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?
Showing posts with label Peace Corps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peace Corps. Show all posts
29 August 2012
13 February 2012
I Guess I'd Need a Flight Suit, Too
The other day, not long after my What Am I Doing Here moment, one of my HIV counsellors came into my office to drop off her notebook -- the ones that I gave everyone during the training, in which they're recording their visits to the various 'clients' (as we call them; Ugandans loving formalities as they do) in their communities. Her name is Atai Deborah. She's in her sixties; her CD4 count (the measure of the number of white blood cells in a person's body and a measure of how severely they've been affected by HIV, basically, as it attacks white blood cells) was once below 100 --a healthy, HIV-negative adult usually has a CD4 count of at least 800-- but now she's sturdy and strong; she's the chairperson of a committee that advocates for people with HIV/AIDS throughout the district; soft-spoken and intelligent and dedicated, and, well, the words that are coming to mind are wry and wizened, both of which, I think, work.
She sat down across from me. We went through the formalities of greeting. Then she told me a few stories from her recent client visits: someone had died; someone had gone for treatment and was getting healthier; someone else was sick; everyone was poor; there was one husband who works in Kampala, his wife lives here, she was pregnant and found out she was HIV+ when she went in for antenatal care but was afraid to tell her husband, afraid he'd beat her or leave her or beat her and then leave her, but then he came back from Kampala and tearfully admitted to her that he had recently found out that he was HIV+, at which point she disclosed her status to him, and they agreed to stay together, to stay healthy together; their baby was born, tested after three months, and was negative. Good things, bad things, the sorts of things that are all so unfortunately typical and expected that they just leave you feeling ... kind of ... neutral. Things are getting better for some people, things are getting worse for some people, and you just get used to it. Such as it is.
Amidst all of that, though, she tossed in one story. Not even a story, really: it was just a couple sentences, flowing out from a single line, that she tossed out there like no big deal. But it made me feel all sorts of good. Or, well, at least it tipped the meter slightly in the feeling good direction, at least for a while.
She said: And one man thanked me for saving his life.
It's not a quantifiable success. I didn't alleviate poverty, or help this man start a successful Income Generating Activity, or put his kids through school. (I mean, shoot: I didn't actually do anything. Though that's probably the best part. Theoretically. She had counselled him on the importance of Antiretroviral Therapy, etc. etc., and he had taken her up on her advice, decided to turn his life around, stop drinking alcohol and start living positively, as they say.) There aren't any numbers or data to prove anything really happened, apart from this throwaway line she dropped into the middle of series of stories. It's not a concrete success, really, that I can point to and say, This is what I did/built/achieved during my Peace Corps service: see how successful I was?, and it's only one man, and who knows what's going to happen in a week or year or the rest of his life. But. Even so, even though it's not something that I can touch and take pictures of and prove to everyone, and even if there's nothing else, nothing real, no sustainable or empowering or whatever success, nothing before that and nothing from here on out --though, ok, I know there were a few things before that, and I remain confident that there will be a few more things from here on out-- at least there's that, and I'll take it, and keep it and be proud of it.
My next project, I guess, building off of that, is to convince President Museveni that he needs (for the MiG fighter jets he spent 1,700,000,000,000 shillings on) an aircraft carrier in Lake Victoria.
Because where else am I going to hang my giant Mission Accomplished banner?
She sat down across from me. We went through the formalities of greeting. Then she told me a few stories from her recent client visits: someone had died; someone had gone for treatment and was getting healthier; someone else was sick; everyone was poor; there was one husband who works in Kampala, his wife lives here, she was pregnant and found out she was HIV+ when she went in for antenatal care but was afraid to tell her husband, afraid he'd beat her or leave her or beat her and then leave her, but then he came back from Kampala and tearfully admitted to her that he had recently found out that he was HIV+, at which point she disclosed her status to him, and they agreed to stay together, to stay healthy together; their baby was born, tested after three months, and was negative. Good things, bad things, the sorts of things that are all so unfortunately typical and expected that they just leave you feeling ... kind of ... neutral. Things are getting better for some people, things are getting worse for some people, and you just get used to it. Such as it is.
Amidst all of that, though, she tossed in one story. Not even a story, really: it was just a couple sentences, flowing out from a single line, that she tossed out there like no big deal. But it made me feel all sorts of good. Or, well, at least it tipped the meter slightly in the feeling good direction, at least for a while.
She said: And one man thanked me for saving his life.
It's not a quantifiable success. I didn't alleviate poverty, or help this man start a successful Income Generating Activity, or put his kids through school. (I mean, shoot: I didn't actually do anything. Though that's probably the best part. Theoretically. She had counselled him on the importance of Antiretroviral Therapy, etc. etc., and he had taken her up on her advice, decided to turn his life around, stop drinking alcohol and start living positively, as they say.) There aren't any numbers or data to prove anything really happened, apart from this throwaway line she dropped into the middle of series of stories. It's not a concrete success, really, that I can point to and say, This is what I did/built/achieved during my Peace Corps service: see how successful I was?, and it's only one man, and who knows what's going to happen in a week or year or the rest of his life. But. Even so, even though it's not something that I can touch and take pictures of and prove to everyone, and even if there's nothing else, nothing real, no sustainable or empowering or whatever success, nothing before that and nothing from here on out --though, ok, I know there were a few things before that, and I remain confident that there will be a few more things from here on out-- at least there's that, and I'll take it, and keep it and be proud of it.
My next project, I guess, building off of that, is to convince President Museveni that he needs (for the MiG fighter jets he spent 1,700,000,000,000 shillings on) an aircraft carrier in Lake Victoria.
Because where else am I going to hang my giant Mission Accomplished banner?
07 June 2011
The Question Box
One of the first things I did with my Life-Skills Club was introduce a Question Box, where they could anonymously drop questions about anything they were curious about, and then we'd go over them together as a group every few weeks or so. Yesterday, I went and picked up the box. Tomorrow, we're going to answer as many of the questions as we can.
These are their questions, as they wrote them. They're hard, honest, funny, and sad.
Questions about periods and pregnancy:
'Is it true that when a girl plays sex when she had eight days after her periods that she will not get pregnant.'
'Is it true that when a girl of 13 years plays sex and she had never had her period can she become pregnant?'
'Is it true that if a girl who has recived her periods sleeps with a boy will she getprig pregnant?'
'Habiba was my girl lover in P7. She loved me so much and one day, I asked for ayame [literally: "to eat"; figuratively: a euphemism for sex] and she axcepted and we continued playing with out a condom. She didn't get prignant. WHY? and she had her periods.'
'I prignated a girl but she told me that she wanted to abort and yet for me I don't want to kill because it's my own blood and yet I don't want myown people to know about it and making the situation worse she wants to come home b'se I have told her not to abort. What should I do to be comfortable in mine?'
Questions about HIV/AIDS:
'I live with HIV/AIDS but I have my firendboy He want play sex with me I told that I have HIV/AIDS - what will I do?'
'Is it true that if a boy with HIV positive have sex with a girl who is in HIV negative if we use condoms will I get aids'
'I am HIV positive, I have a girl who is HIV negative; I have tried to tell her that I am positive but she says she will die with me. I love her so much but I don't want to kill her with the virus and I don't want to lose her as well. What do I do? help me.'
'Why is it that most people who are HIV+ have gonorrhea'
'AIDS kills and has no cure. Why is it not advicable to say that it kills and has no cure and yet in actual scence it kills [huh?]'
"Other" questions:
'Why do most americans like decorating themselves with tatoo? What is the secreat behind it?'
'I hear Imagine of america. a country which is rich and the people there are rich. What advice would you give me in order for me to reach to america on my own'
'How does cancer transmit from one individual to another'
'people tell us that you are good in muscle art [???], is it true? some of us like it.'
'What are rounds in sex? Pliz help me out.' [I have no idea.]
'AT the end of this club you going to give us some thing like books?' [Nope.]
'I like acting so much and I want to be an actress. I have been trying but there is no surport. Please may you help me to exprese my talent.'
'we request you to sing for us one song next wednesday because we know you white people have soft voices and are good in singing' [This is not a Request Box. So, no.]
Questions about delaying sex:
'I have aboy friend who demands sex from me whenever I meet with him, what Imy going to do should I leave the guy or no!'
'I have aboy friend and whenever I meet with him he wants to have sex and he has given me dokiyo [a "charm" or sort of potion that when you give it to some one and they eat or drink it -- I'm not exactly sure which -- it makes them fall undeniably in love with you to the point where they are weeping over it, hence the name, dokiyo meaning tears -- all this according to my counterpart] what can I do?'
'Why should we abstain yet we can die any time and miss out good things like bearing children.'
'If I am not rede to play sex with aboy and the boy force me what will I do?' [Please let this be hypothetical...]
And one question that was shocking and sad and that I don't know what to do about (except call Peace Corps in the morning to find out what I can do):
'I live with boys who tatche me the whole body and whenever I recive my periods I tell one thatI have I have recived my periods so live me alone he told me that that is what I want if you test [?] you will live schooling what can and they nomaly ask for sex what can I do?'
