So I’ve been lazy lately in writing this blog, so most of this will just be little anecdotes I have recorded here and there.
Today was a good day; many things were accomplished. Chief of which was, at my suggestion, discipline, which was a chronic issue in the school last term has been reformed in to a centralized system. Most anyone reading this I’m sure went to a school at one time or another that had a disciplinarian that students were sent to. I have made the system now in place mirror that, with the exception that to reflect the seriousness of the position, I had it given the title “Commissar”. Some would object of the use of a military officer title being used in a school, others too would object to such a communist noun, and yet others would object to me holding that position. To all those detractors, I say to you what my father said to me so many times in the face of moral outrage; Deal with it.
Class idea: Advanced Pit Latrine technique; certificates will be awarded.
I watched my first Hidden Passions dream sequence; I feel like I popped my soap opera cherry all over again.
One of the stereotypes about Africa I now realize that I came here with was that naïve one where all the animals from discovery channel are right outside your door for your own purview. Well, they’re not. Like home, here is filled bugs, birds, mice, snakes, lizards, frogs, fish and all are as furtive and predictable as the American ones. An exception is the domesticated animals: Instead of dogs and cats and house plants, Uganda has cows, chickens, and goats. The other exception is that, bar the domesticated ones, all those things are trying to eat or kill you. Jumanji wasn’t too far off the mark. Which brings me to the other day. There, on the water tower outside my door, was a 3.5ft long monitor lizard, staring me down. I have never witnessed such defiance in an animal, but then remembered he could probably kill/eat me since this is Africa. I moved on quickly.
The guard for my compound thinks digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
(In response to why a volunteer wasn’t angry at her boyfriend for something stupid he did) His hair smells like tres seme. How can you be mad at him?
(Conversation between another volunteer and her boyfriend, both will remain nameless) I realize there will be times when you see me pee. I know we’ll really be close when one day I see you pee and come over to grab your penis to see what it feels like with the liquid running through it.
(Another volunteers anecdote) Back when me and my sister were little, we were in a bathtub together and she told me it would be funny if she punched me in the face. Then she did. We never really got along well.
I recently went to a colleague’s son’s birthday party. He turned 2.
Something I am disabused to accept as normal, thanks to my father, is that a party for a child <6 is an acceptable endeavor. I was conditioned to believe such an enterprise was futile at best and naïve at worst. This particular African ceremony, to my complete surprise, bore most of the semblance to all the other ceremonies (wedding, birth, death, etc.) I have been to. Provided was: Food, drinks (continuously), company, music, offers of marriage, snacks, old people dancing, and children attempting to catch chickens, normal African life. It was very similar to the infant birthday parties of my nephews and nieces, except that ours didn’t have a 7 part ceremony which required an MC.
(In response to why he doesn’t have a life skills skit prepared) I just got back from somewhere I shouldn’t have been, and doing something I shouldn’t have been doing.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Twas the Night Before Christmas…
And all through the story, Michael was unable to use, iambic pentameter. Rhyming aside, I do have a warm and fuzzy Christmas tale to tell.
I was going to go stay with the volunteers Fran and Tom Mcguirk for X-mas, so I headed off on X-mas eve to meet them in Gulu, which at the time, I thought to be the city closest to their site.
Well, I was wrong. Battery dying, I got a call in Gulu from Fran and asked when they could come to town and guide me back to their site. Well, their site is nowhere near Gulu. It’s near a place called Kamdini Corner about 70Km back towards Kampala. The time was fast approaching when the buses shut down for the holiday, but I managed to get on the very last one. I told the conductor I needed to get off at Kamdini Corner and he said that would be fine. Things seemed to be turning back in my favor. Well a couple hours later I inquired as to where we were and I was then told that we passed Kamdini Corner about 45Km ago. I forced the bus to stop and let me off, and proceeded to teach the Ugandans in earshot the meaning of the words “fuck” and “bus” and all their possible combinations.
So there I was; 8 o’clock at night; phone dead; some podunk trading center 45Km away from where I need to be; and no buses would be coming the right direction till morning. So I do the only sensible thing and stick out my thumb to hitch a ride.
