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The view as I walk to school every morning.
Here I am, in week four of the Great Ugandan Adventure, and not a whiff of homesickness.
Well.
If you offered me a Five Guys burger and fries I wouldn’t say no. Or a Latino Chicken sandwich from Crisp and Juicy.
I also wouldn’t refuse a pedicure.
However, I am largely homesickness-free. I know, I know, it’s early days. But I think I’m learning a few tricks of the trade which will keep me busy and happy and generally glad to be in Uganda. Here are my top five homesickness cures so far:
Homesickness cure #1: students of AAH and village children in general. I like to avoid clichés, but this one is unavoidable. I’m no Princess Diana. There are days when I’m walking home and those little howareyous are coming at me from every corner and I want to scream “SHUT UP!” Or, “I’d be a lot bloody better if you’d leave me alone.” But overall, hanging out with smiling, singing African children who want to hold your hand and listen to you read, rules.
Homesickness cure #2: sense of humor. There are many funny things in Bumwalukani. For example, the sound people make when they imitate a rooster crowing. I have one word for you: Gob. If you don’t get this reference, you should maybe just stop reading my blog right now. Or, you should rent Arrested Development season 2 DVDs. Anyway, this poor little girl was just trying to give me a friendly lesson on the local wildlife, and she explained the noise a rooster makes. I laughed for at least five minutes because her impression was strikingly similar to Gob’s chicken dance. This brings me to homesickness cure #2.1: Arrested Development DVDs. Another volunteer and I recently watched almost the entire first season in one sitting while munching on Nutella-covered biscuits. Oh yes, this brings me to homesickness cure #2.2: Nutella. I have never doubted Nutella’s superiority as a food item, but my Ugandan experience has pushed my Nutella consumption to new heights. Skeeter makes a particularly appetizing dish in which she mashes cornflakes and Nutella together to form a sort of pancake. Last night she and Charlee and I hid in our room from the other visitors, and ate two plates of the stuff by flashlight. When Cynthia came in to go to bed we were like a group of disturbed lemmings—looking at her fearfully while pawing for the last crumb of choclately goodness.
Homesickness cure #3: mental flexibility. David’s birthday celebration is one good example of cure #3. In honor of the occasion Skeeter went in search of a birthday cake in Mbale. Some people had recommended a particular supermarket and once she arrived she was shown the store’s glass display case, filled with watches, jewelry, and, a cake. Just the one. It was unceremoniously put into a cardboard box, shoved into the bottom of her backpack, and carted around on the back of a motorbike. Its icing was like sheet metal. It sat out for four days, and it took David considerable effort to hack into the thing on the big night. Delicious is a stretch, but I’d definitely give it ‘edible.’ Throw in a mix CD, some slim-jims, and a freshly-slaughtered chicken and you’ve got yourself a birthday party. The issue of hygiene also requires pretty dramatic mental flexibility. Remembering that what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger helps, as does avoiding all mirrors.
I tried really hard to make David show his teeth. He resisted.
Skeeter introduces Headmaster Thomas to the ipod.
Homesickness cure #4: understanding that the bugs have already won. You seal yourself into your mosquito net at night, and sleep with a can of Doom under your pillow, but the giant cricket will still find a way to get inside. Save your energy for more important things, like persuading all the other volunteers that we really should get a Guest House puppy.
Homesickness cure #5: the idea of a Guest House puppy who shall be named Murphy II. I’ll keep you updated on this particular project.
Graduating P7 students at their ceremony.
Today I needed to borrow some stencils from Teacher Viola, so I ducked into her classroom to grab them off her desk. I tried to be subtle, I tried to be quick, but it was to no avail. Up stood all 47 children, and chorused: “YOU ARE WELCOME TEACHER RUTH. THIS IS P3,” followed by a clapclapclap clapclapclap CLAP! Then they stood smiling widely at me until I told them to sit down. 47 pairs of eyes followed me across the room, and 47 pairs of ears listened intently as I apologetically asked Viola for the stencils. This happens every time I visit a classroom. Sometimes when I’m just walking by a classroom I hear the whispers starting: “visitor, visitor coming.” They are seriously on the edge of their seats, poised for my arrival. If I spend time reading to a class, the children usually continue to clap until I’m well out the door, or sing the “Thank you teacher” song. Sometimes I feel like a tool as I awkwardly back out muttering “stop, stop, you’re welcome, it’s fine.” Other times I embrace it, with a big movie star wave.
Girls sitting outside the guest house.