These are my kids. You'd never know the things they're going through and wondering about just from looking at them or messing around. They're awesome. And so I hope I can find the right answers.
These are their questions, as they wrote them. They're hard, honest, funny, and sad.
Questions about periods and pregnancy:
'Is it true that when a girl plays sex when she had eight days after her periods that she will not get pregnant.'
'Is it true that when a girl of 13 years plays sex and she had never had her period can she become pregnant?'
'Is it true that if a girl who has recived her periods sleeps with a boy will she get
'Habiba was my girl lover in P7. She loved me so much and one day, I asked for ayame [literally: "to eat"; figuratively: a euphemism for sex] and she axcepted and we continued playing with out a condom. She didn't get prignant. WHY? and she had her periods.'
'I prignated a girl but she told me that she wanted to abort and yet for me I don't want to kill because it's my own blood and yet I don't want my
Questions about HIV/AIDS:
'I live with HIV/AIDS but I have my firendboy He want play sex with me I told that I have HIV/AIDS - what will I do?'
'Is it true that if a boy with HIV positive have sex with a girl who is in HIV negative if we use condoms will I get aids'
'I am HIV positive, I have a girl who is HIV negative; I have tried to tell her that I am positive but she says she will die with me. I love her so much but I don't want to kill her with the virus and I don't want to lose her as well. What do I do? help me.'
'Why is it that most people who are HIV+ have gonorrhea'
'AIDS kills and has no cure. Why is it not advicable to say that it kills and has no cure and yet in actual scence it kills [huh?]'
"Other" questions:
'Why do most americans like decorating themselves with tatoo? What is the secreat behind it?'
'
'How does cancer transmit from one individual to another'
'people tell us that you are good in muscle art [???], is it true? some of us like it.'
'What are rounds in sex? Pliz help me out.' [I have no idea.]
'AT the end of this club you going to give us some thing like books?' [Nope.]
'I like acting so much and I want to be an actress. I have been trying but there is no surport. Please may you help me to exprese my talent.'
'we request you to sing for us one song next wednesday because we know you white people have soft voices and are good in singing' [This is not a Request Box. So, no.]
Questions about delaying sex:
'I have aboy friend who demands sex from me whenever I meet with him, what Imy going to do should I leave the guy or no!'
'I have aboy friend and whenever I meet with him he wants to have sex and he has given me dokiyo [a "charm" or sort of potion that when you give it to some one and they eat or drink it -- I'm not exactly sure which -- it makes them fall undeniably in love with you to the point where they are weeping over it, hence the name, dokiyo meaning tears -- all this according to my counterpart] what can I do?'
'Why should we abstain yet we can die any time and miss out good things like bearing children.'
'If I am not rede to play sex with aboy and the boy force me what will I do?' [Please let this be hypothetical...]
And one question that was shocking and sad and that I don't know what to do about (except call Peace Corps in the morning to find out what I can do):
'I live with boys who tatche me the whole body and whenever I recive my periods I tell one that
These are my kids. You'd never know the things they're going through and wondering about just from looking at them or messing around. They're awesome. And so I hope I can find the right answers.
13 April 2011
"Work"
I think it's probably time to let everyone know about the "work" that I've been doing here. And about the work that I've been doing here.
I'm calling it "work" because, so far, it's been a little hard to come by, and work -- actually doing things where I feel useful and busy -- has been a lot less common than "work" -- where I do useless and frustrating things like going out into the community with my counterpart when she asks me to present some information on some topic like reproductive health or early childhood development which she will then translate, which then ends up meaning that I talk for a couple minutes, stop to let her translate, and she talks for twenty or thirty minutes about I have no idea what.
But, in the last couple weeks, I've started to have slightly more work and slightly less "work".
A while ago, I wrote about how I was going to be doing some work with another community-based organization (CBO) in the district. They had some people who were acting as home-based counselors for people living with HIV/AIDS (or PLWHA, as the acronym goes here), but who'd never actually been trained on what it meant to act as a home-based counselor for PLWHA. So I was going to train them, using only my bare hands, the little bit of knowledge that I have, and a lot of notes from a lot of different books and manuals. I was excited. It was going to be work, not "work", and it was going to keep me busy for a while, and, also, had the potential to turn into a lot of other things -- HIV support groups that I could meet with to talk about income-generating activities (IGAs) or village savings and loans associations (VSLAs) or planting a simple garden to grow some food that is more nutritious than cassava. Work! Exciting!
And then I got back from IST in January, all ready to start doing some work. I called Okello Moses, the director of the CBO when I got back, and we set up a time to have a meeting to discuss the training. We met one day when he came to meet me at the office of the organization I'm placed with (Vision Teso Rural Development Organization, or Vision TERDUO, because acronyms, or VT, if you want an acronym inside another acronym), and then we went to the office of his CBO. There I met with him and a couple of the guys who were acting as the counselors. We talked about what they were doing now, what they felt like they needed training on, and what they felt like the needs of PLWHA in the community were. Moses said they were going to mobilize resources (NGO-speak for getting money) for the training and then we could set a date and get going. So it all went really well, and I was, again, excited.
About a week later, I still hadn't heard from Moses, so I gave him a call: Moses, how are you, blah blah blah, let's set a date for the training, let's do this thing. Yes, ok, he said, but there's been a problem. And he asked if anyone at my organization had talked to me. They hadn't. I asked why. And then Moses went on to tell me that after we had met that first time, my supervisor (at VT, not the Peace Corps) and the executive director of our organization had called Moses into the ED's office, and proceeded basically to verbally harass him, asking him what he thought he was doing working with me, why he thought he could just come in here and work with me, and on and on, to the point where they were, Moses told me, threatening him and his organization if he continued to try to work with me. And so, Moses said, thanks for the offer, but no thanks.
Needless to say, 1: my organization had not mentioned this to me, despite the fact that I had told everyone that I would be doing this training, despite the fact that I had told everyone that I was working on material for this training since that meeting, despite the fact that my counterpart and supervisor were both at Peace Corps trainings where the topic of secondary projects -- projects that PCVs do outside of their organization, projects that PCVs do with other organizations or community groups in the area, projects that PCVs are strongly encouraged, almost required to do -- was brought up more than once or twice, and 2: I was pissed. It was early afternoon when I called Moses, and I was at the office, and I hung up the phone, thought, Expletive, expletive, expletive, picked up my things, went home so that I wouldn't tell my supervisor and counterpart and the ED what I really wanted to tell them, and called another PCV friend to rant.
Because not only had my organization ruined what was, really, the only work I had so far lined up, and taken away an opportunity for PLWHA in the community to (hopefully) improve their quality of life, but they also hadn't, themselves, given me any work to do; they had only given me "work."
So the next week, I sat down with my supervisor and counterpart and we talked about secondary projects. I said, PCVs are placed with an organization, but they don't belong to that organization, blah blah blah, our responsibility is ultimately with the community we're placed in and the Peace Corps, blah blah blah, secondary projects, blah blah blah. They said, ok. And I said, I'm going to do a training with another CBO. And they said, ok.
So I called Moses back: Moses, how are you, blah blah blah, I've talked to the people here, and I'm sorry for what happened, but, in reality, I'm a Peace Corps volunteer, and not a Vision TERUDO volunteer, and I'm supposed to work in the community, not just in the organization, blah blah blah, so let's set that date, let's do this thing. And Moses said, again, Thanks, but no thanks.
And that was that. No more work. Back to it only being "work".
So then, a week or two ago, after numerous other organization-related frustrations, and wondering if it was, in the long run, going to work out with VT or if I'd have to try and change organizations, wondering who else VT had told not to work with me and wondering how that was making me look in the community, and talking about the whole situation with my program coordinator at the Peace Corps office, I sat down, again, with my counterpart and supervisor to talk about work versus "work".
I said, I feel like I haven't been given any real work, blah blah blah, the project that the health program is working on is totally covered and doesn't need my help, blah blah blah, I want responsibility, and work, and things that I can be in charge of on my own, and I think what I'm going to do is make a couple project designs, things that I can be in charge of and responsible for, that can still be done under the auspices of VT since you don't want me out of your site ever, not even for a minute, and then we can go over them together and see where we can go from there. They said, ok. (They also said that when they first found out they'd be getting a PCV, they thought that their PCV, AKA me, would be writing grant proposals and mobilizing resources, which, like I said, means getting money, to which I said, Yeah, no. But that could be an entirely different rant than this one, and I'm kinda on a roll here.)
Then my supervisor said, Aren't you doing that training with that other CBO? And I said, Ha.. ha.. yeah, about that.. That's.. um.. not going to be happening, because now he's.. um.. refusing to work with me, because.. well.. someone here told him that he wasn't allowed to. And I stopped there and looked at them, and they didn't look at me, and they didn't react at all. So I guess that's that.
And, so, here we are.
