He is called Arian. He is sixteen years old a refugee in Nakivale refugee settlement living alone. I met him where he works and requested to conduct an ethnographic interview with him and he accepted. 1, So Arian tell me more about yourself that you would prefer the world to know. I am Arian, a 16 years refugee in Nakivale working as a brick layer to feed and school my brothers. 2, Sorry do you care for the brothers? What happened to the parents? It’s a long story please. 3, Can you share it with us please? No problem. I am living here in Nakivale with my two brothers because during the war period we got separated with my family as we were running and I only remained with the two siblings I was holding in hands from the left and the right. We came to the camp where since then I’ve never heard of them though all the efforts I did to look for them and I don’t know if they are either alive or dead. And the only family that I’m remaining with is my brothers and I’m the only person to cater for them. 4, How do you manage it alone? It’s not easy but I do try my level best to manage it because I have no one to do it on my behalf, I’ve stopped schooling so that they can school and get fed, I am their only family here in Nakivale and they are my only. I do always thank God for having saved my us and I always pray for my parents and my other siblings to be alive and get united again in life. There are many kids in streets here in Nakivale working days and nights because they have no parents and are catering for their siblings and life is always hard for them and they need a good support.
Personal Narrative
Ethnographic Interview, by Joel
It was in the evening when I was interviewing my friend at school. His name is Josue. We were seated outside on the desk near our class. My friend Josue was wearing green T-shirt, grey trousers and black shoes. I interviewed him about his job. He is a porter. He told me that he wakes up every morning at exactly 7:00am and goes to work until 8:00pm. I asked him if he usually had a break; he replied: “I always have a short break from 11:00am to 2:00pm then I get back to work until 8:00pm.” He also told me that his average income per day is UGX 5000. He said again that he doesn’t love the job because it’s too hard for him and he usually faces many challenges. He said that sometimes he is forced to spend all his money to repair his bicycle when it gets mechanical problems. The spoiling of his jerry cans also is one of his challenges. These were the two main challenges he usually faces and they make his job too hard. He said also that there are some risks he faces when doing his work, especially road accidents and sickness because of carrying many things at once and others. But above all these challenges, Josue said that when he does his job, he learns hard work and he said that for him hard works leads to success. I really appreciated his courage and hard work.
Deep Observation, by Sylvan
Forest Once Saturday morning, my classmates and I went for a forest visitation in Kasese. When we reached it, we found other people who also went to visit. Unfortunately, we only knew that the visitation we carrying out is all about forest but we were surprised me and my classmates to find animals such as lions, elephants and others that can be classified as one group and named wild animals. As we were there no one was allowed to get out of the bus because when people are in the bus there are safe from the danger of the wild animals. Wild animals like lions, tigers even big snakes and many others feed on flesh of other animals. When I see this, I think of how small snakes cannot feed on big but small animals and others feed on the flesh of powerless powerful animals and fight for the victory and to feed on the flesh of the losers. In the lake, we found crocodiles feed on fish and snakes, but if the snake is more powerful than the crocodile, they can fight one must kill another. Hippopotami live together with the crocodile in water they both feed on fish but they never fought together.
