Monday, December 28, 2009

Long Time

It has been some time since I have posted anything original. Unfortunately, I am still under the impression that I have nothing original to say. I only want to share a few insights into the hilarity that is my everyday life.

First, I have now met not one, nor two, but three people named Wilberforce. I have gone as far as to check the spelling of this name, as well as verify the pronunciation. It's phonetic.

Second, there are words that are frequently misspelled, which I hope to dedicate an entire blog to at some point. However, here are some of the highlights: Menus are an abomination. I have ordered "Cock Tall Juice," "Sand Witches" and several other anomalies I had not previously encountered. A few weeks ago I was selecting between "Vag" and "Non-Vag" options.

Finally, I think this guy really has it figured out. I need to take a page from his book of cool.

He's spotting his move....

His window of opportunity is quickly closing.....

He's got it! Gooooooooaaaaaaaaaaallllllllll!!!!!!!!!!

Monday, December 14, 2009

Uganda Considering Death Penalty for Homosexuals

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/08/uganda-considering-death_n_384650.html

Check this one out

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

The Journey up North

Karamoja is a region in the Northern sector of Uganda, one littered by raids, ambushes and worst of all, NGOs. We were instructed by a semi-reliable Rastafarian gentleman who Luke knows somehow that traveling up north is perfectly fine as long as you travel with cigarettes, soap and salt (quite the triple threat I might add; what can’t you accomplish with such an arsenal?) to appease any ambushers. Described by Lonely Planet as a region “where the Karamojong dress in traditional clothes, and AK-47s are as common as walking sticks and blankets,” we simply had to check it out.

The bus broke down precisely as we crossed the boarder into Karamoja, conveniently the most desolate, unpopulated dyke I’ve had the pleasure to grace with my presence. As people roused and an unsettled aura descended over the passengers, I observed one gentlemen wearing a grin suggesting he obtained the location of Atlantis and couldn’t wait to spill the beans. Curious, I spewed a serious of innocuous jibberish hoping to gain insight into our precarious situation. He looked in my direction and exclaimed with the passion of a schoolboy’s first love, “The bus broke down!” In Uganda, when Joel orates a monologue rather than emit a simple question, his sophisticated lexicon is usually reciprocated with a blank stare suggesting he’s actually speaking Mandarin. This time, it was my turn to gawk in disbelief at his eagerness to further my understanding by stating facts I had previously observed. To further my elation, he announced, “They’re going to pour water on it!” Oddly relieved by his enthusiasm, I quickly regained my precautions when the smell of burning rubber and charred brakes wafted into the cab. After dubiously taking in my surroundings, trying to decide if my stamina, accrued by many years of intramural collegiate sports, would allow me to run back to Soroti (a mere 50 kilometers), I heard somebody shout from halfway along the bus, “Don’t worry, they’ve got the water!” About a minute later, the bus was shimmying along like a drunken caterpillar attempting to avoid the police by pretending to be accompanied by a hive of bees.

We (Luke, Joel, Justice and yours truly) arrived in Moroto, Karamoja, and were promptly blasted by a surging hot wind carrying as many dust particles as the World Bank carries rumors about its accomplishments. It was like being slapped in the face by a beach. Coupled with the equatorial sun, this introduction to the northern region left my pours seeping enough fluid to irrigate an Iowan corn farm. Fortunately for my comrades, the protruding vulgarity that would make a bottle of Febreeze lactate in fear and incompetence was dwarfed by their own perfumes, of which I might label Mid-Summers Day Stench.

Stepping onto The Street (emphasized to demonstrate the structural characteristics of this civil engineering debacle), we discovered an instant dichotomy: inhabitants vs. NGOs. U.N. Land Cruisers littered the road like termites below the roots of a Honey Teak, scampering in every direction attempting to appease the queen while gnawing away the foundation. The NGO compound was located some 10 minutes walk outside the town, surrounded by 4 meters of barbed wire, suggesting in equal proportion their inability to accept nonwestern ideals as their refusal to release harbored intentions of inequality. Fighting poverty and violence with wealth and armed guards equates to fighting fire with watermelons: almost comical, but tragically ineffective. The most functional policy I have unearthed in Karamoja is that if you are caught in possession of a firearm, you are shot.

Chronic water shortages coupled with a daily electric allowance between 7PM & 11PM left us with little to do but drink warm beer. Traveling proposes a stipend for beer, proportionately accentuated with assumed risk, so we purchased some Luke-warm cervecas and strolled up a nearby hummock to observe the sunset, pictures of which are posted below.

Because it was the Christian Sabbath, our courier allowed us additional beauty sleep, a much needed commodity these days. Although my brother maintains traits from our Norwegian heritage and produced an encompassing beard at the ripe age of fifteen, I inherited from my father’s side the prepubescent facial characteristics of a rabid mountain goat at the age of twenty-four, which necessitates a disproportionate amount of sleep. I was aggressively denied my rest beginning at 4:30AM when the busses started communicating with each other in Morse Code, toting their horns to discuss the previous day’s cricket test over the roof of our hotel. The raucous subsided around 6:00AM only to be replaced by the arousal of hotel staff, announced by “All the Single Ladies,” a universal slow jam favorite among Ugandans. My brother’s beard is a fiery red, while mine is quickly turning gray.

Our experiences in Karamoja were jarring, but I am consciously choosing to highlight the events in a droll manner to avoid ruining someone’s day, illustrated during our departure with the vendors approaching the bus windows.