I’ve only been a teacher for two years, and maybe not in the best circumstances, but I have never experienced any thing like the tidal wave of good nature that hits any visitor to Arlington Academy of Hope. The children are thrilled to be there. The volunteers have been interviewing some of the kids to fill out profiles for their sponsors, and we’re beginning to get a picture of their daily lives. For many kids it’s at least an hour’s walk to the school. They have to be there at 7:30am, so that means they’re leaving their houses in the dark. School goes until 4:30pm, and when they get home they’re grazing cattle, fetching water and preparing food. Once darkness hits, game over. Many don’t have electricity in their homes, and even if they did we are currently heading into day 5 without power in the region. Sometimes their school uniform is the only complete outfit they own. Sometimes their parents have sold off the family animals to afford the school fees. Sometimes they are the only child out of eight who is actually attending school.
It’s a strange feeling. I am aware of all these things, but I don’t feel sorry for the kids. This is largely because they don’t feel sorry for themselves. The school is a joyful place. Ugandan teaching methods use a lot of chanting and repetition. These kids go at it with gusto. There is always at least one class singing. In the weekly assemblies a line of older kids leads the school in prayer. A teacher and a few kids bang the drums, the kids sing and dance and praise the lord. I really have no idea what they’re saying, but it’s beautiful. Three hundred sweet little voices echo on the hillside. It’s early morning, they’re all in their red and white checked uniforms, the sun hits the leafy mountains behind them . . .
I have been known to cry at JC Penny commercials, so this situation is pretty much lethal to me.
Boys prepare for a performance at a neighboring village
I am still not sure what impact I am going to have here. I have a million ideas and a lot of time, but I sometimes end the day wondering what I’ve actually accomplished. I’m a ‘to-do’ list kind of gal, and sometimes my lists are woefully short of checks. It’s disconcerting. But the other day I was reading aloud to P4, and we came across the word “glared.” I explained what glared means, and then I showed them a glare, then we all practiced glaring at each other, and then we all started laughing. Later they sang the “Thank you teacher” song. That kind of blew the to-do list out of the water.
On The first afternoon we arrived in the village Cynthia took us on a walk up the hill by the school. As we were walking up the steep dirt road we began to hear shrill cries sounding something like “Howwwwwwwwwrooooooooooo” echoing around the hillside. We peered into the valley below, looking through all the banana trees, but couldn’t see anything. We kept walking, and turned a bend to find a flock of children hurtling down the path towards us. It’s a steep path, and they were flat out running. They were barefoot, and a lot of their clothing was torn, but they grinned widely when they saw us. They pulled-up short in front of us, giggling and reaching out their hands to touch ours. Every kid had to touch the hand of every muzunga (white person). They kept up their gleeful chorus of “Howwwrrroooo” which translates into “How are you?” the whole time. They didn’t want anything in particular from me, except to shake my hand. Some of the younger ones wanted to hold hands with me, and walk along with our arms swinging. It was probably the most charming experience of my life to date.
On any walk I take in the village, howwwrrooo punctuates my stride. It comes from children in every corner. In most cases, it’s all the kid’s got. Hit them back with an “I am fine,” and they just giggle. Of course this is similar to me walking around idiotically repeating “Melembe” to everyone I pass. If they want to take the conversation past the “hello” point, I’m stumped.
These kids are tickled pink by the simplest things; showing them a photo of themselves on a digital camera, empty water bottles, telling them your name. I was walking down from school recently and two young boys were marching behind me arm in arm. “What is your name?” they asked. I told them, and it just made their day. “Looth” they kept shouting and laughing hysterically. They turned off the path onto another trail, still giggling and shaking their heads at the absurdity of it all.
All of these kids work. It’s a pretty common occurrence for me to see an eight or nine year old striding down the mountain side with a bunch of matoke on his or her head that would leave me in a whimpering heap. They dig and plant and graze the animals. They help out with all the household chores, which are considerably more difficult when you don’t have running water or electricity. They play too, all ages together. They don’t exactly have toys. Charlee recently kept about twenty kids happy by playing frisbee with a small piece of wood. She wanted to go into the rules of Ultimate Frisbee with them, but I was skeptical. Any opportunity to watch TV is a big draw. About thirty of them came by the school recently to work on their scholarship applications. Once we had finished helping them, someone put in a DVD and they all stuck around. The problem was that they were re-paving the verandah in front of the room with the TV, so the kids couldn’t stay in there. They pulled up desks and sat in the courtyard across from the door to the room, watching Owen Wilson jabber on from about 30 feet away.