About 40 min passes by when a car stops and picks me up. It was a Ugandan named Denis Okello and his family who were traveling to visit their relatives in Gulu and are willing to give me a lift up to Kamdini. We start making conversation and I remark how grateful I am that he picked me up. He then tells me that he never picks up hitchhikers, even the muzungu ones. The reason he stopped for me was that I looked exactly like an Italian missionary he knew 20 years ago in Zaire. I even dressed like him. The Italian missionary’s name, was Michael. 0_o. And it keeps on going. Denis works for a medical supply company and knows the hospital Fran works at. So instead of just getting to Kamdini, I get dropped off at the gate of the hospital where Fran and Tom live in time to enjoy the last hours Christmas Eve.
The only thing missing was a crackling fire in front of which I could tell this Yule-tide affirming story. The internet will have to do…
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Michael Learns to Rock
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Pembleton, fetch my quill. I wish to lend form to my musings.
Here on the equator, the rising and setting of the sun happens at very specific times. There is no deviation from this, as in America with the changing of the seasons, there is simply the inexorable march of the suns rise at 7am and its set at 7pm. This… constancy, is most reassuring; it swells my heart with supine fortitude to see such magnitude of reliability. One must take these small measures of respite, because everything else here, even the fuel deliveries, have as much order and planning as a Red Sox world series victory riot. Go Sox.
There are certain things in Uganda that are quite maddening to a mind that craves order and logic. Like the sense of time here. Actually, I take that back, it is not the “sense” of time (for which more effort will be expended later to describe), it is the telling of time. In Teso, the day begins at 7am, which they call hour 1. The day ends at 7pm, which they also call hour 1. The entire method of telling time has been phase shifted by 6 hours. 7(US)=1(African), 8=2, 9=3, and it continues on a 12 hour cycle. A common way of determining what time it is, is by staring at the sun and guessing, despite the prevalence of cell phones with those fancy time pieces.
But there are other things which I wish to pontificate on. For instance, ‘clubbin’ is a most popular activity here. Every Friday and Saturday night the youth of Soroti (youth in Uganda goes up to 30 years old) flock to the night club “Trendz” for an pleasant evening of beverage consumption and mating dances. The musical selection in an eclectic blend of local, and national singles like “Stamina“, but also such American gems as “do you believe in life after love” by Cher. It is easy to see why the youth jump headlong off the cliffs of love when they catch sight of their female counterparts dolled up after a day in the fields farming cassava, dancing in front of a wall mirror while the disco ball projects shards of light in to their hair extensions and bedazzled jeans with Obama’s face printed on the knee.
Call me old-fashioned (which would be very lovely right now but bartenders only know how to open bottles most places), but I still like the muzungu women, and I have figured out why: they know sarcasm like the back of a starbucks double mocha venti with half-calf no foam, they speak at an audible level, and they have more hairstyles than shaved, or braided extensions.
Another gem of culture has been unearthed here as well: the never ending homebrew called “Ajon”, which is drunk in an “Ajon Circle“. It is fermented from millet in a jerry can for 1 week, mixed with very hot water in a large pot, and consumed by as many people can fit around the pot using elongated bio filtering flow regulators (a big ass straw with a filter on the end to keep the solid parts out). When the pot runs low, more water is added, and when it gets low again more millet is added, and so it goes. Drinking the effluent from this eternal booze spring can last for an hour… or 6, and is typically only consumed on days whose name ends in y. Sitting around one such circle last Sunday, I realized that the American cultural practice of drinking all day long is exactly like the Ugandan one, there are just less xbox achievements and the beer is intentionally warm. Another difference though is that the Ajon is actually very nutritious. Being made from millet, a grain that is good for the body, you can drink your dinner and still maintain a healthy lifestyle. And so the locals have readily accepted my treatise on the value of things, reproduced below:
Ajon has food value, but food doesn’t have Ajon value.
Drinking Ajon is always a very social affair, sitting outside under a large tree for shade in an otherwise empty plain somewhere deep in the village (boondocks for us). It is there that the consequences of a common Ugandan practice become most striking. In the east, the landscape is most similar to the Lion King and stereotypical Serengeti plainscapes; Vast swathes of plains are punctuated by the appearance of a genuinely gargantuan mango tree. These trees are seen by the local people a great resource for one of their most common business practices: burning bricks. What is most visceral to me is the gross inefficiency and lack of foresight in the use of these leviathan pieces of timber for firing bricks for houses. Something approaching “feeling” creeps in to my heart when I look at the stump of a former mango tree 12 feet in diameter and I see the disused pile of bricks it was cut down to fire laying fallow in the field next to the sun cooked stump.
