
Dear All,
I hope that this finds you doing well!
Welcome to my 2024 “Fieldwork in Uganda” blog. A few years ago I kept a blog while doing research here in northwest Uganda, and I found it was a really valuable way to share what I am up to as well as to record these experiences and personally process my research as it is ongoing. Please feel free to read as you are able and interested. I’m always eager for feedback, reactions, and just generally to stay in touch.
A little context before I jump in: I am in the Imvepi refugee settlement for the next 8 1/2 months to study tree use and access to trees and forest products among refugees and nearby hosts. Refugees in this settlement are mostly from South Sudan, and most have been here since 2017-2018, although refugees continue to arrive given ongoing and protracted civil conflict in South Sudan. Refugees and hosts rely heavily on firewood to cook meals, but also cut trees to produce charcoal as a livelihood opportunity for sale in urban areas of Uganda. With more than 65,000 refugees currently displaced in Imvepi (and more than 1.5 million refugees in Uganda as a whole), there is concern about local deforestation and environmental implications such as strong winds, hotter and drier conditions, and loss of soil moisture and fertility. Deforestation reduces refugee and host access to life-sustaining medicine, food, and fiber products from trees. And insufficient natural resources is a primary source of conflict between these groups. This is the general problem I am studying.
I arrived to Uganda on February 20th, straight out of finishing (and passing😊) my PhD candidacy exams. In anticipation of not returning to the U.S. for nine months, I brought two very heavy suitcases with all kinds of personal and research supplies. I have a wonderful landing pad in Uganda’s capital city, Kampala, at the home of friends Liz and Bernard. In Kampala, I spent a few days recuperating and gathering some supplies to bring with me to Imvepi. By good fortune, I got to meet up with a longtime friend Fivi Akullu who happened to be in Kampala to defend her master’s thesis. Fivi, now commandant of the Lamwo refugee settlement, was an assistant commandant in Imvepi when I first came in 2022. She let me crash in her small room for 3+ months and we deeply bonded through that experience, as well as an incredible trip to her rural home village outside Kitgum to meet her now deceased grandmother.

Given all of my luggage, I hired a private car to drive me 10 hours north to the city of Arua, which is about 100 km outside of Imvepi. The scenery to Arua is lovely (although the first two hours are spent just getting out of Kampala traffic). The roads are brutally bumpy once you get further north. In Arua, I spent a few nights at a hotel in order to collect all of the things needed in Imvepi: buckets, a broom, propane cookstove, mosquito net, pots and dishes, shelving, pillows, etc. The hotel staff were constantly making fun of the quantity of things I had amassed in my room (especially the set of dumbbells I brought from Kampala). I also had to take care of some research logistics: printing 240 consent forms for research participants, getting my phone loaded with sufficient cellular data, and getting lots of small bills from the bank for compensating research participants

On a Friday evening, a car from the Ugandan Office of the Prime Minister, who run the Imvepi settlement, came to fetch me, and it was lovely because the current assistant settlement commandant Martin was in the car to jovially greet me, and I felt welcomed and at home before even getting to Imvepi. The road to Imvepi is laden with potholes and only land rovers and trucks make the trip bearable. We had animated conversation for the whole bumpy 1.5 hours to Imvepi, where I was taken with all of my stuff directly to the housing for the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Imvepi’s basecamp. I have stayed previously with IRC in their rows of women’s housing which sit opposite from the men’s housing. When I arrived, two dear friends Grace and Zamu amazingly were already constructing my bedframe and cleaning my room. It was a very happy reunion. I spent the rest of the weekend getting my room organized and visiting with friends all over the settlement. This is my third stay in Imvepi, and I find that deep connections and friendships one of the benefits of returning to the same study site over and over.
By Monday morning, I was meeting with research assistants and we had my research program up and running by mid-week. More on that to come. In the meantime, stay well!
Thank you so much for sharing
This experience reminds me of my highschool reporting experiences. The shopping, broom, bucket, mattress etc
Btw how much of the supplies are remaining 😂😂??
How was your window seat experience on a bumpy road? Lastly have you started saving for your land Rover (😂😂)
So glad you are settling in well and having a good start to your research project!
Love, Mom and Dad
Thank you so much for the uodates! What a lot to organize and so glad you had help from friends.