The Brodeo

I think that if I had an identical twin sister I would have spent a large portion of my youth consumed with jealousy and/or petty hatred. I always thought those Sweet Valley dumbos must have hated each other. The girls on Sister, Sister were pretty convincing bffs, but I’m not buying it. I think it would be rough. Thankfully, I was blessed with a twin brother, and he was blessed with an aptitude for finance, so he recently coughed up the absurd amount of money necessary to travel to Africa, and paid me a visit. I use this term quite consciously: James was more than generous when it came to picking up the tab for certain expensive ape-viewing excursions. Gorillas may be promiscuous, but they ain’t cheap.

ohmygod. I crack myself up.

James and I took different paths in life. We split along gender stereotypes to an eerie degree: I was into drama, he was into sports, I majored in English, he majored in Business, I became a teacher, he became a banker. The one exception to these 1950s-style life paths is that I was way stronger in the womb and took all the nutrients and pushed my way out first and James had to be in an incubator. HAH! I like to ponder that when someone brings it to my attention that he currently drives a Porsche, while I would be hard pressed to afford a good mountain bike. The bottom line, however, is that we get along very well, and he makes a great traveling companion.

To introduce James to the wonderful country of Uganda I thought it was appropriate to make him spend thirteen straight hours in a car on our way to do a gorilla trek. It was only supposed to be eleven, but we got a flat, and the spare had conveniently been dislodged by an earlier bump and was nowhere to be found. It was a perfect introduction to Africa actually, as James and I set by the side of the road, enduring the good-natured taunts of passer-bys and hoping that our driver returned at some point. At the end of it all our hotel was less than luxurious, but had an enterprising manager. He even went out to the shop to see if they had bananas for the packed lunch we needed for the next day. They didn’t, so we were back to two boiled eggs and a slice of bread. We confirmed that food really was not the place’s strong suit as James bravely hacked into a foreign looking combination of mushrooms and red clumps that was optimistically labeled ‘hamburger.’

James surveys the landscape following our breakdown

Everything became worth it the next day though, when we went on our gorilla trek. The scenery in the Western part of the country is amazing, especially near the borders with DRC and Rwanda, which is exactly where we were. The area is almost always referred to as the Switzerland of Africa in guidebooks. I enjoy joking about this, but was genuinely impressed by the alpine-like gorgeousness around me. Three huge volcanoes straddle the borders between the three countries, and we were trekking around their bases, in windswept, flower-filled, lush countryside that could have been the West of Ireland on its good days.

Purty volcano

The comparisons to Ireland stopped when our guide identified some cunning tracker’s signal (notches in tree trunks and bent branches and all that) and we turned abruptly into a bamboo forest. I think the Rambo movies may be a more appropriate comparison for this section of the trek, or, of course, Tarzan. (I’ve spent a long time trying to think of a witty title for this blog entry that somehow incorporates the whole “Me Tarzan. You Jane” bit. I’ve failed, but please do leave your suggestions in the comment section and I’ll think about changing the current title.) The bamboo stalks were tall and thick, and we had to wriggle and pry our way through sections of them. Whenever the wind blew the stalks hit each other, creating an eerie wind-chime rustling. Even though we were preceded by five extremely experienced trackers, one guide, and two armed escorts, I entertained fantasies of being the first one to actually spot the gorillas. “Oh look guys,” I’d say all nonchalantly, “There they are,” and everyone would congratulate me on my super animal surveillance powers. Then the gorillas would take me as one of their own and I would definitely get to hug a baby gorilla. Clearly, this didn’t happen, but my eager scanning of the nearby landscape did result in several easily-avoidable trips.

After about an hour we caught up to the trackers who had been prowling around ahead of us, and although there was very little conversation in English it became apparent that we were in hot pursuit of a family of gorillas. First we came across their little sleeping nests, scattered in a particularly bushy section of the forest. A few minutes later our guide turned around with a look on his face as if all his birthdays had come at once: “We are with the gorillas.” And sure enough, around the next tree clump there was a family of five or so huge mountain gorillas just chillin. The silverback was lying on his belly, head propped up on one hand, disinterestedly picking at the fur on his arm. As we all crouched around and began our paparazzi impression he glanced up at us, and I swear rolled his eyes. We were booooooooring. The gorillas, however, were not. It was a weird, surreal feeling. I kept expecting someone to yell “Cut!” and some sweaty man to emerge from his very realistic gorilla costume.

This silverback appears to  be sulking.

They are huge, beautiful, strange creatures. At various points family members entered and exited the clearing, and we eventually had three silverbacks about five meters away from us. Two of the younger members were playing around and ended up in a sort of bear hug, moving roly-poly down the nearby hill. It was like observing a very quiet human family on a Sunday afternoon picnic in the park. It was enthralling just to stare at their bizarre anatomy and wonder at the craziness of the biological world.

This silverback appears to be eating

Wait–which one is your  brother?  I can’t tell.

The Switzerland of Africa

After sixteen more hours in the car, with an overnight stop in Kampala (where I expertly guided James to the worst Italian restaurant in town), we made it to the village. I was really excited to have a family member actually see all the stuff I’ve been writing about for the past seven months, and our two days in the village didn’t disappoint. James good-naturedly put up with everything as I gleefully checked off the items on my ‘real village experience’ list:

Torrential rain that traps you at school and stands between you and the food at the guest house you’ve been craving since about 10:30am: check.

Mud-soaked roadway that requires you to dress and walk like an idiot: check.

Impromptu speech in front of the whole school and various guests of honor: check.

Presentation of a cow to said guest of honor, inside the school library: check.

Breathtakingly steep climb of an undetermined distance to a student’s home: check.

Eating unidentified chicken parts to be polite: check.

James speechifying

I guess that would be the cynical take on matters. James also got to experience some of what I consider the best parts of life here. He saw the students singing and dancing and generally being wonderful human beings. He met Papa, and watched him try not to fall asleep during the cow presentation ceremony. He saw peoples’ reactions when we played the Pole to Pole episode of the Planet Earth DVDs, and everyone from age 5 to 75 couldn’t take their eyes off the screen. He visited my student Isaac’s home and met his absurdly grateful family and ate the feast they put in front of us while their chicks and puppies wandered around our feet. He watched Isaac literally dig new steps so that I could descend from the perilous latrine location. He took a bucket bath and played cards and read by lantern light and went to bed by 10pm. Boring as it sounds, I’ve grown to love that routine.

James with Isaac and Isaac’s father

After a little village down time, we were, apparently, ready to party. James’ old college friend, Louisa, is working in Gulu and came down to Kampala to meet us. We got to stay in her friend’s lovely UN house and enjoy strange comforts like electricity and running water. She also knows all the Kampala hot spots, and took us to by far and away the best club I’ve been to since I’ve been here. We drank a lot of Red Bull (why?) and danced our pants off. I was befriended by a random Brit who kept trying to get me to dance salsa with him to techno music. At first I found it amusing, but by the end of the evening he was only kept at bay by Louisa’s impressive NBA-style defensive maneuvers.

Oh Kampala at 4:30am.  You crazy.

The next day was largely spent nursing hangovers, although James and Louisa visited an orphanage she used to work for while I went to use the internet and fight with this very blogging website. We’re currently not seeing eye-to-eye on picture sizes, but we’re working through our issues at dial-up speed. We all reunited to take advantage of Uganda’s only movie theatre and watch the new Batman movie. At a key climactic moment there was some sort of malfunction and the screen went dark. Another classic African moment for James’ list, but thankfully it came back on after about five minutes.

