My apologies for not updating this earlier, but the internet has been down since the bombings and I am currently blogging from an internet cafe in a local mall.
The bombs that hit Kampala were nowhere near where I was on Sunday. I had been to one of the bombing locations previously and am aware of the other, but neither are places that I frequent. Although the loss of 70+ lives and the feeling that the city and its people have been violated is disheartening and obviously a tragedy, I do not feel any less safe than I have in the fantastic two months that I have already lived here. This by no means does not mean that I will not be increasingly vigilant and careful about my safety, but I do want to express that Kampala is not, by any means, an unsafe place.
Because of my lack of internet access, it is highly unlikely that I will be able to update this blog again before I get back to America in a week and a half. I'll post more about my travels then.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Post Three
Happy Fathers Day, particularly to my own father, who probably still thinks I'm insane for spending a summer in Uganda. Pops, crack open a beer over the BBQ pit today while you watch the road race in Sonoma. Jeff's due for a win, isn't he?
Travel:
We haven't traveled much as of late because the majority of us are working on our Law Review Case Notes, or a 3000 word essay that usually includes nearly 100 footnotes that also make up about 3000 words. Much like the rest of law school, it's a giant pain in the ass, particularly when I'd rather sit at the Jingle Bell Bar and watch the World Cup.
However, three weekends ago I went to the Ssese Islands, a group of islands in the Northwest corner of Lake Victoria, the second largest freshwater lake in the world. There's not much to do on the Island, but that was the whole point of going. I was dying to get away from the noise, smells, and general crowded nature of Kampala for a weekend, and the Ssese Islands are a perfect weekend away for silence and calm.
As an aside, to illustrate just how crowded Kampala is, here are three interesting comparisons:
Kampala covers the same amount of square mileage - 70 square miles - as Temple, my hometown of just over 50,000 people. This is also about 1/10 of Albemarle County's 726 square miles. And for my California friends, Malibu covers 100 square miles, 42% more space than Kampala. Imagine stuffing 1.4 million people into all of Temple, 1/10th of Albemarle County, and 70% of Malibu and you'll get some sense of how crowded it is here and why I chose to get away for a weekend.
To get to the island, we had to hire a driver to take us to Entebbe, an hour's ride away, and then hop on the ferry from Entebbe to the island. For $12, I rode "first class" in a very, very overcrowded ferry for three and a half hours. The view on the ride was pretty, but the scenery didn't change much as ferrys don't move very quickly. We did, however, see monkeys as soon as we got on the island, and somewhere on the ferry ride I crossed the Equator into the Southern Hemisphere for the first time in my life.
When we got to the island, two other people joined us on the bus that took us to the hotel - an incredibly intimidating British man covered head to toe in tattoos and his Ugandan girlfriend. They explained that they came to the island fairly regularly and that my group would be quite happy with the accommodations. Unfortunately, the resort had other ideas - the bus took us to a set of rooms guarded by a not so friendly looking ostrich. Despite selling us their premium rooms, they decided to put us up in a not particularly appealing room on the lakeside next to an outdoors club that blasted music until midnight. Fortunately, the Brit called the guy that sold us the room and threatened to beat him senseless when we got back to Kampala if the resort didn't give us a free night in the rooms we were promised, so after a not so comfortable night in the subpar rooms, we got a free stay in the nicer hotel.
On the second day on the Island, we decided to branch out a bit and walk around the island. It is important to understand that this island is in the middle of a lake in the middle of Africa with essentially no one on it. I was joking about just how screwed we would be if something happened as we walked towards 'town', if you could call it that, when we came upon two teenage boys. As I've mentioned previously, most of the people we have seen here are very, very friendly. This was not the case with these two boys, who asked our names and where we were from before displaying to us their foot and a half long rusted machete. We quickly did a 180 and quickly walked back towards our hotel, presumably much to the delight of the two boys that had scared us muzungus senseless.
After this brief scare, we decided it would be best not to leave the room, which thanks to a couple of boxes of wine and the beautiful views of tropical Lake Victoria, wasn't so bad. The food we were given was phenomenal - whatever fish they catch out of that lake provided for the best white meat I've had in my entire life.
We got a quality scare on the ferry ride home as well. While I was trying to nap on the ride home, the armed security guard for the ferry sat down next to me, reached into his pocket, gave me a sign not to say anything, and took a giant swig out of a bottle of vodka. Eyes bloodshot, he looked up at me, reached for his nose, and asked me if I had any cocaine. I told him that I did not and then sat anxiously as the only armed individual on the entire boat finished off his bottle of vodka while sitting oddly close to my side. He said he was Somalian, so I'm going to operate under the assumption that he is a pirate waiting for the appropriate amount of cocaine to get hopped up enough to get the gall to take over the ship soon.
Work:
We met Justice K two weeks ago and he gave us a fairly daunting project. Ugandan's Commercial Court does not have many of their cases online and available for research, so he wants us to fix that for them. Basically, we're taking every reported case that the Court has ever seen, reformatting it, making it search friendly by categorizing each case, databasing it, and putting it on CD and hopefully eventually online. In other words, we're attempting to make a very, very simple version of WestLaw or Lexis Nexis. This has occupied nearly all of our time while at work.
Interesting Occurrences:
- I felt my first earthquake last week, a 5.0 that hit not too far away in Lake Victoria. When it hit, I wasn't sure if it was an earthquake or if our shoddy building that's in the middle of construction was finally giving way.
- As we've grown increasingly comfortable with our surroundings, we've been more apt to explore the city. This has taken me to the YMCA to see a women's basketball game and to shoot around with a few of the guys in the men's league (consensus there was that LeBron should stay in Cleveland because that's where his family and friends live), to a bar with about 300 Ugandans and 4 Americans to watch the World Cup opener, and to three different nightclubs, among other places. Almost every single time I've gone out, Ugandans flock to us to become our friends. Inevitably, phone numbers are shared, and inevitably they end up calling me over and over and over again at all hours of the day and night. I had no idea why until about a week later.
Last Sunday, two of us decided to go clubbing after the World Cup games were over. Our strategy was simple - if we heard a club playing Wavin Flag, the incredibly catchy World Cup theme song, we'd go into that particular club. This strategy led us into a club that had three to four hundred people in it, each of them watching some sort of rap battle on a big stage in the middle of the club. The bouncer parted the sea of Ugandans to bring the two of us, the only white people in the club, front and center of the stage. I sure wish I got that kind of treatment in Hollywood.
