my new friend (Dr. Maxwell, which is what the guards call him also) if it was OK for him to be filmed, and he readily agreed.  As Andy moved around us capturing our conversation (without sound), I realized in a panic that Andy wasn’t accompanied by a guard.  More sphincter clenching.  I wasn’t at all worried about my safety, but was concerned about Andy’s and that of his camera.  Fortunately, there haven’t been even any hints of physical danger for us.  In fact, we have noticed a small pack of inmates standing guard and providing us internal protection.

After a great lunch outside the prison gates, it was time for the inmates’ lockup.  Everyone except the film crew headed back the hotel for a team meeting.  The crew interviewed the warden and got a few more shots before returning to the hotel.  On the way home, their van broke down, providing them with another picture of the difficulties of life in Uganda.

By bedtime, everyone was tired, but excited.  Tuesday should be another interesting day.