As a last hurrah we did the Jinja thing. I wasn’t really up for rafting again, considering my heart rate is still slowing from the last time I did it, but James was game. I opted for the more peaceful (or so I thought) activity of horseback riding. It was a quiet day at the stables, so it was just me and the guide on the trek. It was sunny and stunningly beautiful—ambling along village roads and through sugar cane fields. I’ve had a fair amount of experience riding, so I was excited to do a bit of cantering and all that. Apparently my horse sensed my over-confidence and decided to bring me back down to earth. Literally.

ohmygod. Another zinger.

Anyhoo, we set off on a brisk canter through a field, and it went something like this:

Me: Hey there horsy, this is a tad fast for my liking, won’t you pretty please slow down?

Horse: No. (executes perfect bucking maneuver that lands me about half-way up his neck)

Me: garbled sounds of fear

Guide: (turning around) Hey! Sit back down. SIT BACK DOWN!

Me: Oh really? Is that what I should do? I thought I’d just hang out here on his neck for the rest of the ride. Thank you so much for your great advice.

Thump, roll, mud splatter, muffled yell.

So I was way more shaken up by my horseback experience than James was by his encounter with grade five rapids. It figures.

Looking back we accomplished an impressive itinerary really. And James was even on time for his 9:00am board meeting in Amsterdam the morning after he flew out. Very efficient.

I think the fact that we haven’t seen each other in a while helped me notice some things about James that I’ve overlooked before. For example, he makes exactly the same sort of blown-out cheek, determined, facial expression as my dad in times of physical duress, as evidenced by the rafting footage. He also sticks his tongue out a little when he’s concentrating on something, just like my mom. However, my biggest discovery occurred within hours of his arrival at Entebbe. Devoted readers of the blog, and anyone who has ever accompanied me to a bar, or on a car journey of over 20 minutes, will be familiar with my tempestuous relationship with my bladder. Well, guess who else needs to pee a lot more than an average human and describes his bladder as ‘pea-sized’???

My twin brother, that’s who!

Studying this phenomenon has led me to one, undeniable, conclusion: in some freak accident of biology, James and I actually split one bladder in the womb. We each only have half of a regular human bladder! It explains so much! I wonder if Dateline or the Jerry Springer Show will want to do a feature on us? Here’s hoping he’s as comfortable discussing his bladder capacity in a public forum as I apparently am.

So now it’s back to village time for me, with no family members to entertain. Things are a lot quieter around here now that summer’s over, so I’ve decided to set myself a series of mental challenges to help pass the time. At the moment I am not allowed to eat anything that has been fried. This removes about fifty percent of my dietary options around here, but I think it’s worth it, as I could probably solve the world’s fuel crisis if they could figure out a way to efficiently harvest the oil from the pores on my face.

I just passed the seven month mark, and I’m entering that phase where it seems like so much and so little has happened since I’ve been here that I’m utterly confused as to my next step. Do let me know if you have any bright ideas, or if you too want to come and have a rollicking African adventure avec moi. I know I could get a gorilla to hug me, if I just had one more chance . . . .

Ugandan School Musical

One of the last films I watched before I left the States was War/Dance; a beautiful documentary about a choir from a refugee camp in Northern Uganda preparing to compete in the national music competition. This moving cinematic experience was followed closely by my viewing of High School Musical (1). What it may have lacked in subtlety, HSM more than made up for in cheesiness. And boy do those Disney Channel geniuses know how to make a girl want to put on her dancing shoes. My recent experience chaperoning the AAH choir at the regional music competition acted as a sort of merging of those two films: an experience that veered between the sublime and the ridiculous.

I have finally come to accept some of the more frustrating aspects of the Ugandan method of event planning. Therefore, I was not surprised when the headmaster told me that the choir of over eighty students was going to spend the night sleeping on woven mats in an empty classroom in an Mbale school so they could be on time for the competition the next morning. I was not surprised when the bus hired to come and pick up the children at 6pm did not arrive in the village until after 9pm. I was not surprised when I arrived at the venue the next morning, about thirty minutes after the published start time, and was informed that the competition would not begin for another two hours. I was not surprised to discover that even though there were eight schools performing in ten different categories, for a grand total of eighty performances, there was no prepared schedule or plan to speak of. Mostly though, I was not surprised to find the AAH students draped over every available surface in the barren classroom/dorm room in high spirits and completely unfazed by the organizational Armageddon unfolding around them. I took my cue from them, and decided to roll with it.

Students snacking on porridge waiting for the competition to start

The duel themes for this year’s competition were “Go to School, Stay in School, and Return to School” and “Sanitation.” I find the former a little confusing. Surely if you have gone to school, and are now staying in school, it’s pretty much impossible for you to simultaneously return to school. Redundant as it is, it’s definitely more inspirational than sanitation as a topic. Several of the ten performance categories require original compositions (poems, songs, dances) on these themes. If you think choreographing a dance to convey the message ‘stay in school’ is hard, try performing an epic poem on the issue of sanitation. The situation provided for some very honest moments, surely unprecedented in the world of performing arts. “Men squatting in the bushes, as if in a latrine. Alas!” The eight young women from St. Agnes Primary School chorused, as they raised their fists to the sky in despair. The judges nodded approvingly. When has poetry been so practical? The education theme provided more fertile ground. The opening event of the day was the Western Choral Piece. AAH took the stage early on and belted out their tribute to education called “The Source,” sounding for all the world like the Vienna Boys Choir. They lined up in their crisp uniforms and polished shoes and did that funny thing professional choirs do when they open their mouths really wide to sing. Although most of the lyrics reminded me of a government memo more than a song (‘we shall built industries, we shall build factories, we shall build the roads and the hospitals’), it was goose-bump inducing stuff.

Arlington Students perform their Western Choral Piece

The day flew by in a whirlwind of chanted latrine references and varied depictions of what can happen to the poor soul who eschews the free education now offered to all by the Ugandan government. It was hot and dry, for once. Food vendors set up a mini-market outside the main door offering burnt samosas and loose candy. Groups of children in various outlandish costumes littered the large school campus, sucking down ice-pops and beginning impromptu games of soccer. Giant wooden instruments were carted around and harassed teachers herded over-excited youngsters back and forth, back and forth as we slowly worked our way through the mammoth performance list. The judges chugged soda after soda and tried to stay awake.

Students waiting to perform

Instruments

The only seating option left by late afternoon

As evening approached the hall grew more and more crowded. Finding a seat became a matter of violence. Of course, the electricity was out, so the hall was lit by three weak light bulbs, powered by a generator chugging its little heart out in the back. After seven straight hours of music competition, I had to wonder what in the name of god was keeping all the spectators there. Just as it began to get dark outside, the answer became clear: the traditional dance category. Turns out traditional dance is the pinnacle of all things music competition-related. It’s the climactic car-chase scene, the lion tamer in the big-top, the fat lady singing. It’s frackin awesome. AAH also happens to have an ace up its sleeve in this category: the Lunyege. It’s a traditional courtship dance, and it involves shirtless boys in brightly striped shorts with rings of bells around their legs from their knees to their ankles. These are the weapons with which they seduce rows of girls in mini skirts and midriff-baring tank-tops who parade the stage shaking their hips outrageously.

AAH kids get ready to bring the funk

Once the AAH kids entered the hall and the audience realized what dance they were about to see, the mood took on a sort of rock concert vibe. The percussionists set up a furious beat on the drums and were soon joined by the thundering row of boys who jumped and hopped and lunged around the stage, creating their own manic music in pursuit of the girls. There was heckling and cheering and hootin and hollerin. Old women shrieked with laughter and small children looked on in wide-eyed amazement. The girls kept twirling away and the boys kept chasing. Finally they faced each other in opposing lines across the stage. Even in their static line, the boys kept stamping to keep up the frenetic beat, doing a frenzied version of the running man which left them all dripping with sweat. One brave soul ventured into the no-man’s land of the middle of the stage and did his fanciest moves, before approaching the line of girls. He moved down the line, examining each girl’s face, offered his hand to the one he found most attractive, and off they went together on a bell/hip shaking tour of the stage. This happened several times, until one girl upped the ante by refusing her suitor, forcing him to try to impress her with more and more energetic dance moves. Finally he called upon his friends to act as wing-men, and the girl finally capitulated. At the dramatic finale AAH got a standing ovation.