While we were there we met a man named Elly, who explained to me that he knew about Fort Hood because he worked at Camp Victory near the Baghdad Airport. We exchanged phone numbers and met up to watch the US-Slovenia soccer game on Friday night. He came to dinner with the rest of us, ordered whatever it was that I ordered, and enjoyed a few drinks with us. I thought nothing of it until the bill came around and I finally figured out why us Americans are so popular. He had no money to contribute to dinner, so I had the courtesy of paying for his meal. From now on I'll know that while it's fantastic to share conversation with the many new friends we have met here, meeting them for dinner isn't necessarily such a good idea financially. As another Pepperdine law student put it, when someone here asks for your phone number, they're essentially asking you on a date for which they expect you to pay. Sorry, Ugandan friends - I'm taken.
- The biggest frustration with being here is being treated like a walking dollar sign. Everywhere you go, people are asking for money. It is quite the disheartening experience, too. About a quarter mile from our house is a food court where we often go eat. About 100 yards before the entrance are a group of 4-6 young Ugandan children who sprint towards us when we walk that direction, yelling "Hello! Hello! Hello!" with their hands out and follow us until we get into the food court. Each time, it is the same desperately poor yet unbelievably cute children begging us for money, walking all of six inches from our side. Although I very much want to give them the equivalent of fifty cents or a dollar, if you do so more and more children will appear out of seemingly nowhere expecting money of their own. I did manage to slip the equivalent of a dollar to a young girl the other day, but as soon as I did a bota driver took the money from her and she came chasing right back after me asking for more. The guilt that follows passing by a group of children begging for money is not a fun emotion.
- When I'm not being asked for money or for my phone number, those that I talk to want to talk about America - what I do there, what I think about our sports (particularly basketball), and where they would like to visit if they ever came to the United States. I'm starting to believe that a higher percentage of Ugandans believe in American exceptionalism than do Americans ourselves.
- I thought I was pissed at Jim Joyce for ruining Galarraga's perfect game a few weeks ago, but that pales in comparison to my incredible frustration at the end of the US-Slovenia game. If we fail to move on to the Round of 16, I'm hiking up to Mali and invading that referee's country singlehandedly.
I'll try to blog more frequently after my Case Note is turned in on Thursday. I'm hoping to head to Rwanda next weekend and am planning on going on a Safari to Murchison Falls over the weekend of the 4th of July, so I'll have more interesting things to blog about in the next few weeks.
Travel:
We haven't traveled much as of late because the majority of us are working on our Law Review Case Notes, or a 3000 word essay that usually includes nearly 100 footnotes that also make up about 3000 words. Much like the rest of law school, it's a giant pain in the ass, particularly when I'd rather sit at the Jingle Bell Bar and watch the World Cup.
However, three weekends ago I went to the Ssese Islands, a group of islands in the Northwest corner of Lake Victoria, the second largest freshwater lake in the world. There's not much to do on the Island, but that was the whole point of going. I was dying to get away from the noise, smells, and general crowded nature of Kampala for a weekend, and the Ssese Islands are a perfect weekend away for silence and calm.
As an aside, to illustrate just how crowded Kampala is, here are three interesting comparisons:
Kampala covers the same amount of square mileage - 70 square miles - as Temple, my hometown of just over 50,000 people. This is also about 1/10 of Albemarle County's 726 square miles. And for my California friends, Malibu covers 100 square miles, 42% more space than Kampala. Imagine stuffing 1.4 million people into all of Temple, 1/10th of Albemarle County, and 70% of Malibu and you'll get some sense of how crowded it is here and why I chose to get away for a weekend.
To get to the island, we had to hire a driver to take us to Entebbe, an hour's ride away, and then hop on the ferry from Entebbe to the island. For $12, I rode "first class" in a very, very overcrowded ferry for three and a half hours. The view on the ride was pretty, but the scenery didn't change much as ferrys don't move very quickly. We did, however, see monkeys as soon as we got on the island, and somewhere on the ferry ride I crossed the Equator into the Southern Hemisphere for the first time in my life.
When we got to the island, two other people joined us on the bus that took us to the hotel - an incredibly intimidating British man covered head to toe in tattoos and his Ugandan girlfriend. They explained that they came to the island fairly regularly and that my group would be quite happy with the accommodations. Unfortunately, the resort had other ideas - the bus took us to a set of rooms guarded by a not so friendly looking ostrich. Despite selling us their premium rooms, they decided to put us up in a not particularly appealing room on the lakeside next to an outdoors club that blasted music until midnight. Fortunately, the Brit called the guy that sold us the room and threatened to beat him senseless when we got back to Kampala if the resort didn't give us a free night in the rooms we were promised, so after a not so comfortable night in the subpar rooms, we got a free stay in the nicer hotel.
On the second day on the Island, we decided to branch out a bit and walk around the island. It is important to understand that this island is in the middle of a lake in the middle of Africa with essentially no one on it. I was joking about just how screwed we would be if something happened as we walked towards 'town', if you could call it that, when we came upon two teenage boys. As I've mentioned previously, most of the people we have seen here are very, very friendly. This was not the case with these two boys, who asked our names and where we were from before displaying to us their foot and a half long rusted machete. We quickly did a 180 and quickly walked back towards our hotel, presumably much to the delight of the two boys that had scared us muzungus senseless.
After this brief scare, we decided it would be best not to leave the room, which thanks to a couple of boxes of wine and the beautiful views of tropical Lake Victoria, wasn't so bad. The food we were given was phenomenal - whatever fish they catch out of that lake provided for the best white meat I've had in my entire life.
We got a quality scare on the ferry ride home as well. While I was trying to nap on the ride home, the armed security guard for the ferry sat down next to me, reached into his pocket, gave me a sign not to say anything, and took a giant swig out of a bottle of vodka. Eyes bloodshot, he looked up at me, reached for his nose, and asked me if I had any cocaine. I told him that I did not and then sat anxiously as the only armed individual on the entire boat finished off his bottle of vodka while sitting oddly close to my side. He said he was Somalian, so I'm going to operate under the assumption that he is a pirate waiting for the appropriate amount of cocaine to get hopped up enough to get the gall to take over the ship soon.
