On Ending

Things are winding down, and quickly.

I only have twenty-one days until I close my service. I only have seventeen days until I take what I hope will be whittled down to two backpack's worth of stuff and leave Ngora. I'm going to be gone for five days next week to travel to Kampala to take the GRE (and try to make a plan for the rest of my life) and attended our All-Vol conference in Masaka, where I'll see most everyone here for the last time, so when you take those days out of the equation, I only have twelve days left in Ngora.

I was wondering, ever since early July when I got my official COS date, when it was going to hit me that 1: I've been here for two years, a long time, it seems, and 2: I'm leaving the place I've lived and the people I've gotten to know for the last two years, possibly forever, and 3: I'm going to have to grow up now, be a real adult, pay bills (a couple weeks ago I had to pay a credit card bill for the first time in two years, a good reminder that I'm leaving Africa), buy furniture, rent an apartment (or secure a couch to sleep on for a while), and get a job (or go back to school and put everything off for another two years, until I'm --yikes-- thirty).

I don't know if it has fully hit me yet, but the hitting has certainly started. If it's possible to feel nostalgic for something that hasn't faded into the past yet, then I'm becoming nostalgic for my Peace Corps experience, Ngora, and Uganda. I'll be doing something in town or traveling with friends or whatever, and I'll realize that I won't be able to do any of those things in a few weeks, and it's kind of sad, certainly bittersweet. But then, one or more of the same old annoying and frustrating things that have been around for the last two years will happen again, or I'll be sitting at my organization with no work to do, having wound down basically all of my projects, and just be crushingly bored (I can only study for the GRE for so many hours in a day, and I think I've realized my limit is five), and I find that I can't wait to get out of this country. Even with those annoying and frustrating things still happening on as regular a basis as they ever have, though, everything's started to have that hazy glow that good memories always seem to be tinged with, all soft lighting and a gauzy white border around it all, like a flashback in a made-for-TV movie. I am going to miss this. At the same time, I think it's a good time for me to end my service and leave Uganda. A surprising number of PCVs grow increasingly cynical and jaded over the course of two years in a developing country (assuming this happens to volunteers in countries other than just Uganda, and sometimes it doesn't even take two years). I understand that: I have my moments of cynicism and frustration that borders on bitterness. The inefficiencies of daily life here --the transportation difficulties, the potholes, the empty hours spent waiting for things to happen-- combine with the often-unmet enthusiasm for doing work, the desire to make a difference, and the desire to have a good experience, and the frustration of all of those quotidian difficulties and often-outlet-less enthusiasm is compounded by the constant, unsolicited attention --the stares, the "Muzungu!"s, the requests for money or plane tickets to America or whatever else-- and it gets to you. It gets to some people more than others, but it gets to everyone at least a little bit. I haven't yet reached that stage of jadedness where I hate Uganda, hate living here, and --like some people-- hate Ugandans. That's why it's probably a good time for me to go. I can leave having done some good work, having made some amazing friends, and still liking the fact that I live in a tiny town barely on the map of Uganda. I can leave and have good memories already shrouded in the warm glow of nostalgia that far outweigh any negative experiences I have had, and that will grow to further outweigh the negative experiences as time passes and I get further and further away (temporally) from Uganda. I'm happy to be leaving while I'm still happy to be here. If that makes sense.

Thing I'm Going to Miss About Uganda #43:
I was in a private hire taxi with a couple friends last weekend when we stopped in a small freeway town between Jinja and Iganga. We were dropping someone off so she could go back to her site, and our driver was buying some gonja (roasted bananas, not to be confused with ganja). There were food and drink vendors clustered around the car -- kids selling bottles of soda and water from cardboard boxes, women selling plastic bags of g-nuts. A few younger men were selling roasted chicken, wings and breasts skewered on eighteen-inch-long sticks. I had a weird thought, and laughed to myself, and then asked everyone what I'd just started wondering: "Do you think one of these guys would sell me some chicken if I told him that he had to hold the stick while I ate it, hands-free?" We laughed: "Probably." I realized, then, that I'm going to miss this about Uganda: Possibilities are sort of endless. The possibility that something will go wrong, like when traveling for example, breakdowns or delays or whatever; and the flip-side, the possibility of weirdly hilarious things happening. Both of these possibilities are infinitely higher here than they are in the States, but it's the latter that I think I'm going to miss. I'm going to miss being able to make those weird jokes and have them actually be funny because they're actually possible. I'm about 70% sure that I could have bought chicken and eaten it while the guy held the stick. If I tried that in the States, like, say I was at a Mariners' game and wanted some Shish-ka-berries --the insanely priced chocolate-covered strawberries on a stick-- but asked the vendor to hold the stick while I ate them, no one would laugh, and the vendor would probably just say, #$%^& you, freak, and walk away. Maybe my sense of humor has just adapted to Uganda, but I'm kind of worried that things will be a little less funny, little more boring, in the States, simply because those bizarre and potentially (awkwardly) hilarious things just aren't nearly as possible there. (Then again, maybe I've just gotten so weird after two years in the bush that I, and my friends who've also spent two years in the bush, don't know what's funny to normal people anymore. That's also a possibility.)