Bus vendor #1: “Mzungu! Water?”
Me: “No thanks”
Bus vendor #2: “Mzungu! Ciapatti? Samosas?”
Me: “No thank you!”
Bus Vendor #3: “Mzungu! Bow and arrow?
Me: “I said NO THAN… Wait, what? Give me that! How much?!”
Excited Vendor #3: “5,000” (about $2.75)

In the land where AK-47s are outlawed, the bow and arrow salesman is king.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

I have been blogging, but the posts have turned out to be more personal than I intended. Also, they have been somewhat morbid, due to the nature of my experiences of late, so I have elected to reserve the entries and spare the sob stories. The last thing I want is to elicit feelings of empathy when most look to a blog for a relaxing, humorous experience.

I have recently discovered that this terrapin-esque internet connection does support the uploading of pictures, illustrated in my last post. Infatuated with my new creative outlet, I will once again share some of the more disparate photos for your own edification, and so you have some clue as to what I'm referencing without necessitating a copy of National Geographic as a visual dictionary.
Ugandan pre-funk before our most recent, wildly successful trash cleanup. These are the kids of Childhood Restoration Outreach, meaning that each and every one of these children that helped us clean Mbale were rescued from the streets, most of whom are orphans.

Joel, Luke and Brad lead a parade of village kids down the mountain after our 7 hour hike

Sunset in Tororo

Eddie lets the turkey bleed out before Rachel cut its head off in preparation for our Thanksgiving feast. This was one of two turkeys, both of which were fried because we couldn't find an oven big enough to support either.

"Cuz I'm an OG, sippin on 40 ounces of OE"

This is the rest of our support for the trash pickup, students from Islamic University In Uganda

Sunset in Moroto, Karamoja
Dennis celebrates what he refers to as "his most difficult challenge in 22 years." A 25 minute, albeit practically vertical hike up Tororo Rock.

View from my back yard. Life is good.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Luke selects the guest of honor

Luke honors the guest before the feast
Justice, Luke, Brad and Joel enjoy the sunset with some beer
The sun sets over northern Uganda through beer goggles
Words of wisdom for the children of the Northern Region
Caitlin, Brad and Joel pose for picture with trash cleanup crew. Only 1/5 of the crew stuck around for this magnificent photo.

Things Fall Apart

Not a day goes by when I don’t break something. For a while, I attributed this phenomenon to my clumsiness, which was miraculously absent before those wonderful years we fondly know as puberty. Since the 6th grade, however, klutz has become the median of my characteristics. It follows then, unsurprisingly, that I operate in a perpetual state of caution and still manage to break one out of every nine things I touch in a given day.

For all of those people who are upset about unfair competition from China’s labor force, you really don’t know the half of it. If you want something of quality in America, don’t shop at WallMart, where Chinese products smile at you dancing down the aisles. If you want something of quality in Uganda, you are in for an monotonous adventure. To the best of my recollection (a phrase I learned to utilize in depositions at the ripe age of 14; another story entirely) I have yet to examine a product label that boasted three words other than “Made in China.” Hats, Nokia and other cell phones, refrigerators, books, internet modems, illegal DVDs, Yamaha motorcycles, fabrics, posters, and wigs are all made in the land of the free [labor]. Although I make no excuses for being clumsy as a chimpanzee lacking opposable thumbs, this situation as accelerated my predicament.

Yesterday I broke two things. I was scooping fuel briquette materials into a bin to decompose when the plastic bowl I was using snapped in half. Specifically, the material was sawdust, which in my enlightened sense of precision weighed about three quarters of a pound. I just stood there with the look of failure etched into my eyes holding half a bowl while sawdust snowed over my feet. Later on, calmly cleaning up other people’s dishes, I cracked a plate all the way to the center. It looked like a physics experiment where I’d drawn the radius of the plate and was about to divide it by one over two times pi. Utterly worthless.

To my dismay and your entertainment, I must admit that breaking household items has become a regular engagement in my order of operations. The real debacles come from situations when I have to borrow something, and then I break it. This past week my comrades and I traveled to Tororo. Our insane acquaintance Simon insisted we borrow his car to accommodate our vast numbers, and he was leaving town anyway. Smitten at the opportunity to drive a Chinese-made, manual transmission Nissan March on the left side of the road and steering from the right side of the car, I accepted his offer.

After letting the Chinese Dragon out of the bag, we were riding dirty on our way to RestVille when I hit a pothole around a turn, locked up the Chinese drum brakes and slid the front left wheel into the embankment, putting a torso sized dent into the wheel well. Before I continue, Simon is a fanatic mechanic obsessed with his vehicles who somehow managed to get his hands on one of two Nissans in all of Uganda, made in China or otherwise. The following morning I could not fit the key into the driver’s door lock. I took a step back and observed that those kids had shoved a stick into the lock and broke it off, splintering into fifteen or twenty pieces. Then I observed that they had ripped the plastic décor off the rear quarter panel. Infuriated, I complained to their mother. I will quote her response, speaking directly to Luke and I: “What is wrong with you?! When they do bad, you beat them! Don’t tell me! You get a stick and you cane them!!!” My inaudible response: “Whoa… My mother didn’t raise me to hit kids, especially not my neighbors.” Anyway, I’m sure all caning sticks are made in China and would just break at the wrist when swung forward.

On our way to Tororo bumping jams, Simon’s rear left 6x9 [Chinese] Sony speaker blows up and starts squawking at us like an ostrich trying to sing Black Rob. About five minutes later, his power steering fluid runs out and proceeds to grind harder than a Taylor’s floozy on dollar beers eve. By the time we get to Tororo, my arm is exhausted from compensating for the car’s tendency to veer left, probably chasing the illusion of proper steering alignment. Finally, the inside handle of the rear left door decided that it would be more appropriately located in Joel’s fist, detached from the door entirely. This one required behavioral change because we then had to roll the window down to obtain door-shutting leverage. Oh yeah, and we ate all Simon’s candy, which was interestingly about $10 worth. I don’t think the Candy was made in China, but it could have been.