Work:
We met Justice K two weeks ago and he gave us a fairly daunting project. Ugandan's Commercial Court does not have many of their cases online and available for research, so he wants us to fix that for them. Basically, we're taking every reported case that the Court has ever seen, reformatting it, making it search friendly by categorizing each case, databasing it, and putting it on CD and hopefully eventually online. In other words, we're attempting to make a very, very simple version of WestLaw or Lexis Nexis. This has occupied nearly all of our time while at work.
Interesting Occurrences:
- I felt my first earthquake last week, a 5.0 that hit not too far away in Lake Victoria. When it hit, I wasn't sure if it was an earthquake or if our shoddy building that's in the middle of construction was finally giving way.
- As we've grown increasingly comfortable with our surroundings, we've been more apt to explore the city. This has taken me to the YMCA to see a women's basketball game and to shoot around with a few of the guys in the men's league (consensus there was that LeBron should stay in Cleveland because that's where his family and friends live), to a bar with about 300 Ugandans and 4 Americans to watch the World Cup opener, and to three different nightclubs, among other places. Almost every single time I've gone out, Ugandans flock to us to become our friends. Inevitably, phone numbers are shared, and inevitably they end up calling me over and over and over again at all hours of the day and night. I had no idea why until about a week later.
Last Sunday, two of us decided to go clubbing after the World Cup games were over. Our strategy was simple - if we heard a club playing Wavin Flag, the incredibly catchy World Cup theme song, we'd go into that particular club. This strategy led us into a club that had three to four hundred people in it, each of them watching some sort of rap battle on a big stage in the middle of the club. The bouncer parted the sea of Ugandans to bring the two of us, the only white people in the club, front and center of the stage. I sure wish I got that kind of treatment in Hollywood.
While we were there we met a man named Elly, who explained to me that he knew about Fort Hood because he worked at Camp Victory near the Baghdad Airport. We exchanged phone numbers and met up to watch the US-Slovenia soccer game on Friday night. He came to dinner with the rest of us, ordered whatever it was that I ordered, and enjoyed a few drinks with us. I thought nothing of it until the bill came around and I finally figured out why us Americans are so popular. He had no money to contribute to dinner, so I had the courtesy of paying for his meal. From now on I'll know that while it's fantastic to share conversation with the many new friends we have met here, meeting them for dinner isn't necessarily such a good idea financially. As another Pepperdine law student put it, when someone here asks for your phone number, they're essentially asking you on a date for which they expect you to pay. Sorry, Ugandan friends - I'm taken.
- The biggest frustration with being here is being treated like a walking dollar sign. Everywhere you go, people are asking for money. It is quite the disheartening experience, too. About a quarter mile from our house is a food court where we often go eat. About 100 yards before the entrance are a group of 4-6 young Ugandan children who sprint towards us when we walk that direction, yelling "Hello! Hello! Hello!" with their hands out and follow us until we get into the food court. Each time, it is the same desperately poor yet unbelievably cute children begging us for money, walking all of six inches from our side. Although I very much want to give them the equivalent of fifty cents or a dollar, if you do so more and more children will appear out of seemingly nowhere expecting money of their own. I did manage to slip the equivalent of a dollar to a young girl the other day, but as soon as I did a bota driver took the money from her and she came chasing right back after me asking for more. The guilt that follows passing by a group of children begging for money is not a fun emotion.
- When I'm not being asked for money or for my phone number, those that I talk to want to talk about America - what I do there, what I think about our sports (particularly basketball), and where they would like to visit if they ever came to the United States. I'm starting to believe that a higher percentage of Ugandans believe in American exceptionalism than do Americans ourselves.
- I thought I was pissed at Jim Joyce for ruining Galarraga's perfect game a few weeks ago, but that pales in comparison to my incredible frustration at the end of the US-Slovenia game. If we fail to move on to the Round of 16, I'm hiking up to Mali and invading that referee's country singlehandedly.
I'll try to blog more frequently after my Case Note is turned in on Thursday. I'm hoping to head to Rwanda next weekend and am planning on going on a Safari to Murchison Falls over the weekend of the 4th of July, so I'll have more interesting things to blog about in the next few weeks.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Work Begins
To begin, my apologies for the delay in blogging for a second time.
I'll break this blog down into three pieces. The first will discuss our work thus far, the second will discuss our weekend excursion to Jinja to raft the Nile, and the last will briefly discuss other random observations I've made in the last 10 days or so.
Work:
The 10 Pepperdine students that are working in Kampala for the summer have collectively worked on quite a variety of issues thus far. Here's a summary:
Stevie and Sean got to sit in on a meeting with their judges and the President of the ICC last week. With Ryan's help, they've both written memos for their respective justice's on the ICC Conference, which is currently in session here in Kampala.
Meghan and David are writing a memo on the administration of juvenile justice in Uganda. All of us visited the remand home here in Kampala. More on that later.
Jen and Peter are both writing judgments and opinions at the Court of Appeal and are apparently swamped with work on a wide variety of issues.
Michael and Ryan are helping review the Ugandan Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to help make some of the timing mechanisms more efficient. Ryan met his judge at the Supreme Court late last week and I'm not entirely sure what all he's worked on for the Court since then. Michael has also sat in on some mediations here at the Commercial Court.
Lisa and I are working on a case file for our judge, Justice Kiryabwire, in regards to a pretty nasty property dispute. We haven't met Justice K yet because he's in Paris, so we've been slogging through a huge case file of documents, transcripts, and hand-written notes trying to determine factually what happened in our case. Once that's all knocked out, we'll turn to determining what existing Ugandan law says on each issue of the case. Uganda has a website that purports to search through opinions and cases in country, but its search function is not very useful. More often than not, I end up on this site searching year to year, month to month, case by case, using Ctrl + F to determine if a particular term or terms are in the document. It makes research pretty slow.
More interestingly, Michael, Lisa, and I spent last Thursday and this Monday taking a certification class on Mediation here in the Commercial Court with 60 Ugandan law clerks. The topic and information learned was likely no different than that covered in any American law school - mediation, negotiation, arbitration, etc. - but the obvious difference was that we were three white American faces in a sea of Ugandans. Needless to say, the cultural interactions were incredibly interesting.
First, Ugandans speak very softly and with an aforementioned accent, making them fairly difficult to understand. Even when speaking in front of a crowded, noisy room of 65, they speak very softly, making them hard to understand.