Thing I'm Going to Miss About Uganda #12:
Riding my bike and having to swerve and weave my way through herds of cattle, seven or eight up to forty or forty-five strong, humps on their backs like fatty shark fins, horns just a foot or two away from gouging my thigh or getting stuck in the spokes of my bike. This will not happen in the States.

Thing I'm Going to Miss About Uganda #183:
The bus I was on today was delayed by fifteen minutes, at least, so that a group of seven grown men could chase down a fleeing chicken that wanting nothing less than to be caught, leading them on a wild chicken chase around in circles until they finally corralled it, tied its legs together, and tossed it in the storage area underneath the bus. This will also not happen in the States.

That's all for now. Just trying to reflect on ending and leaving. If I come up with anything more profound, I'll be sure to try to articulate it. But I might not. Actually leaving and going back and being in the States for some time will surely affect how I feel about this whole experience, so who knows?

Bayt

Caitlin and Shane got engaged a couple weeks ago now. I am happy, happy, happy for them. I've also been, since then, unbelievably excited to go home. Not to get out of Uganda, but just to go home and have the wedding to look forward to, seeing everyone and celebrating and being back. I'm also anticipating the itch that I know will come as soon as the wedding ends and the celebrations start to die down: the itch to leave home again. This, from a great article in today's New York Times:

“Your first discovery when you travel,” wrote Elizabeth Hardwick, “is that you do not exist.” In other words, it is not just the others who have been left behind; it is all of you that is known. Gone is the power or punishment of your family name, the hard-earned reputations of forebears, no longer familiar to anyone in this new place.
In Arabic, the word “bayt” translates literally as house, but its connotations resonate beyond rooms and walls, summoning longings gathered about family and home. In the Middle East, bayt is sacred. Empires fall. Nations topple. Borders may shift. Old loyalties may dissolve or, without warning, be altered. Home, whether it be structure or familiar ground, is finally the identity that does not fade.

Loved that, and wanted to share, and I guess that's all. Just excited to go home, happy to be here and have home, as it resonates beyond rooms and walls, to go back to.

I Am America, and So Can You!

I know I've been worse at updating this blog than Chuck Knoblog was at throwing to first base. (Yes, that was a long stretch for a bad joke.) So, it's going to be a double-blog-post day, since I've had this one sitting on my computer for a couple weeks now.

But I'm back in Ngora after a full month away, and I'm happy to report that America is still awesome and Uganda is still Uganda. Without going into too much detail about the two and a half weeks I spent in Seattle and Sunriver, eating and drinking and not moving too much, here are a few things people said to me–

When I got back to the States:

“Welcome back!”

“You're so tan!”

“I missed your big Irish head!”

“You're not as skinny as I thought you would be!”

“It's 68 degrees in this house: take off that down jacket!”

“Seriously: you've been wearing that down jacket for twelve days straight!”

“Did you just refer to Uganda as 'home?'”

When I got back to Uganda:

“Welcome back!”

“You're so white now!”

“So America was good? Because it looks like it was about fifteen pounds good!”

“You're fat!”

So that pretty much sums it up: I wasn't that skinny when I got to the States, and I was super fat when I got back to Uganda (which is entirely ok, since the PCVs who commented on my probably-unhealthy weight gain were just jealous, and the Ugandans who commented on it meant it as a compliment). It wasn't really that cold, technically –the coldest it got was one morning when it was 15 degrees out when I woke up; most of the rest of the days were sunny and in the 40s; and London was much colder than either Seattle or Sunriver– and there was no snow, but I opened presents on Christmas morning while wearing my puffy down jacket. I lost whatever tan I had, at least according to my Ugandan friends, the ones who told me I was “a real white man, now.” Without thinking about it, I did call Uganda home, but when I'm here, I call America home, too. So it was nice to get to go home twice.