All in all, despite all that, I feel pretty good about where things are right now, and where they could, if VT doesn't try to take everything over and destroy it all, go from here. I'm working on a couple project designs -- the same training for HIV counselors, so that I can get them the information even if their CBO doesn't want to work directly with me; and a peer educator program for a secondary school in town, where a select group of students will be trained to basically be available for questions and issues the other students in the school have, about HIV or social issues or pregnancy or peer pressure or whatever, and also lead some sessions on all that stuff at all-school assemblies, and all that good stuff; and the one project that I most want to do, which I'm not ready to share with my organization yet, until I can be sure that they're going to let me do things how I want to do things, which is a soccer league for boys, probably ten to fifteen years old, who aren't in school, where the league will run, over the course of ten to twelve weeks, in a tournament style, while also incorporating life-skills sessions.
And so I've given these work-plans, or project designs, to my counterpart and supervisor to review, and we should be able to meet at the end of the week, or the beginning of next week to discuss details and hopefully get started.
So I feel good.
Other than that, on the work side of the "work"-work divide, I've started an after-school Life-Skills Club at a secondary school in town. And, so far, it's been awesome.
The school, called Light College, is not a college, is small, about 120 students total, spread across four grades, Senior 1 through Senior 4 -- basically like high school in the States, S1 being Freshmen. It's one building, rough, unfinished brick walls and a tin roof, one classroom for each grade, students dressed in blue pants or skirts and white button-down shirts cramming into desks that are one wooden slab for sitting on attached to another wooden slab for writing on, the teachers dictating lessons with the use of cracking blackboards that never really seem to get clean and caning students with a long wooden switch when the students -- actually I don't know why; there's no reason for that.
There are about 35 students in the club, some from each grade, and I love them. Silent at first, they had trouble understanding my English either because of the accent or because I was talking to fast and were simply not used to participating in class or being asked to ask questions or speak out or do anything besides copy notes from the board, now they're energetic, charismatic, funny, engaged, intelligent, and eager to learn. This is the first term of the school year (though it's ending this week), so I'm looking forward to meeting with the kids in the club once a week, each term after this.
The Life-Skills Program is used by PCVs worldwide, and the PC has a great manual with lessons and topics, warm-ups and games to play. Life-skills are basically, how should I put this, skills that you use in life. Some of the skills you use in life, anyway. Minus basic karate skills or speed-boat driving skills, the life-skills we're working on are along the lines of self-esteem building, communication skills, responding to peer pressure, assertiveness vs aggressiveness vs passiveness, decision-making skills, along with more informational sessions on things like the facts and myths of HIV/AIDS, and sessions that open debates and new lines of thought on issues like gender roles.
So the first week of the Life-Skills Club was a little rough. I think the students had a really hard time understanding me, we weren't doing the most exciting things -- we just reviewed the basics; set up some club rules like being respectful, giving me the Time-Out signal (hands in a T-shape) when they can't understand me, and so on; voted on peer educators, six students that would help me out by leading small groups and helping to lead sessions as well as being available for questions from other students; and intoduced the Question Box, where they could drop questions, written down, that they didn't feel comfortable asking in front of the whole group -- and so it wasn't the most fun forty minutes any of us had spent.
The next week, worried that they'd be worried that every week would be like the first one, I decided not to do anything relating to learning or sitting in their desks where they'd been sitting all day, so we just played games. We did creative thinking games, we jumped around, we made an African version of Simon Says. They all laughed, tried to think and approach things with different perspectives (something they're never asked to do in school), jumped, had a lot of fun, and I did too. And they talked more and started to open up more and, I think, realized that it wasn't just going to be me lecturing at them every week, because I don't want to do that either.
The week after that, they split into small groups, led by my awesome peer educators, to prepare role plays that they'd perform the following week. They were to make a short drama about a risk situation that young people might typically face, where the characters in the drama engaged in the risk behavior because they were missing some of those important life-skills. I didn't give them examples of risk situations or behaviors, because I wanted them to have to be creative and didn't want each group to end up doing the same thing, and, when they performed the role plays the next week, they were creative, they didn't all do the same thing, they had assigned roles, memorized lines, brought their own props, and practiced during the week.
We had fifteen year-old girls getting pregnant, people getting HIV after having unprotected sex, everyone seemed to be stealing school fees from their parents and skipping school to go drink instead, someone got run over by a car for some reason, someone brought a flat-brimmed, fitted baseball cap with the hologram sticker on it that was worn by the "bad" boys in the dramas. But each role play was funny and insightful and creative, and the kids were really excited to do them. And I was excited about it too.
The best part, so far, is that they've started asking questions too, and they seem like they've started to feel like they can use me as a resource for those questions. And their questions have been direct, topical, frank, and bold. One boy asked, in a country where you can be stoned to death for being rumored to be gay, "These Europeans who are practicing homosexuality -- is that a good thing or a bad thing?" And so I told him what I thought and that it was a really good question, because it was. And then he followed it up with, "So if I'm infected [with HIV] and I take this boy as my sexual partner, will he also get the disease?" And so I explained the four fluids that transmit HIV and how they can transmit the virus between two men too, not just between a man and a woman, and I told him that it was a really good question, because it was. And someone else told me that they have a friend, a boy, who has a girlfriend who is pressuring him into having sex with her though he doesn't want to, he's still in school, he wants to finish, but he does love her (apparently, in the way that 15 year-old kids can love each other), and her family is rich and his is poor, so she's buying him things and keeps pressuring him, and so my student told his friend that he would ask me what my advice was on what he should say to her to get her to stop pressuring him. And so I told him what I thought and that it was a really good question, because it was, and I told them all that I'd always be available for more. (And I will be, I want to be that resource, because they will have more questions -- the Question Box, before it was stolen by some little kids who climbed in through the windows over one weekend, was full of questions, which will, hopefully, be put into the new Question Box, which will, hopefully, not be stolen.)
And so, when I'd gone to the last couple meetings feeling a little unenthusiastic, a little tired, or a little distracted, within a couple minutes of being there I was happy, energized by their enthusiasm, and I'd forgotten about the things that were distracting me before.
I felt useful, like I was doing even the smallest bit of something good, and I was happy to be doing that work, the kind with no quotation marks around it.
I'm calling it "work" because, so far, it's been a little hard to come by, and work -- actually doing things where I feel useful and busy -- has been a lot less common than "work" -- where I do useless and frustrating things like going out into the community with my counterpart when she asks me to present some information on some topic like reproductive health or early childhood development which she will then translate, which then ends up meaning that I talk for a couple minutes, stop to let her translate, and she talks for twenty or thirty minutes about I have no idea what.
But, in the last couple weeks, I've started to have slightly more work and slightly less "work".
A while ago, I wrote about how I was going to be doing some work with another community-based organization (CBO) in the district. They had some people who were acting as home-based counselors for people living with HIV/AIDS (or PLWHA, as the acronym goes here), but who'd never actually been trained on what it meant to act as a home-based counselor for PLWHA. So I was going to train them, using only my bare hands, the little bit of knowledge that I have, and a lot of notes from a lot of different books and manuals. I was excited. It was going to be work, not "work", and it was going to keep me busy for a while, and, also, had the potential to turn into a lot of other things -- HIV support groups that I could meet with to talk about income-generating activities (IGAs) or village savings and loans associations (VSLAs) or planting a simple garden to grow some food that is more nutritious than cassava. Work! Exciting!
And then I got back from IST in January, all ready to start doing some work. I called Okello Moses, the director of the CBO when I got back, and we set up a time to have a meeting to discuss the training. We met one day when he came to meet me at the office of the organization I'm placed with (Vision Teso Rural Development Organization, or Vision TERDUO, because acronyms, or VT, if you want an acronym inside another acronym), and then we went to the office of his CBO. There I met with him and a couple of the guys who were acting as the counselors. We talked about what they were doing now, what they felt like they needed training on, and what they felt like the needs of PLWHA in the community were. Moses said they were going to mobilize resources (NGO-speak for getting money) for the training and then we could set a date and get going. So it all went really well, and I was, again, excited.
About a week later, I still hadn't heard from Moses, so I gave him a call: Moses, how are you, blah blah blah, let's set a date for the training, let's do this thing. Yes, ok, he said, but there's been a problem. And he asked if anyone at my organization had talked to me. They hadn't. I asked why. And then Moses went on to tell me that after we had met that first time, my supervisor (at VT, not the Peace Corps) and the executive director of our organization had called Moses into the ED's office, and proceeded basically to verbally harass him, asking him what he thought he was doing working with me, why he thought he could just come in here and work with me, and on and on, to the point where they were, Moses told me, threatening him and his organization if he continued to try to work with me. And so, Moses said, thanks for the offer, but no thanks.
Needless to say, 1: my organization had not mentioned this to me, despite the fact that I had told everyone that I would be doing this training, despite the fact that I had told everyone that I was working on material for this training since that meeting, despite the fact that my counterpart and supervisor were both at Peace Corps trainings where the topic of secondary projects -- projects that PCVs do outside of their organization, projects that PCVs do with other organizations or community groups in the area, projects that PCVs are strongly encouraged, almost required to do -- was brought up more than once or twice, and 2: I was pissed. It was early afternoon when I called Moses, and I was at the office, and I hung up the phone, thought, Expletive, expletive, expletive, picked up my things, went home so that I wouldn't tell my supervisor and counterpart and the ED what I really wanted to tell them, and called another PCV friend to rant.