Now, on the one hand, this dance would seem to represent a very crude version of what we in the West have turned into an excruciatingly complicated ritual. I mean, if all your average New York male had to do was determine which girl he liked the look of most, then jangle his way over to her bar stool convincingly, we’d all save a lot of money on cocktails. So, you could say it demonstrates the relative simplicity of African social customs compared to ours. On the other hand, we’re talking about twelve and thirteen year old kids doing this dance. While middle schoolers in the US are focusing on Clearasil products and who’s older brother can buy them beer, these kids are tapping into something ancient from their culture. Just the name of the category illuminates the difference: traditional dance. There is a depth and a wisdom that the children here seem to grasp early on—a tradition. It’s a dimension that I didn’t find in most of the American kids I taught; the connection these have with the bigger picture of their community and its roots. That doesn’t mean that they all think they can just point at some random girl on the roadside and take her as a wife. In many ways, the times have a-changed, and there are a lot of people spending a lot of money on vodka-sodas in swish Kampala bars. But watching the AAH kids, and all the kids from the other schools, singing and dancing about death and grief and love and betrayal, I sensed the heft and the complexity of the history here. Not to sound like a Republican or anything, but I sensed the importance of their tradition.

By 8:30pm, after nine and a half hours of music competition, I was done for. The huge school buildings were still alive with hundreds of hyper kids, racing around by flashlight and casting animated silhouettes on the walls. They were giddy with the excitement of the day and the relative freedom the darkness provided. It felt like some sort of Halloween fun-house crossed with back-stage at the Pantomime. I stopped by the AAH classroom and found the kids clustered in dim groups around candles, chatting excitedly about the day, some still getting into make-up and costumes for performances to come.

In the end we placed 6^th out of 8, and so did not qualify to go on to the national level of the competition. I also found out that the kids didn’t leave Mbale until after midnight, and the mud on our local road was so bad that they ended up spending the night on the bus. I never heard a word of complaint about it.

My name is mud

“The worst part was that the rain was affecting everything and the driest of machines would have flowers popping out among their gears if they were not oiled every three days, and the threads in brocades rusted, and wet clothing would break out in a rash of saffron-colored moss. The air was so damp that fish could have come in through the doors and swum out the windows, floating through the atmosphere in the rooms.”

–One Hundred Years of Solitude

So it’s the Rainy Season here in Uganda. I agree heartily with the ‘rainy’ part of this title, not so much with ‘season.’ To me, the word season implies a time span of, say, 3 – 4 months. This particular ‘season’ lasts a good 9 months, so I think it would be more appropriate to just call it The Weather. Our village is located in pretty much the rainiest spot in Uganda. We’re at a high elevation, surrounded by hills. The scenery has always been dramatic, but the rain brings giant cloud banks rolling in, obscuring any sights beyond the nearest hill and making everything misty. Sometimes it feels like our patch of land has been uprooted, and actually placed inside a large rain cloud. I can stand outside my office and watch the rain approach through the nearby valley, watch as it creeps across the compound and finally hits me in the face.

It rains every day. It usually comes hard and heavy. It falls so loudly on the aluminum roofs that you sometimes can’t hear yourself speak. We have pretty frequent thunder and lightening—maybe twice a week. The local topography does not favor us. Everything slopes. I mean everything: the roofs, the roads, the students’ playground. The rain hits, and then it washes downward. And you’re always downstream of something. Beside every building, along every path, the rain collects and creates gushing steams of muddy run-off. From above, the school compound could be mistaken for a distant aerial map of some lush wilderness: rivers and waterfalls, small lakes and swamplands.

At first, the rain made me very angry. I would wake up to the loud drops falling on our roof and silently shake my fist at the heavens. This is ridiculous, it couldn’t possibly continue, I would think as I pulled my raincoat and gumboots on over my pajamas and headed out to the latrine. It is ridiculous, and it does continue. Everything is damp and smells slightly moldy, getting to the latrine involves artful leaps and short bouts of wading, and my hair permanently looks like a small bushy animal hibernating on my head. Students coming to reading lessons in my office sprint from their classrooms and arrive shivering and tracking pounds of thick clay on their feet. I find myself spending large periods of time staring listlessly out the window. But, I am making the adjustments necessary to maintain my sanity. I have purchased a large golf umbrella, I have created a make-shift clothesline in my bedroom, I’ve perfected the hands-free gumboots to flip-flop switch, and I ALWAYS carry my raincoat. I don’t care if it is 100 degrees out, and blue sky as far as the eye can see—I bring the damn raincoat.

All the headaches associated with the frequent rainfall pale in comparison with the mud. THE MUD. I thought I knew the definition of that word, thought I had had a fair amount of experience with that substance, even have fond memories of making mud pies in some friend’s backyard. Living in the village has revolutionized the concept for me. You see, there is no paved road within an hour of here. The best we have is a sort of thin grit layer on the main road that leads to Mbale. Unfortunately that road does not pass by the school. From the guest house you walk for about five minutes on the grit road, and then make a turn for the kilometer walk on the mud road. That’s where the fun begins. The mud here has a very particular consistency. It absorbs the exact amount of rain water necessary to create a kilometer long slip and slide. It’s thick, and slick and evilly deceiving. It likes to masquerade as solid lumps that you can safely place your foot on, and then once your foot hits, whoosh—you ain’t got no traction and you’re going down. Climbing up the hill brings a strikingly literal meaning to the phrase ‘one step forward, two steps back.’ The walk down doubles as both commute home, and excellent practice for my nascent cross-country skiing career. The muzungu parade back from the school is big entertainment for the locals every evening. We gingerly pick our way along, clutching onto each other’s forearms and squealing ‘whoopsy’ every two minutes (alright, maybe that last one specifically refers to me), while the kids from school race by in blurred streams of barefoot laughter. We take half an hour to do the walk and make sure we don’t get any smudges on our kakis, while they run down the mountain in five minutes, amassing thick wet pads of mud on their bare soles. Some of the older girls take pity, take my bag, and walk patiently beside me, arms poised for a quick rescue if necessary. I have seen one AAH student fall. It was a tad surreal because it was a very grey evening, almost dark, still raining, and she was inexplicably wearing a Santa Claus hat.

The mud . . . . THE MUD!

The rain and mud have introduced a new staple into my wardrobe: the gumboot. The black rubber boots that come up to my knees have become close friends of mine, and we go everywhere together. My friend Katie warned me about the boots before I left the States, so I came to Uganda armed with several pairs of fashionable knee-socks. Think Britney Spears in the Hit me Baby One More Time video. Now think the opposite. That’s me, walking to work every morning. I call it business rugged.

Key survival tools: gumboots and mud-scraper thingy

A description of one of my own dramatic falls would make a perfect ending to this entry, but I have somehow managed to escape that fate thus far. My closest call came when I tried some tricky maneuvers to avoid a cow. I’ve developed a certain sense of ease, one could almost say friendliness, around cows in my time here. However, I have witnessed some cow-on-human violence. I was sitting in a matatu waiting for it to fill when a cow by the side of the road took objection to a certain passing woman, and began head-butting her all over the shop. The woman’s surprise quickly turned to anger, and she retaliated with several fierce jerry-can swipes to the head. It was an intense battle, and I would be hard pressed to declare a clear victor. These images were running through my mind as I walked down from school one rainy afternoon, and encountered a very distressed cow slap bang in the middle of the small bridge I have to cross to get into the trading center. The cow was white, with big black rings around her eyes. She was mooing up a storm in a very pissed off way, and struck me as vaguely demented. I decided to give her a wide berth and tried some fancy side steps. The evil mud saw its chance and began pulling me towards the stream that runs along the side of the road. I thought I was a gonner for a second, but then I called upon all of my yoga resources and executed a sort of turn-around leap which left me straddling the stream and elicited a chorus of ‘sorry, sorry’ from the local bystanders. I breathed a sigh of relief, hitched up my knee socks, and continued on my merry way.

