blessing or curse?

Coming to Uganda has not allowed me to escape the blessings and curses associated with the acquisition of natural resources. In fact, I'm consciously more exposed to conflicting perceptions and understandings. Some of you may have heard that large oil reserves are suspected to be found in western Uganda. After limited public discussions and international debates, oil exploration near Lake Albert has been initiated. Lake Albert divides Uganda on the west with the Democratic Republic of Congo, and is found approximately three hours west of my home in Ikoba. The opportunity of visiting Murchison Falls allowed me to observe some of the initial consequences of oil exploration. Despite park regulations and agreements, machinery is found and oil exploration activities are conducted within unapproved areas. Discussing the effects of oil exploration with a Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) employee revealed an acute awareness of, yet indifference to, the destructrion associated with oil exploitation. Just a few weeks have passed since exploration began, yet large mammals have begun relocating due to the obtrusions within their habitat. Vegetation and landscape are no longer untouched, rather fencing and markers are created as boundaries for the employees.

Although the discovery of oil no doubt can create economic benefits in the form of employment, of increased revenue from exports, and of furthering the economy simply by having access to a resource that is defined as necessary for development, oil can also lead to economic decline. Foreign investment and companies will acquire the wealth and temporary benefits rather than the local communities who labour. Additionally, the site of the oil is in a popular tourist attraction, namely Murchison Falls. As a country dependent on tourism for signifcant revenue, to begin extraction of oil in a tourist site will yeild to revenue losses in the tourism industry. Is a temporary source of high income better than a permanant source of stabilized income? In terms of the environment, little is known about the specific effects of oil exploration. However, we are all aware of the ways in which exploiting the environment has led to and will lead to environmental degradation in its many forms. In sum, I disapprove of the oil exploration taking place in Murchison Falls based on the economic, social, and environmental concerns.

But perhaps my disapproval is all too easily identified and critiqued from a foreigner's perspective who daily lives in over-abundance. I know that I will always have access to nutritional food, to health care, to education, to opportunities for travel, to employment, to leisure and relaxation, to spiritual growth, to safety, to loving and supporting friends and family. As a Canadian individual living in Uganda, I don't need the economic benefits of oil. But as a Ugandan living in Uganda, I do need the economic benefits of oil. With a family of over eight children, with land sufficient only to adequately feed three mouths, with an unemployed husband, with children who lack access to education, with fatal illnesses easily acquired but no treatment available, with clothing only to cover a fraction of the body, with wounds continuing to open, am I selfish for wanting money immediately? Or am I a loving mother who truly desires the best for my children? I don't know the advisable approach to such a dilemma. Easy for me as a Canadian to refuse and reject the practices of oil exploration but how do I sufficiently explain my reasoning to the millions of people who daily struggle to eat one basic meal that hardly meets the nutritional demand of the child who labours eight hours digging and planting and weeding in the garden? How do I visit my friend's small, broken, home that accompanies a growing family, and honestly tell them that money accumulated from oil will not be beneficial?

Am I being selfish for wanting to stop oil exploration? Am I consequently hindering the possibility for Uganda to develop, to improve, to be rid of poverty and injustice? Or is my desire to stop oil exploration rooted in my shame that oil exploration too often results in exploitation of undeveloped countries? Continuing to search for and discover oil will not allow Uganda to develop, but I fear instead the oil companies, and consequently the powerful nations of the west, will further their wealth and destruction. Instead of bringing economic stability to Uganda, oil exploration may bring increased poverty.

While I recognize the impossibility of me being able to stop oil exploration, I know I can stop exploiting the poor. Instead of purchasing clothing created by young orphans, instead of purchasing medications that were tested on vulnerable weakened patients in developing nations resulting in unaccountable deaths, instead of consuming foods whose profit does not benefit the depressed, exhausted farmer desperately trying to provide for his family and his family's family, instead of by-passing the fearful, lonely woman on the street who does not know where she will rest her head because she was evicted out of her home, I will do something. I will listen, I will talk, I will cry, I will laugh, I will share, I will borrow, I will give, I will receive. I will experience life with the poor and become one of the poor. Yet is it truly possible for a white Canadian to become one of the poor here? Can I really experience hunger and the fear of not knowing when I'll eat? Experience disease and not receive adequate treatment? Have no bed or shelter to house my body at night? Feel isolation from the community?

I truly am blessed and cursed. I have been blessed with so much (food, shelter, family, friends, education, leisure, health, employment, security), but having results in seeing what others don't have and feeling shame, guilt, selfish. I am cursed because I am blessed.