But such moments of humanity and empathy are rare and easily forgotten. This past weekend, after 3 weeks of very nearly reaching a slightly taxing level of work, I took a vacation.
I, along with 6 other eastern volunteers went to the mountain retreat village of Sipi Falls. Located in the Mt. Elgon region near Mbale, Sipi Falls contains Ugandas largest waterfall, and two others, all visible from the slope of the mountain valley where the lodge was built. After staying the night in the lodge, one of the proprietors became our hiking guide to all the falls. The closest waterfall is viewed from the top by decks and terraces built in to the side of the cliff next to the falls. The water disappears in to the forest and mist below and brings unbidden to the mind thoughts of Avatar and its floating islands being in this spot, if any, on Earth.
The next fall was further up, and after hiking behind it, then up the wall beside it, we found the top… where people were doing their laundry in the river and minding their cattle. After taking the requisite meditation pictures of us each overlooking the fall and the view beyond, we moved on.
The “hike” then had us trekking through the fierce wilderness of peoples backyard gardens and up to the shear rim of the valley where the largest of the falls careens off the rim and in to the valley creating a most intense liquid back draft. It was at this point, overlooking the impact site of the tumbling water, that I achieved the lowest temperature and highest elevation I have yet experienced in Uganda.
For this trip, the transportation, the lodging, food, guide, and booze, cost a total equivalent of 25 American dollars.
And finally, a quick note about public transportation. The matatu’s (Chinese mirco buses) serve as taxis that, by law, can carry 14 passengers. This “law” is not only not enforced in my, and many other regions, but is enthusiastically bitch slapped and told to make sammiches. So upon our return from Sipi to Soroti, the only available transport was such a matatu. Thus it was discovered that when taking public transport, a scientific fact emerges. That fact is any latent, or active atheism is vivisected from the body and replaced by a most penitent faith. A faith that, when you are flying in a matatu down what is called a road with 20 other people, 3 infants, and 2 chickens, inspires you with the singular hope that you will make it out alive.
There are certain things in Uganda that are quite maddening to a mind that craves order and logic. Like the sense of time here. Actually, I take that back, it is not the “sense” of time (for which more effort will be expended later to describe), it is the telling of time. In Teso, the day begins at 7am, which they call hour 1. The day ends at 7pm, which they also call hour 1. The entire method of telling time has been phase shifted by 6 hours. 7(US)=1(African), 8=2, 9=3, and it continues on a 12 hour cycle. A common way of determining what time it is, is by staring at the sun and guessing, despite the prevalence of cell phones with those fancy time pieces.
But there are other things which I wish to pontificate on. For instance, ‘clubbin’ is a most popular activity here. Every Friday and Saturday night the youth of Soroti (youth in Uganda goes up to 30 years old) flock to the night club “Trendz” for an pleasant evening of beverage consumption and mating dances. The musical selection in an eclectic blend of local, and national singles like “Stamina“, but also such American gems as “do you believe in life after love” by Cher. It is easy to see why the youth jump headlong off the cliffs of love when they catch sight of their female counterparts dolled up after a day in the fields farming cassava, dancing in front of a wall mirror while the disco ball projects shards of light in to their hair extensions and bedazzled jeans with Obama’s face printed on the knee.
Call me old-fashioned (which would be very lovely right now but bartenders only know how to open bottles most places), but I still like the muzungu women, and I have figured out why: they know sarcasm like the back of a starbucks double mocha venti with half-calf no foam, they speak at an audible level, and they have more hairstyles than shaved, or braided extensions.
Another gem of culture has been unearthed here as well: the never ending homebrew called “Ajon”, which is drunk in an “Ajon Circle“. It is fermented from millet in a jerry can for 1 week, mixed with very hot water in a large pot, and consumed by as many people can fit around the pot using elongated bio filtering flow regulators (a big ass straw with a filter on the end to keep the solid parts out). When the pot runs low, more water is added, and when it gets low again more millet is added, and so it goes. Drinking the effluent from this eternal booze spring can last for an hour… or 6, and is typically only consumed on days whose name ends in y. Sitting around one such circle last Sunday, I realized that the American cultural practice of drinking all day long is exactly like the Ugandan one, there are just less xbox achievements and the beer is intentionally warm. Another difference though is that the Ajon is actually very nutritious. Being made from millet, a grain that is good for the body, you can drink your dinner and still maintain a healthy lifestyle. And so the locals have readily accepted my treatise on the value of things, reproduced below:
Ajon has food value, but food doesn’t have Ajon value.