Mud: 0

Ruth: 1

Cow: friend or foe?

I have a feeling the tables will turn before my time here is over. The evil mud is probably reading this right now and plotting its revenge. I’ll keep you updated.

Of Hope

I try to avoid photos in general over here in Uganda. I’m usually in a pretty severe state of dishevelment, which I feel would be best left unrecorded: bird’s nest hair, shiny, shiny face, stained clothing, etc. I’ve specifically worked hard to avoid the ‘white chick posing with many smiling African children’ photo. It’s clichéd and seems forced, no matter how long or how hard the white chick in question has worked with the African children.

I’m a bit of a cynic when it comes to these things, and my time here in Africa has made me think a great deal about the nature of development. It’s a murky issue that only grows in complexity the more I immerse myself in this ‘developing’ community. I’ve read a few books on the issue since I’ve been here, and had many a philosophical conversation with David and other volunteers who have passed through the village. There are lots of questions (what does Africa need, why does Africa need it, who is supposed to help Africa, does Africa even need help, hasn’t foreign aid done more harm than good, aren’t we just so many ineffectual band-aids on a wound that needs to heal internally, and what right do we have to barge in here and insist that we know what’s best anyway?). There are not so many answers.

My discomfort grows when I walk through the village and receive such automatic respect and deference from many of the villagers, not to mention the staff of the school. My skin color apparently acts as a very impressive resume. I wonder why in the world people with so much more experience and wisdom than me follow my suggestions unhesitatingly. Thankfully, this aspect of the experience is diminishing with the time I spend here. The sheen of novelty has faded from Teacher Ruth, and many people now feel comfortable openly laughing at me, especially when I try and join Teacher Nelson’s dance classes. Although, I recently found out that I’m not yet completely out of style. At a workshop attended by a lot of local politicians and head teachers, John Wanda introduced me and asked if I would ever consider living in Uganda permanently. I responded with a smart-ass comment about having to find a husband first, which John took great pleasure in relaying to the whole audience. There was much general merriment and knee-slapping. Somebody didn’t see the humor in the situation though, as two days letter I received a serious application for the position of my spouse. Credentials were listed, contact information was given, and some poetic language was thrown around. It was actually very touching. When I failed to respond, I received a second query. This guy meant business.

“While I appreciate your interest in getting to know me further, I want to make sure that you understand that my comment about finding a husband was a joke. It was not a serious request.”

There’s something I never thought I’d have to write.

Marriage proposals aside, the image of the muzungu in this country leaves me perplexed and a little on edge. I think back to the second P7 debate I ever witnessed: “Foreigners have done more harm than good in Uganda.” I wonder which side I would take if asked to participate in that discussion.

But through all the theoretical intricacies, I know there is one thing I can firmly stand behind: this school and the work it is doing. I sometimes get bogged down in the operational details over here, or frustrated at the hours and hours I spend in unproductive meetings. But then there are moments when the full impact of this institution hits me smack in the face. We have a small team over here right now making a documentary about the school, and I took them to visit some of the students we are sponsoring in Miggade College—a secondary school outside Kampala. These kids all spent several years at Arlington Academy of Hope before taking their Primary Leaving Exam, passing with flying colors, and receiving a full scholarship from donors in the US to attend one of the best secondary schools in Uganda. I’m not all that familiar with these students, as they graduated from the school before I arrived, but when they saw me they literally ran over and engulfed me in giant bear hugs. The girls were all wearing their smart yellow uniforms and wide smiles almost cracked their faces. We sat in the grass and talked about their lives at secondary, and what AAH has done for them.

The bottom line is this: these young women will complete their formal education, and most likely continue on to university, because of Arlington Academy of Hope. Without the opportunities this school presents, the odds were greatly stacked against them even completing primary school, let alone moving on to secondary. But it’s more than that. These young women are confident and outgoing and eager to talk talk talk about their education and what they are learning and what they want to be. They are overflowing with possibility. It is infectious. I imagine coming back here in ten years, and finding the school staffed entirely by its own alumni. I imagine new schools they will open in the area, or clinics, or businesses, or whatever. It is tangible progress that you can grab hold of and give a big hug. You cannot argue with change of this nature.

Besides my interactions with the secondary students, there are plenty of moments in the village that make me halt and laugh with the sheer joy of being involved in such a project. We have just opened a new library at the school, and kids are literally queuing around the block to get their hands on a book. Sure the place looks like a bomb has hit it once they leave, and they always put the books back on the shelves backwards (why? WHY?), but they are practically foaming at the mouth for the love of reading and I can’t think of anything better to get excited about. Kitongo Boniface is a little imp of a child who comes by my office every break and lunch to have some one on one reading time. I’m not going to lie—he’s largely motivated by my impressive sticker collection. But reading is reading, regardless of the motivation. We’re working our way through a donated phonics series, sound by sound, and he gets better every day. When he comes across a word he doesn’t recognize his lips move frantically as he tries to decipher all the possible sounds and blend them into something familiar. He stutters through half the alphabet before looking up at me imploringly for some assistance and it’s all I can do not to dissolve in a fit of giggles or tears.

Nakuti Sarah in P1 is PSYCHED about our Reading Challenge!

Children walk two hours to school and still arrive a half hour early. Children sleep on mud floors and do their homework by lantern light and still have a clean uniform and polished shoes every day. Children come on Saturdays. Children’s parents, who never completed school themselves, sell their last cows to make sure they can pay the parent contribution every term.

Of course, children are children. There’s bickering and hollering and crying and cheating and tricksters and jokers and pranksters and wasted time and lost books and scraped knees and broken chairs and grumpy teachers and stressed cooks and it RAINS every day and the compound becomes a swamp. It wouldn’t be a school without those things. And sometimes I’m mad and sometimes I’m tired and sometimes I disagree with the US Board or the Headmaster or the Program Director and sometimes I have to go home and have a beer. But I’m halfway through my time here, and I feel a small bubble of sadness already growing inside me at the thought of leaving. I can’t speak for the UN or World Bank or IMF or USAID or any of the other countless agencies and organizations speeding along these dusty roads in their shiny pick-ups, but I can speak for Arlington Academy of Hope, and I deem it undeniably worthwhile.

So, here they are; the dreaded ‘white chick with African children’ pictures. Because I’m proud and I’m grateful and they are so darn cute.

I became an inadvertent Pied Piper on a visit to our sister primary school in Bupoto.

Handing out reading challenge packets to some excited P4 students

Muzungus Gone Wild

I have to admit that I didn’t have particularly high expectations for my 24^th birthday celebration. I felt there were a few obstacles to me having the alcohol soaked good time that usually characterizes June 30^th. For example, the fact that I currently live in a rural African village. Here, seventeen men sitting around an earthen pot drinking local brew through reed straws, constitutes a ‘party.’ These parties generally happen every market day, and are usually accompanied by loud, repetitive music that shakes the windows of the Guest House well into the night. I’ve flirted several times with the idea of crashing one of these communal drinking parties. I imagine striding confidently into the little mud hut of a bar, then hearing the ziiiiiiiiip of the music shutting off, as all eyes slowly swivel in my direction. Mouths gape open, a few men drop their straws . . . . Also, I’m fairly sure that the local brew is close to 100% pure alcohol and would probably make me blind. Anyhoo, I decided that it would do nothing positive for my standing in the community to attempt such an infiltration, so that option was out. I contemplated having people over to the Guest House. It probably would have amounted to a few brave souls sitting on our blue plastic chairs out near the trash pit, avoiding the regular chicken/goat/cow/dog visitors and politely declining the warm beer on offer because drinking is only for those crazy dudes with the clay pot.

