prison and paddles

living and learning as always here in Uganda. Despite the fact that it is supposed to be the dry season, the wet season seems to be asserting itself with a vengenance, leading to cooler weather, muddy roads and a general feeling of lethargy. Jessie heads back to the US for a few weeks today to deal with some personal stuff, leaving Morgan and I in charge until she and Annie return on the 3rd of February. Pressure is on. Nah- just kidding. its a lot to do, and the sheer organizational mess of starting an organization like soft power blows my mind. hoops to jump through doesnt begin to fully describe it.
Ive had a lot of fun the past few days dealing with a sticky situation here at bugajali. About 10 days ago, a large group of us went out to explore some of the back channels on the river, all on the section that will soon be lost with the damning of the nile. While scouting one of the rapids (blade runner) three paddles, mine, morgans, and karls were stolen. Very unlucky. and rather stupid on the part of the thief, seeing as how we are out in the middle of a river. Clearly going to notice that the paddles went missing, for we need them to get back down the rapids. anyways. It turns out that Karl recognizes one of the kids from when we had jumped out of the boat, who immediatley starts running upon seeing karl. Karl ends up grabing the kid, who confesses to stealing the paddles, but claims to have given them to someone else. This all results in an epic day during which Karl and Anton (swedish video boater working at NRE) march this kid all around the village in an attempt to find the paddles. They are unsucessful, and while we know who has the paddles, noone seems to know where he is, or where he put the paddles. All in all, a rather comic situation, but at the time, a huge pain to have to deal with.
After a week of no results, and no paddles, I decided to take matters a little more into my own hands. While we were unable to find Ronald, the supposed paddle thief, i knew where to find his brother Mambia, who used to work at bugajali. With the help of Muhammed, a fabulous boda driver and more, as well as the the LC1 defense of Mambias village, we were able to arrest Mambia. After the arrest of Mambia, i drove down at night with Muhammed to the Prison in Naminya where i got to interrogate Mambia on his role in the disapearance of the paddles, his relationship to his brother, and his knowledge on the wherabouts of the paddles. Okay. i confess. i may have been watching too much 24 and wanted to be Jack Bauer. Long story short, Mambia denied knowing anything, at which point i said he could go to prision until either his brother or the paddles returned. So he caved, and claimed to know where the paddles were. After a night in prision, mambia took us to the paddles the next morning. So.. after some shilling spending, and some boda adventures, we finally got all three paddles back in perfect condition.
The whole experiance was really eye opening, and i will say that i recieved a lot of support int he way the situation was handeled from both mzungu and locals. Theft has become a big problem in bugajali, in part a result of the increasing amount of tourism and tourists in the area. The temptation to steal is in the discrepency between the "wealth" of the tourists and the poverty of the area, as well as in the ease of acess to the tourists things. we all use the same river. the theft of things like paddles, and other boating gear has been especially popular, for people steal the gear, wait for that person to leave, then attempt to sell it to the next tourist passing through. the logic behind this is that because of limited time, the tourists dont follow up on the theft, and people get away with a lot. It was good that i was able to follow through, and provide some consequences for the theft: jail time, as well as a 500,000ush bond to secure the release of the thief from jail- super expensive for locals, as well as anyone else. Its important to set a precendent i suppose, but i still feel rather unsettled about the whole situation. I sent someone to prison. it did bring about the desired results, however, it makes me uneasy. Theft is a problem that is way bigger than one story, and the disjoint between the lives of the locals and mzungus is present in every situation. It is definatley one hugley negative consequence to the increase in tourism to this area. more musings on theft and the local situation to folllow, ive got to run to go and extend my visa.