Second, they often look to Muzungus for our opinion and assume that we'll take leadership whenever leadership is needed. We broke into small groups of 15 on two or three occasions for discussions or role play activities and each time I tried to limit the amount that I participated. I did so because I hoped to hear more of their opinions on whatever issue came up and because I didn't want to come across as an imposing American while on their soil. During the first group activity we chose a spokesperson who would later report back to the large group of 60. I was not chosen as the spokesperson and in fact said very, very little while our group met, yet once we got back with the larger group of 60 and the facilitator asked who the spokesperson for our group was, our entire group pointed to me. Shocked, I stood up, gave an unprepared summary of what our group discussed, and sat back down. This is also an example of just how deferential the people I've met here seem to be. The Ugandans that I have met are so polite and deferential that it becomes inefficient and frustrating because everyone seems to sit waiting for someone else to say or do something. For example, to start the mediation clinic, the facilitator asked the group to propose ground rules under which we would operate. It took no fewer than five minutes for the first rule to be proposed because all 65 of us were staring at each other waiting for someone else to speak up.
Third, and related, the formality in which everyone conducts their day to day business is striking. Every time a speaker came into speak to the group, they would politely, and very slowly, greet every "distinguished" guest in the room and speak to their character in some way.
Details and logical steps are never left out of conversation, either. The analogy I've come up with is as follows - if I was to describe to someone how to drive from my house to Pepperdine, I'd tell them to take a left from Marine to Lincoln, a left off of Lincoln onto PCH, and go up PCH about 13 miles until they saw Pepperdine on their right. A Ugandan would probably explain that you first have to walk out of the front door of the house, turn around, lock the door, walk to the car, open the car door, start the car by putting the key in the ignition and turning, put the car in reverse, back up, etc. They speak in such a formulaic, step by step way in nearly every single interaction in which I have been involved and at times it has been frustrating because it seems so unnecessary. That's the nature of their culture, though, so I'll have to get used to it.
We also did two direct mediation talks in which I worked with three or four Ugandan clerks to come to an agreement over a particular fact pattern that we read. Interestingly, in one instance we role played as if we were lawyers for Tiger and Elin Woods over their divorce settlement. Of the eleven groups of five that undertook this exercise, seemingly every group came back from mediation in agreement that the two parties should stay married despite Tiger's repeated infidelity. Most explained that they thought Tiger and Elin should stay together for the sake of the kids.
On Tuesday we visited the Remand Home in Kampala (a bit about Pepperdine's previous work in remand homes in Uganda can be found here), which is their version of juvenile detention. I'll have to post pictures at some point in time, but it was basically four or five large rooms on about two acres of land stuffed full of 12-18 year olds. In short, children that are accused of a crime are thrown into a remand home until their trial. More often than not, it seems, they never get their day in court because the state can't get witnesses and the children's parents to the trial because it's too expensive to get them to travel to the court from their hometowns. We'd like to have a relationship with the home that allows us to interview the children, write up court appeals, and submit them to the court. The children are supposed to only be in the remand home for 3 or 6 months depending on the nature of the crime, but it doesn't seem that this rule is followed. As you might imagine, seeing these children living in such close quarters without their parents, neighbors, or friends in such dire poverty was pretty tough. I'm not a good enough writer to explain what I saw or how it made me feel in more detail, but it was tough.
Wednesday led us to a happier occasion at the American Embassy. There, the Embassy hosted a ceremony for three Ugandan students who had received scholarships from US Aid to attend MIT, College of Wooster, and Pepperdine, respectively. After receiving certificates, laptops, and additional scholarship money from a variety of American corporations, each boy stood up and said a few words in appreciation. Hearing each boy thank their teachers, principals, coaches, and parents was a real tear jerker. None of them have ever left Uganda before, and now thanks to the taxpayers of the United States of America, these boys get to attend some of the finest institutions the world has to offer. I have no doubt that these three young men will return to Uganda and East Africa as leaders soon. It felt damn good to walk under the Stars and Stripes after that ceremony, knowing that our great nation had just helped do something that will permanently change the lives of those three young men forever.
Rafting the Nile River:
On Sunday, the ten of us rode a bus to Jinja, which is about an hour and a half away or so, to whitewater raft the Nile River. The rafting itself was pretty great - with 6 or 7 class 5 rapids, this stretch of the Nile is on most short lists of best places to raft in the world. More impressive was the sheer feeling of seeing and rafting one of the most important rivers in the world. Our guide, Camo, was a thirty year old guy from New Zealand who provided a remarkable amount of humor throughout the day. Equally interesting was having my Torts Professor, Professor Cochran, in the boat with us. He wasn't quite as thrilled as I was when our raft flipped and we all went swimming down one of the Class 5's. We had lunch on an island in the Nile, a small sliver of wooded land which seemed like something Robinson Crusoe would appreciate. On the second half of the raft we saw a cobra swimming down the river and a few African Fish Eagle, as well as native Ugandans standing along the river. At one point in time, we floated past a child that couldn't have been any older than 4 or 5 paddling solo in a wooden canoe. Shortly thereafter, Camo got a big kick out of pointing out the topless woman to Prof Cochran.
On about a 45 minute stretch without rapids, our conversation turned towards the law. Camo listened intently as Prof. Cochran and I discussed various theories of constitutional and statutory interpretation. After a few minutes of listening, Camo piped up, "Mates, let me make sure I understand this. Conservatives read and apply the law and liberals just make it up as they see fit, eh?" It was comforting to know that Camo was as baffled at liberal constitutional interpretation as I am.
More on the Ugandan Experience thus far:
- Just saw Robin Hood at the Kampala Movie Theater. For a couple of hours, I had totally forgotten that I was in Africa. The theater is slightly nicer than those in Charlottesville, plus it had a bar in it. Why don't our theaters have bars in them?
- It took our van/taxi about an hour and a half to go the three miles from the Embassy to our apartment yesterday. LA traffic is NOTHING compared to traffic in Kampala. I've never seen so many cars completely halted, unnecessarily honking at one another for hours at a time.
- This city is unbelievably noisy and crowded. There are always people absolutely everywhere at all hours of the day and night. Today's an exception, though - today was a federal holiday for Martyr's Day and the streets were dead silent. We saw six or seven prostitutes on the walk home from the movie around 10 PM tonight. That was a bit odd seeing that, as far as I know, I had never seen a prostitute before.