Because not only had my organization ruined what was, really, the only work I had so far lined up, and taken away an opportunity for PLWHA in the community to (hopefully) improve their quality of life, but they also hadn't, themselves, given me any work to do; they had only given me "work."
So the next week, I sat down with my supervisor and counterpart and we talked about secondary projects. I said, PCVs are placed with an organization, but they don't belong to that organization, blah blah blah, our responsibility is ultimately with the community we're placed in and the Peace Corps, blah blah blah, secondary projects, blah blah blah. They said, ok. And I said, I'm going to do a training with another CBO. And they said, ok.
So I called Moses back: Moses, how are you, blah blah blah, I've talked to the people here, and I'm sorry for what happened, but, in reality, I'm a Peace Corps volunteer, and not a Vision TERUDO volunteer, and I'm supposed to work in the community, not just in the organization, blah blah blah, so let's set that date, let's do this thing. And Moses said, again, Thanks, but no thanks.
And that was that. No more work. Back to it only being "work".
So then, a week or two ago, after numerous other organization-related frustrations, and wondering if it was, in the long run, going to work out with VT or if I'd have to try and change organizations, wondering who else VT had told not to work with me and wondering how that was making me look in the community, and talking about the whole situation with my program coordinator at the Peace Corps office, I sat down, again, with my counterpart and supervisor to talk about work versus "work".
I said, I feel like I haven't been given any real work, blah blah blah, the project that the health program is working on is totally covered and doesn't need my help, blah blah blah, I want responsibility, and work, and things that I can be in charge of on my own, and I think what I'm going to do is make a couple project designs, things that I can be in charge of and responsible for, that can still be done under the auspices of VT since you don't want me out of your site ever, not even for a minute, and then we can go over them together and see where we can go from there. They said, ok. (They also said that when they first found out they'd be getting a PCV, they thought that their PCV, AKA me, would be writing grant proposals and mobilizing resources, which, like I said, means getting money, to which I said, Yeah, no. But that could be an entirely different rant than this one, and I'm kinda on a roll here.)
Then my supervisor said, Aren't you doing that training with that other CBO? And I said, Ha.. ha.. yeah, about that.. That's.. um.. not going to be happening, because now he's.. um.. refusing to work with me, because.. well.. someone here told him that he wasn't allowed to. And I stopped there and looked at them, and they didn't look at me, and they didn't react at all. So I guess that's that.
And, so, here we are.
All in all, despite all that, I feel pretty good about where things are right now, and where they could, if VT doesn't try to take everything over and destroy it all, go from here. I'm working on a couple project designs -- the same training for HIV counselors, so that I can get them the information even if their CBO doesn't want to work directly with me; and a peer educator program for a secondary school in town, where a select group of students will be trained to basically be available for questions and issues the other students in the school have, about HIV or social issues or pregnancy or peer pressure or whatever, and also lead some sessions on all that stuff at all-school assemblies, and all that good stuff; and the one project that I most want to do, which I'm not ready to share with my organization yet, until I can be sure that they're going to let me do things how I want to do things, which is a soccer league for boys, probably ten to fifteen years old, who aren't in school, where the league will run, over the course of ten to twelve weeks, in a tournament style, while also incorporating life-skills sessions.
And so I've given these work-plans, or project designs, to my counterpart and supervisor to review, and we should be able to meet at the end of the week, or the beginning of next week to discuss details and hopefully get started.
So I feel good.
Other than that, on the work side of the "work"-work divide, I've started an after-school Life-Skills Club at a secondary school in town. And, so far, it's been awesome.
The school, called Light College, is not a college, is small, about 120 students total, spread across four grades, Senior 1 through Senior 4 -- basically like high school in the States, S1 being Freshmen. It's one building, rough, unfinished brick walls and a tin roof, one classroom for each grade, students dressed in blue pants or skirts and white button-down shirts cramming into desks that are one wooden slab for sitting on attached to another wooden slab for writing on, the teachers dictating lessons with the use of cracking blackboards that never really seem to get clean and caning students with a long wooden switch when the students -- actually I don't know why; there's no reason for that.
There are about 35 students in the club, some from each grade, and I love them. Silent at first, they had trouble understanding my English either because of the accent or because I was talking to fast and were simply not used to participating in class or being asked to ask questions or speak out or do anything besides copy notes from the board, now they're energetic, charismatic, funny, engaged, intelligent, and eager to learn. This is the first term of the school year (though it's ending this week), so I'm looking forward to meeting with the kids in the club once a week, each term after this.
The Life-Skills Program is used by PCVs worldwide, and the PC has a great manual with lessons and topics, warm-ups and games to play. Life-skills are basically, how should I put this, skills that you use in life. Some of the skills you use in life, anyway. Minus basic karate skills or speed-boat driving skills, the life-skills we're working on are along the lines of self-esteem building, communication skills, responding to peer pressure, assertiveness vs aggressiveness vs passiveness, decision-making skills, along with more informational sessions on things like the facts and myths of HIV/AIDS, and sessions that open debates and new lines of thought on issues like gender roles.
So the first week of the Life-Skills Club was a little rough. I think the students had a really hard time understanding me, we weren't doing the most exciting things -- we just reviewed the basics; set up some club rules like being respectful, giving me the Time-Out signal (hands in a T-shape) when they can't understand me, and so on; voted on peer educators, six students that would help me out by leading small groups and helping to lead sessions as well as being available for questions from other students; and intoduced the Question Box, where they could drop questions, written down, that they didn't feel comfortable asking in front of the whole group -- and so it wasn't the most fun forty minutes any of us had spent.
The next week, worried that they'd be worried that every week would be like the first one, I decided not to do anything relating to learning or sitting in their desks where they'd been sitting all day, so we just played games. We did creative thinking games, we jumped around, we made an African version of Simon Says. They all laughed, tried to think and approach things with different perspectives (something they're never asked to do in school), jumped, had a lot of fun, and I did too. And they talked more and started to open up more and, I think, realized that it wasn't just going to be me lecturing at them every week, because I don't want to do that either.
The week after that, they split into small groups, led by my awesome peer educators, to prepare role plays that they'd perform the following week. They were to make a short drama about a risk situation that young people might typically face, where the characters in the drama engaged in the risk behavior because they were missing some of those important life-skills. I didn't give them examples of risk situations or behaviors, because I wanted them to have to be creative and didn't want each group to end up doing the same thing, and, when they performed the role plays the next week, they were creative, they didn't all do the same thing, they had assigned roles, memorized lines, brought their own props, and practiced during the week.
We had fifteen year-old girls getting pregnant, people getting HIV after having unprotected sex, everyone seemed to be stealing school fees from their parents and skipping school to go drink instead, someone got run over by a car for some reason, someone brought a flat-brimmed, fitted baseball cap with the hologram sticker on it that was worn by the "bad" boys in the dramas. But each role play was funny and insightful and creative, and the kids were really excited to do them. And I was excited about it too.
The best part, so far, is that they've started asking questions too, and they seem like they've started to feel like they can use me as a resource for those questions. And their questions have been direct, topical, frank, and bold. One boy asked, in a country where you can be stoned to death for being rumored to be gay, "These Europeans who are practicing homosexuality -- is that a good thing or a bad thing?" And so I told him what I thought and that it was a really good question, because it was. And then he followed it up with, "So if I'm infected [with HIV] and I take this boy as my sexual partner, will he also get the disease?" And so I explained the four fluids that transmit HIV and how they can transmit the virus between two men too, not just between a man and a woman, and I told him that it was a really good question, because it was. And someone else told me that they have a friend, a boy, who has a girlfriend who is pressuring him into having sex with her though he doesn't want to, he's still in school, he wants to finish, but he does love her (apparently, in the way that 15 year-old kids can love each other), and her family is rich and his is poor, so she's buying him things and keeps pressuring him, and so my student told his friend that he would ask me what my advice was on what he should say to her to get her to stop pressuring him. And so I told him what I thought and that it was a really good question, because it was, and I told them all that I'd always be available for more. (And I will be, I want to be that resource, because they will have more questions -- the Question Box, before it was stolen by some little kids who climbed in through the windows over one weekend, was full of questions, which will, hopefully, be put into the new Question Box, which will, hopefully, not be stolen.)
And so, when I'd gone to the last couple meetings feeling a little unenthusiastic, a little tired, or a little distracted, within a couple minutes of being there I was happy, energized by their enthusiasm, and I'd forgotten about the things that were distracting me before.
I felt useful, like I was doing even the smallest bit of something good, and I was happy to be doing that work, the kind with no quotation marks around it.
22 March 2011
Like 2Pac Says
Ch-ch-changes.