Drinking Ajon is always a very social affair, sitting outside under a large tree for shade in an otherwise empty plain somewhere deep in the village (boondocks for us). It is there that the consequences of a common Ugandan practice become most striking. In the east, the landscape is most similar to the Lion King and stereotypical Serengeti plainscapes; Vast swathes of plains are punctuated by the appearance of a genuinely gargantuan mango tree. These trees are seen by the local people a great resource for one of their most common business practices: burning bricks. What is most visceral to me is the gross inefficiency and lack of foresight in the use of these leviathan pieces of timber for firing bricks for houses. Something approaching “feeling” creeps in to my heart when I look at the stump of a former mango tree 12 feet in diameter and I see the disused pile of bricks it was cut down to fire laying fallow in the field next to the sun cooked stump.
But such moments of humanity and empathy are rare and easily forgotten. This past weekend, after 3 weeks of very nearly reaching a slightly taxing level of work, I took a vacation.
I, along with 6 other eastern volunteers went to the mountain retreat village of Sipi Falls. Located in the Mt. Elgon region near Mbale, Sipi Falls contains Ugandas largest waterfall, and two others, all visible from the slope of the mountain valley where the lodge was built. After staying the night in the lodge, one of the proprietors became our hiking guide to all the falls. The closest waterfall is viewed from the top by decks and terraces built in to the side of the cliff next to the falls. The water disappears in to the forest and mist below and brings unbidden to the mind thoughts of Avatar and its floating islands being in this spot, if any, on Earth.
The next fall was further up, and after hiking behind it, then up the wall beside it, we found the top… where people were doing their laundry in the river and minding their cattle. After taking the requisite meditation pictures of us each overlooking the fall and the view beyond, we moved on.
The “hike” then had us trekking through the fierce wilderness of peoples backyard gardens and up to the shear rim of the valley where the largest of the falls careens off the rim and in to the valley creating a most intense liquid back draft. It was at this point, overlooking the impact site of the tumbling water, that I achieved the lowest temperature and highest elevation I have yet experienced in Uganda.
For this trip, the transportation, the lodging, food, guide, and booze, cost a total equivalent of 25 American dollars.
And finally, a quick note about public transportation. The matatu’s (Chinese mirco buses) serve as taxis that, by law, can carry 14 passengers. This “law” is not only not enforced in my, and many other regions, but is enthusiastically bitch slapped and told to make sammiches. So upon our return from Sipi to Soroti, the only available transport was such a matatu. Thus it was discovered that when taking public transport, a scientific fact emerges. That fact is any latent, or active atheism is vivisected from the body and replaced by a most penitent faith. A faith that, when you are flying in a matatu down what is called a road with 20 other people, 3 infants, and 2 chickens, inspires you with the singular hope that you will make it out alive.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Anecdote #1
Here in Uganda public displays of affection are severely frowned upon, even holding hands. And yet, it is a cultural custom that when men are talking, especially about something to which the other person may disagree, they should hold hands for the duration. One day going to class, I happened to see two armed policeman walking down the road with their weapons slung. This would not be out of the ordinary except, they were also holding hands. And their other hands were on the most mass produced assault weapon in human history. The law is a funny thing here.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Lets have a little chat, you and I...
I suppose now would be an opportune time to “blog” as the children call it, about my last two months of service.
As quickly as we went for the Kampala tour, we were just as quickly whisked away to our new family in wakiso town, Wakiso District (NW of Kampala). There we sat at our training center, all waiting for the singularly arriving families to come and pick us out like the orphans the Peace Corps had made us look like. Eventually, and with great anxiety about who my new mommy would be, a young women came over and told me that I was to be her host-child, but since she is so young, we will be siblings (yes, another one to add to the Marsh Bunch). Oh, and she had a baby 2 days ago…
This was the start of my tenure with the Lutaaya’s, and if implausibility has a surname, it is surely Lutaaya. They’re a liberal Muslim family that enjoy beating me as much as my own mother as well as meat with every meal. They taught me to wash laundry by hand, what a rolex is (Ugandan breakfast burrito minus potatoes), Ugandan humor, culture, and just being a part of a family.