Before I left to go back to the States, I had been thinking that it wouldn't be weird at all, going back. I'd left and come back and left before, so I didn't think it would be a big deal. Then I started thinking that maybe it would be really weird, since I wasn't expecting it to be weird at all. Then I got back, and I had been right the first time. It wasn't weird. I even asked my good friend Whit: “Is it weird for you that I'm back and I've been gone for a year and a half?” She said, “When you first showed up, I was like, 'Whoa!' But now that you've been here for, like, an hour, I'm just like, 'Cool.'” So I think everyone agreed: like I'd never left. There were no mental breakdowns over all the choices in the cereal aisles of the grocery stores (or even Costco), like the Peace Corps had warned us about during some silly Pre-Service Training session on culture shock. There was no righteous indignation at the excesses and ridiculousness of Americans. No mind-blowing new technology (though FaceTime on the new iPhone is pretty awesome, and new to me). I didn't even have any trouble staying on the right side of the road while I was driving.

Then I realized the reason why it wasn't weird at all: I've lived in Uganda for a year and a half, true, but I've also lived in the United States for about twenty-five years before that. So no, it wasn't weird.

One funny thing I did notice myself doing, while I was in America, was when I would get in line behind someone, like at the movie theatre or the checkout at the grocery store or wherever, I would stand really, really close to them. Because in Uganda –and Asia and India– if you're not basically standing with your head on the shoulder of the person standing in front of you, you're either not in line, or you're going to get jumped. So I've gotten used to that; it's completely ceased to be awkward. Unless I do it in America. Because I could just feel the awkwardness radiating from the stranger in front of me as I ruffled the back of their hair with my breath. Fortunately, I would realize what I was doing after a few seconds, laugh, and step back. It amused me every time though.

But so it was really awesome to see all of my friends, and my family, and Dublin; to get to drink real, delicious beer and eat so much food that I kind of felt ill the entire time (but in a good way); to be cold; to watch football, even if the Broncos got destroyed in both games I watched; the bed was ridiculously comfortable; there were snacks in the pantry for when I woke up in the middle of the night from jetlag; I got to “meet” the guy who's going to marry my sister; it was sunny and gorgeous every day in Seattle; I got to do (almost) all of the things that I loved doing before I left (and one of my favorites was sitting at Starbucks with Sarah, with coffee and breakfast sandwiches, reading the New York Times –because, yes, we are the “Did You Read That?” sketch from Portlandia, it's true– and laughing because we're just so damn funny); and it was just … good.

I was asked a few times, when it got to be a few days before I was heading back here, “So, are you excited to go back to Uganda?” And I said, “Well … no. Not really.” I had to qualify it then, because that made it sound like I just hated it here: “It's like, if I lived in Seattle, and went on vacation to Uganda, I wouldn't be excited to go back to Seattle.” I think that's how you know a place has really become your home: when you leave, and even though you love living there, you're not entirely excited to go back.

There was one other thing from home that made me laugh. I've been lucky so far that I haven't missed any major life events while I've been gone. No new babies or weddings or dog-funerals. Everything's been pretty steady, and this makes me happy. But I was sitting around with the fam, on Christmas Eve, maybe, and Mom said, looking and Ryan and Emily and Caitlin and me, excited like only Mom gets, “I can't believe you're all here!”

“Yeah,” Ryan said. “And the next time we're all here, we might have a kid.”

“And,” Caitlin said, “you guys might have a new son-in-law.”

I paused, and thought for a second.

“Yeah...” I said. “And, I mean … you know … I'll be here.”

“But you'll be coming back again,” Dad said, “from somewhere else in Africa. Or Asia. Or wherever.”

I think he was just trying to make me feel better, but he's probably right: this is my life, and it's pretty awesome.

One Year Wonder

I have been at site for over a year now.

Wait. No. That's not quite right.

I have been at site for over a year now!!!

That's better.

Seriously though. I can't quite believe it. I'm not sure where the last year (or 15 months, really, since we got here in August) has gone. Sometimes I feel like I haven't done anything important, haven't made a significant impact for the last 15 months, but sometimes I think I'm just too harsh on myself: living in rural Africa for a year by myself is kind of an accomplishment of its own, I guess, and if I'm honest, I know I've done some good work, even if it's still a little fewer and farther between that I want. But I'm working on that. At the very, very least, I've done a few things –

1: Made some of the best friends I've ever had, people that I'll know for the rest of my life.

2: Done and seen things that will make great stories to impress girls everyone with when I come home.

3: Not died.

– so really, all in all, even at the very, very least: success.

Here are some other things from a year in Ngora.

Favourite Thing I've Done in Ngora (Work Category): This is obviously the training of the HIV/AIDS counsellors. It was the first, so far only, really big project that I've pulled off on my own, and at least the training part went as well as I could've hoped. They're starting now to bring in their notebooks they've been documenting client visits in so that we can review them, and I'll write more about that later, but some of them really seem to be making an impact and that is awesome. I'm proud of this one, proud of the volunteers and the community for coming together on it. The runner-up is my life-skills club, which is also obvious.