I finished reading two books this week. The first was about the Iteso, "my" tribe here, appropriately called The Iteso, written by a British guy in the early 1950s (not the most objective viewpoint ever, but surprisingly not super racist) before Uganda gained independence, chronicling the changes that had happened in the fifty years of British occupation (or, well, he calls it British administration; I call it British occupation, the limey bastards). The second was called Beyond the Sky and the Earth, written by a girl, basically a Canadian version of a Peace Corps volunteer (aw, Canada -- adorable), posted for three years as a teacher in Bhutan in the late 1980s.
Both of these ended up being reminders that things change, most things change, and drastically, but some things don't change, and some things never will.
In The Iteso, it had pictures, old black-and-white photographs taken in the late 1940s, early 1950s, of typical life in Teso -- cattle herding, goat herding, sifting through millet, drinking ajon through long straws. And all of these pictures could have been taken by me, yesterday, then converted into black-and-white on my computer. The cows looked the same, with the same young man herding them with the same long papyrus cane, the mud huts looked the same, the bicycles looked the same as the bicycle I bought last week, the same men were sitting around the same pot of ajon in the same wooden folding chairs drinking out of the same straws wearing the same checkered, plaid, or solid-colored button-down shirts with the same haircuts and the same woman pouring more fermented millet into the pot. The only difference was that the men in the pictures were wearing shorts (a novel idea, considering it gets up to around eleventy-billion degrees here), while, these days, if you wear shorts, you're a primary school boy. And today, that cowherd would have a cell phone and would herd the cows across a road, dodging taxis and motorbikes, and sometimes you drink ajon out of a jerrycan instead of a clay pot and talk about the latest developments in world news seen on Al-Jazeera or CNN World. Things change, things don't.
And in Beyond the Sky and the Earth, it was funny -- interesting funny, sometimes ha-ha funny -- reading the observations of a pseudo-PCV posted thousands of miles from here, twenty-plus years ago, and seeing how many of those observations can be applied directly, without translation from Asia to Africa, the '80s to the '10s (?), Sarchhop to Ateso, to my life here in Ngora. Like feeling out of place, a foreigner, and feeling right at home, judging tourists; embracing and struggling with cultural differences -- embracing the pace of life, the "simplicity", struggling with the drunk man groping the teenage girl, the skewed gender gap, the canings in school; learning the language; despairing and not despairing, or understanding, the Westernization; trying to get students to talk -- and both me and the author of the book writing TALK on the board in class, getting laughs from the students who then fell back into silence; thinking about going home, not wanting to go home, not yet, and then wanting to go home, right now; and being miserable and as happy as you've ever been. And though I don't have to wait nine months for a package, only two (!), and letters aren't my only correspondence home, and Uganda is not Bhutan and Bhutan is not Uganda, it's still kinda the same. Things change, things don't.
2Pac says so, anyway.
And, so, from Beyond the Sky and the Earth:
And:
Things change, things don't. And it's not bad or good -- no, that's not true, it's bad and good, but mostly it just is.
I finished reading two books this week. The first was about the Iteso, "my" tribe here, appropriately called The Iteso, written by a British guy in the early 1950s (not the most objective viewpoint ever, but surprisingly not super racist) before Uganda gained independence, chronicling the changes that had happened in the fifty years of British occupation (or, well, he calls it British administration; I call it British occupation, the limey bastards). The second was called Beyond the Sky and the Earth, written by a girl, basically a Canadian version of a Peace Corps volunteer (aw, Canada -- adorable), posted for three years as a teacher in Bhutan in the late 1980s.
Both of these ended up being reminders that things change, most things change, and drastically, but some things don't change, and some things never will.
In The Iteso, it had pictures, old black-and-white photographs taken in the late 1940s, early 1950s, of typical life in Teso -- cattle herding, goat herding, sifting through millet, drinking ajon through long straws. And all of these pictures could have been taken by me, yesterday, then converted into black-and-white on my computer. The cows looked the same, with the same young man herding them with the same long papyrus cane, the mud huts looked the same, the bicycles looked the same as the bicycle I bought last week, the same men were sitting around the same pot of ajon in the same wooden folding chairs drinking out of the same straws wearing the same checkered, plaid, or solid-colored button-down shirts with the same haircuts and the same woman pouring more fermented millet into the pot. The only difference was that the men in the pictures were wearing shorts (a novel idea, considering it gets up to around eleventy-billion degrees here), while, these days, if you wear shorts, you're a primary school boy. And today, that cowherd would have a cell phone and would herd the cows across a road, dodging taxis and motorbikes, and sometimes you drink ajon out of a jerrycan instead of a clay pot and talk about the latest developments in world news seen on Al-Jazeera or CNN World. Things change, things don't.
And in Beyond the Sky and the Earth, it was funny -- interesting funny, sometimes ha-ha funny -- reading the observations of a pseudo-PCV posted thousands of miles from here, twenty-plus years ago, and seeing how many of those observations can be applied directly, without translation from Asia to Africa, the '80s to the '10s (?), Sarchhop to Ateso, to my life here in Ngora. Like feeling out of place, a foreigner, and feeling right at home, judging tourists; embracing and struggling with cultural differences -- embracing the pace of life, the "simplicity", struggling with the drunk man groping the teenage girl, the skewed gender gap, the canings in school; learning the language; despairing and not despairing, or understanding, the Westernization; trying to get students to talk -- and both me and the author of the book writing TALK on the board in class, getting laughs from the students who then fell back into silence; thinking about going home, not wanting to go home, not yet, and then wanting to go home, right now; and being miserable and as happy as you've ever been. And though I don't have to wait nine months for a package, only two (!), and letters aren't my only correspondence home, and Uganda is not Bhutan and Bhutan is not Uganda, it's still kinda the same. Things change, things don't.
2Pac says so, anyway.
And, so, from Beyond the Sky and the Earth:
I say that lives in the villages might be hard and short, but the people seem genuinely content with what they have, and this is a function of their faith, which recognizes that desire for material wealth and personal gain leads to suffering. Dini says that they are content with what they have because what they have is all they know. How deep do you think those values go? she asks. Their lifestyle is not a matter of choice but a function of the environment. If they could have cars and refrigerators and VCRs, they would. Let the global market in here with all its shiny offerings, she says, and see how fast everything changes.
And:
I am aware of two possible versions: I can see either the postcard (Lost World Series, Rural Landscape No. 5), or I can see a family bent over the earth in aching, backbreaking labor, the ghosts of two children dead from some easily preventable disease, and not enough money for all the surviving children to buy the shoes and uniforms required for school. It is too easy to romanticize. The landscape cannot answer back, cannot say, no you are wrong, life here is different but if you add everything up, it is not any better. You can love this landscape because your life does not depend on it. It is merely a scenic backdrop for the other life you will always be able to return to, a life in which you will not be a farmer scraping a life out of difficult terrain.
Things change, things don't. And it's not bad or good -- no, that's not true, it's bad and good, but mostly it just is.
16 February 2011
Six Months Update
As of last week, I've been in Uganda for six months.
Does that sound insane to anyone else?
And, I know what you're thinking, because I'm thinking it too: Just what, exactly, have I been doing this whole time? So here's just a little update with a bunch of random things from the last half-year. Which might, somehow, answer that question (although I can tell you now that the answer is either Not a whole lot, you lazy jerk, or, That's a lot of cool stuff, you lazy jerk, depending on how much you like me).
Places in Uganda I've been: Wakiso. Kampala. Gulu. Pader. Entebbe. Ngora. Kumi. Soroti. Ngai. Mbale. Masindi. Lira. Budadiri. Jinja. Iganga.
Books that I've read: 21 (and a half) -- but I won't list them all. My favorites though: 1 Let the Great World Spin. 2 White Teeth. 3 A Fraction of the Whole. 4 The Satanic Verses. 5a Interpreter of Maladies. 5b A Fine Balance. 5c The Lizard Cage. And I reread You Shall Know Our Velocity! before giving it as a birthday present, but that's in a category of its own.
Most played songs (of the last six months) on my iTunes: 1 "Knotty Pine" by Dirty Projectors & David Byrne. 2 "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" by Talking Heads. 3 "Fools" by The Dodos. 4 "Romance is Boring" by Los Campesinos!. 5 "Surprise Hotel" by Fools Gold.
Things that I'd never done before these last six months: 1 --------. 2 --------. (Censored. You'll just have to ask me in person if you want to know what these ones are. Gotta get you guys to talk to me somehow.) 3 Seen a pineapple plant. 4 Danced until 4am. 5 Eaten offals (surprisingly good!).
6 Eaten chicken gizzards (unsurprisingly terrible!). 7 Eaten jackfruit, passionfruit, liver, matooke, and drank ajon (all surprisingly or unsurprisingly mediocre!). 8 --------. (Again: ask if you need to know.) 9 Waited out a thunderstorm inside a mud hut. 10 Been in one country abroad for this long. 11 Been out of the States for this long at one time. 12 Hand-washed a whole load of laundry (and then started paying someone to do it for me). 13 Seen the heads of cows, recently removed from their bodies, lying in the dirt on the street, and the head of a goat, recently removed from its body, nailed to a tree by the ear. 14 Seen birds the size of the maribou storks. 15 Scored goals in a soccer game (and yeah, ok, sure it was against tiny orphan children, but I still feel good about it, ok?). 16 Seen so many guns so often and so casually. 17 Thought brownies could taste so good.
