Far from any lesson, this title refers to the aptly named Danish pop band currently making the rounds in most bars and discoteks. It’s rhythms were in attendance, along with myself, at the recent “Miss East Africa Beauty Pageant”. There are some pretty nice perks about working for Peace Corps, the half off chocos, the occasional free smoothie, but one of the best is being an automatic VIP at beauty pageants. For hours I sat, front row, drinking free beer, and watching African models desperately trying to outdo one other by pandering to the baying crowd. This “hootenanny”, as my father would say, lasted until 3am. Such is the depth of my dedication to the 2nd goal of Peace Corps (To help promote a better understanding of the American people on the part of the peoples served).
It has been 2 months here at site, and I feel very settled. I feel ready to begin placing my fingers in many pies, and most of them aren’t even sinister. I know almost all the names of my staff… well, their Christian names at least. People greet me by name in the town. I get taken out on more man dates than if Nathan were here. And really to top it all off, a passing boda taxi I know yelled to me in greeting: “what’s up my nigga”.
That is to say, all my new friends aren’t the locals. I now make it a point that whenever I see white people I don’t know I go and introduce myself to them and extend the Soroti brand of hospitality; several free beers. This is how I came to meet a gang of vacationing germans and convinced them to try the local brew. Sometimes I just can’t stop enabling. First freshmen, now Europeans; whether I’m moving up or down in the world is a matter of opinion now.
I now know most all the watering holes in town as well, and a select few know me be sight too. At one particular establishment, I got to revive my old college habit of spending more than 6 hours on a Sunday in a bar watching awesome movies. For whatever reason (questioning God here is hazardous to your health, so I won’t) the Oasis bar decided to have a screening of all the Indiana Jones movies (the good ones) and I was privileged to watch every moment of it. I even got delivery like we used to a the Cap. Although, instead of a pizza delivery guy bringing 3 deep dish pizzas, I had an 8 year old kid bring me gilled fish and chips.
I was Rick rolled by a passing sound van today (those annoying things that move up and down streets blasting music in the hope waking up God in space). Many Africans were treated to the sight of a lone muzungu standing dumbstruck and open mouthed, then raising his fists to the heavens and bellowing KHANNNNNN!!!!!!!!!
Speaking of music, Africa never ceases to amaze. I only heard it briefly in the club, but it was most definitely a remix of “the bird is word”. To see a seething mass of humanity oscillate to the blend of sounds they made the song in to was a fascinating experience. And just when I had come to grips with this strange incident, another one occurred. A popular song here has a repeating line “you want another rum?” Well walking through an alley I heard a child sing the canto, and was immediately answered by another child “yes, ssebo”. They repeated their exchange 19 times.
Now, all these stories and anecdotes might make it appear I haven’t been doing any work. That is far from the case. One of my most proud achievements is that I have successfully taught the catering department how to make jelly donuts. Once classes resume in January, I call have a steady supply of homemade American goodness. They have also offered to make me any dish I can find in my recipe books, and all I have to do is bring them the ingredients.
I guess I’ve done other things as well. I found the design for a self sustaining pump to use in the agriculture side of the school and am having the plumbing teachers source and price the parts. I visited another volunteer and have made schematics for a brick press machine that the welding class can build. I’ve designed an incinerator for the school’s trash that can be built by the building class. I made a prototype camp chair from scraps that the carpentry unit can mass produce. And I even have the outline for my economic design class which I will teach come the spring. Having modeled it after Dr. O’s senior design class, I don’t know whether he would be flattered, or loose all faith in his students… again.
So all in all, work has been done, fun has been done, and now I’m off for Christmas, and an inevitably futile quest for eggnog.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
I just wanted to tell you both Good Luck, we’re all counting on you.
I knew that Nielsen was getting on there in years, but I still find myself unprepared to address a world without him. I mean, I just watched Airplane! last night. Now that another of my favorite actors is dead, I recognize that I feel exactly the same way as when Ricardo Montalban died, but am still affected. But these somber thoughts aside, let us turn to something which always lightens the mood: speculating on Nick Karler’s annoyance at various stimulae (except that Ryan and I cannot carry out part two where speculation becomes data collection).
I once told Nick that when our intertubes were slow, it was because the company only shipped it in a once a month by covered wagon. I have now, after 6 days of arguing with the local telecomm company, restored my ability to communicate with people beyond my country. If Nick were here, seeing the connection I fought so hard to be reestablished, and watching it be mined in the swamps next door, only to be exported to Kenya and shipped back once a month by covered wagon, I believe his mind might fracture in to 480,000 tiny bits… which is, incidentally, my average network speed.
In that time I did manage to plan out the remainder of my year in which I will spend traveling around for work. Also, I have reached one of the important milestones men have… I have spawned a life. Well, lives to be precise. In three months I will be the proud parent, of cantaloupes. I pity the poor fool(s) who believed in the vegas odds that it would be a child. Speaking of children…
I am more efficient now at filling children with terror than I ever could have hoped to achieve by being a pirate at a children’s summer camp. My very presence fills them with dread and bowl loosening panic. As much as I would like to believe that it is only because they have never seen a white person before, I know it is really because of my palpable malice.
I shall now relate to you one of my new favorite stories of horror (the horror).
