KAMPALA, Uganda - It was rush hour in the city. As always, I was stuck, crammed into an overcrowded, dilapidated minibus taxi in a hopeless gridlock near a sprawling market. The ubiquitous red dust caking the city swirled from the road, while the acrid smell of burning trash assailed my nostrils.

I am here for a semester-long "Development Studies" program with 15 other Americans, exploring Uganda's history, culture and politics while studying development theory and fieldwork.

To begin our experience, we had to learn exactly what challenges Uganda is facing. I have never been so overwhelmed, and Duke's idyllic Gothic Wonderland has never seemed so far away.

There is no question that in today's globalized world, we in the United States have a role to play in African development. If we continue to ignore the problems of the developing world, problems such as HIV, terrorism, environmental destruction and a collapsed global economy await us.

Uganda was granted independence from England in 1962. Since then billions of dollars of foreign aid have poured in for "development." Every day I admire Kampala's throbbing energy, but as I look around at the largely broken or nonexistent infrastructure, it is obvious that something is not working.

Our first two weeks were roller coasters of emotions. We listened to intense lectures from politicians, professors and staffers from local and international non-government organizations.

I am excited by innovative government policies, but I was frustrated to learn that policies on paper are so far from reality that they resemble fantasy.

I am inspired by the work of local self-help groups working in dreadful urban slums, but I am depressed to realize how their efforts can only reach a tiny fraction of the dispossessed.

Sometimes, I am just sad. In the city's malnutrition unit, I watched emaciated children writhe in agony. A little girl moaned as skin peeled off her bloated body.

I feel a lot of anger, but I am not sure where it should be directed. Certainly, easy targets are the Ugandan government and President Yoweri Museveni, who argue about funding their new vehicles while raw sewage spills out among children playing in cities all over the country. The corruption is incredible-huge portions of aid budgets go directly to line officials' pockets, and it seems that most officials are for sale.

For all his shortcomings, though, Musevini has rebuilt the country from the total chaos and destruction he inherited after the horrendous cruelty of Idi Amin's dictatorship in the 1970s. Perhaps, then, it is more appropriate to blame the international community for Uganda's problems.

In the early 1990s, the World Bank hailed Uganda as a great success story with skyrocketing GDPs. Look a bit closer, however, and the story is dramatically different. With aid from the United States and other big donors came requirements for industries to privatize. State resources were sold to international companies who promptly sent profits home, out of Uganda. A tiny wealthy elite got richer while the number of people living in abject poverty climbed.

Today about 40 percent of the population lives on less than a dollar a day.

At the same time, well-meaning donors-both charities and governments-poured (and continue to pour) dollars into the country for projects that Western "experts" consider priorities. But these donors often to not bother to ask locals for their opinions. Most projects prove unsustainable, creating dependency and apathy among the disenfranchised poor.

Almost half of the government's budget is funded by foreign aid. And the aid has so many strings attached that the government becomes responsible to its donors-not its poor citizens who can easily be subdued by force.

Since independence, not one of Uganda's presidents has ever peacefully transferred power to a new ruler. In the last election, the opposition candidate was forced to run his campaign from jail.

Further complicating the situation, the country has five very different ethnic groups, united only by arbitrary British border determination. Legislating national unity has yet to succeed, and rivalries, suspicion and hostility among groups abound.

In Northern Uganda, the Lord's Republican Army has been fighting for 20 years, but they do so by brainwashing children and chopping off limbs and tongues of innocent bystanders. In the meantime, there are refugees in the country from all over East and Central Africa.

Last week the World Bank declared Uganda the most politically unstable country in its region. Every day there are new reports of political kidnappings, acid burning, torture, violence and corruption.

Unrest is growing; it is very real and very scary.

The question is what should our role in America be to facilitate growth and change? As Duke graduates and future leaders in the new millennium, we must find an answer.

So now what?

David Fiocco is a Trinity junior studying abroad in Uganda this semester. His column runs every other Tuesday.