18 Killed so many cockroaches. 19 Heard the footsteps of thousands of termites. 20 Seen over a dozen cockroaches crawl out of the hole of the pit latrine to crawl around the floor at my feet and up the walls by my head. 21 Seen, up close, the effects of a recent war. 22 Used a machete, for any reason, or, more specifically, to chop up bricks into smaller bricks. 23 Thought insects could taste as good as fried termites. 24 Stood ankle-deep in the Nile River and watched the sunrise.
25 Celebrated Christmas and rang in the New Year in Africa. 26 Had a baby named after me.
27 Had to chase away goats so they didn't eat the laundry. 28 Seen mob-justice in action (though, fortunately, not with fatal results; which is a story to come soon). 29 Had a crowd of forty-ish kids in the village come just to look at me and mistake me for Wayne Rooney. 30 Gotten water from a borehole (which is another story to come soon). 31 Seen somany boobs much breastfeeding.
32 Ridden twelve hours in six taxis across almost an entire country in one day to see the people I like the most.
In the manuals the Peace Corps gave us for our Phase II assignments (that we completed the first three months at site), one suggestion was that, since the first few weeks at site can be stressful, we should make a list of all the things here that make us happy. I read that, laughed at how cheesy it sounded, and then did it anyway, not out of stress but out of just the fact that it was something to do one afternoon when there was nothing else to do. Here are some of those things: 1 Walking home with the sun setting in my eyes and the acrid smell of the smoke from cooking fires in my nose and kids running along by my side. 2 Cheese, brownies, real coffee, pizza (all at the same time even, I don't even care!). 3 Two dicks, vertical (--that one's just for you, Dan). 4 Pineapple trees. 5 The sound of heavy rain on my tin roof. 6 Lightning in the distance at night when it's not raining and it colors the clouds purple-black. 7 Open-back lorries packed with cows with curving, pointed, three-foot long horns. 8 Traveling: the hours of stories when I'm sitting next to a friend on the bus, or spacing out while staring out the window, buying meat on a stick when the bus or the taxi stops, and knowing that I'm on my way to see people I like or on my way home feeling refreshed and ready to work after spending time with those same people. 9 Telling people my name and having them understand me. 10 When a new person in town, who I haven't introduced myself to, somehow, one random day, knows my name. 11 The guy with the upside-down bicycle who pedals backwards to sharpen knives and machetes on the wheel, sending sparks flying, orange and bright. 12 Old women riding bicycles in traditional dresses, garishly and synthetically colored, with conical shoulder-pads. 13 The goats that, for some reason, love standing on top of four foot high anthills. 14 Falling asleep crammed into the backseat of a taxi with three other adults and three little kids and having it be the best nap I've gotten in months (because when you wake up and realize your head was resting on a stranger's head, you've taken napping to a whole 'nother level). 15 Cows, five feet from my door, cutting the grass. 16 Free mangoes. 17 Lying in bed, early morning, while monkeys climb the walls (outside, un?fortunately) and jump on the roof. 18 Sitting outside, early morning, with samosas and coffee for breakfast. 19 Packages from home. 20 Finding good, fulfilling, challenging work, which, really, just means feeling useful, or, at least, good, fulfilled, and challenged.
So there ya go. Six months. All right there in just a couple paragraphs.
I guess that answers that question.
Does that sound insane to anyone else?
And, I know what you're thinking, because I'm thinking it too: Just what, exactly, have I been doing this whole time? So here's just a little update with a bunch of random things from the last half-year. Which might, somehow, answer that question (although I can tell you now that the answer is either Not a whole lot, you lazy jerk, or, That's a lot of cool stuff, you lazy jerk, depending on how much you like me).
Places in Uganda I've been: Wakiso. Kampala. Gulu. Pader. Entebbe. Ngora. Kumi. Soroti. Ngai. Mbale. Masindi. Lira. Budadiri. Jinja. Iganga.
Books that I've read: 21 (and a half) -- but I won't list them all. My favorites though: 1 Let the Great World Spin. 2 White Teeth. 3 A Fraction of the Whole. 4 The Satanic Verses. 5a Interpreter of Maladies. 5b A Fine Balance. 5c The Lizard Cage. And I reread You Shall Know Our Velocity! before giving it as a birthday present, but that's in a category of its own.
Most played songs (of the last six months) on my iTunes: 1 "Knotty Pine" by Dirty Projectors & David Byrne. 2 "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" by Talking Heads. 3 "Fools" by The Dodos. 4 "Romance is Boring" by Los Campesinos!. 5 "Surprise Hotel" by Fools Gold.
Things that I'd never done before these last six months: 1 --------. 2 --------. (Censored. You'll just have to ask me in person if you want to know what these ones are. Gotta get you guys to talk to me somehow.) 3 Seen a pineapple plant. 4 Danced until 4am. 5 Eaten offals (surprisingly good!).
6 Eaten chicken gizzards (unsurprisingly terrible!). 7 Eaten jackfruit, passionfruit, liver, matooke, and drank ajon (all surprisingly or unsurprisingly mediocre!). 8 --------. (Again: ask if you need to know.) 9 Waited out a thunderstorm inside a mud hut. 10 Been in one country abroad for this long. 11 Been out of the States for this long at one time. 12 Hand-washed a whole load of laundry (and then started paying someone to do it for me). 13 Seen the heads of cows, recently removed from their bodies, lying in the dirt on the street, and the head of a goat, recently removed from its body, nailed to a tree by the ear. 14 Seen birds the size of the maribou storks. 15 Scored goals in a soccer game (and yeah, ok, sure it was against tiny orphan children, but I still feel good about it, ok?). 16 Seen so many guns so often and so casually. 17 Thought brownies could taste so good.
18 Killed so many cockroaches. 19 Heard the footsteps of thousands of termites. 20 Seen over a dozen cockroaches crawl out of the hole of the pit latrine to crawl around the floor at my feet and up the walls by my head. 21 Seen, up close, the effects of a recent war. 22 Used a machete, for any reason, or, more specifically, to chop up bricks into smaller bricks. 23 Thought insects could taste as good as fried termites. 24 Stood ankle-deep in the Nile River and watched the sunrise.
25 Celebrated Christmas and rang in the New Year in Africa. 26 Had a baby named after me.
27 Had to chase away goats so they didn't eat the laundry. 28 Seen mob-justice in action (though, fortunately, not with fatal results; which is a story to come soon). 29 Had a crowd of forty-ish kids in the village come just to look at me and mistake me for Wayne Rooney. 30 Gotten water from a borehole (which is another story to come soon). 31 Seen so
32 Ridden twelve hours in six taxis across almost an entire country in one day to see the people I like the most.
In the manuals the Peace Corps gave us for our Phase II assignments (that we completed the first three months at site), one suggestion was that, since the first few weeks at site can be stressful, we should make a list of all the things here that make us happy. I read that, laughed at how cheesy it sounded, and then did it anyway, not out of stress but out of just the fact that it was something to do one afternoon when there was nothing else to do. Here are some of those things: 1 Walking home with the sun setting in my eyes and the acrid smell of the smoke from cooking fires in my nose and kids running along by my side. 2 Cheese, brownies, real coffee, pizza (all at the same time even, I don't even care!). 3 Two dicks, vertical (--that one's just for you, Dan). 4 Pineapple trees. 5 The sound of heavy rain on my tin roof. 6 Lightning in the distance at night when it's not raining and it colors the clouds purple-black. 7 Open-back lorries packed with cows with curving, pointed, three-foot long horns. 8 Traveling: the hours of stories when I'm sitting next to a friend on the bus, or spacing out while staring out the window, buying meat on a stick when the bus or the taxi stops, and knowing that I'm on my way to see people I like or on my way home feeling refreshed and ready to work after spending time with those same people. 9 Telling people my name and having them understand me. 10 When a new person in town, who I haven't introduced myself to, somehow, one random day, knows my name. 11 The guy with the upside-down bicycle who pedals backwards to sharpen knives and machetes on the wheel, sending sparks flying, orange and bright. 12 Old women riding bicycles in traditional dresses, garishly and synthetically colored, with conical shoulder-pads. 13 The goats that, for some reason, love standing on top of four foot high anthills. 14 Falling asleep crammed into the backseat of a taxi with three other adults and three little kids and having it be the best nap I've gotten in months (because when you wake up and realize your head was resting on a stranger's head, you've taken napping to a whole 'nother level). 15 Cows, five feet from my door, cutting the grass. 16 Free mangoes. 17 Lying in bed, early morning, while monkeys climb the walls (outside, un?fortunately) and jump on the roof. 18 Sitting outside, early morning, with samosas and coffee for breakfast. 19 Packages from home. 20 Finding good, fulfilling, challenging work, which, really, just means feeling useful, or, at least, good, fulfilled, and challenged.