- Walking across the street is like real life Frogger. Nearly every intersection here is a traffic circle and cars fly around the corners with no regard for life or limb. Further, bota-botas fly around the streets and sidewalks every which way, cutting in-between cars, going the wrong way down the street, and frequently running into one another. Bota-botas (random Google picture) are the most popular means of transportation in Kampala. They are 100 cc motorcycle taxis that cost about .10-.25 to ride. I refuse to ride one when there is traffic because they're so incredibly unsafe, but after a few drinks over dinner and bowling last night, a friend of mine and I hopped on one to get home. It was fun, but I'll only ride them at night when I don't have to worry about us zipping aimlessly through traffic.
- Every single meal I've had here thus far has been delicious. The Indian food restaurants are particularly good, as are samosas, a fried delicious treat that we have for breakfast.
- I can't wait to take a hot shower with real water pressure, enjoy air conditioning, or eat at In-n-Out/Whataburger/Five Guys.
- Most of the Ugandans are rooting for Brazil, England, or Spain in the World Cup. They all think the US is an absolute joke of a team. Most of them don't believe me when I tell them that the US beat then #1 in the world Spain in the Confederations Cup last summer. I sure hope we beat the Brits and prove to the world that America is knocking on the doorstep of international soccer greatness. We're not there yet, but I think we'll prove we're better than most think in South Africa.
That's all I've got for now. For pictures and another perspective, check out fellow Pepperdiner in Uganda Meghan Milloy's blog here.
I'll break this blog down into three pieces. The first will discuss our work thus far, the second will discuss our weekend excursion to Jinja to raft the Nile, and the last will briefly discuss other random observations I've made in the last 10 days or so.
Work:
The 10 Pepperdine students that are working in Kampala for the summer have collectively worked on quite a variety of issues thus far. Here's a summary:
Stevie and Sean got to sit in on a meeting with their judges and the President of the ICC last week. With Ryan's help, they've both written memos for their respective justice's on the ICC Conference, which is currently in session here in Kampala.
Meghan and David are writing a memo on the administration of juvenile justice in Uganda. All of us visited the remand home here in Kampala. More on that later.
Jen and Peter are both writing judgments and opinions at the Court of Appeal and are apparently swamped with work on a wide variety of issues.
Michael and Ryan are helping review the Ugandan Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to help make some of the timing mechanisms more efficient. Ryan met his judge at the Supreme Court late last week and I'm not entirely sure what all he's worked on for the Court since then. Michael has also sat in on some mediations here at the Commercial Court.
Lisa and I are working on a case file for our judge, Justice Kiryabwire, in regards to a pretty nasty property dispute. We haven't met Justice K yet because he's in Paris, so we've been slogging through a huge case file of documents, transcripts, and hand-written notes trying to determine factually what happened in our case. Once that's all knocked out, we'll turn to determining what existing Ugandan law says on each issue of the case. Uganda has a website that purports to search through opinions and cases in country, but its search function is not very useful. More often than not, I end up on this site searching year to year, month to month, case by case, using Ctrl + F to determine if a particular term or terms are in the document. It makes research pretty slow.
More interestingly, Michael, Lisa, and I spent last Thursday and this Monday taking a certification class on Mediation here in the Commercial Court with 60 Ugandan law clerks. The topic and information learned was likely no different than that covered in any American law school - mediation, negotiation, arbitration, etc. - but the obvious difference was that we were three white American faces in a sea of Ugandans. Needless to say, the cultural interactions were incredibly interesting.
First, Ugandans speak very softly and with an aforementioned accent, making them fairly difficult to understand. Even when speaking in front of a crowded, noisy room of 65, they speak very softly, making them hard to understand.
Second, they often look to Muzungus for our opinion and assume that we'll take leadership whenever leadership is needed. We broke into small groups of 15 on two or three occasions for discussions or role play activities and each time I tried to limit the amount that I participated. I did so because I hoped to hear more of their opinions on whatever issue came up and because I didn't want to come across as an imposing American while on their soil. During the first group activity we chose a spokesperson who would later report back to the large group of 60. I was not chosen as the spokesperson and in fact said very, very little while our group met, yet once we got back with the larger group of 60 and the facilitator asked who the spokesperson for our group was, our entire group pointed to me. Shocked, I stood up, gave an unprepared summary of what our group discussed, and sat back down. This is also an example of just how deferential the people I've met here seem to be. The Ugandans that I have met are so polite and deferential that it becomes inefficient and frustrating because everyone seems to sit waiting for someone else to say or do something. For example, to start the mediation clinic, the facilitator asked the group to propose ground rules under which we would operate. It took no fewer than five minutes for the first rule to be proposed because all 65 of us were staring at each other waiting for someone else to speak up.
Third, and related, the formality in which everyone conducts their day to day business is striking. Every time a speaker came into speak to the group, they would politely, and very slowly, greet every "distinguished" guest in the room and speak to their character in some way.
Details and logical steps are never left out of conversation, either. The analogy I've come up with is as follows - if I was to describe to someone how to drive from my house to Pepperdine, I'd tell them to take a left from Marine to Lincoln, a left off of Lincoln onto PCH, and go up PCH about 13 miles until they saw Pepperdine on their right. A Ugandan would probably explain that you first have to walk out of the front door of the house, turn around, lock the door, walk to the car, open the car door, start the car by putting the key in the ignition and turning, put the car in reverse, back up, etc. They speak in such a formulaic, step by step way in nearly every single interaction in which I have been involved and at times it has been frustrating because it seems so unnecessary. That's the nature of their culture, though, so I'll have to get used to it.
We also did two direct mediation talks in which I worked with three or four Ugandan clerks to come to an agreement over a particular fact pattern that we read. Interestingly, in one instance we role played as if we were lawyers for Tiger and Elin Woods over their divorce settlement. Of the eleven groups of five that undertook this exercise, seemingly every group came back from mediation in agreement that the two parties should stay married despite Tiger's repeated infidelity. Most explained that they thought Tiger and Elin should stay together for the sake of the kids.