In return… I taught them that Americans are perfectly capable of slaughtering, skinning, and butchering a goat (or 6 to be precise), which I did all on my first weekend with them. I guess I taught them other things too; like what a friend with benefits is, what a quickie is, what the bases are, how to make yourself fat, and that we love the Governator’s movies.
It was around this time that my family’s conspicuous lake of comfort furniture (ie a couch) exceeded the utility of their wide screen tv and I began to hang around with the neighbor, Rebecca Workman.
It is at this point I get to cross off the proverbial “to-do” list of befriending an Aryan Jew. She even comes complete with german efficiency and a kiddy pool of self loathing. (and Becca, if you read this, then I must simply ask… “if the yamaka fits…”)
Now came the child-like exploration of our community, all the while children threw their child-like cries of “see you Muzung!!” Our reaction to the ever present Gregorian chant of “give me money, see you muzung, what is your name, and bye muzungu” ranged the gambit from knowing laughter, mimicry, to my favorite: biding your time till they’re quite close then turning to scare the bejesus out of them.
In our explorations, we discovered that all bars serve food, all bars have lodging, and all bars have the name ____ Gardens. Oh, and that a beer is $1. And a bottle of local gin (waragi) is $7. Good times.
If I have been leaving out the training we received and you should think me in error, fear not, for I will now summarize all of the training provided:
Language=good
Calling the medical officer=good
Nutrition=good
Keeping in contact=good
Greeting at the beginning of every conversation=good
Disobeying PC policies=bad
Aids=bad
Malaria=bad
Poverty=bad
Corruption=bad
Diarrhea=bad
Sti’s=bad
Deforestation=bad
Depression=bad
Robbery/assault=bad
Swimming in lakes=bad (shistosomiasis)
Eating undercooked food=bad
Gender roles=ugly
Cross-cultural differences=ugly
Expectations=ugly
And that is about it.
Sometime around the 5-6 week mark we all went of for tech immersion. The entire training class was divided into two groups based on specialties and experience: Economic development and community health. It speaks volumes about NMT that I was put in the community health field. Detour aside, I went to visit Collin Casey, a PCV in Rakai district working with the Ugandan Red Cross. He is a civil engineer, yet despite that we actually became friends. Their branch was having their president and board elections (a once in 4 years event) so I was privileged to watch 1st rate Ugandan politics… for 9 hours. Even when candidates were busing in ineligible voters to vote for them, I stayed the course, all the way down the road to get lunch while they yelled at each other, for 4 hours.
I digress about politics, but all the same it was beyond describable joy to witness a fully functional PCV working in the field and leading a successful life.
One caveat about this trip was that it took me across the equator for the first time (by ground), and I could not help but think of a hippie I know who shaved her head when she did the same only by boat. Not to be outdone by a mere boulderite, I posthaste sent my hair to the great barber in the sky (also because most all “barbers” in Uganda know only buzz cut, or closer buzz cut).
Now came the petulant times. Just coming back from seeing work, and progress, and impact, training was the least palatable thing we could imagine, besides matooke (for which there is a special place in the gluttonous level of hell). But as I have ever known, ask and ye shall out of necessity create. The interminable chasm between coming back to training and future site visit was bridged by a game, a game of chance. We had conspired to place wagers on all manner of things like the time interval between drinks, or the number of adjectives used to describe a certain latrine, but eventually settled on an activity that was as perennial as the grass and as certain as the sunrise: When would Tien fall asleep in class.
The point of all lectures quickly devolved into who got the best time slot by luck of the draw. Then it was only a matter of surreptitiously staring at Tien to see when the head bobbed, the eyelids drooped, and yelling yatzee when you won (I never won).