So there ya go. Six months. All right there in just a couple paragraphs.
I guess that answers that question.
30 January 2011
Story Time
I just got home to Ngora a few days ago from Kampala, where we had our three-month In-Service Training (IST) and where I went to get my glasses fixed and pack on a few pounds' worth of pizza, brownies, and (believe it!) awesome Mexican food with a pitcher of sangria, and from Jinja, where 30 some-odd PCVs from my group relaxed, went on a sunset cruise, and did some intense whitewater rafting on the Nile River. A pretty awesome trip, needless to say (but I said it anyway). I hadn't seen most of the other volunteers in the three months since coming to site so it was really good to catch up with them, and it was really good to get hot showers, tons of good food, and more than a couple dips in the Nile (while somehow mostly avoiding sunburns and completely avoiding crocodiles).
So, I figure it's time for some more random stories from the last few weeks. And here we go.
I want to start with a story about work, since I haven't talked about that much, and just to prove that I'm not, as a friend from home (ahem, Rory) put it, on a long, government-funded vacation. I was sitting at the office of my organization one morning, a few days before leaving for IST, waiting for my counterpart, Mary Margaret (or MM, as she likes to be called) and unsure where she had gone off to. So, twiddling my thumbs (figuratively -- I've never actually found that to be a very good way of passing the time), when another Ugandan man who I had never met came in and said that he was here to see my counterpart. I told him that she was probably around somewhere and would probably be back soon and he was welcome to wait.
So we got to talking and I asked him what he did for work. He told me that he was the director of a small community-based organization (CBO) a little bit outside of town. They're still relatively new and trying to partner with other, more established organizations in the area in order to mobilize resources and really get off the ground, which was why he was here to talk to MM. In answer to my question of what his CBO does, he started to explain. Agroforestry. (Eh.) Agriculture. (Eh.) HIV/AIDS counseling. (Cool.) I'm also interested in HIV/AIDS counseling, I told him. What are they doing for that? Not much, yet, he told me. They had some volunteers acting as counselors who were going from home to home doing counseling, but there was a problem with that. Whenever they would find someone who was HIV+ and open to counseling, the volunteers would inevitably be asked if they, too, had HIV. None of them did, and that's where the program stalled out. People living with HIV/AIDS want to talk to and/or be counseled by other people who are living with HIV/AIDS. Fortunately, he went on, he had found some HIV+ community members who were willing to and interested in acting as counselors. Unfortunately, he went on again, none of them had ever been trained as counselors, and his little CBO didn't have the information or resources to train them.
So that's when I got excited (since I've been wanting and trying to find work outside of my organization -- though my organization is great -- that I could do and plan and carry out on my own). Maybe that's something that I could help you with, I told him. He seemed excited about it too.
Though I don't have much direct experience with it, I really do think that I have, at least, the resources available to be able to plan and run a multi-day training session on the best strategies and practices for counseling and specifically for counseling people living with HIV/AIDS.
And while it'll only be starting with meeting the people who want to become counselors and running the training session, it definitely has the possibility of moving on to a lot more from that. There will be follow-up and monitoring as the newly-trained counselors go out into the community and start meeting with other HIV+ individuals, and there could be other HIV support and meeting groups to come out of it, and on and on.
So we exchanged phone numbers and he assured me that, while I was gone, he'd meet with the potential counselors and get them interested and mobilized for when I got back.
And he called me while I was in Kampala to find out when I'd be back in Ngora, so he sounds serious.
I'm excited.
Also along the work side of things, the school term is going to be starting up again soon here, and I've already discussed with a couple people the possibility of me teaching some life-skills classes at one or two of the schools around here. (Life-Skills is a program that looks, essentially, at positive living -- self-esteem, decision-making, assertiveness, positive role models, etc -- which is lacking in a lot of Ugandan youth.)
And, recently, I've been kicking around the idea of starting up a Boy Scout troop. Because Uganda has Boy Scouts, it's true.
And that's work, for now. It'll be picking up soon, and I'm really looking forward to it.
The presidential elections here are coming up quickly, as voting starts on February 18. President Museveni is looking to extend his 26 year term, while the challengers talk about it being time for change and a new face and claiming that, "We are the ones we have been waiting for."
The main opposition opponent in this election, as in the last two, is Kizza Besigye, Museveni's former personal physician, and the leader of the FDC party. He had a rally in Ngora recently, giving a speech to a massive (for Ngora) crowd at the primary school across the street from my organization. I listened from outside our offices, not wanting to be in the middle of the crowd since we're not supposed to take part in any sort of political action or activism as volunteers, as the person who was introducing Besigye got the crowd (even more) excited. Crackling over the speakers: "Ngora, oh yeah!" (Crowd cheers.) "FDC, oh yeah!" (Crowd cheers.) "Kizza Besigye, oh yeah!" (Crowd cheers.) And then to more cheers, Besigye took the stand, but most of his speech, though it was in English and then translated, didn't make it from the speakers over the crowd and cars and cows and bristling hot air to where I was standing. But the people who could hear him apparently thought it was quite the speech.
And then, when he was finished, we watched as he drove through the throngs of supporters, standing out of the sunroof of a shiny, late-model SUV, both arms outstretched, looking (unintentionally, I'm sure) very Nixon-esque, as he waved both hands in the signal of the FDC, the peace sign.
And as I watched the crowd disperse (to wherever they came from, because it was definitely more people than the town's population), jubilantly walking away on foot, or hopping onto open-back lorries blasting music, or cramming into cars that then almost ran over a small herd of cows, I had to wonder if he really stood a chance.
It's hard to tell from what people here tell me. Some people say he does have a chance, some say he doesn't. Some say that he'll win, in the vote total, but that it won't matter anyway because Museveni will win, in reality. Some people say that there will be violence and rioting if he wins, some say there will be violence and rioting if he loses, some say there won't be violence or rioting either way (and I probably agree with that last group). Someone told me that the Indian supermarket owners in Soroti weren't fully stocking their shelves because they're worried about rioting, someone else told me that they were fully stocking their shelves because they weren't worried at all (and I don't get up there enough to be able to tell the difference -- there's still more stuff than in the shops here and that's what really matters to me). Peace Corps is still bringing in the newest group of volunteers in a week or ten days or something, so they must not think there are going to be any major issues either, although they do also have us going on Standfast from February 11-25, meaning that, for safety and security reasons, we're all to stay at site that entire time.
But, two things, regardless of what happens -- 1: I can't wait for the elections to be over so that the campaign lorries that blast obscenely loud music and drive around town will (hopefully) stop doing that. And, 2: It's an interesting time to be in Africa. Ivory Coast. South Sudan. Egypt. And now Uganda, which hopefully goes more smoothly than all of those. And I think it will. I'm not worried, just interested.
I came home the other day and one of my neighbors, nowhere to be seen, had their dirty laundry sitting outside in basins ready to be washed. They must have gone back inside for something, because it was left up to me to chase away the goats that were getting ready to eat their clothes.
Sitting outside on my front step the other day, I watch as a kid comes around the corner of the half-constructed house near mine. Looking behind him to make sure he hasn't been spotted, he doesn't notice me either. Thinking he's in the clear, he starts to squat and drop his shorts. That's right. To poop in the grass, not twenty feet from my door. Halfway into his squat, he looks up and sees me, half-surprised, half-trying-not-to-laugh. He pauses, slowly hikes his shorts back up, and tiptoes back around the corner out of my line of sight. Two seconds later, he comes back, shorts pulled up, looks at me, and says, "Ejai emopiira?" -- "Do you have a football?"
Yeah. Let's just move on. Pretend like you weren't just about to do what I saw you about to do.
And no, I don't have a football.
Ugandan quote of the week, to me: "Most Americans are big and strong. I don't know why you are so short and thin." It wasn't meant to be an insult, just pure confusion, and I had no answer for him.
I had my first Ugandan baby named after me. About a month or so ago, I was out with MM, driving around doing something, when she got a phone call that someone she knew was at one of the health centres near town, in labor, with complications. Since we were already in the car, and since she had to be transferred from the HC to one of the bigger hospitals in the area, we went and picked her up, went to the nearest hospital where they could help, in Kumi, 20km away, then found out, after some waiting around, that the doctor wasn't there, and, so, took off to the next closest hospital, probably at least 20km farther away, where we dropped her off, again, after not a little bit of waiting around. So basically, I had nothing to do with this, or with the delivery, but it was a healthy baby boy, and, since I was there, though not when he was actually born, they named him Daniel. Despite doing nothing to earn having the baby named after me, I still felt pretty good about it.
One reason I felt good about it was that, the vast majority of the time, when I tell Ugandans what my name is, they don't understand me at all. It usually goes like this -- Me: "Nice to meet you, my name is Daniel." Ugandan: "Channelrelyel...lel?" Me: "Good enough."
I tried introducing myself as Danny for a couple months, but that always came across as Tony. Which, I guess, is at least a real name, but still.