It’s my interpretation that all goods in Uganda coalesced before jumping the boat from China and decided that if they all exercise 10% of their projected life expectancy, they can ensure perpetual demand for their heirs. Also, this cartel of worthless goods comprise half the rubbish my team and I are trying to extract from the streets. I guess this is how the world goes round, assisted by my clumsiness with my aspirations as a counterpart.

Post-Scripted November 23rd: Uganda is where electronics come to die. Joel is an artist of electronic misery, breaking more devices than I own. My iPod has been slowly dying since it was born, and it lasted all of one week in Uganda. Joel broke his Sony eBook within twenty-four hours. My flash drive lasted two months before it coughed up its PDF files and sputtered out of existence. Rachel’s computer displays the blue screen of death twice daily, usually during online board meetings or cultural journal article readings. It seems to work fine when I want to play solitaire though. Left with dwindling hard-drive space, we decided to facilitate the use of the desktop computer Caitlin dutifully carried 10,000 miles with her. Upon plugging the computer into the outlet, the power supply exploded. I opened up the case to see if it was just a fuse and stared dumbfounded at the blackened, fuse-less power supply proudly displaying those three magic words: “Made in China.”

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Unbelievable

Ok, you guys have to hear this. It absolutely blew my mind, and I feel confident that it will resonate throughout the West as well.

There is this great guy out here who we’ve been hanging out with, named Eddie. He is currently in the middle of his senior high-school finals, which last about 2+ weeks. Very similar to my own experience, some of his exams are executed in the form of in-class essays. Being the helpful dude he his, Joel offered to assist him in forming the structure of his argument for his exam tomorrow. Eddie politely declined. Confused, we pressed him as to why he would decline the help of such a seasoned journalist (see Joel‘s blog). He was a little mislead, it turns out, by Joel’s offer because he does not know what the discussion topic will be until he sits for the test. He continued by mentioning the consequences of taking notes in with him (cheating).

IF YOU GET CAUGHT CHEATING ON YOUR HIGH-SCHOOL FINALS, YOU GO TO JAIL FOR SEVEN (7) YEARS.

You do not pass Go, you do not collect $200 dollars, you go to flippin prison, where you have to break your own hands by open-palm slapping them on the concrete. Furthermore, if the school board fails to recognize a cheater and the Ugandan education panel does, the entire class fails, the school board members go to prison, and the 200-300 students are never allowed to sit for any exam of any nature in Uganda for the duration of their citizenship (in other words, a lifelong wrist-slap).

In Uganda, high-school is a paid for, voluntary institution, which accepts only academically and financially fortunate students. It carries with it the potential for ruining lives, possibly even resulting in death and decay at the hands of the state. Note: Ugandan prisons do not feed their inmates, so you perish if your family is not willing to bring you food every day. Also, they are so overcrowded that people sleep in shifts, one hour at a time.

Moral of the story: DON’T CHEAT. Secondary moral: BRAD DOES NOT WANT TO GO TO JAIL IN UGANDA.

Monday, November 9, 2009

The Language Barrier

Many of you may be confused by this title, which is warranted considering that 97% of Ugandans speak English. It is the spoken business language, the written commercial language, and children start studying it when they are in pre-school. The high-school education system even demands an American style English course, where students study English literature and complex grammatical structures. It still catches me off guard when somebody from another culture asks me a question about a reflexive past-participle clause. My typical reaction is a blank, stupefied stare followed by a sly change of subject.

Before I get into my primary language short-comings, a brief background of the Ugandan primary language is necessary. Someone asked me before I came here what language is spoken, and my response, after expressing my true knowledge with that same blank stare, was, “I dunno. Swahili?” Little did my antagonist know, it was a trick question. There is no national language. The most widely spoken tribal dialect is Bugandan, but I gawk at the proposition of suggesting this as a national language. It is my understanding that there are now 31 tribes in Uganda (there used to be many, many more), each with its own dialect. Although some share similarities, most are radically different. For example, both our interns are from Kampala and speak Bugandan. They can roughly communicate with the Mbale locals, each speaking the native language, although that situation is hardly universal. There are many tribes with whom they simply have no platform for communication. In fact, they might as well be speaking Swahili, one said. This situation has been best described to me as a Bermuda Triangle of romantic languages. An Italian conversing with a Spaniard, each in his native tongue, and each quietly loathing the other for no apparent reason. It’s possible, but ridiculous. Of course, my plans for acquiring another language have been thwarted by this preposterous conundrum.

English. Problem solved? Not a chance. Simple accents are the smallest barrier in what I’ve come to know as a ludicrous circus of communication. The most frustrating interactions are with waitresses, and the second debacle on the list is any telephone conversation with anyone, concerning any subject. It is almost worthless to order food because: 1) They never write anything down, and are subsequently doomed to forget half your order or just bring you something else entirely and 2) White people all look the same, which leads to a roundabout of plate swapping. Until today, our own compound family thought Joel and I were brothers (which I can understand) and that Rachel, Caitlin and Jamie were sisters (which is outlandish at best considering their attributes).

Last week I was visiting the Islamic University In Uganda, which kindly appointed me a tour guide. After spending close to two hours with this gentleman, it gradually became apparent that he did not understand a word I said, which worked fine considering he was the guide. I didn’t really have to speak. However, during lunch I was trying to ask whether the restaurant boiled their water before serving it to customers. Ecstatic at the opportunity to shed his knowledge upon this visitor one last time, he tapped the glass whilst wearing a grin I can compare only to that of a child in a candy store, looked at me and exclaimed, “it’s called water!”

I don’t think my words have fallen upon anything but deaf ears over the phone, and I am certain that I have yet to decipher a solitary sentence. Text messages are critical, and that’s all I can say without the experiences coercing me to through this computer across the room and just sit on the floor to cry.