The game sustained us when we needed succor the most, and as sure as the game was predictable, we got through to future site visit. (side note here: we actually thought there might be room for concern when he feel asleep with the country director standing 3 feet away, but instead of concern, we felt the game had become that much more reliable)
My site, as I have posted on face book, is the Uganda Martyrs Vocational Institute, 2k outside Soroti town on Mbale road. I have a house to myself with 2 bedrooms, a bath with flushing floor toilet, living room,. Kitchen, shower, running water, and plans for electricity. The carpentry unit constructs my every whim of furniture, even my custom designed bed. The bricklaying and construction unit can build any other structure I deem appropriate; the tailoring unit will make my hammock, as well as suits; the motor vehicle mechanics department ferries me to town for errands and work; the plumbing and welding section laid all my pipes and will teach me welding next semester; and the catering department will concoct all the American recipes I can provide, and then SERVE them to me. Oh, and I made plans with the welding instructor yesterday to make some local fruit based homebrew.
Life is great here, wait… that comes at the end.
After seeing my future Shangri La, reality, as it so often does, forced its way back in to my life. I had to go back to training. But shortly thereafter we were whisked away from our families and lived in luxury at the Rydar hotel in Kampala for 4 days. One of which was the swearing in ceremony conducted at the US ambassadors house (Tien fell asleep here too… maybe it IS a problem…). It was also this day that I decided to adopt my Hemingway persona and can now never be found too far away from my new favorite hat. I can say this for the ambassador, his soirées are top notch. I may have consumed more appetizers and hibiscus juice than an ordinary man, or extraordinary man ought to have. And then came the after party at the hotel (Govt isn‘t allowed to serve us booze). Up until now, we could be sent home for any reason at the discretion of the country director, but as freshly sworn in volunteers, we have more rights and the process is longer. I thus deemed it an appropriate time to don my much hallowed drinking robe, and re-climb the pantheon of classy consumption to sit at the right hand of The Dude (abides).
I now sit comfortably in my office of inscrutable power next to the welding workshop and across from the catering department, sipping my milk tea, thinking of what to include in my next class, sending most barbarous puns to Ryan, and generally reflecting on how great life is…
As quickly as we went for the Kampala tour, we were just as quickly whisked away to our new family in wakiso town, Wakiso District (NW of Kampala). There we sat at our training center, all waiting for the singularly arriving families to come and pick us out like the orphans the Peace Corps had made us look like. Eventually, and with great anxiety about who my new mommy would be, a young women came over and told me that I was to be her host-child, but since she is so young, we will be siblings (yes, another one to add to the Marsh Bunch). Oh, and she had a baby 2 days ago…
This was the start of my tenure with the Lutaaya’s, and if implausibility has a surname, it is surely Lutaaya. They’re a liberal Muslim family that enjoy beating me as much as my own mother as well as meat with every meal. They taught me to wash laundry by hand, what a rolex is (Ugandan breakfast burrito minus potatoes), Ugandan humor, culture, and just being a part of a family.
In return… I taught them that Americans are perfectly capable of slaughtering, skinning, and butchering a goat (or 6 to be precise), which I did all on my first weekend with them. I guess I taught them other things too; like what a friend with benefits is, what a quickie is, what the bases are, how to make yourself fat, and that we love the Governator’s movies.
It was around this time that my family’s conspicuous lake of comfort furniture (ie a couch) exceeded the utility of their wide screen tv and I began to hang around with the neighbor, Rebecca Workman.
It is at this point I get to cross off the proverbial “to-do” list of befriending an Aryan Jew. She even comes complete with german efficiency and a kiddy pool of self loathing. (and Becca, if you read this, then I must simply ask… “if the yamaka fits…”)
Now came the child-like exploration of our community, all the while children threw their child-like cries of “see you Muzung!!” Our reaction to the ever present Gregorian chant of “give me money, see you muzung, what is your name, and bye muzungu” ranged the gambit from knowing laughter, mimicry, to my favorite: biding your time till they’re quite close then turning to scare the bejesus out of them.
In our explorations, we discovered that all bars serve food, all bars have lodging, and all bars have the name ____ Gardens. Oh, and that a beer is $1. And a bottle of local gin (waragi) is $7. Good times.
If I have been leaving out the training we received and you should think me in error, fear not, for I will now summarize all of the training provided:
Language=good
Calling the medical officer=good
Nutrition=good
Keeping in contact=good
Greeting at the beginning of every conversation=good
Disobeying PC policies=bad
Aids=bad
Malaria=bad
Poverty=bad
Corruption=bad
Diarrhea=bad
Sti’s=bad
Deforestation=bad
Depression=bad
Robbery/assault=bad
Swimming in lakes=bad (shistosomiasis)
Eating undercooked food=bad
Gender roles=ugly
Cross-cultural differences=ugly
Expectations=ugly
And that is about it.