One day walking down the street I see a gang of young children approach. The gang consists of several older children, about 9-10 years old, and one small child, maybe 4-5. The older children drag the young one up to me as if they presenting the small child as a gift and say, "Muzungu, please take and eat this child so you will not be hungry enough to eat us". The young child starts screaming and desperately trying to get away while the older kids hold him and wait for me to eat him. Me being bored and me being me, I leered at the child and licked my lips, at which point fear overwhelmed him and gave him strength I had not seen since Cook's mother had to fend off the other gorillas when he was born. I will always remember the sight of that small child throwing off the 3 other children, twice his size, and running from the bowel clenching terror of my child eating hunger.
In other news, I’ve started infrequently teaching my first class: computer skills. That’s right, by the act of owning a netbook computer I am now instantly the foremost expert on the subject, which in hindsight isn’t that surprising. One day after teaching 8 or so students some basics I was talking with the headmaster (my supervisor) about it. He said we actually have 15 desktop computers that would be much better to learn on than my small netbook to which I heartily agreed. “Where are these computers?” I asked, since I had not seen any around. “oh, they’re in Lira” was the answer. The delay in retrieving them? “we never got around to it”.
So now I need only arrange travel and pick up for the machines before I become that guy who runs the computer lab. Hooray.
Some of my coworkers back in the states told me that the Peace Corps in Africa would be a tough and trying, yet rewarding endeavor. They were only about a 1/3 right. To illustrate the point, I shall now tell of my past weekend. On sat many volunteers got together to celebrate Thanksgiving, which we did heartily. There was even turkey with stuffing. The day after, however, went just as well. Some friends and I stopped at the Mbale resort hotel to have milkshakes, pool time, and massages. Comfort truly can be found anywhere. But it was on this second day of opulence, a normal occurrence for me in the states, that I realized… I had changed. I willingly ordered a salad for a meal, and enjoyed every bit of it. Ordinarily such a lapse in judgment might be overlooked, but it is merely compounded by what happened next. The following day my friend Chelsea instructed me on the practice of yoga in the middle of the park in Soroti Town. Perhaps I am a closet hippie, or perhaps not. I was told once that you should not care what you look like or what you do here, because nothing can make you seem any crazier or more strange than your counterparts already think you are. So for now, I will do whatever tickles my fancy. And right right now, I feel like doing yoga.
I once told Nick that when our intertubes were slow, it was because the company only shipped it in a once a month by covered wagon. I have now, after 6 days of arguing with the local telecomm company, restored my ability to communicate with people beyond my country. If Nick were here, seeing the connection I fought so hard to be reestablished, and watching it be mined in the swamps next door, only to be exported to Kenya and shipped back once a month by covered wagon, I believe his mind might fracture in to 480,000 tiny bits… which is, incidentally, my average network speed.
In that time I did manage to plan out the remainder of my year in which I will spend traveling around for work. Also, I have reached one of the important milestones men have… I have spawned a life. Well, lives to be precise. In three months I will be the proud parent, of cantaloupes. I pity the poor fool(s) who believed in the vegas odds that it would be a child. Speaking of children…
I am more efficient now at filling children with terror than I ever could have hoped to achieve by being a pirate at a children’s summer camp. My very presence fills them with dread and bowl loosening panic. As much as I would like to believe that it is only because they have never seen a white person before, I know it is really because of my palpable malice.
I shall now relate to you one of my new favorite stories of horror (the horror).
One day walking down the street I see a gang of young children approach. The gang consists of several older children, about 9-10 years old, and one small child, maybe 4-5. The older children drag the young one up to me as if they presenting the small child as a gift and say, "Muzungu, please take and eat this child so you will not be hungry enough to eat us". The young child starts screaming and desperately trying to get away while the older kids hold him and wait for me to eat him. Me being bored and me being me, I leered at the child and licked my lips, at which point fear overwhelmed him and gave him strength I had not seen since Cook's mother had to fend off the other gorillas when he was born. I will always remember the sight of that small child throwing off the 3 other children, twice his size, and running from the bowel clenching terror of my child eating hunger.
In other news, I’ve started infrequently teaching my first class: computer skills. That’s right, by the act of owning a netbook computer I am now instantly the foremost expert on the subject, which in hindsight isn’t that surprising. One day after teaching 8 or so students some basics I was talking with the headmaster (my supervisor) about it. He said we actually have 15 desktop computers that would be much better to learn on than my small netbook to which I heartily agreed. “Where are these computers?” I asked, since I had not seen any around. “oh, they’re in Lira” was the answer. The delay in retrieving them? “we never got around to it”.
So now I need only arrange travel and pick up for the machines before I become that guy who runs the computer lab. Hooray.
Some of my coworkers back in the states told me that the Peace Corps in Africa would be a tough and trying, yet rewarding endeavor. They were only about a 1/3 right. To illustrate the point, I shall now tell of my past weekend. On sat many volunteers got together to celebrate Thanksgiving, which we did heartily. There was even turkey with stuffing. The day after, however, went just as well. Some friends and I stopped at the Mbale resort hotel to have milkshakes, pool time, and massages. Comfort truly can be found anywhere. But it was on this second day of opulence, a normal occurrence for me in the states, that I realized… I had changed. I willingly ordered a salad for a meal, and enjoyed every bit of it. Ordinarily such a lapse in judgment might be overlooked, but it is merely compounded by what happened next. The following day my friend Chelsea instructed me on the practice of yoga in the middle of the park in Soroti Town. Perhaps I am a closet hippie, or perhaps not. I was told once that you should not care what you look like or what you do here, because nothing can make you seem any crazier or more strange than your counterparts already think you are. So for now, I will do whatever tickles my fancy. And right right now, I feel like doing yoga.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)