Fearing northern Uganda

Chris Blattman recently blogged about the lack of knowledge Ugandans from the south have about the conditions in the north.

For me, the realization happened when on a bus from the capital to a city in the west two years ago. I got to talking to a Ugandan sitting in front of me. He was just back from Iraq (at last count, there were about 5,000 Ugandans working as security in Iraq) for vacation to visit his family.

When I mentioned I was living in Gulu, his eyes got big and he started shaking his head. "Those people are crazy" he said.

When I asked him why he was so worried about the place, especially since he was working in a war zone, he replied "In Iraq you can get used to the violence, but in Gulu, it can come any time".

Keep in mind, the last LRA attack in the area was over a year previous. but I get this fear from people from the south, even today.