So, I was stumped. That is, until Ms. Bonita Sen arrived from Washington DC with her apparently endless source of infectious energy and good humor. She’s the first AAH volunteer we’ve had in a long time, and before we had even completed the drive back from the airport we had established that we were going to take all the volunteers out in Mbale for my birthday. And so, Muzungus Gone Wild 2008 was born.

We have a pretty packed Guest House right now, so I posted a little flier letting everyone know about the planned field trip. I’m proud to say the house was abuzz. Talk of strappy tops and high heels began to circulate; concepts I hadn’t considered in months. A rumor spread that someone had a functioning hair straightener. A hair straightener for God’s sake! The night before the ladies began practicing some dance moves that we felt would really enhance our muzunguness for the largely Uganda population we expected to encounter at Club Oasis. Nirav—the sole male resident of the Guest House at the time—cowered quietly in the corner. Bonita introduced the stunningly classy ‘guitar leg,’ which is a two person dance requiring some flexibility. I’ll let you imagine the details.

The big day rolled around, bright and sunny. In the morning I decided to do an 18 kilometer hike, with no sun block or water, in order to achieve the neon red skin coloring that I know brings out my eyes so well. I also thoughtfully left my purse on at such an angle as to tattoo myself with a large, white diagonal stripe across my chest. Who needs jewelry when you can have artful tan lines instead? After recovering from the hike we all packed ridiculous amounts of non-essential items into backpacks, and invaded the next passing matatu. We hit a small snag when one of the tires punctured and we had to sit on the side of the road begging every passing vehicle to use their spare. Apparently matatus operate a sort of informal barter program with their spare tires. The other girls used the time to listen to their ipods and en-trance the locals with some sweet dance moves. David came across me standing under a very dusty bush, rubbing my arms with some dry, dirty leaves. I vaguely remember assuming that the leaves would have some moisture in them that would cool my scorched skin. We established that I seemed to have a mild case of sun stroke/temporary insanity, and he let me chug his entire water bottle. He had already given me his birthday present a few days earlier. He knows that I like to do yoga, but it’s hard when the house is so busy. He went to Mbale and bought the materials to fashion a makeshift yoga mat, cleaned out the store room behind the house, and put in a light to create a little yoga room for me. Now I can do downward facing dog facing large sacks of rice and sugar. Probably one of the most thoughtful presents of all time.

David and Bonita chillin with our broke-ass matatu

We got to Mbale in one piece and located the Kaddo Guest House (for Executive Accommodation). Apparently executives don’t require luxuries like bathroom doors or shower stalls, but do appreciate cable TV. I also appreciate cable TV, and watched the last 30 minutes of the Zorro movie. Is it meant to be a comedy? I haven’t laughed that hard in a while.

The night out was a pretty big success. Our first stop after dinner was the notorious Wimpy Restaurant which has a sort of courtyard-pool hall-amusement park vibe going on out the back. Beer is the main beverage on offer, but if hard liquor is your thing then you have to order it by the bottle. It’s quite efficient actually, if slightly dangerous for undisciplined drinkers like myself. Some of the school and clinic staff came and joined, and at midnight we made our merry way over to the club. Some haggling and frisking and arguing over cameras later we were in. We had a big enough mixed-gender group to form a circle and participate in a good old middle-school style dance moves contest. There was some running-man, and some funky chicken (Ugandan style), although sadly, guitar leg never made an appearance. Our guy friends acted as sentries against the other, creepier men. Women tossed their hair and sang along loudly and guarded the door for each other in the bathroom. I harassed the DJ at ten minute intervals, until my new friend, Simple Freddy, led Bonita and I through a Narnia-like labyrinth of corridors which led straight into his booth. Then I actually flicked through his collection and handed him the CD I wanted him to play. He was very good natured about it, and yelled ‘Happy Birthday Ruth’ over the speaker system a lot. I made frequent return trips to the booth, just because I could.

David and I hanging at Wimpy before the club (exhibit A in the ‘Ruth has an abnormally large head’ debate)

An amazing thing about clubs in Uganda is that they generally have a small restaurant somewhere in the establishment. Several plates of late-night French fries and a few greasy samosas later we were all ready to head back to our guest house. I had the number of the night manager who the day manager had guaranteed would be available at any hour to open the gate for us. It was 4:30am by the time we made it there, and it took three phone calls, but sure enough he begrudgingly opened it up for us. The lingering effects of gin-by-the-bottle bathed the hotel room in a rosy glow, and I slept like a log.

The ladies hanging outside the famed (and grotty) Club Oasis

In terms of a birthday celebration, I was highly satisfied. But it didn’t end there. On Monday morning the entire school sang to me during the morning assembly. If you haven’t ever had Happy Birthday sung to you by 325 Ugandan children, you should try it sometime. They also do the whole ‘how old are you now’ bit, and add in an extra verse, which at first listen sounds like ‘you look like a mango,’ and left me vaguely insulted. Turns out it’s actually ‘you look like an angel,’ which is much better.

Godfrey leads the school in a rousing chorus of ‘You Look Like a Mango.’

Then teacher Godfrey handed me a large pile of packages he’d been holding for the day. My sister Kate, and friends Rebecca, Kristina and Jack get a major shout out for those. I sat at my desk happily for an hour, sorting through my new treasures. My mom and friend Cynthia had already sent stuff with other visitors, so I was loaded. I had a lot of work to do for the rest of the day, so I was running around a bit. I’d occasionally see Bonita slinking around with a quiet little smile on her face, and ran into a few teachers who quickly thrust red envelops behind their backs upon spotting me. Finally I was summoned to the staff room in the middle of the lunch hour, and found everyone assembled around a big white cake with ‘Happy Birth Ruth’ written on it in smeared icing. Everyone sang, and the headmaster placed a white napkin with happy birthday written on it over my head. Ugandan tradition perhaps? I was prepared for the ‘you look like a mango’ bit, and smiled appropriately. Then I received a thick stack of red envelops filled with birthday cards signed by every student in the school.

Honestly, I can’t think of a better birthday celebration that I’ve had in my life. It combined many of my great loves: dancing, alcohol, late-night food, children, and friends. It worries me that I chose to write those loves in that order. Anyway. I’m over five months in now, and still largely avoiding the homesickness demons. It’s times like those that help.

Bright Lights, Big City

I’ve found myself in some strange situations over the past four months in Uganda. My ‘job’ here has expanded like some wacky accordion, and I currently act as Arlington Academy of Hope’s Volunteer Coordinator and Guest House Manager, US Board Liaison, interim Facilities Manager, and reading teacher. In my efforts to fulfill these roles I’m growing to know the grand spectrum of the Ugandan experience. Sometimes I freeze in the middle of whatever I’m doing, and literally start laughing at the absurdity of it all. I’ve become something of an alien to myself. I imagine my family and friends heading into the summer months of the Northeast United States, and I feel a million miles away.

Trips to Kampala are often the source of strange adventures. In the city there’s a bizarre mingling of Ugandan and Western culture. I sit in Café Pap, sip my cappuccino and watch CNN on the flat screen. As I leave a series of white leaflets, pasted on the back of every street sign catch my eye: “Gain Bums Quick! No side effects!” You can also gain hips, manhood, and just weight in general, if you are so inclined.