I call it a language barrier because this division of oral understanding, coupled with the illusion of anything getting done on time (African Time) has left me enthralled by MAPLE’s accomplishments. As an ignorant, third party observer, I would guffaw at the preposition of this situation resulting in anything but failure segued into perversity. In conclusion, I’m rather proud of what this organization, recently accused of being a “summer camp for post-graduate yahoos experiencing quarter-life crises,” has accomplished. I challenge anyone to suggest otherwise while considering that every Ugandan NGO I’ve encountered has spent the last 50 years promoting the concept that white people double as an ATM and their withdrawals solve every known problem.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Bragging Rights

My brother recently brought it to my attention that, according to my previous posts, I am a total failure. Although my efforts have been wrought with frustrations, I have managed to do something with my time other than place my thumb up my butt. Although at times it feels like the apex of my successes has been to dislodge my thumb from my rear (only to find it wedged up there again), I would like to share some of my small victories with the rest of you.

Fuel Briquettes: I’m not sure if the general public is even aware of this project, but Joel and I have been working on constructing charcoal alternatives comprised of local, biodegradable material. The briquettes consists of sawdust, shaved corn husks, shaved rice husks, decomposed grass clippings, and paper clippings. Although using Leatherman scissors to dice used paper into thumb-size pieces is not on my list of favorite past times, it is on Joel’s. Seriously. We then compress different combinations of these materials into donut-sized briquettes, which are supposed to be economic alternatives to charcoal. After several failures, we cooked our first meal of sausages and potato fries over our very own fuel briquettes tonight. Boo-yah.

Trash Cleanup: Upon the realization that I am not a hero and cannot save the world, I decided to implement, with serious contributions from my teammates, a community trash cleanup. I’ve been told that at one point Mbale was the cleanest town in all East Africa, but now it is littered with garbage and non-biodegradables, and we wanted to reinstate the allure and prestige the town once commanded. After three weeks of empty promises, frustrations, no-shows, confusions, failed meetings, sicknesses, and every other conceivable mishap, the day finally came. We gathered over one hundred community members to clean the streets, including political leaders, Rotary members, Rotaract members, high-school students, Mbale United Women’s Association, and some dudes hanging out with nothing else to do. Simico (local music company) donated a van loaded with some serious speakers that drove around bumping oldie slow jams along the lines of Blackstreet, Boyz II Men, Mase, Mariah Carey, R Kelly and many others while we swept the streets. Somehow, watching 150 Ugandans do the street sweep dance to “I believe I can Fly” really got to me. Single tear. We are now making headway on getting Coca-Cola to sponsor the next event, and the Mayor wants to shut down businesses throughout the entire town (of 80,000) to dedicate manpower for the event. Boo-yah.

I live in a house the size of your kitchen with 8 other people, no hot water, perpetual diarrhea, and I have not killed anybody yet. Boo-yah.

Conclusion: I am living the dream. I figured out, with the help of many brown-nosers, that in spite my best intentions, I will be lucky if I influence (positively) the lives of three people during my five months here. I have netted one influence, who is our grass cutter. Chris is a high-school student who pays his school fees with the money from his entrepreneurial endeavors, who immediately took an interest to the fuel briquettes. We are teaching him the tricks of the trade and will leave him with the press and mold kit when we leave to hopefully make it an income generating activity, which will also assist in slowing the Ugandan deforestation that is the current charcoal market. Living the dream, ladies and geeks. Living the dream.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Short Stories

one
I was walking home the other day along the main street. Almost parallel to me, but slightly aft and to my right, a truck was traveling along, happily doing the speed limit. The front left axel of this particular truck snapped, and the wheel inverted itself as if to tribute Michael J. Fox’s DeLorean. Maybe it wanted to fly but the asymmetrical orientation of the remaining, still operating wheels kept it on the ground. Maybe not.

The truck slid about 50 feet before coming to a halt, leaving the gnarliest skid mark I’ve ever seen, and simultaneously leaving every 10-year-old with a brand new Huffy supremely jealous. I found myself dumb (that means speechless, before you start forming your own insights into my intellectual capacity) and unable to form any type of response to this onceinalifetime calamity.

This truck slowly nestles up next to me, and the dude riding shotgun sticks his head out of the window. He looks down at the wheel, which is looking back up at him, and then looks at me (at which point I’ve formulated a response, an audible exclamation of the four letter synonym for pooh). This was one of those events where time slows to a testudinate pace, and in those 20 minutes (.25 seconds) we just stared at each other. Then, like every child’s wonder during the apex of How The Grinch Stole Christmas, he cracked the biggest smile I’ve ever seen in my life. Seriously, his face lit up like the first time you ever played with a balloon. Unbelievable. Obviously, this guy knows something that I do not, and possibly will never know. Bless his soul.

Finally, after some days, even weeks, have passed, I have a reaction to express: “When and where in hell am I ever going to see that again?” I’m no Nostradamus, but my vastly educated guess is never.

two
For an undetermined amount of time, I have misplaced the term self-deprecating humor. It was recently revealed to me that I have been saying “self-defecating humor,” when referring to a witty quip I’d conjured to release tension. Release tension I did, as well as imply I had the capability to stealthily release flatulents at the same time. You know when your life “flashes before your eyes?” Well, how about every conversation you’ve ever had with a potential employer flashing before you, attempting to recall if you told her you’re proud of your farts.

three
Remember the children and my favorite game Scream Scream? As I was writing this, they smashed the window of our business partner’s car. I’m back to document it after spending 30 minutes cleaning up glass and taping the window.

four
Jordan, Joel and I traveled north last week to a town called Lira. This is a brief recollection of the travels to and from, disregarding all the fun stuff that happened in between.

The bus stops halfway to Lira in Soroti to refuel/pick up passengers/bake passengers in sun/inflate tires with bike pump/so on. The three hour trip quickly (slowly) mutates into a six hour trip as we wait with a fully loaded, fueled, and inflated bus. After two hours, the story of the delay comes to fruition as we discover that the bus driver has disembarked his post in order to say what up to his girlfriend. I’ve always wondered as to what exactly would merit the derogatory label of an assclown, and I found it, halfway to Lira.

