The Undefined Minority

“We are bats: we don’t look like birds, but we have wings”
- Mr. David Wangode, Founder of Nazigo Albino Association


See if you can follow the crazy degrees of separation:

In researching “Albinos in Uganda,” I repeatedly come across the name of a Mr. David Wangode, who founded and runs the Nazigo Albino Association, but I can’t find any website or contact information of any kind.
Next, I happen upon the website of a Norwegian woman raising funds to benefit non other than Mr. Wangode’s organization. This website does have contact information. I email a woman in Norway, who gives me the contact information for the man in Uganda (Mr. Wangode), who gives my information to his counterpart, Robert, who is actually located in Kampala.

So on Monday I meet Robert.
Robert:“I’ll wear an orange shirt and blue jeans, so you can find me.” (Robert is not an Albino) “What will you wear?”
Me: “I think you’ll be able to spot me pretty easily”

Robert meets me at the Stanbic bank with a warm smile and a welcoming hug.
We walk across the street to loiter in a restaurant for a few minutes, ignoring the sign quite obviously telling us not to.

“So you want to meet David?”
“Yes, of course”
“But he does not live in Kampala, we have to travel about 40 minutes away”
“That’s fine” - What I am saying in my head is, “I’ll walk there all day if I have to, just get me in contact with this guy”
“When can you go?”
Hmmm, I figured from the few times I had talked to Robert before that we would be going today. It’s technically a holiday (Easter Monday) so the likelihood that I could do anything else today is slim. But I understand that I need to be flexible.
“Anytime this week is fine”
“How about Tomorrow?”
“Yes, fine...”
“Actually, I was hoping maybe we could go today?”
“Today is fine!”
“Ok, we go”
And we did. Just like that, my day was planned: 2 hours in a taxi with Robert and I had one interview down. Robert filled me in on David’s Nazigo Albino Organization and what he knows about Albinism in general. By the time we reached Nazigo, I was already prepped with my background info to start interviewing Mr. Wangode.
-Pause-
Occasionally throughout this process of setting up the meeting and getting on a taxi out to rural Uganda, I realize how un-American and un-Kelly Allen this whole day has become. I would never dream of doing this in the United States. I’m not sure what it is, but I am not made uncomfortable at all by the situation. I trust wholeheartedly that these people are who they say they are and that their intentions are honest. I know my parents are probably not going to be to pleased with this knew M.O. of mine, but the only excuse I have right now is: TIA, and more to the point: This Is African Reasearch.
-Resume-
We reach Mr. Wangode’s home by boda boda (yet another stray from rational, overly-cautious Kelly) down a long dirt path.
Robert addresses the kids in the front yard: “Taata eri wa?” (Where’s your father?)
One points inside.
The kids are standing around in doorways and beside walls. They stare at us with mild interest behind bashful countenances. The chickens in the yard are much more bold - fully taking advantage of the free range. Later I would learn the importance of the chickens in this homestead. Poultry farming is one profession that can be done from within doors, a necessary criteria for a healthy, "Albino" profession.

Mr. Wangode finally comes out to greet us. He is wearing a wide-brimmed hat and long-sleeved shirt to protect his melanin-less skin. I shake his hand, making sure to politely place my left hand over my right arm, (a custom I picked up in Ghana, which seems to be pretty common all over Africa). Both David and Robert are enthused by my use of the Luganda greetings. We enter the home laughing and begin the interview easily, as both Robert and David are fluent in English.

-Pause-
It was only after the interview that I realized how comfortable I was in Mr. Wangode’s house. He had no door or windows to speak of, only sheets to keep out the late-day sun. His roof was made of tin, his floor of cement and his living room was only sparsely decorated with a calendar and a few posters of African leaders. In the first month of being in Uganda, I would have looked at this house and pitied its inhabitants. Today, I saw a modest but perfectly acceptable family home, and I felt no patronizing sense of pity toward its owner. The lack of a tile roof or glass windows no longer signify helpless poverty, but merely the fact that the weather hear does not necessitate their presence and that this family has bigger priorities.
A chicken ducks under a sheet and into the next room - Mr. Wangode’s “home office”
-Resume-
Mr. Wangode tells me his own story of being an Albino in Uganda. About how his mother was given an ultimatum by her husband: “If you want this marriage to continue, you will kill this child.” David’s mother refused. She had carried the child for 9 months, and she had birthed it through the agonizing pains of labour. She made the decision many women in her situation don’t have the courage to do - she chose not to kill her Albino child.

David went on to tell me how he founded the Nazigo Albino Organization as a group to help organize and give voice to this “special race” within his community. He also told me of how much more must be done, of how many more people are out there who need help. The government has deemed his a “noble cause” and has labeled Albinos “disabled,” but has shrugged off any responsibility for them, declaring that there simply isn’t room for them in the budget. This is a population estimated to be around 190,000 in Uganda according the the Uganda Albino Association.

For the next 4 weeks, I will be researching persons with Albinism in Uganda and where they stand under Human Rights laws internationally, regionally, and domestically. If my theory is correct, Albinos represent a group of persons as yet undefined and therefore left extremely vulnerable