Weight gain craziness

Last Tuesday I picked my way through the dark, muddy lanes of Kampala’s busiest market, studiously ignoring the pleas of the fake Levi’s vendors (muzungu—you would look goooooood!), and slapping away their insistent hands when necessary. I was tailing Rashid—AAH’s jovial and tireless driver—on a quest for school saucepans. We passed mountains of wares for sale that defied categorization. Shoes next to matches next to chewing gum next to kettles next to Little Kitty backpacks next to suit jackets next to exercise books next to cigarettes. Stacks of neon pink and green plastic basins rioted as men strolled by with four boxes of toilet paper perched on their heads. With every step the soles of my flip-flops clung stubbornly to the thick clay underfoot, until I was forced to mince around on tip-toe like a demented ballet dancer. The woman manning the saucepan stall gazed at me sardonically as Rashid began negotiating. Her four assistants sat draped over piles of kitchen wares, staring at me and slowly picking their teeth. I had a crumpled piece of paper with some garbled dimensions written on it, and no tape measure. The saucepans were all manufactured by a company called Shmuck. That summed up how I felt quite nicely.

Later that afternoon I stood by the side of a busy highway outside Kampala, waiting for the Bishop of the Mbale Diocese to drive by on his way to the airport. He had to authorize all the bank withdrawals the school needs to make while he’s on his month-long trip to the US. He had already signed everything once, but whaddyaknow, our particular bank requires two signatures. He pulled over, barged into some poor woman’s roadside shop, frantically signed all the checks, and stepped back into his pick-up with a hearty wave. A chorus line of boda-boda drivers lounged listlessly over their motorbike seats, and looked on disinterestedly. I scurried back and gave the checks to Rashid so he could rush them to Mbale and the school could pay its bills.

I stayed in a hotel right along the main street in the city. It’s near the taxi park, and close to restaurants and shops so that I don’t have to travel far for anything when I’m alone at night. The owner knows me, and gives me a discount. The rooms aren’t exactly luxurious, but they’re decent and clean. In four nights spent there I’ve only seen one cockroach. At night the sounds of the busy street filter in, and the repetitive thumping of Ugandan music prevents me from ever really sleeping deeply. Sometimes I feel like I’m back in New York.

In the morning I geared up for the return journey. In the giant taxi park I squirmed my way through the ever-shifting lines of white matatus. The park is a miracle of non-engineering. There are no rows, no parking spots, no apparent rules. There are two exits, and two hundred determined drivers. A friend who lives in Kampala summed up the taxi park operating procedure well: “You look for where there is space, and then you fill it.” Negotiating the chaos requires keen wits and a keener sense of humor. As I paused to orient myself I realized that the matatu behind me had forgotten its handbrake, and I jumped out of the way of its slow rolling path just in time. A young conductor plucked me from the crowd, and deposited me in the back seat of an Mbale-bound taxi, before spending the next half hour doggedly trying to get my phone number. I studied the chintzy watches vendors kept thrusting under my nose, and began my standard pre-departure ‘to pee or not to pee’ battle.

Taxi park craziness

Backseat craziness

An hour into our journey we pulled over at a roadside market. Instantly a swarm of blue-aproned vendors blocked all the light from the windows. The vehicle rocked slightly, and I felt like some world leader being transported through a rioting crowd. Arms appeared through every available window crack, wielding roasted bananas, hunks of charred beef and entire chicken thighs on skewers, bottles of cold water, chapatti bread, and sweets. Sometimes the over-eager vendors wave the items so erratically they actually hit you in the face. It’s cheap, and usually pretty good.

Vendor craziness

The trips to Kampala are hard going sometimes, especially since I’m so often alone. Wandering around those busy streets, I can sometimes feel like an anchorless ship, meandering through some random backwater. But I wouldn’t trade it. As David said, if you really want to get to know a culture you should try and do something mundane, like buying saucepans, rather than a fancy safari or beach vacation. My ‘life experience’ cup overfloweth. And, at the end of it all, I can tumble out of a matatu onto the dusty village road, and display my Kampala treasures to the volunteers (Tupperware! Body wash! Marshmallows!), and it feels good to be home.

Twende

It was at some point during Ray’s explanation of the mating behavior of lions that I lost it. Ray was our guide on the two day safari my sister and I recently went on in Tanzania. He was friendly, funny and knowledgeable. He also had an impressive sixth sense when it came to spotting animals, and at one point led us to a sleeping leopard that I swear was invisible to the naked eye. Ray was very animated and liked to talk a lot about animal behavior. Most of his stories revolved around feces and/or sex. I guess those are pretty basic elements of wild animal existence. He spoke very good English, but had a tendency to mispronounce things. Kate became Cat, birds became beds, shock absorbers became sosh absurbers. Kate caught on quickly, and acted as a sort of translator for me. This particular speech about lions was fast and long, and included many comical pronunciation errors. He lost me about half way through, and as he continued I found it harder and harder to repress my laughter. It was like a biology lesson from another dimension. Finally he earnestly uttered something along the lines of “while the female is going through evuolution the spearms from the male must move . . .” I could contain myself no longer. Kate and I both collapsed in laughter. Ray looked on in confusion, or as he would say, he was very surprising at our reaction.

Kate, Ray and I next to the trusty Land Cruiser. I look scrubalicious.

Despite the light communication problems, Ray led us on two gorgeous days of safari. We toured Lake Manyara National Park and the Ngorogoro Crater in his open-topped Land Cruiser. The scenery was stunning, especially in the crater. The rainy season had created a vast savannah of long blonde grass and tall wildflowers. We drove through yellow and purple meadows, under bright blue skies. Zebras and wildebeest came so close to the car we could have touched them. It was sunny and warm the entire time. Since it was just the two of us we could determine the pace of the day, announcing ‘twende’ (lets go) whenever we were ready to move along.

An elephant in the Ngorogoro Crater

We saw monkeys, giraffes, impala, zebra, hippos, rhinos, buffalo, wildebeest, elephants, a leopard, and a lion. Not too shabby, although the lion sighting was slightly disappointing. It was a lone lioness, lounging among the tall yellow flowers, a good distance back from the road. It was difficult to see her clearly. There were several other cars parked along the roadside watching her, and Kate and I joined, poking our heads out through the roof hatch. It was at this moment that my miniscule bladder once again decided to ruin the party. I had to pee. The nearest toilet was at least a half an hour drive away, so it was going to have to be a roadside job. Kate and Ray, god bless them, took this in their stride, and we began to problem-solve. The other vehicles were departing, so that solved the problem of a human seeing me pee. We were still left with the slightly more intimidating possibility that the lion might see me pee and decide to come closer and check me out. The day before Ray had told a comforting story about a woman who was mauled by a lion while she was sitting by the side of the road, waiting for her guide to change a tire. Kate said that we had to drive somewhere else, but I rationalized that I should just pee here because no matter where we went in the park there could be a lion lurking nearby. “Yes, but we know that there’s one here,” she replied. This, to my urine-crazed mind, was a positive point. At least we could keep a close eye on this one. We drove on for about ten seconds, and then I insisted I just get it over with. Kate took up a lookout position out the roof hatch and scanned for approaching lions. I hopped out, left the door open, and prayed. Everything went according to plan, and I was back in the car within thirty seconds. Ray said I had a strong heart. “But a weak bladder,” Kate added. I had to agree.