Most of the kids I meet are pleased to participate in most any diversion. On a slow Sunday afternoon Charlee and I gathered about ten of the neighborhood kids and attempted to teach them a complicated rhythm game with empty water bottles. It was hot, and we kept forgetting how it was supposed to go, but those kids stuck with us and we had a good ol’time. We also had an avid audience when we did some yoga in the living room. In between fits of giggles a couple of them were seriously trying to imitate us. There are probably some kids with pretty sore abs in this village right now. When I spent thirty minutes outside scraping the mud from the soles of my Pumas this afternoon I drew a crowd of at least five. Of course, there’s always the age-old practice of examining dead animals. Our dinner was interrupted the other night by the joyous yells of children running around the side of our house. There were about ten of them, and they were all shouting and laughing. I caught a glimpse of them through the front door, saw a grey blur swinging from one of the kid’s hands, and thought “Oh my god, they’ve got a dead rabbit.” Wrong. What they had was a dead RAT, the size of a rabbit. I’m not sure what happened next because I closed my eyes and thought happy thoughts.
People warned me before I came here that it would get pretty rough emotionally. They said that once the novelty of the country wears off it can become depressing dealing with the poverty all around. I don’t doubt that that’s going to happen, but for right now these kids seem to be the heart and soul of the country. They’re always smiling, so I usually am too.
I seriously considered peeing in a basin this morning. It was 3:45am and my choices were the basin or the latrine. The latrine involves opening the back door of the house via two extremely loud bolts, walking around the side of the house, crossing by the rubbish pit, avoiding the cheetah/dog that lurks around there (exact species tbd), then entering the little concrete cubicle, all by the light of a flashlight. In case you didn’t know, latrine is a fancy word for a hole in the ground. Try peeing in one of those while also remaining in control of your flashlight. I chose the latrine, and lived to tell the tale. But this leads me to my Guest House rule #1: I will not drink anything for at least two hours before I go to bed. I’ve also moved a basin into my room, because you never know.
The Cynthia Margeson Guest House is located at the top of a small hill beside the main road leading in and out of Kikholo trading center. It has a large airy main room with an area to sit around and a big dining table. At the back of the room is the table where the cook Jennifer sets out the food and the ‘staging table’ for all bathroom operations. This table is covered with bottles of hand sanitizer, bottles of boiled water for teeth brushing, toilet paper, basins and jugs. Out back there is some grass, the large water tank where you can collect all your water for washing, and the kitchen and store room. There’s a verandah out front where you can sit and watch everyone passing on the road below. All around are small farms and there are constantly chicken, cows and goats wandering about. It’s extremely peaceful.
The front of the guest house The view from the verandah
Of course I have already identified some key items that I should have brought. Hand sanitizer is one, given the whole latrine situation. A few nights ago when it was time to brush our teeth I was a little amused when Charlee, another volunteer, appeared with a headlight strapped to her head, coal miner-style. Then I turned around and everyone had lights strapped to their heads, coal miner-style. Turns out it’s a lot easier to brush your teeth with bottled water in the back yard in the pitch dark with a miner light, not to mention go to the latrine.
The last few days of living here have transformed my reality completely. A real live rooster wakes me each morning, usually accompanied by an angry cow. I take splash baths with a basin and some cold water. I wash my hair in the concrete “bathing room” that’s attached to my bedroom. Think of that scene from Out of Africa when Robert Redford washes Meryl Streep’s hair while they’re on safari. Now erase it from your mind. My process involves doing a semi-headstand in a basin of water, and some very strategic rinsing. But the water is cool and it’s always peaceful, with just the sounds of my own splashing and the kids playing outside. We had power for the first twenty-four hours I was here, but since then it’s been on and off. I really don’t mind. Once it’s dark we have kerosene lamps and if you go outside the stars are just about the greatest thing you’ve ever seen. The cook Jennifer produces amazing 5-dish meals from the small concrete room behind the house. She has two propane burners, and that’s about it, but tonight we had rice, vegetable stew, omelet, potatoes and pasta. People read and talk and type and go to bed by 9:30pm. I crawl under my mosquito net and read, but my eyes usually shut by 10pm. The rooster kicks in around 6am. The alarm on my mobile phone consists of some British woman repeating “It’s time to get up” very politely, but quite insistently. It adds a nice vibe to the morning. Sometimes kids who live nearby come and visit. Benard in particular likes to play the games on Charlee’s mobile phone. A little lamb also makes occasional forays into the living room, and the chickens peck around the back door. At night there is a watchman who patrols around the yard. He came in to meet us and sat down with his AK-47 by his side. We chatted, and then the frightening question arose in my mind: will he recognize me on a midnight latrine trip without a miner-light? Here’s hoping.
Words like incredible and amazing roll off the tongue pretty easily here. It’s so different in every way from my life in the states, but it doesn’t feel like it’s been that big of an adjustment. Living like this feels good. I’ve never been so excited about just being somewhere and I’m rested and relaxed and happy. Now if I could just get my hands on a headlight . . .