Favourite Thing I've Done / Do in Ngora (Non-Work Category): Narrowing it down to a short list– Climbing rocks outside of town with monkeys and finding a place to sit by myself and watch the town for a while. Being made Chairman of a set of Peace Talks, a code name for getting together to eat delicious and illegal roast pork. Playing football with neighbour kids. Sunset bike rides.

The Most Frustrating Thing (Work Category): Still struggling with my organisation to figure out why they wanted me and what work they think I should be doing vis-a-vis the work they have for me or don't have for me; the fact that they simply seem to want me to be a secretary and type things because I'm a faster typer than anyone else.

The Most Frustrating Thing (Non-Work Category): My housing situation still is a bit of a source of frustration. The house itself is great, you've seen pictures. The issue is that, well, I don't have anywhere to be at home where I can just sit and relax by myself and not be surrounded by people other than inside. If I had a place to sit outside, a bit of a view maybe, and just relax, it would do wonders for my general contentment at site. Instead, I have neighbours immediately connected to my place who are always outside –I know I can't begrudge them that– and even if I were able to just sit out there, the view is of an empty lot across the street and a drinking circle a few hundred feet away. A small issue in the whole scheme of things, but still, I would die for just like a semi-secluded patio with just a view of a grass and trees.

The Funniest Thing That's Happened to Me: I can think of three– The cow that was eating my laundry. The small boy who attacked me with nun-chucks. Busting the crotch of my pants open at the market.

Weirdest Things I've Eaten: Termites. White ants. Offals.

Number of Haircuts I've Had: 3– count 'em, including the one I just got right before mid-service, the first one I'd had since early May; I could put my hair in a ponytail and that's a sign.

Number of Books I've Read: 68– count 'em (that's 1.2 books/week, just, ya know, FYI).

Number of Parasites I've Had in my Body: 2– I think malaria is technically a parasite, and schistosomiasis, aka bilharzia.

Number of Times I've Had Diarrhoea: 0– my immune system is awesome (and even the Peace Corps nurse during my mid-service medical exam was impressed).

Number of Times I've Been Called 'Amusugut': What's a number bigger than a bajillion but slightly smaller than infinity?

Number of Dead Mice I've Had in my House: 3– two dead in traps, one of mysterious circumstances.

Number of Goals I've Scored in Football Games: 3– two headers off of corner-kicks, one beaut that I arced perfectly over the head of the goalkeeper and just under the crossbar and I'm still proud of it.

Number of Tomatoes I've Eaten: 963, approximately– I eat a lot of tomatoes: on average, five every two days x 55 weeks = 963 tomatoes.

Number of Packages I've Gotten: 14– and thank you, everyone!

Best Item in a Package: Velveeta cheese. New music. Trader Joe's trail mix with Craisins and wasabi peas, mmmmmm. A 38 ounce bag of peanut butter M&Ms. Starbucks Via Instant Iced Coffee, which is delicious even when you can't get cold water, let alone ice. Books.

Most-Played Songs on my iTunes: Top five, not including the new Fleet Foxes album, which I listened to pretty much non-stop for a month or two and now takes up six of the top ten spots– 1: 'Summertime Clothes' by Animal Collective. 2: 'Knotty Pine' by Dirty Projectors & David Byrne. 3: 'This Must Be the Place [Naïve Melody]' by Talking Heads. 4: 'Daisy' by Fang Island. 5: 'Cold War (Nice Clean Fight)' by the Morning Benders.

Most Embarrassing Song on the Most Played List on my iTunes: 'Bad Romance' by Lady Gaga.

The Best Thing I've Done Outside of Ngora: Sipi Falls on Christmas Day. Rafting the Nile. Hiking in the Impenetrable Forest. Horseback riding in Lake Mburo National Park.

Longest I've Been in Ngora Without Leaving: Seven weeks– that's basically 49 days by myself within a few kilometre radius in rural Africa. I feel pretty good about that one. (And it's a funny thing, what that does to you, the way you completely forget –most of the time, until you're reminded by an amusugut-screaming child– that you don't resemble anyone else here.)

Longest I've Gone Without Speaking to Another White Person (except text messages): Eleven days– which is either pretty cool or means I have no friends, depending on how you look at it.

Favourite Thing About Site: It's my home. When I'm away for a while, it's always nice to be back in my own town and my own place.

Ugandan Quirks I've Picked Up in the Last Year: The quick raise-and-lower of both eyebrows to signal yes, and also instead of saying 'yes,' saying 'ehh' (like a long 'a'). Instead of saying 'uh-huh' like to show you're listening when someone's talking to you, saying 'mmm.' The two-handed wave in greeting – both hands held in front of you, chest level, like you're holding a grapefruit, kind of. Crossing my legs like a girl and/or British man, because the other way is kind of rude, I guess.