Incidents of high-risk peeing aside, the vacation was extremely relaxing. After two days of safari we said a sad goodbye to Ray and boarded a little six-seater plane headed for Zanzibar. Actually, that part wasn’t relaxing. The improbability of flight is never more apparent that when you’re sitting in a vehicle roughly the size of a mini-van, feeling every bump and shudder, and staring at the ant-sized people far, far below. Kate and I studiously watched how the pilot controlled the plane, in case we were forced to take over in some sort of emergency scenario. Of course we landed safely, and were efficiently transported to beach resort paradise. It was low season, so the resort was quiet and they upgraded us to a luxury suite. We had a whole house to ourselves, complete with an open-air roof patio with swinging sun beds. The good weather held, and for five days we did nothing except sunbathe, eat, and read. Kate can get through a book a day when she’s in the mood, and I think we read about eight between us over the five days. We gossiped about all the other guests at the resort, played games of scrabble (she’s a goddamn scrabble genius), and carefully monitored each other’s sunburn. It was pretty much perfect.

Sunrise, Zanzibar-style.

My flight back to Uganda was delayed for four hours, it rained torrentially in Kampala, my eight dollar hold-all completely disintegrated in-transit, and the journey back to the village took a total of eight hours in various crammed matatus, but I didn’t care. I feel like my batteries have been re-charged. I’m at the three and a half month mark, and I’m refreshed and ready, and still thrilled to be here.

*Insert cute comment about sisters here*

Displaced

I got to spend a few days in Kenya during the current school holidays.  I stayed with family friends, Myra and Clive.  They were my parents’ friends back in the good old days when we lived in Kenya, and they have settled there for the foreseeable future.  It was my first time being back in about twelve years, and it was all a bit surreal.  Myra and Clive live in a suburb of Nairobi called Karen, just down the road from our old house.  Karen is kind of muzungu central.  You could almost compare it to Northern Virginia.  It’s got a country club, strip malls, and lots of bored white people.  I fell gratefully into its comfortable arms.  I drank my chai latte at the Java House, took advantage of free wireless internet, browsed in the bookstore, took care of some much needed woman-grooming, and drank a lot of white wine.  Myra and Clive were generous and warm, and three days was enough to relax me completely.

 

Myra does a lot of fundraising work for a non-profit called the Girl Child Network which seeks to nurture the development of young women in Africa through educational initiatives, workshops, camps, etc.  During my stay in Kenya the Girl Child Network (GCN) had partnered with the African Medical Research Foundation (AMREF) to organize a visit to an Internally Displaced Person camp.  These are temporary camps that have been set up for all the people displaced from their homes during the violence surrounding the recent Kenyan presidential election.  AMREF and GCN donated money to assemble ‘dignity kits’ to distribute to young women at the camps.  These kits included a kikhoi wrap, sanitary towels, a toothbrush, soap, underwear, and other basic items.  Myra was going with representatives from both groups to visit one of the camps and help distribute the kits, and I was able to tag along with her.

 

The camp we visited was established in the showground of a town called Nakuru, about two hours outside of Nairobi.  We bounced along a dusty road to a chain-link fence which marked the boundary of the camp.  All along the roadside people had set-up small stalls selling tomatoes and greens and other vegetables.  We found out later that the Red Cross food distribution consists of beans and flour only, so people barter or buy everything else at these stalls.  Once through the fence we drove up a road alongside avenues of tents, stretching as far as the eye could see.  They came in various shades of grey, pitched in neat rows.  On the right there was a single row of tents designated for official use: registration tent, special needs tent, tent distribution tent.  We came to a stop at the crest of a small hill, and sweatily disembarked.  A small crowd had gathered around the bus door to shake our hands and welcome us.  There were some kids, and some shouts of “Muzungu!  How are you,” but overall the people spoke to us in muted tones, matching the colors of their tents and the pale brown dust.  For every person shaking hands with us there was another, keeping a distance, watching us carefully.  I wondered how many buses of well-wishers these people had seen roll through in the last four months. 

 

A Ministry of Health official assigned to the camp took us on a brief tour.  I soon had several children holding onto each arm, some quite insistently.  “He can’t believe you’re real,” a Kenyan lady with the delegation remarked, as one small boy repeatedly pinched the skin of my forearm.  Representatives from both AMREF and the GCN were snapping pictures.  I felt awkward as I tried to disentangle myself from the kids and keep moving.  We saw inside a tent.  I don’t know what I was expecting, I’ve been inside a tent before, but the barrenness of it still shocked me.  Four canvas walls, some blankets, a bucket or two, and five people.  All the residents of the camp have to build their own small fires and cook outside the tent.  We saw a woman preparing the fuel for her fire.  She took the leftover shards of already burnt charcoal, and mixed it with water and dust to make small balls.  She thought it would take about eight to cook a meal.  Myra asked a young woman where she was from, and if she wanted to find a way back there.  “No, I can’t go back there.  I can maybe start somewhere else, but I can’t go back there.”  She has three kids, and she used to run a successful farm.  Now she lives in a tent, her kids are far away with relatives, and she has only what the NGOs see fit to give her.  It was a common theme among the people we talked to—they were scared to go back to the homes they’d been chased from.

 

The NGOs and aid organizations had left their marks everywhere: UN, Red Cross, Rotary International, USAID.  We walked through the camp clinic which sees 250-300 people each day.  They have three nurses and four small exam rooms.  There were USAID stickers on every wall.  I asked the Doctor from the Ministry if USAID was providing funding for the medicine.  “They were for about two months, but there was some problem with mismanagement of funds and they pulled out.”  It was the same story with the clinic vehicle—it was initially funded, but then someone, somewhere, pulled the plug and now they don’t have one.  14,000 people live at this camp, and when one of them is sick enough to need a hospital they have no way of getting there. 

 

After the tour we all piled into a tent where a man was conducting a workshop for HIV-positive camp residents.  As we crowded in the men and women in the workshop began singing a welcome song, and we were shown to the guest of honor seats.  I steeled myself for the traditional ‘introduction and appreciation of visitors,’ which often takes over an hour in the Ugandan setting.  This was a little different though.  A young girl stood up and gave a performance in Swahili.  She seemed to be re-enacting a conversation between a parent and child, possibly warning about HIV.  She was animated and precocious and dressed in a pretty green dress.  Everyone smiled.  Several people who work at the camp spoke.  Each clearly articulated a list of pressing needs.  I’m not talking about requests for a more balanced diet, or furniture, or even a place to cook food that isn’t in the dirt.  They were asking for a single doctor to work at the camp, a single car that could transport emergency cases, basic medicine.  Issues, really, of life and death.  All the women in our delegation had a chance to speak.  Many of them are nurses, or retired nurses.  Most spoke in Swahili, but from those who spoke in English I could pick up common themes: hope, forgiveness, the future.  Monica, a middle-aged nurse in an elegant pink suit and neck-scarf, began to cry as she spoke.  I knew I was going to be asked to speak, but I felt bereft of words in the face of this scene.  What the hell could I say?  I was a glorified tourist, peeking in the tent flaps at people whose lives had been pillaged, whipped away in an afternoon.  I stood up and felt my own voice wavering in my throat, and managed to squeak out a few words of gratitude for being allowed visit the camp. 

As the speeches ended Mercy, the head of the GCN, gave us all about fifteen little metallic badges.  They were in the shape of a person and said “Protect the Children” in Swahili.  She instructed us to find some kids and hand them out.  My heart sank.  Handing out fifteen badges in a camp of 14,000 hungry people seemed like a gesture of magnificent inadequacy.  I pushed through the immediate crush and found a quiet spot outside where a little boy was lying on the ground, his sister sitting calmly beside him.  I knelt down next to her and she shied away, but I held out the badge and she let me gingerly pin it on her shirt.  I looked at the boy who was eerily still, and face down in the dirt.  “Is he ok?” I asked no one in particular.  A passer-by gave him a shake and he sat up, looking dazed, then lay back down.  “He’s sick,” the passer-by informed me.  I hesitated for a moment with my mouth open, but I couldn’t think of anything to do.  I was surrounded by people asking for the badges.  I tried to give them to the youngest kids.  I quickly ran out.  Teenage girls looked at me distastefully and moved on.  Adults wanted the badges, women older than me.  It struck me that this was the biggest loss of all; the loss of the ability to provide for yourself, the loss of independence.  In the camp it didn’t matter if you were intelligent and motivated and responsible because there were no jobs and no money and you couldn’t go home.  So instead you could follow the outsiders who rolled up in their buses and see if they were handing out something that you could use or trade or sell.          