Sometime around the 5-6 week mark we all went of for tech immersion. The entire training class was divided into two groups based on specialties and experience: Economic development and community health. It speaks volumes about NMT that I was put in the community health field. Detour aside, I went to visit Collin Casey, a PCV in Rakai district working with the Ugandan Red Cross. He is a civil engineer, yet despite that we actually became friends. Their branch was having their president and board elections (a once in 4 years event) so I was privileged to watch 1st rate Ugandan politics… for 9 hours. Even when candidates were busing in ineligible voters to vote for them, I stayed the course, all the way down the road to get lunch while they yelled at each other, for 4 hours.
I digress about politics, but all the same it was beyond describable joy to witness a fully functional PCV working in the field and leading a successful life.
One caveat about this trip was that it took me across the equator for the first time (by ground), and I could not help but think of a hippie I know who shaved her head when she did the same only by boat. Not to be outdone by a mere boulderite, I posthaste sent my hair to the great barber in the sky (also because most all “barbers” in Uganda know only buzz cut, or closer buzz cut).
Now came the petulant times. Just coming back from seeing work, and progress, and impact, training was the least palatable thing we could imagine, besides matooke (for which there is a special place in the gluttonous level of hell). But as I have ever known, ask and ye shall out of necessity create. The interminable chasm between coming back to training and future site visit was bridged by a game, a game of chance. We had conspired to place wagers on all manner of things like the time interval between drinks, or the number of adjectives used to describe a certain latrine, but eventually settled on an activity that was as perennial as the grass and as certain as the sunrise: When would Tien fall asleep in class.
The point of all lectures quickly devolved into who got the best time slot by luck of the draw. Then it was only a matter of surreptitiously staring at Tien to see when the head bobbed, the eyelids drooped, and yelling yatzee when you won (I never won).
The game sustained us when we needed succor the most, and as sure as the game was predictable, we got through to future site visit. (side note here: we actually thought there might be room for concern when he feel asleep with the country director standing 3 feet away, but instead of concern, we felt the game had become that much more reliable)
My site, as I have posted on face book, is the Uganda Martyrs Vocational Institute, 2k outside Soroti town on Mbale road. I have a house to myself with 2 bedrooms, a bath with flushing floor toilet, living room,. Kitchen, shower, running water, and plans for electricity. The carpentry unit constructs my every whim of furniture, even my custom designed bed. The bricklaying and construction unit can build any other structure I deem appropriate; the tailoring unit will make my hammock, as well as suits; the motor vehicle mechanics department ferries me to town for errands and work; the plumbing and welding section laid all my pipes and will teach me welding next semester; and the catering department will concoct all the American recipes I can provide, and then SERVE them to me. Oh, and I made plans with the welding instructor yesterday to make some local fruit based homebrew.
Life is great here, wait… that comes at the end.
After seeing my future Shangri La, reality, as it so often does, forced its way back in to my life. I had to go back to training. But shortly thereafter we were whisked away from our families and lived in luxury at the Rydar hotel in Kampala for 4 days. One of which was the swearing in ceremony conducted at the US ambassadors house (Tien fell asleep here too… maybe it IS a problem…). It was also this day that I decided to adopt my Hemingway persona and can now never be found too far away from my new favorite hat. I can say this for the ambassador, his soirées are top notch. I may have consumed more appetizers and hibiscus juice than an ordinary man, or extraordinary man ought to have. And then came the after party at the hotel (Govt isn‘t allowed to serve us booze). Up until now, we could be sent home for any reason at the discretion of the country director, but as freshly sworn in volunteers, we have more rights and the process is longer. I thus deemed it an appropriate time to don my much hallowed drinking robe, and re-climb the pantheon of classy consumption to sit at the right hand of The Dude (abides).
I now sit comfortably in my office of inscrutable power next to the welding workshop and across from the catering department, sipping my milk tea, thinking of what to include in my next class, sending most barbarous puns to Ryan, and generally reflecting on how great life is…
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