Post #5 - Dramaturg Doug Langworthy follows Ruined to Africa

Saturday, Sept. 24

I went on one last field trip today before the big drama festival tomorrow. We went to visit Joyce, another WGEF client, who has a small farm on the outskirts of Gulu. She greets us in her beautifully patterned dress and immediately starts showing us around. The first thing we get to see are her animals: a milk cow and its calf, and a number of pigs she keeps in her “piggery.” All the stalls are clean and the animals seem happy and healthy. She started keeping the animals when she got a loan specifically for agricultural projects. The diversity of crops was stunning: papayas (some of the largest I’ve ever seen), guava, corn, eggplants, peppers, sugar cane (which she grows for her children and grandchildren), mangos, oranges and limes and much more. As we wind our way between the trees and vegetables she tells us how this property has been in her family for years. During the 20 years of brutal civil war, she was extremely fortunate to be able to stay on her land because as luck would have it the military barracks were just a stone’s throw away. Most other families in this part of Uganda were driven from their homes, landing in crowded and dangerous internally displaced persons camps. Those times come up rarely in polite conversation, however one woman we met in the market was missing most of her fingers. 

I was able to interview Winnie, the playwright and director of the play I got to watch in rehearsal a few days back. She is a gracious, stately woman who exudes warmth. She is passionate about the theme of this year’s festival, as for her the difficulty women have in owning property is just one more way that women have been mistreated in her country. She’s adamant that women and men, boys and girls should be treated as equal. “When you have girls, that’s a gift from heaven,” she says. She tells me she wrote her play in three weeks, working with a circle of women she meets with every Saturday. She had some beginning story ideas, and the women helped her fill them out. She tells me that both stories and plays are a part of her culture, which explains why the women feel so comfortable jumping into characters and putting on a play. She started writing plays for the WGEF drama festival, but she and her circle have continued writing plays outside of the festival, inviting local leaders and throwing a party. The plays are having an effect she tells me. A neighbor of hers with a very strict husband has come into her own through joining up with Winnie’s circle and taking part in the plays. 

I was also able to catch up with Grace Akello, whom I had met last December when she traveled to the Denver. At that time Grace told us of her plans to run for local office, and not only did she run but she won the election. There is an official affirmative action policy for women to redress past discrimination. She says that one third of the Council must be women. We talk a bit about the drama competition and she emphasizes the special power drama has to get a message across and even change minds. She expands on the problems women face regarding land ownership: traditionally when a woman gets married she leaves her family to live with the husband and his family. If a woman’s husband dies, the husband’s family is likely to throw the woman off that land, along with her children. It’s a huge problem and she is working to sensitize the community (especially the men) to this issue.

I’m very excited about the drama festival, which is supposed to go from 9:00 to 5:00 tomorrow (although most things here seem to start and end late).