Things I'd Never Done Before This Last Year (since that last six-months update): Had a cow try to eat –or at least suck on– my laundry. Bought avocados / made guacamole. Torn up newspaper to use when I've run out of TP, routinely. Dislocated my shoulder playing cricket (cricket!). Commandeered two different boats, one on Lake Victoria, one on the Nile. Been to a burial ceremony. Debated the fact that Obama is not Muslim and was not born in Kenya. Chased rats around my house with a machete and a can of insecticide. Had to clean up a decomposing animal inside my house. Crossed the equator overland. Been a part of (or at least witness to) a cattle-sale. Been running on horseback alongside darting tophi ten metres off to the right and twenty galloping zebra ten metres off to the left. Gotten malaria. Spent a full year out of the States. Spent a full year in Africa and still had another year here.

Home and Garden Dan-nel

See what I did there?

Now see what I'm doing here.

This is my house, freshly painted, by me, a couple weeks ago. The first two are my living room / kitchen. The papyrus mat on the left wall is covering up a big metal door that went into the other half of the building which is either someone else' house or an office of a primary school -- I've heard both and don't know which one is true. But the metal doors were ugly to look at and a little too prison-y feeling, so the papyrus looks a little nicer. The map of Africa is from a 1950 National Geographic which is awesome but also makes me a little sad that I won't be able to go to places like Upper Volta and Bechuanaland. Then the third picture is my bedroom, again covering up a prison-style metal door. Please ignore all the unfolded laundry. Some of it is clean, some isn't, but either way I usually give it a smell-test before determining if something's ok to wear for a third time between washings. Then there's my bike and the blue color that I painted the window-walls in both of the rooms. And then there's the pictures of some of those pretty faces I left in the States. It's nice to have everything finally done, especially since it took six months to get all of this finished.

And this is my garden. It's a little bit hard to tell the mound of dirt from the rest of the dirt, but it's there. If you look at it from the top down, the whole in the middle -- there's no dirt in the middle of those sticks; that's where the compost goes -- and the little walkway in front make a keyhole shape, hence the name. Next time, I'll do a little better on the construction of the compost pit in the middle. The sticks are longer than they need to be and come together too much at the top, but, other than that, it's looking pretty good. I just planted a week ago, last Saturday, so not a whole lot is coming up yet, but the second picture is the two little cucumber plants that have sprouted nicely. There are also about six or seven beanstalks coming up so far, but for the lettuce and carrots that I planted, I'm having a hard time telling, right now, what are vegetables and what are weeds, so we'll see. The thorns that I put around it, I didn't get those out there until four days after I'd planted the seeds, and so I'm hoping the chickens didn't come and nom on all of my seeds. I also tried to follow the planting instructions on the seed packets, but I didn't know what things like 'sow thinly' meant, so I ended up going with the 'put a bunch of seeds everywhere and hope things grow' approach. Our rain has been less than consistent lately, too, so there are days where the entire garden is drenched and days where, at least on the surface, the soil is totally dry and cracked and rock-hard. So, green thumbs crossed. The last picture is part of the rest of The Nursery, what my org calls the field. All of that used to be long, pretty grass to lie in, and now, unfortunately, it's a buncha dirt. But I'm hoping that I can help plant there next planting season and we can try to do some biointensive techniques that I've been reading about in a manual I got from the Peace Corps office. But, in the distance there, is the big rock that marks the beginning of town, the one that I was on top of the last time I posted the pictures of town. So that's all that.

I've gotten some pretty good reactions towards my garden from people in town, too, which has been fun. A couple secondary school boys who'd come to help me cut the branches for the middle came back a few days later. I was just finishing up and getting ready to plant the next day, and they came up and said, Daniel! What is this you have made? I told them it was a garden. Sure?, one of them said, in the traditional high-pitched Ugandan-English exclamation of disbelief. Pretty sure, yeah, I said, and explained how it was supposed to work. Eh, one of them said, shaking his head in wonder, I have never seen such technology before in my life! Technology isn't quite the word I'd use to describe a pile of dirt and some sticks, but I laughed. It made me feel like I was building an alien spacecraft out in the field.

When I went into work a couple days after finishing, my supervisor said, Danieli, what is that you have made in the nursery? I told her that it was my garden. Ah, she said. We thought it was a trap. I laughed, again. Not quite.