The road from Soroti to Lira was being repaved, so the detour consisted of driving along the rollercoaster that is the ditch next to the road under construction, which explains the third lost hour en route. A mere twenty minutes before we arrive, I hear what is the unmistakable symphony of a toddler throwing up. Needing visual confirmation, I look back to see Jordan and Joel, red faced with laughter and Joel standing up to join me. (I had moved three rows up because, let’s face it, I smell.) Joel informs me that the toddler had neglected rule number one about throwing up on a bus, which is to aim out the window, as opposed to aiming for the back of the muzungus’ legs sitting in front of you. Fortunately for Joel, he was wearing pants. Unfortunately for Jordan, he was wearing shorts.

This particular child’s mother was not to be outdone. I am under the impression that she felt so bad for her child loosing his lunch that she decided to share hers. This theory does not explain, however, why she adhered to bus vomit rule #1, and threw up out the window. My million dollar insight: I’m glad I did not eat lunch that day.

Some stuff happened in Lira.

Three days later, we decided not to take the bus home but to take a Matatu instead. A Matatu (Swahili for Taxi) is a Toyota van thing, required to be at least 17 years old with 600,000+ miles. There is a big plastic sticker on the back that says, “maximum capacity: 14 persons.” Any guesses? Try 20 people. What makes me really feel like a whiner is that I recently found out that Luke rode one with 27 people. Back to sympathizing with me. Joel, Jordan me and this unfortunate lady were all crammed onto one row, again driving in the ditch next to the road. There was enough room for me to sit sideways with my rump in this woman’s lap and my legs stacked on top of each other, which were stacked on Joel’s right thigh. Reference blog article “Noises and Personal Space.” Have you ever had you butt muscles fall asleep? I thought my hip was going to dislocate, so I stood up for 20 minutes, bent 90 degree at the waist over the row in front of me. I made some friends. Due to the nature of the road, I was jumping and jiving like Mohammed Ali. I had nothing to do but pretend I wasn’t there, or accept it and meditate. Choosing the latter, I have since named the position in the Kama Sutra tradition. I call it Flamingo Steals Baby Tiger Whilst Enduring Earthquake, Repents. We made it home in about four hours, which I attribute to a celibate Matatu driver.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Noises and Personal Space

When I was a freshman at University of Oregon, I lived in the dorms adjacent to the construction site of the Living Learning Center. We were not told about this prior to moving in, and in fact, my window was about 20 feet from the fences. I was woken up every morning for 9 months to the tune of the biggest drill I have ever imagined. Come winter term, they were behind schedule. The work day went from 8am-5pm, to 7am-6pm. Then, they added Saturday. For those of you who know me well, you know what a monster I am without my sleep. My 6’6”, 220lb friend (Andy) has claimed that the only time he is ever scared of me is when he has to wake me up after an all night bender in Black Butte.

After the first few weeks out here, I find myself longing for those soothing sounds of a jackhammer.

Animals
The rooster must die. I had envisioned this stallion of feathered birds to majestically announce the day’s break, and then dutifully retire to his nest for siesta. Wrong. Instead, that bird proceeds in a manner not unlike a drill sergeant, screaming at me until I am out of bed, and then screaming in delight at his accomplishment. Sometimes when I come home in the evening he will greet me with a screech that I am pretty sure is his way of saying, “don’t even think about a nap son. The day is not to be wasted.” It will be a glorious day when we eat that thing, but unfortunately, I recently discovered that he is our neighbors, not ours, and merely enjoys feasting on our trash fire pile.

The cow must die. This animal is unmistakably our neighbors‘, and she is none too happy about it. Growing up, I had often used the term “sounded like a dying elephant.” Much to my present chagrin, I should have been using “sounded like a dying cow” all those years. I’m not sure if this girl is hungry, sick, pregnant, dying or a combination of the above. I’m not even sure if she just sounds normal because this is the only sound I hear from her. It starts off like a normal, slightly higher-pitched moo, but it transcends pitches throughout the 10 second belch. By the end it sounds like the high-pitched scream of the woman in the shower from the movie Psycho, and it’s just as loud. This animal must not have the same sensitivity to light that the rooster has because she doesn’t know that when it gets dark it’s time for Brad to go to sleep. Bitch.

I’m surprised the cats aren’t already all dead. The only time I ever hear a cat is when I hear two or more of them fighting to the death. You all know what a cat fight sounds like, so I’ll leave it at that.

Sometimes I hear dogs howling at the moon, but other than that they are absolutely silent. I would consider one of these non-barking specimens for a domestic pet, as long as it could kill mice and wasn’t foaming at the mouth, of course.

Brady Bunch House
While I am writing this, Jaime and Caitlin are singing about the story of that lovely lady. We don’t have 9 people here, we only have 7. We don’t have a house in the suburbs, we have a small fortress on a medium sized compound. But we are definitely a family. It’s mostly love so far, and we aim to keep it that way, but it also means that there are 7 different people here who operate on 7 different schedules, professionally and personally. As previously mentioned, I am not a morning person, which I think people are beginning to realize… I have not hit anybody or exploded upon being woken up after 3 hours of sleep, but I’ve been pretty close. Lack of self-constraint is the staple of my morning routine.