 

We all got back in the bus and rumbled out through the dusty gate.  We drove a respectable distance before pulling over and tucking into our packed lunches, prepared by the Serena Hotel in Nairobi.  There was more food than we could eat. 

 

In the post-visit chatter on the bus I wasn’t sure how to sum it all up.  I’m glad I saw it?  It was very interesting?  I felt like a dumb-ass and an intruder the entire time?  I was hungry and hot and humbled.  I was inadequate.  There’s no tidy ending to the story, just a sense of unease, that I think should be shared by many.

The Great Debaters

I don’t have TV here, and with the spotty power situation I rarely get to watch my DVDs.  Entertainment has become a delicate balance of reading, crossword puzzles, and insect slaughtering.  Turns out that once you get past your initial fear, the latter can become something of an obsession.  But every Friday afternoon I rest assured that I can sit back, relax, and be entertained.  Because that’s when P6 and P7 have their weekly debate. 

 

If flirted briefly with debating in middle school.  At the tender age of twelve my twin brother and I led opposing debate teams in our bizarre Filipino middle school, where the seventh grade had seven students and the French class had two (100% O’Gara)  One of our first debates was on the morality of euthanasia.  I believe that when I first heard the topic read out I wondered what could be so controversial about the young people on the Asian continent (you know, youth in Asia).  I imagined Chinese kids hanging out after school, playing tag in the yard.  What, exactly, was the issue?  It was a long road to the podium in the school gym, and I can’t even remember if I argued for or against.

 

The P6/P7 debates are definitely more memorable.  The most important thing you need to know is that they follow ‘parliamentary procedure’ in their debates.  I’m not sure exactly what parliament they’re referring to.  I would guess it’s a British base, with about ten layers of Ugandan formality added on top.  All I know is they do not mess around.

 

 

The P6 classroom, ready for the debate.

 

There are no lengthy speeches.  There are main speakers for each side, but once they’ve made their brief opening remarks the floor is open.  The whole system centers around the Chairman.  He sits at the center of a table, at the top of the room, flanked by the secretary and time keeper.  The Chairman decides who talks, and for how long.  Really, you are trying to convince the Chairman of the validity of your point so that he’ll let you continue speaking.  You better thank the Chairman when he lets you speak, and you better address him as Honorable and when your time is up you better ask “Please Honorable Chairman sir, can you add me some three more minutes?” in your politest voice.  Otherwise, he can end you.

 

So far the topics have ranged from the advantages of rural life versus urban, to the slightly awkward motion: “Foreigners have done more harm than good in Uganda.”  I kept a low profile during that one.  Things invariably get heated.  It’s the Chairman’s job to keep order, but if he fails, the crowd will happily step in.  If a speaker steps out of line he or she will likely face a sea of raised hands, and a chorus of voices shouting “Point of order, POINT OF ORDER!”  The Chairman selects a student, who solemnly stands and asks: “Is it right, for my colleague there, to stand and point his finger in the face of the other speaker?  Can we allow it?”  The crowd roars its disapproval, and with a nod the Chairman sends the student with the offending finger back to his seat, shamefaced. 

 

There are several boys in P7 who excel at passionate presentation.  Brian always puts on a good show.  He rises to speak, and stands quietly for a moment, his head down, his palms together and his fingertips pressed to his lips.  He takes a breath, then raises up both his head and arms, and begins his speech, his lively hands punctuating each point.  His eyebrows are furrowed, his lips drawn, almost as if in pain:  “Honorable Chairman Sir, I thank you for allowing me to come and crush the points of my opponent.”

 

Brian gets warmed up to make a point.

 

For the first few debates I was disappointed at the clear dominance of the males in the room.  Few girls dared to stand up and speak, and when they did they were quiet and made their points very quickly.  But last week Timbe Hellen silenced my doubts about the P7 girls’ abilities to stand up for themselves.  I was moving around the class, trying to find a good angle for a photo, when I looked up and found Hellen striding across the front of the room, brandishing a ruler at a surprised looking Emmanuel.  Emmanuel is about seventeen, and about six foot tall, but as Hellen made her advance he turned and cowered behind a nearby chair.  The room erupted in laughter and shrieks of “Order, order.”  The teachers looked on amusedly.  Hellen stood, the top of her ruler inches from Emmanuel’s face as she continued her tirade.  I couldn’t hear a word the girl said, but I’m pretty sure she was winning.

 

Issac and Emmanuel square off.  I was too distracted during the Hellen-ruler siutation to get a photo

 

 

Teacher Godfrey wants to do a debate next week with teacher-student teams.  I told him that I’m game, and have already begun practicing my emphatic hand gestures.  I just hope the motion has nothing to do with youth in Asia . . . . 

          

Short Call

People who know me well know that I need to pee a lot. I’m convinced that my digestive system bears a striking resemblance to a Brita filter. Matatu rides are the worst. The conditions are designed to aggravate the need to pee: your bladder is squished like every other part of your body, and may have a small child or live animal set on top of it. Every bump in the road increases the pressure. You can’t read because of the bumpiness, and you can’t listen to music because of the continuous rattling of the windows. All that’s left is for you to contemplate the small stream burbling along the side of the road and curse that second cup of coffee you drank before you left the house.

Once you get to Mbale it’s not like you can pop into the nearest McDonalds to use the facilities. Toilets are few and far between. Fortunately all the Ugandans I’ve met are very understanding and very friendly and will try to help you out. On one journey I got to the half-way point and realized that I wasn’t going to make it to Mbale. I got out at a random intersection, with a few small shops lining the road. For a remote part of a remote continent, it’s hard to find a secluded place to pee around here. Everywhere is someone’s backyard or farm, and there’s always at least one person within eyesight. Knowing this, I walked up to one of the small shops and asked the woman behind the counter where I could do a ‘short call’ (their pretty wonderful euphemism for a piss). She summoned a boy who led me though a narrow alley between the shops and into the maze of dwellings behind. It was hard to distinguish where one compound ended and another began, and there were cows and goats and hens wandering freely. The boy led me to a small wooden frame covered with dead banana leaves. Inside there was a deep hole dug into the clay. When it comes down to it, that’s all we need. I gave the boy 500 shillings for his trouble—probably a little excessive, but my relief made me giddy.

A few days later I learned how Ugandan woman approach this problem. I was sitting in a matatu by the side of the busy road connecting Jinga and Mbale. I’d already spent two full hours in the matatu, waiting for it to fill up and leave. About one mile into the journey it became apparent that the driver couldn’t get above second gear. He pulled over and made a phone call, and so we were sitting by the side of the road, waiting for our replacement matatu to come and pick us up. It had rained heavily all afternoon. The fields around us were sodden and the sky was grey. Gradually, every woman in the matatu decided she needed a short call. We were next to a big field, with no coverage from the many passing cars and small houses set back from the road. The women sauntered out into the clearing, their long colorful skirts trailing in the wet grass. One by one they stepped widely, and sank into a deep curtsey, their backs and necks straight. Their skirts billowed out. They kept their gazes high and their arms still as they held the pose. They were like swans, or dancers in some slow-moving Martha Graham piece, silhouetted against the thunder clouds. It was surreal, and it was oddly beautiful, and it was a damn convenient way to pee.