On Tuesday we visited the Remand Home in Kampala (a bit about Pepperdine's previous work in remand homes in Uganda can be found here), which is their version of juvenile detention. I'll have to post pictures at some point in time, but it was basically four or five large rooms on about two acres of land stuffed full of 12-18 year olds. In short, children that are accused of a crime are thrown into a remand home until their trial. More often than not, it seems, they never get their day in court because the state can't get witnesses and the children's parents to the trial because it's too expensive to get them to travel to the court from their hometowns. We'd like to have a relationship with the home that allows us to interview the children, write up court appeals, and submit them to the court. The children are supposed to only be in the remand home for 3 or 6 months depending on the nature of the crime, but it doesn't seem that this rule is followed. As you might imagine, seeing these children living in such close quarters without their parents, neighbors, or friends in such dire poverty was pretty tough. I'm not a good enough writer to explain what I saw or how it made me feel in more detail, but it was tough.
Wednesday led us to a happier occasion at the American Embassy. There, the Embassy hosted a ceremony for three Ugandan students who had received scholarships from US Aid to attend MIT, College of Wooster, and Pepperdine, respectively. After receiving certificates, laptops, and additional scholarship money from a variety of American corporations, each boy stood up and said a few words in appreciation. Hearing each boy thank their teachers, principals, coaches, and parents was a real tear jerker. None of them have ever left Uganda before, and now thanks to the taxpayers of the United States of America, these boys get to attend some of the finest institutions the world has to offer. I have no doubt that these three young men will return to Uganda and East Africa as leaders soon. It felt damn good to walk under the Stars and Stripes after that ceremony, knowing that our great nation had just helped do something that will permanently change the lives of those three young men forever.
Rafting the Nile River:
On Sunday, the ten of us rode a bus to Jinja, which is about an hour and a half away or so, to whitewater raft the Nile River. The rafting itself was pretty great - with 6 or 7 class 5 rapids, this stretch of the Nile is on most short lists of best places to raft in the world. More impressive was the sheer feeling of seeing and rafting one of the most important rivers in the world. Our guide, Camo, was a thirty year old guy from New Zealand who provided a remarkable amount of humor throughout the day. Equally interesting was having my Torts Professor, Professor Cochran, in the boat with us. He wasn't quite as thrilled as I was when our raft flipped and we all went swimming down one of the Class 5's. We had lunch on an island in the Nile, a small sliver of wooded land which seemed like something Robinson Crusoe would appreciate. On the second half of the raft we saw a cobra swimming down the river and a few African Fish Eagle, as well as native Ugandans standing along the river. At one point in time, we floated past a child that couldn't have been any older than 4 or 5 paddling solo in a wooden canoe. Shortly thereafter, Camo got a big kick out of pointing out the topless woman to Prof Cochran.
On about a 45 minute stretch without rapids, our conversation turned towards the law. Camo listened intently as Prof. Cochran and I discussed various theories of constitutional and statutory interpretation. After a few minutes of listening, Camo piped up, "Mates, let me make sure I understand this. Conservatives read and apply the law and liberals just make it up as they see fit, eh?" It was comforting to know that Camo was as baffled at liberal constitutional interpretation as I am.
More on the Ugandan Experience thus far:
- Just saw Robin Hood at the Kampala Movie Theater. For a couple of hours, I had totally forgotten that I was in Africa. The theater is slightly nicer than those in Charlottesville, plus it had a bar in it. Why don't our theaters have bars in them?
- It took our van/taxi about an hour and a half to go the three miles from the Embassy to our apartment yesterday. LA traffic is NOTHING compared to traffic in Kampala. I've never seen so many cars completely halted, unnecessarily honking at one another for hours at a time.
- This city is unbelievably noisy and crowded. There are always people absolutely everywhere at all hours of the day and night. Today's an exception, though - today was a federal holiday for Martyr's Day and the streets were dead silent. We saw six or seven prostitutes on the walk home from the movie around 10 PM tonight. That was a bit odd seeing that, as far as I know, I had never seen a prostitute before.
- Walking across the street is like real life Frogger. Nearly every intersection here is a traffic circle and cars fly around the corners with no regard for life or limb. Further, bota-botas fly around the streets and sidewalks every which way, cutting in-between cars, going the wrong way down the street, and frequently running into one another. Bota-botas (random Google picture) are the most popular means of transportation in Kampala. They are 100 cc motorcycle taxis that cost about .10-.25 to ride. I refuse to ride one when there is traffic because they're so incredibly unsafe, but after a few drinks over dinner and bowling last night, a friend of mine and I hopped on one to get home. It was fun, but I'll only ride them at night when I don't have to worry about us zipping aimlessly through traffic.
- Every single meal I've had here thus far has been delicious. The Indian food restaurants are particularly good, as are samosas, a fried delicious treat that we have for breakfast.
- I can't wait to take a hot shower with real water pressure, enjoy air conditioning, or eat at In-n-Out/Whataburger/Five Guys.
- Most of the Ugandans are rooting for Brazil, England, or Spain in the World Cup. They all think the US is an absolute joke of a team. Most of them don't believe me when I tell them that the US beat then #1 in the world Spain in the Confederations Cup last summer. I sure hope we beat the Brits and prove to the world that America is knocking on the doorstep of international soccer greatness. We're not there yet, but I think we'll prove we're better than most think in South Africa.
That's all I've got for now. For pictures and another perspective, check out fellow Pepperdiner in Uganda Meghan Milloy's blog here.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
An Introduction
Hello from Uganda!
For those of you that I haven't told, I'm here working for the summer as a clerk for the Ugandan Commercial Court. Pepperdine sends 10 or so students to Uganda each summer to work for a variety of courts in their judiciary system. This is the sixth year of our partnership with the Ugandan Judiciary.
After driving with my dad from LA to Temple on Monday and Tuesday, I flew out of Austin on Thursday around noon to Detroit, then to Amsterdam, and then to Entebbe, Uganda, which is about an hour or so drive from Kampala. A recent Pepperdine graduate by the name of John lives in Uganda full time and works with the Commercial Court as a mediator. The Court provides him with a driver who picked us up in the airport in a big passenger van, sort of like what a church might use. The airport was smallish with four or five gates, but it was far nicer than what I expected. My first impression upon landing was sheer amazement at the number of advertisements in the airport. Cell phone ads are EVERYWHERE in Uganda and the cell phone stores are always packed. Most of Uganda is on Facebook too and the big craze right now is getting a phone that has access to Facebook. Kinda odd to think that UVa was one of about a dozen schools on Facebook my first year and now the majority of an East African country is on it too.
My second impression was of the Ugandan people - they're all remarkably well dressed. Slacks and button downs are the only thing that men wear and the women dress quite lovely as well.. Also, the Ugandans all speak English and English is the official language here. It's hard to pick up at first because they speak very softly and with a different inflection than we do. It's basically like talking slower and super over enunciating. The Americans talk to the Ugandans in that style of Africanized English that I hope to pick up soon.