Children
If it wasn’t for these bite-sized elements of my daily life, I probably would not have even bothered with this post. I can deal with animals and my crazy friends pretty much ok. But the kids that live in our compound are the absolute definition of hell raisers. They are 3, 7, 9, and 14, all boys. I had heard somewhere sometime that African children don’t cry. I’m here to confirm that they don’t cry, they scream. They start playing when the rooster wakes them up, and their favorite game is getting attention from the Muzungus. How could they ever get more attention then by screaming outside my window at 6:30 every morning? When they play, they scream with delight, and when they’re hurt or upset, earplugs with headphones on barely make a difference. One of their favorite games is to throw rocks at our garage door (I sleep in the garage, by the way), and see how long it takes before I scream back at them. Then they wait until I fall back asleep and repeat. One morning, the littlest one played this game I have since named Scream Scream, which entails him running around the house and screaming for 20 minutes straight, and then stopping outside the garage door and screaming until somebody wakes up. Scream Scream is not on my list of favorite African games.

Personal Space
With all these contributing factors, I’m sure you have already formulated an image of my capacity for nap time. Consider also the tin roof, which brings our room to a steady 110 degrees every afternoon, which leaks onto Joel’s head when it rains, and which sounds like a thunder storm when it’s rained upon. Writing or reading are about the only things I can do without an extraneous input, and right now there are 5 other people in this room, the rooster is making sure everyone knows how much respect he deserves, the cow is continuing its requiem, and the children are staring at us through the door, occasionally saying “you give me balloony.”

Conclusion
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I have come to realize that my blog posts have become an outlet to whine and moan about how hard life is. Well, it isn’t. Life here is amazing. I am reminded of this every evening while cooking dinner with no electricity during a lighting storm, when it’s 75 degrees and not raining. I’m reminded every morning after I’m rudely awakened and slowly realize that yes, I’m in Africa. The fact that I update this blog so seldom is a testimony that I only have something to complain about every once in a while. And, my dreams are so awesome. Go Malaria pills! I’ll have to start posting some of the more outrageous dreams.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

African Time

I am writing this because I have set a goal to blog at least one time per week. I have made a promise to myself and my diligent fans (insert stifled guffaw here) to write; to write my experiences as proof for posthumous analysis as a senile story-teller, to write as an outlet for frustration and journaling purposes, and to write just for the sake of writing. So, one of my personal goals is to blog at least once a week. Another one of my personal goals is to defecate under Joel’s mosquito net before he goes to sleep and right when he wakes up, but I’ll let him fill you in on those details.

Goals. Goals are an interesting phenomenon. It’s as if I say to myself, “Well you wrote it down, so now you really have to do it.” There’s just something about checking off the boxes next to those aspirations that really motivates me. For whatever reason, that voice in my head that tries to convince me to do stuff just doesn’t do the trick. I won’t listen to it, unless I write what it says down, no matter how loud or frequent it gets.

Goal setting is something new in my life. I have been advised as early on as the 7th grade to set goals, but I sort of just floated around it making excuses like not having a pen or not liking the way my handwriting looks. Basically, I was just the laziest sonofagun in the northwest, and my other attributes were able to make up for and even disguise this glaring shortcoming. Well, ladies and gentlemen, the secret is out. I am the worst procrastinator I know, and how I’ve ever accomplished anything in my life I did not have the answer to. Until now.

African time. Any guesses as to what that entails? It means that anybody can be late to anything in any context with absolutely zero consequences. Before I continue, it should be noted that I am attempting to write this from an un-biased perspective. I am perpetually stressed out by time in the States, and I am late to absolutely everything. I usually get lost on the way, which adds to my anxiousness like my nephew stacks legos: as high as it can get. In fact, most people I know are just stressed about something, and the wrist-watch, no matter how gaudy a commodity it may be, seems to instigate that sentiment. Therefore, I choose to reserve judgment on the contrast between the different attitudes toward time. My frustrations, however, will most definitely not be reserved.

African time simply desecrated all progress I have made since being in Africa. For example, we have been trying to organize a community-wide trash pick-up and educate the community on biodegradables, recyclables and the like. We were advised by our Uganda peers that we have to get the community to take ownership of the project, or else we will be left standing in the street with a garbage bag while people laugh at us and ponder over just exactly what the hell those crazy muzungus are doing. So we spent a full week collaborating the community leaders to meet on Friday at 2:30. The senior assistant town clerk even printed out a formal invitation for all the parties, with the explicit footnote that read, “do NOT be late.”

2:35 PM on Friday: Joel and I are sitting in the Municipal Council Office reading posters that say, “I had a bad day today. I came to work broke and I could not pay attention,” and “God looked down upon my work and smiled. Then he looked down upon my wage and God cried.”

2:36 PM: Senior Assistant Town Clerk expresses his apologies for his entire country. We have someone on our side.

3:00 PM: Henry arrives. I’m still not sure I know who Henry is.

3:15 PM: We are getting ready to leave when four of the community-appointed leaders arrive. We introduce ourselves and talk about the importance of a unified community vision. They agree. We had been preaching October 25th as the clean-up date for a full week leading up to this meeting. The clerk agreed.

3:20 PM: Quote from Senior Clerk: “Ok, it is decided then. The second meeting to discuss the environmental clean-up will be set for October 25th and I will make sure everybody who needs to be there will be there.” Everybody immediately stands up and bolts out of the conference room, leaving Joel and I sputtering nonsense, jaws flat on the floor and thumbs up our butts. October 25th is a Sunday. Nobody will be working, especially the un-paid government employees. Unbelievable.

I had a goal. I had that goal written down on paper. Together, MAPLE had a vision. We have that vision down on paper. Maybe I’m naïve, but I am going to check that box off my list no matter what it takes. If I have to be that silly muzungu at the butt of the day’s best joke, I will. The time for lethargic apathy spent at the mercy of Eugene professors is over. This is a new page, even a new book, in the story of my life, and I’m going to dance through every page of it. Whatever that means.