And, last time I wrote about the garden, I mentioned the boy who lives next door to The Nursery, who comes over and chats with me whenever I'm out there, and when I say chats with me, I mean that he speaks in really fast Ateso, 99% of which I can't understand, and so I just talk to him in English about whatever. Every once in a while, I'll be able to pick one or two words and get the gist of what he's saying and formulate some sort of coherent answer. So, he came over when I was getting ready to plant. I greeted him, Yoga noi!, literally saying hello very much and asked how he was doing, Biaibo ijo? He said he was fine. Biabibo esomero?, I asked. He said school was fine. And then he said, Ateso ateso! Ateso ateso ateso ateso. Ateso? Ateso ateso. And I said, Oh, I know, right? I can't believe it, either. He laughed, like he always does when I talk to him in English, and said, Ateso, ateso ateso. Ateso ateso ateso etogo ateso?, and he made a motion to go down the walkway of the garden and crouch through, into the middle part. He was asking if it was a house. I laughed, again. Ejai etogo kon?, I said, asking him if it was his house. He said it wasn't. Ikoto ijo etogo?, I said, asking if he wanted it to be his house. He said he didn't. Aso... I said, disappointed -- Well... And then I explained that there were going to be carrots, cabbage -- because I don't know if there's a word for lettuce -- and beans and cucumbers. He seemed disappointed. Maybe I should've just told him that it was a house.

(And, speaking of cobbling together sentences in Ateso, one short, last sidestory: There's a restaurant in town that I've been going to fairly often in the last couple months. All they serve is posho -- a cakey sort of thing made of maize flour and water -- and beans, but it's a ridiculous amount of food for 1000/=, and, since that's all they ever serve, I can go in there and just say, Eong da inyamat. This always makes me happy because that literally translates as Me also food. It seems like the most appropriate way to ask for a two pound bowl of food.)

Nothing Much

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything. Sorry for that. But it's too hot to go outside right now, so here's a monkey. Happy now?













In other news...

1: I'm going to be moving into another place tomorrow. It will probably only be temporary, since I'm going to keep looking for a house a bit outside of town where I can sit outside and enjoy some sort of a view and maybe see more monkeys. My counterpart told me that people do a lot of construction on houses in December and January since they aren't paying school fees and have more disposable income in those months. So I'll be on the lookout and putting the word out that whitey wants a new home. We'll see what happens. If I can't find anything or if I end up really liking the temporary place, I'll put some work into it and it will definitely be liveable. Either way, I'll miss having a shower and a sink.

2: I had a great Thanksgiving and was reminded of all the things I have to be thankful for both here and back home. There wasn't any turkey or pie, but I ate so much homemade pizza I almost threw up. Which I am also thankful for.

3: Other than that, I've just been trying to keep getting integrated into the community here -- hanging out, wandering around, using more Ateso, and climbing up big rocks -- and trying to figure out what exactly I can do for the next two years in terms of work. The other day I was sort of cat-called by name by about twenty older secondary school girls who were all sitting in the bed of a pickup truck, which was funny and totally inappropriate, but at least people are learning my name.

And that's pretty much it. There are other stories and random stuff, but, again, it's just too hot. So things are just moving at the pace of Africa and they're good and getting better.

Ngora

I live in Ngora. I think I might have forgotten to mention that until now. Actually, I live in five different levels of Ngora-ness. In Uganda, the government is broken down into different levels of Local Councils. There are districts, which are the biggest areas, like states at home, then there are counties, sub-counties, parishes, and villages. So I live in Ngora District, County, Sub-County, Parish, and finally in Ngora Town, itself. It's pretty small, there are three main roads in town, each runs east-west, and they're each about a quarter of a mile long, or so. There is the main-main road, and then I live on the third road over. I recently read that there are a little over 43,000 people in Ngora, and although that didn't say Ngora District, specifically, that's what I'm assuming is the case. So it's little, but it's nice. Now that we're a district (up until July of this year, Ngora was part of Kumi District), they tell me that there's going to be a lot more things happening here in the near future. I'm not entirely sure I believe that, but it will be interesting to see. Ngora Town actually used to be very nice, from what I hear, due to a large population of Indian business owners. Idi Amin kicked all Indians out of Uganda, though many have come back, but it's easy to see the effects are still here, most prominently in the run-down Hindu temple in the middle of town, as well as all the well-constructed (at one time, anyway) buildings which are now abandoned and falling down. These buildings though, I'm told, are being rebuilt and reoccupied now, again, because the town is a district headquarters and we're going to be big-time. Anyway. Ngora is part of the Teso Region of Eastern Uganda. It is very, very flat out here, hot and getting hotter, I swear, every single day, but also (although this could change with the dry season coming up, the effects of which are already being seen in the amount of red dust that blows around everywhere now, coating my hair and clothes, without the rain to tamp it down) very green, with tall grass and (mostly) short trees stretching literally as far as you can see. We also have rocks. Lots of them. Giant, hundred-plus-foot gray monoliths that dot the countryside and break up the flatness. I love them. So, the other day, we climbed to the top of the one that marks the beginning of town. And here is what Ngora looks like from there. On the left is part of the main road and the shops there. In the middle, is my (the third) road. You can see my house if you look towards the far end of the road, the electricity pole on the right, where you can see some umbrellas, and the yellowish coloured one is mine. Then on the right is the middle/second road. So that's my little town, where I once found a pineapple, the only one I've seen, in the market. (And, click on the pictures to make them bigger.)