After the initial 'I'm in Africa - who woulda thunk that?' moment when the plane touched down, my second 'who woulda thunk that' moment was the traffic. We didn't move for 15 minutes because of the sheer volume of the cars on the road. When I envisioned Africa, I didn't envision traffic that puts LA traffic to shame. The road from Entebbe to Kampala and the roads near my apartment here downtown are perfectly fine. Last night we went to old Kampala where the streets aren't as nice, but even then they're nicer than I thought. More about that later. The third 'who woulda thunk that' moment was when we passed a gas station for the first time. They look EXACTLY like our gas stations, except instead of selling America's beloved Natural Light, they sell Nile Gold, a malt beer that tastes like Mickey's. Another stray observation is that there are constantly people absolutely everywhere. For the entire 20 or so mile drive from the airport to our apartment there were constantly people walking around the streets, shopping at markets, or generally milling about and socializing. Today seems to be different though - I've been told the city really slows down on Sundays for church. (80% or so of Uganda is Christian and the entire flight from Amsterdam to hear was full of Americans on mission trips.)
After getting to the apartment and settling in some, I did exactly what I knew my dad, uncles, and deceased Grandfather would want me to do - I went to find the nearest place that sold cold beer. I found a bar about 50 yards from our apartment that sells Nile Gold for 3000 Schillings, or a $1.50. The conversion rate is 2000 Ugandan Schillings to $1. The bar was playing Jingle Bells when we first walked in, so I've named it the Jingle Bell Bar. It won't replace the Virginian (and is more like Coupes, seeing that they don't card and has an outside patio and a place for a band), but it will do. Unfortunately, Jingle Bell Bar BLASTS the same awful pop music that 13 year old American girls listen to on 97.5 out of Waco at a decibel level nearing that of a jet engine. Something tells me that listening to Rihanna sing Umbrella (ella, ella, ay!) at 4 AM every Friday and Saturday night might get old.
That said, our apartment is remarkably nice. I live on the sixth floor of a six story apartment complex downtown. In front of me is an office building that's about twelve stories tall, to our right is another apartment complex that's about 10 stories tall, and nearby is a new Sheraton and an under-construction Hilton. From where I'm sitting the area doesn't look much different than downtown LA, albeit with smaller buildings. My apartment complex looks like a motel, except the first three floors are commercial property and the top three are residential. The 10 of us are living in essentially adjacent rooms on the same floor and we each have a roommate. The front door opens to a living area of sorts with a dining room table, a couch, three nice wooden chairs, and a sitting chair of sorts. The room has tile floors and is about 18 x 8 and includes a sink, microwave, coffee maker, fridge, and pots and pans. The bathroom is small, but fine. The water pressure in our apartment isn't very good, but that's getting fixed tomorrow, as is the hot water heater. Rent is $400 a month and if we have any trouble whatsoever we go talk to one of the receptionists, who, along with the security guards, are around twenty four seven. Our bedroom is about 20 x 10 or so and has two beds, a desk, a chest of drawers, and a closet. You'll all be glad to hear that everyone that walks by our side of the building is now graced by a Texas flag hanging in my window. Truth be told, this apartment is probably nicer than my actual apartment in LA and far nicer than the dorms I lived in for three years at UVa.
On Saturday morning John picked us up to get breakfast, buy cell phones, and get an internet connection. Most food in Kampala that any Westerner would want to eat is fairly inexpensive - $4-$7 a meal - and tastes pretty good. They served a standard breakfast - pancakes, eggs, waffles, sausage, etc. I got a cell phone and an internet connection, which is simply a modem that plugs into your USB port, in about 45 minutes or so. Both of those stores were packed with people. Uganda is ripe for economic development - people are snatching up technology left and right. Later on, we walked to a mall that's about a 15 minute walk from the apartment that sells flat screen HD TVs. I say all this to represent that Uganda, or Kampala at least, is far more modern than any of you probably expect.
As to the weather, it's fairly warm and humid but not uncomfortably so, particularly when there's a breeze as there always is in our apartment. There's no air conditioning anywhere, so you sweat quite a bit, but it's not awful. Our beds have mosquito nets over them, but no one around here uses them because there are so few mosquitoes in the city.
This morning we walked to the mall again to buy groceries, hangers, etc. The mall is on a golf course and is constantly packed with people. It's a bit of a white people hangout around town too. There are far more Americans than I anticipated here, so the Ugandans don't really react to us walking by because it's a pretty common occurrence. Some of the younger people will point, laugh, and call us "Mazungus", which means white person, but it's not racist or anything like that - they just think it's funny that our skin is white.
In the mall is have a grocery store that reminded me of an older Wal-Mart, except hopped up on crack. They had everything you could possibly ever imagine for sale, and yet it was still very organized. Food, clothes, DVDs (including last season's 24), booze, sports equipment, you name it. And, unlike back home in the States, every single one of their checkout lanes were open! Take note of that, Walton Family. When I checked out, I accidentally handed the lady working at the store a 10,000 schilling bill instead of a 1,000 schilling bill. She immediately stopped me, handed it back, and told me to be careful of the difference going forward.
The Ugandan people are like that - they're incredibly polite. In fact, for those of you that are worried about my safety, here's a quote from a British authored guide to Uganda - "Uganda enjoys one of the healthiest reputations of any African country when it comes to crime directed to tourists. The level of day-to-day hassle faced by independent travelers is negligible. And Ugandans as a whole genuinely do come across as the most warm, friendly, and relaxed hosts imaginable." Thus far, I've found that quote to be quite accurate.
For those of you that I haven't told, I'm here working for the summer as a clerk for the Ugandan Commercial Court. Pepperdine sends 10 or so students to Uganda each summer to work for a variety of courts in their judiciary system. This is the sixth year of our partnership with the Ugandan Judiciary.