I told you I have figured out the only reason my procrastination has not held me back, and it’s because of goals other people have set for me. Educational, athletic, spiritual and even psychological, every goal I’ve ever really achieved was set for me by some other entity, organic or inanimate. Since I took to legibly expressing my dreams, I have come to realize that there is a LOT I want to accomplish in this life. I will live day by day staring at those unchecked boxes and chasing them straight out of the gait, a vision synonymous with that neighborhood dog that chases your car every single day like a bat out of hell, just because he wants to. A smile cracks when I see those boxes already checked, especially the one that commands I blog at least once a week. The checkmark stays for now.

“We all are the hero of our own story.”
~no idea

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Muzungu, where are you going?!

Muzungu, where are you going? Pronounced: Moo-zoon-goo

This is the phrase that I hear at least seven times every day, often multiple times on the same street. I hear it in the morning when I’m walking into town, in the afternoon when I’m walking to a restaurant, in the evening when I’m sprinting home to relieve my non-assimilated digestive track, and every conceivable space in between. The only time I don’t hear that question is when I’m sitting right where I am at this moment, typing on Joel’s computer and listening to the affectionate screams of the four loudest children to ever grace this earth. (They live on the same piece of property, and when the sun comes up, Musa, Goddie, Joseph and Emma start their day by sprinting around the house screaming jibberish [not Lugandan, but Jibberish] at each other as a means of entertainment. They have a knack for stopping right outside the windows where we are sleeping, simply to scream.)

“Muzungo, where are you going?!”
“I’m going home.”
“Jinja?? Kampala?? Tororo?? Lira??”
“I’m going home. Now.”
“Muzungo, where are you going?!?!”
“I just told you!”

This was a conversation I had upwards to 30 times the other day while waiting at the bus stop to pick up some friends coming in from Lira. The bus drivers have these minions who race up to you and get paid to escort you to their bus. It is extraordinarily convenient when you want to go somewhere, and ten times as frustrating when you want to be left alone. Alone time is a myth here, but that is not the subject of this post.

Muzungu, by the way, is the name for white man. Direct translation: “White man, where are you going?” I find this superbly funny that everybody constantly wants to know where I’m going. As you may have guessed, white men are not very common in Mbale. This is not true of all of Uganda, but certainly here. Especially because our house is in the “Indian Quarters” (although I’m not too sure I’ve seen even one Indian anywhere near our compound), people stop what they are doing and stare at me. This phenomenon increases exponentially as we increase our numbers, and I fret to the point of restlessness about what’s going to happen when there are 7 of us walking around. Again, our presence is even more conspicuous amongst the little ones, but they don’t ask me questions. They just scream “Muzungu!!” until I look at them and wave. Then they laugh and jump up and down until I’m out of site. I’ve made something of a game out of this, sometimes making faces at them and causing some serious giggling fits. The children are adorable, but the adults are just plain confused.

Muzungu is not a racist term. There is zero emotion behind the word. It is simply a statement of fact. I have white skin, hair on my arms, face, and head, and that makes me different. In this situation, being labeled as different is merely what it is, different. Not lesser or greater, just different. Completely unlike the six letter synonym for Negro, this comment does not instill any feelings other than pure statement of fact. However, I propose the question as the devil’s advocate: what if the shoe were on the other foot? This is a proposition in theory and not to be taken seriously. Can you imagine being on campus at the University of Oregon on a warm spring day, when people are friendly and the ladies have come out of hibernation? I bet you can. Can you imagine seeing LeGarrette Blount walking down campus on his way to class or wherever? Certainly, you can. But can you imagine if 30 people dropped their shit, stared at him and shouted from all angles, “Black Man! Where are you going?!?!” HAHAHAHAHAHA The situation is just too funny to me. The FBI, PITA, hippies, and every organization you can imagine besides your grandfather would come crashing down through your door and demand you apologize to Oprah on national television.

I hope you enjoy this hypothetical situation as much as I do, and please, let me know if anybody tries it out. Although, I have thought about this so much that it is simply not possible to be any funnier than it is in my head. Hope you have enjoyed this cultural insight as much as I have; thanks for reading!

Thursday, September 24, 2009

What a day..

22 September 2009

I realize that I have been promising a lot of you blog entries. Well, as you might have guessed, adjusting to life in East Africa has been difficult, time consuming, and exhausting. Most of all, however, it has been rewarding. There is much to tell. Too much to encompass in one entry spanning the last three weeks of my life (the first two of which were spent gallivanting around Europe with Clark, having no clue what we were doing, except having the time of our lives). So, I will start with a story.

Abstract: My 4th day in Africa and Joel’s 2nd, we decided to hit the ground running with our non-profit work out here. This entailed traveling to a rural village about 90 minutes south of Mbale to meet with two existing organizations. This is the account.

8:00AM: Jet-lagged, we wake up in a daze and start preparing for the day.

8:30AM: We leave on foot to meet Juliet, our rural village guide, who works as a micro-financial officer here in Mbale. We had met here once before, and our wits and guile left us a half an hour late to the meeting where we had been greeted with, “So I see we are already operating on African time!!” It was rather embarrassing, so we made a point to be on time. We were two minutes early. Great success.

8:58AM: We arrive. Juliet is excited and happy, and we discuss plans for the day as we anxiously await for our driver.

9:58AM: No driver. Juliet is rather upset. She does not appreciate African time, so she calls a second driver.

10:15AM: Second driver arrives. We embark.

10:30AM: Here is where things get interesting. There are police check-points along the roads between the villages. They serve many purposes, and the one that becomes most obvious to us is to pull over random vehicles and check for proper documentation, drugs, and whatever else could be going on. We are “randomly” pulled over. Our driver is nervous, and we don’t know why. Upon looking at his documents, the officer pulls him and Juliet out of the car to talk. Although us white people in the back seat are left alone, we are not too sure what’s happening, but we are relieved when the officers and the Ugandans stand outside the car laughing and joking with each other. However, after a brief informal interaction, it becomes clear to us that the driver’s license had expired the day before, and the officers are not going to let him drive white people around without proper documentation. A reasonable request.