And, naturally, kids followed / guided us up and sat, enjoying the view, just like we were, while others below saw us and shouted "Imusugut!" and we could hear their voices but couldn't see where they were coming from, from that high up.

Cheers

Remember how I said that my living situation is really awesome? It got more awesomer recently, with the addition of a shower in my bathing area and rumors of a sink to come. The shower doesn't work yet, but it's pretty to look at and I like the fact that I'll probably get a shower before I get a ceiling. And they've been painting and doing a lot of other work on the compound as a whole.

Unfortunately, after that, it got a lot less awesomer.

They're turning the whole place into a guest house. This is fine with me, I think it could be nice to meet people who are coming to stay for a few days or so, though I'm pretty positive tourists don't come to Ngora, so I don't think I'd be meeting anyone.

Actually, let me go back for a second. The compound part, with all the rooms and bathing areas and latrines actually only makes up about two-thirds of the building. The rest is a store-front that opens up onto the street, which, until recently wasn't being used for anything.

So, they're turning the compound part of the building into a guest house. This is fine.
They're turning the store-front part of the building into a bar. This is not fine.

Ugandans really love music. Naturally, then, they play it at an obscene volume. And now there are speakers playing said music at said volume about fifteen feet from my home. I don't mind the Ugandan music, and I actually enjoy a lot of it, but not quite so much when it's louder in my home than my computer speakers can go.

Some Ugandans also really love drinking, sometimes way more than they should. And now there are people drinking, probably more than they should, about seven feet from me. I don't mind drinking, but not quite so much when it's random people drinking next to my front door.

I had originally assumed that the bar would be only in the store-front, and not outside my door, and that there would be a lock on the door between the bar and the compound and that life would go on as usual, maybe slightly louder (but, I have to admit, I hadn't really thought about the music yet). And, you know me, I'll put up with a lot of stuff that I don't want to put up with because I don't know why, I'm either nice or spineless, but let's go with nice.

So I discussed this with a few other volunteers today. One asked if this meant that I was going to become an alcoholic or if it just meant that people should come visit. One told me a story of his neighbor and landlord who came home totally wasted the other night, came into the his side of the house, wouldn't leave for over an hour, then asked him if he wanted to fight, and then kissed him on both cheeks when he said no. One told me that I was the type of person who would put up with a bar in their compound for two years without saying anything (is my lack of a spine, er, my niceness that obvious?) and that that was a bad choice because they'd probably never come visit. Among other reasons.

Needless to say, I'm probably going to have to talk to Peace Corps. Earlier I was saying that I would just talk to my neighbor Peter about putting the tables and chairs in front of the bar, rather than next to my front door. And that I could probably put up with the music after that. But then I was reminded that this is two years, and, as I'm sitting here jamming to Ugandan pop, I'm realizing that next July or December or the year 2012 when they're playing the same songs at the same volume, I will probably have already gone insane. And I just talked this weekend with some PCVs who've been here for a year and a half and they said that being here this long makes you a weirdo anyway, so I don't need to help the process along.

So, that sucks. 1: It sucks to move. 2: My house is really nice. 3: Shower! 4: I really like Peter and it was really quiet here before and I like being right on the outskirts of town.

But, if I were to move, it wouldn't be all bad. 1: I wouldn't be listening to this song anymore, I mean, for the love of God, I think this might be the same song they've been playing for the last six hours. 2: Since I'm already out here, I'd be able to see the other options and choose the best one. 3: Moving would also be a chance to get to know more people and a different part of town.

So, we'll see what happens.

However, I also went on a long walk out of town towards the villages this evening while the sun was setting and it was green and quiet and beautiful and I spoke a lot of Ateso and everyone pointed their homes out to me and asked me to come back and visit and an old woman walking ahead of me turned and saw me and waited for me and we walked together for a good ten minutes until she turned to go home and we talked and it was nice because she just wanted to greet me and didn't ask for anything except that I greet her back and I tried to get a small child named Sylvia to give me her herd of goats but she refused for some reason, probably because she pointed at them and said "Akinei!" meaning "Goats!" and I just pointed at them and said "Akinei ka?" meaning "My goats?" so she said "Mam!" meaning no and she was right, they weren't my goats, but maybe I can still convince her to give me some later, and the whole thing was easily the best experience I've had since being at site.