After driving with my dad from LA to Temple on Monday and Tuesday, I flew out of Austin on Thursday around noon to Detroit, then to Amsterdam, and then to Entebbe, Uganda, which is about an hour or so drive from Kampala. A recent Pepperdine graduate by the name of John lives in Uganda full time and works with the Commercial Court as a mediator. The Court provides him with a driver who picked us up in the airport in a big passenger van, sort of like what a church might use. The airport was smallish with four or five gates, but it was far nicer than what I expected. My first impression upon landing was sheer amazement at the number of advertisements in the airport. Cell phone ads are EVERYWHERE in Uganda and the cell phone stores are always packed. Most of Uganda is on Facebook too and the big craze right now is getting a phone that has access to Facebook. Kinda odd to think that UVa was one of about a dozen schools on Facebook my first year and now the majority of an East African country is on it too.
My second impression was of the Ugandan people - they're all remarkably well dressed. Slacks and button downs are the only thing that men wear and the women dress quite lovely as well.. Also, the Ugandans all speak English and English is the official language here. It's hard to pick up at first because they speak very softly and with a different inflection than we do. It's basically like talking slower and super over enunciating. The Americans talk to the Ugandans in that style of Africanized English that I hope to pick up soon.
After the initial 'I'm in Africa - who woulda thunk that?' moment when the plane touched down, my second 'who woulda thunk that' moment was the traffic. We didn't move for 15 minutes because of the sheer volume of the cars on the road. When I envisioned Africa, I didn't envision traffic that puts LA traffic to shame. The road from Entebbe to Kampala and the roads near my apartment here downtown are perfectly fine. Last night we went to old Kampala where the streets aren't as nice, but even then they're nicer than I thought. More about that later. The third 'who woulda thunk that' moment was when we passed a gas station for the first time. They look EXACTLY like our gas stations, except instead of selling America's beloved Natural Light, they sell Nile Gold, a malt beer that tastes like Mickey's. Another stray observation is that there are constantly people absolutely everywhere. For the entire 20 or so mile drive from the airport to our apartment there were constantly people walking around the streets, shopping at markets, or generally milling about and socializing. Today seems to be different though - I've been told the city really slows down on Sundays for church. (80% or so of Uganda is Christian and the entire flight from Amsterdam to hear was full of Americans on mission trips.)
After getting to the apartment and settling in some, I did exactly what I knew my dad, uncles, and deceased Grandfather would want me to do - I went to find the nearest place that sold cold beer. I found a bar about 50 yards from our apartment that sells Nile Gold for 3000 Schillings, or a $1.50. The conversion rate is 2000 Ugandan Schillings to $1. The bar was playing Jingle Bells when we first walked in, so I've named it the Jingle Bell Bar. It won't replace the Virginian (and is more like Coupes, seeing that they don't card and has an outside patio and a place for a band), but it will do. Unfortunately, Jingle Bell Bar BLASTS the same awful pop music that 13 year old American girls listen to on 97.5 out of Waco at a decibel level nearing that of a jet engine. Something tells me that listening to Rihanna sing Umbrella (ella, ella, ay!) at 4 AM every Friday and Saturday night might get old.
That said, our apartment is remarkably nice. I live on the sixth floor of a six story apartment complex downtown. In front of me is an office building that's about twelve stories tall, to our right is another apartment complex that's about 10 stories tall, and nearby is a new Sheraton and an under-construction Hilton. From where I'm sitting the area doesn't look much different than downtown LA, albeit with smaller buildings. My apartment complex looks like a motel, except the first three floors are commercial property and the top three are residential. The 10 of us are living in essentially adjacent rooms on the same floor and we each have a roommate. The front door opens to a living area of sorts with a dining room table, a couch, three nice wooden chairs, and a sitting chair of sorts. The room has tile floors and is about 18 x 8 and includes a sink, microwave, coffee maker, fridge, and pots and pans. The bathroom is small, but fine. The water pressure in our apartment isn't very good, but that's getting fixed tomorrow, as is the hot water heater. Rent is $400 a month and if we have any trouble whatsoever we go talk to one of the receptionists, who, along with the security guards, are around twenty four seven. Our bedroom is about 20 x 10 or so and has two beds, a desk, a chest of drawers, and a closet. You'll all be glad to hear that everyone that walks by our side of the building is now graced by a Texas flag hanging in my window. Truth be told, this apartment is probably nicer than my actual apartment in LA and far nicer than the dorms I lived in for three years at UVa.
On Saturday morning John picked us up to get breakfast, buy cell phones, and get an internet connection. Most food in Kampala that any Westerner would want to eat is fairly inexpensive - $4-$7 a meal - and tastes pretty good. They served a standard breakfast - pancakes, eggs, waffles, sausage, etc. I got a cell phone and an internet connection, which is simply a modem that plugs into your USB port, in about 45 minutes or so. Both of those stores were packed with people. Uganda is ripe for economic development - people are snatching up technology left and right. Later on, we walked to a mall that's about a 15 minute walk from the apartment that sells flat screen HD TVs. I say all this to represent that Uganda, or Kampala at least, is far more modern than any of you probably expect.
As to the weather, it's fairly warm and humid but not uncomfortably so, particularly when there's a breeze as there always is in our apartment. There's no air conditioning anywhere, so you sweat quite a bit, but it's not awful. Our beds have mosquito nets over them, but no one around here uses them because there are so few mosquitoes in the city.
This morning we walked to the mall again to buy groceries, hangers, etc. The mall is on a golf course and is constantly packed with people. It's a bit of a white people hangout around town too. There are far more Americans than I anticipated here, so the Ugandans don't really react to us walking by because it's a pretty common occurrence. Some of the younger people will point, laugh, and call us "Mazungus", which means white person, but it's not racist or anything like that - they just think it's funny that our skin is white.
In the mall is have a grocery store that reminded me of an older Wal-Mart, except hopped up on crack. They had everything you could possibly ever imagine for sale, and yet it was still very organized. Food, clothes, DVDs (including last season's 24), booze, sports equipment, you name it. And, unlike back home in the States, every single one of their checkout lanes were open! Take note of that, Walton Family. When I checked out, I accidentally handed the lady working at the store a 10,000 schilling bill instead of a 1,000 schilling bill. She immediately stopped me, handed it back, and told me to be careful of the difference going forward.
The Ugandan people are like that - they're incredibly polite. In fact, for those of you that are worried about my safety, here's a quote from a British authored guide to Uganda - "Uganda enjoys one of the healthiest reputations of any African country when it comes to crime directed to tourists. The level of day-to-day hassle faced by independent travelers is negligible. And Ugandans as a whole genuinely do come across as the most warm, friendly, and relaxed hosts imaginable." Thus far, I've found that quote to be quite accurate.
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