10:35AM: The officers no longer think the situation is comical. They demand the rest of us get out of the car, take the keys, and refuse to talk to anybody but Juliet. They treat our driver like a criminal, demand he leave the scene, and proceed to make bizarre accusations to Juliet about who really owns the car and that it must be impounded. We learn that the car is actually Juliet’s, and that she does not like to drive, which is why she hired the driver in the first place. I can understand why she doesn’t like driving here, but more on that later.

10:35 - 11:30AM: We stand in the sun and ROAST. Officers refuse to speak to us, so we wait.

11:30AM: Two of the officers get into the front of the car, pile the rest of us in the back, and drive the caravan back into town where they impound the car and take us to traffic court.

Traffic Court

The door is guarded by two officers, one holding an AK-47 and one holding a shotgun. Although almost every officer in this country carriers and automatic firearm, having someone stare at me holding a gun the size of my torso is something I’m afraid I will never get used to. The building is more of a courtyard with several buildings around the perimeter, and casually hanging out in the courtyard are 2 or 3 different groups of armed soldiers, each group with its own uniform (probably army and local police), and each soldier in possession of his weapon of choice (AK-47 or shotgun). I would like to take this opportunity to express that NOT ONCE did I feel threatened by any of these people. They stared because we were white, but other than that they had nothing to do with us. In fact, we were treated with the utmost respect by everybody involved in this process, except for the original officer, who did not disrespect us, he simply ignored us.

We walked into a building where a big, jolly Ugandan is sitting behind a desk waiting for us. Our driver, Mario, is also here. The big man greats us with a smile and says, “tell me who was driving the car!” While the officer, the driver, and Juliet are sorting out the details of the event, I take this opportunity to not the pictures on the wall. The photographs are of fatal accidents in Mbale. I have never seen a picture of a dead body, let alone 30 or 40, and I’m not too sure how to describe the feelings that came over me, probably because I had never experienced those emotions. Moving along.

They officer gives Juliet her car back, and the driver is not fined because he had submitted an application for a license renewal months prior, and it was not his fault he had not received it. Apparently traffic court operates on African time too.

We eat lunch, and Mario is so shaken up from the experience that he decides he no longer wants to drive us out to Tororo. Juliet is disappointed because she had been planning those meetings for a while, and we are disappointed because we had left at 8:30AM, it was then 1:00PM, and we had accomplished absolutely nothing. Juliet then asks if I want to drive. I say no. I think. I say yes.

Tororo

Driving in Uganda demands more concentration than taking the SATs. First of all, they drive on the left side of the road, and the steering wheel is on the right side of the car. Enough said. Second, they drive like maniacs, bats out of hell, chickens with their heads cut off, or however you wish to describe it. Third, there are so many potholes in the road (more like ditches than potholes) that I can only look about 50 feet in front of me. The combination of these elements makes driving as difficult as holding an efficient meeting on the floor at the House of Representatives. I am told that as recently as the 70s, fist-fights used to break out between Democrats and Republicans during such meetings. You can use your own imagination.

By the time we make it to Tororo for our first meeting, I am so worn out that I cannot think of anything to say, and I can barely stay awake, let alone concentrate, as Juliet conducts business and Joel takes notes. Business goes down in Uganda like nothing I have ever experienced in my life. It astounded me and made me feel ashamed that I grew up in a world where the phrase “I give you my word” is synonymous with, “I’ll shake hands with the same hand I wipe my ass with, just so we’re clear about our feelings of mutual respect.” A world where contracts MUST be drawn up by lawyers paid six figures annually, and those contracts are broken without consequence as surely as the sun rises. A world where I personally have not made a promise since I was 16 because the last promise I made I broke, and broke my best friend’s heart along with it.

First came introductions, then came small talk, then came business. After five minutes of small talk, this other organization, Community Vision, physically laid the most intricate details of every aspect of their business on the table. Everything from their cost structure, to the management structure, to their marketing strategy, all the way down to what their employees eat for breakfast within 10 minutes. I mean EVERYTHING. After they were done, Juliet reciprocated, and the sequential 3 hours were spent discussing best practices and what wasn’t working. The meeting concluded with the exchange of financial ledgers and the agreement to meet again and partner up so as to reach the most amount of people in the most effective ways. Absolutely incredible. Imagine if Coca-Cola and Pepsi sat down and said, “Hey, here’s our recipe. It is my understanding that people in the south don’t like Coke, but they like Pepsi. Why don’t you take the south, we’ll take the north, and we can both use the same marketing strategy to save money and time.” (To pronounce the unusual nature of this situation, it is interesting to note that there are only 3 people in the world that know the recipe of Coca-Cola.)

Homeward Bound

I drove home. I took an hour nap, and since it was Friday and also Patrick’s last night in Mbale, we decided to go out. We went to dinner and had beers, then we went to Sports Club and had beers, and then we went out to the club. And yes, there are night clubs in Mbale, Uganda, East Africa. We arrived around 1:00AM, which was early. We danced the night away, and at 4:00AM we decided it was time to call it a night, which was 2 hours before the club closed. What a day…

I realize that I have not provided much insight into my daily life in Uganda, or what I’m doing here professionally, or the friends I have made, or the cultural dont’s and do’s. However, this story was too good to not share with everybody, and I believe that story-telling is the best way to gain insight into those situations anyway. So expect that when these types of stories come along, I will share them with you instead of telling you what I ate for lunch (which today was beans and potatoes).

Thanks for reading, and sorry I don’t have any pictures to go along with this particular story. I’m not 100% positive, but I’m not sure how the officers feel about having pictures taken of them, and I was not about to find out. I have included some pictures, some of them are just random, so use your imagination!

Good night and good luck!