Home

I'm listening to Talking Heads' "This Must Be the Place" and there's a line in the song that goes "Home -- is where I want to be, but I guess I'm already there ... If anyone asks, this is where I'll be, where I'll be."

So, that's fitting.

Because this is my new home, as of week one. My kitchen/living room/entry way and my bedroom and the whole compound too.

Both rooms are maybe 10x10, so it's pretty cozy, but it'd be a great find in New York City, or even in Seattle really. You can kind of tell from the picture of the bedroom that there's no ceiling (as of yet, or maybe never, who knows?). I mean, the exposed bricks and rafters are kind of a cool look to offset the kind of intense baby blue walls, but it gets a little warm with just a tin roof.

In the picture of the kitchen, we've got my basins for washing dishes and clothes, my little gas cooker (which I've used three times now without it blowing up in flames, so I'm feeling good about that), and my chairs. So, you're all welcome for a dinner party if you don't mind sitting on the concrete.

I'm also having some shelving units made by a carpenter in town, so everything won't be on the floor, but those are still a couple weeks away right now. Looking forward to that though. Then I can actually unpack completely.

But there's only one other couple living in the compound, so it's nice and quiet, and they seem cool, so that's a definite plus.

I've spared you pictures of my pit latrine, but that and the bathing area are just outside, still in the compound, along with a tap for water, so there's really nothing to complain about. I'm right in town, so like a two minute walk to the market or the shops for food or airtime for my phone or whatever (not really whatever, supplies are a bit limited, but I bought a pineapple in the market the other day, so, score).

Oh, and now that it's raining, I have to admit that I love the sound of the rain on the tin roof. It gets pretty loud.

And yeah, if anyone asks, this is where I'll be (after dark).

(And, by the way, you can click on the picture to make it bigger, I think.)

Home

I'm also going to miss: Concerts at Neumos / the Showbox / the Crocodile / the everywhere else. The free concerts at the Mural, and Block Party. Lying in the grass and reading in Cal Anderson Park on sunny afternoons. Judging hipsters in Cal Anderson Park at all times and in all weather-systems. Monday nights. Jeopardy-time. Elliott Bay (the bookstore and the body of water). The chants at the Sounders games and at the George and Dragon. Trivia. Paseo (but I said that already) and, along those same lines, Serious Pie / Red Mill / Mr Gyro's / Hopvine / the Taco Hut / Molly Moon's / all those other places we love to eat. Nighttime bike rides. Angry Birds. Snow days. Fremont Oktoberfest. Fremont Solstice Parade. Fremont. Capitol Hill. Ballard. GChat. Those two cats in the mix. Alki and its bonfires and sunsets and frisbee and pizza and beer. KEXP and KUOW. HIMYM and LOST. Maybe even the Jersey Shore. The purple Bandit. Rock-climbing off Exit 34. Hiking and snowboarding. Sunriver. Leaving and coming back and the feeling, when you get back, of being home. The Olympic Peninsula and when you could see the mountains from the deck. Apple cider whiskey on the deck with a winter sunset when it's icy cold out. BBQing on the deck with a summer sunset when it's sticky hot inside the apartment. Walking around the city when you come around the corner of a building or to the top of a hill and you see the Space Needle sticking up into a sunny blue-orange-pink-purple or cloudy gray-gray-gray or a Blue-Scholars-inkwell of a starry night sky, reminding you where you are and how lucky you are to be here in this city and with these people during these -- the best, the best, the best -- years of our lives and your heart swells to fuller than full so that you never want to leave even when you do want to leave, so you can't leave, not really, because you're taking so much of it with you, in your head and your heart, and all you hear as you look out at your home, at your city, is that one distinctive voice, giddy and truly happy, reminding you, as if you could ever, ever, ever forget, saying, "We live here."

Seattle Things

One of the best things about leaving is being motivated to do things around Seattle that I love doing or have always wanted to do but haven't gotten around to yet.

So, late on Tuesday night, Ryan, his friend Michael, and I hiked up to Camp Muir on the south side of Mt. Rainier. We started on the trail at 2:30am, brought our snowboards along, and just as the sun was brushing orange and pink across the summit, we were strapping in and coasting down, looking out on a jagged range of peaks across the valley while fog nestled in around their foothills.

It was stupidly gorgeous. I got a chance to sit in the snow and shiver and I don't know how long it will be until I am cold and surrounded by snow again. It was one of those things that I wish I had done earlier so I could have done it again. It was a great way to spend one of my last nights here.

(And when you include the fact that, before heading up to the mountain, I went to Paseo for dinner, it gets even harder to top this.)

(Also, just FYI, you can click on the picture to get the full size. It's pretty awesome.)