what a day

how I learned American law:

correction: how I actually learned American law:

how I learned Ugandan law:
-sitting in the back of an SUV
-racing down rough roads at 120 km/hr
(how fast is 120 km/hr?? It feels REALLY fast when you are dodging cars, pedestrians, motorcycles, um, semi-trucks, and random animals...)
-with African gospel music blaring in the background
-and Dickson (my "boss" and host) explaining the Ugandan court system

It was necessary for this lesson to take place in this manner because we were on our way to Gulu, a town a few hours away, to hear the Court of Appeals of Uganda. The Court always takes place in Kampala, but they moved it to Gulu for a short time in order to allow people from northern Uganda to participate in the cases that occurred in their region. We got there in time to hear 3 judgments handed down. We headed into the courtroom and took our seats on the front row. We ended up having to wait an hour before they began (schedules in Africa are VERY loose- even in the courts...). When they called the first case, the man sitting immediately to our right for the past hour stood up and headed to the front. We had no idea that we had been sitting right next to the accused for the past hour, and the cases we heard handed down were murder/death penalty cases. Having never even seen a case of this magnitude in the states and then experiencing it like this was all a little too real.

After that had concluded, Dickson had set up a meeting with the Chief Justice of the Court, so we were able to talk to her one-on-one for a little while about what we're doing here and ask her about her time on the court.


We then made the trip back to Lira dodging all of the same obstacles. in the dark. Since you're reading this blog, it means I lived to tell about it.

Also yesterday, we visited a meeting among local clan leaders gathered under a tree in the bush and were introduced as "lawyers from America who would mediate all their conflicts." No big deal.