However, success of the day today, I introduced myself to someone while I was at the dairy buying a bag of freshly boiled whole milk, and, unbelievable as it sounds, he understood me. Blew my mind. And was almost as awesome as having that baby named after me.
I mentioned the "pterodactyl birds" in my last blog post. Unfortunately that's not their real name -- they're actually called maribou storks -- but it's a pretty good descriptor. Standing up, they probably come up at least to my elbow, are hideously ugly, with bald heads covered in places with a few stringy hairs and pink, rubbery waddles hanging from their necks and massive beaks that you can hear clopping together if you're close enough. There are, literally, flocks of them everywhere in Kampala. And they are easily the most hideous animal I've ever seen. Anyway. At IST, a friend and I were joking about running up to one and punching it. I said that I'd punch it right on the top of the head, while she thought it would be a better idea to go straight in with a gut-punch. We debated which was better, and after I helped her buy a bike later, we almost got to test those theories. We were walking the bike back past a flock of six or seven of them standing in the grass about a hundred feet away. We both looked at each other, looked at the birds, looked at the bike, and then I hopped on and started pedaling straight at them. Drive-by punch to the skull. Or that was the idea anyway. I sped closer and closer, they barely flinched, but I definitely did and veered away at the last second. No way I was actually going to touch one of those things. But it's the thought that counts.
I'm a terrible saver. I had an awesome package from home waiting for me when I got back from IST. Velveeta shells and cheese, caramel popcorn, a couple Clif Bars, instant oatmeal packets, water-flavoring packets, along with a couple books, crossword puzzles, my nice rain jacket, and a sweatshirt for whenever I go way down to the southwest or end up climbing Mt. Elgon. I opened the package as soon as I got home, and within less than 48 hours, had eaten the shells and cheese, all the caramel popcorn, both of the Clif Bars, several oatmeal packets, and several drink packets. And I don't feel bad about that at all.
I don't know if I've talked about the Rolex before, but it's long overdue, if I haven't. It's a popular Ugandan street food, where fried eggs are mixed with cabbage, tomatoes, and salt, and then wrapped in a chapati, like a delicious breakfast burrito. I was fortunate enough to have a Rolex Guy in Ngora, and I made sure he knew how happy I was about that by giving him lots and lots of business over the last few months. Until I got home from Christmas.
One night, a day or two after I got back, at about 8:00, I walked over into town to get a couple Rolexes. I was really excited about it. A good Rolex is a very, very good thing. It was pitch dark out, since there was no moon, but I managed to make it to where Rolex Guy always is with his stand. Or to where I thought he was. The broken-down lorry that had been sitting on blocks next to his Rolex stand since I got to Ngora (one of the biggest landmarks in town, especially when it's dark out) was gone, and Rolex Guy was replaced by the tenth Chicken-and-Chapati Guy in town. I couldn't believe it. I was actually so confused that I just stood there for about fifteen seconds, wondering where I was. But then I realized what had happened. Rolex Guy was gone. Devastating. (It might not sound like much to people back home, but, believe me: devastating. I might actually lose even more weight now.)
One of my favorite Ugandan-English phrases is "You were lost!" They say it to you when they first see you after you've just gotten back from any sort of extended trip. It's like you only meant to leave for a few minutes and then spent all the rest of that time trying to find your way back home. Or, maybe, it's like you left and when they realized that, they spent the entire time you were away searching everywhere for you. And now that they've found you, after all that desperate searching, the only thing to say is, "You were lost!" I like it.
I went to an introduction ceremony for a guy who works at my organization. The introduction ceremony is one step before marriage here, where the groom-to-be is "introduced" to the family of the bride-to-be, people give a lot of speeches that I can't understand, they figure out what the dowry is going to be, and then there's food and drink and dancing.
At this introduction, though, the negotiation of the dowry was taking forever. Usually the have a pretty good idea of what it's going to be coming in, so it's all just finishing up the details at that point. But after an hour had passed, during which time all the other guests and I (since the committee who negotiates the dowry does so in private) were just sitting around making small talk and waiting for dinner, I asked what was making this take so much longer than I had been told it would.
The bride-to-be got pregnant before the wedding, was the answer. And since the groom-to-be was the one to get her pregnant before the wedding, his family was going to have to pay more for the dowry.
But by "got pregnant before the wedding," I mean, "they have a three year-old daughter." So, it's like a shotgun wedding. It's just moving on African time.
Speaking of kids: As I left my house to go to work the other day, a little boy, maybe not even two years old, ran up to me, alone, grabbed my hand and started walking with me. We walked, super slowly because of his tiny-little-kid steps, for a good five minutes, while the neighbors laughed and asked where I got the kid (or something like that), and I kept waiting for him to realize that he was getting farther and farther from home (I assumed) and wondering what I was going to do with him when he ended up walking all the way across town with me because he definitely did look like he was planning on letting go any time soon, and we almost made it to the main road, when a woman, maybe his mom, maybe not, called to him and he looked at her, then looked at me, then ran off. It was pretty awesome. Mostly I just like it when kids aren't A: completely terrified of me, or B: asking me for money. The ones that just want to kick it make me happy.
Crazy newspaper story: 30 baboons were killed by a vermin control team in Luweero District last week after farmers were complaining that the baboons were destroying their crops and scaring women and children as they went for water. Crazy. But the best part is that the story said that the vermin control team attacked the baboons "at their hideout" like they were a posse of Wild West bandits, although, more than the Wild West, all I could think of was the movie Congo and gorillas with laser guns strapped to their backs. Crazy story, but awesome mental image.
One last story, that's not actually mine, but it's too good not to share. Another volunteer was in her room at home the other day, middle of the afternoon, she was lying in bed reading and dozed off for a minute, lying on her side, facing the wall. She woke up to a sort of shuffling sound, something moving around a little bit, but figured it was the neighbor girls in the next room over. Then she rolled over and found herself face-to-face with a massive cow that had walked into her bedroom. It was just standing there. Inches from her bed. Understandably surprised, she slapped the cow in the face with her book and it, since it was fully and entirely inside her bedroom, turned around and shuffled out. She had no idea how long it had been in there. That's got to be the quintessential living-in-rural-Africa story of the month. Awesome.
That's pretty much it for now.
Except for rafting. We spent the day on the Nile, charging over a bunch of Class 5 rapids (with Class 6 being the highest, and, also, being technically impassable), flipping the raft on a smaller one, falling out a few times even when the raft didn't flip, and getting out and floating down the river on the flat parts, balancing, for a while, pineapple slices on our chests like otters. It was my first time rafting and it will be pretty hard to top it. Just awesome all around. And this is what it looked like when we flipped (that's me in the middle in the blue shirt). Good. Times.
So, I figure it's time for some more random stories from the last few weeks. And here we go.
I want to start with a story about work, since I haven't talked about that much, and just to prove that I'm not, as a friend from home (ahem, Rory) put it, on a long, government-funded vacation. I was sitting at the office of my organization one morning, a few days before leaving for IST, waiting for my counterpart, Mary Margaret (or MM, as she likes to be called) and unsure where she had gone off to. So, twiddling my thumbs (figuratively -- I've never actually found that to be a very good way of passing the time), when another Ugandan man who I had never met came in and said that he was here to see my counterpart. I told him that she was probably around somewhere and would probably be back soon and he was welcome to wait.
So we got to talking and I asked him what he did for work. He told me that he was the director of a small community-based organization (CBO) a little bit outside of town. They're still relatively new and trying to partner with other, more established organizations in the area in order to mobilize resources and really get off the ground, which was why he was here to talk to MM. In answer to my question of what his CBO does, he started to explain. Agroforestry. (Eh.) Agriculture. (Eh.) HIV/AIDS counseling. (Cool.) I'm also interested in HIV/AIDS counseling, I told him. What are they doing for that? Not much, yet, he told me. They had some volunteers acting as counselors who were going from home to home doing counseling, but there was a problem with that. Whenever they would find someone who was HIV+ and open to counseling, the volunteers would inevitably be asked if they, too, had HIV. None of them did, and that's where the program stalled out. People living with HIV/AIDS want to talk to and/or be counseled by other people who are living with HIV/AIDS. Fortunately, he went on, he had found some HIV+ community members who were willing to and interested in acting as counselors. Unfortunately, he went on again, none of them had ever been trained as counselors, and his little CBO didn't have the information or resources to train them.
So that's when I got excited (since I've been wanting and trying to find work outside of my organization -- though my organization is great -- that I could do and plan and carry out on my own). Maybe that's something that I could help you with, I told him. He seemed excited about it too.
Though I don't have much direct experience with it, I really do think that I have, at least, the resources available to be able to plan and run a multi-day training session on the best strategies and practices for counseling and specifically for counseling people living with HIV/AIDS.
And while it'll only be starting with meeting the people who want to become counselors and running the training session, it definitely has the possibility of moving on to a lot more from that. There will be follow-up and monitoring as the newly-trained counselors go out into the community and start meeting with other HIV+ individuals, and there could be other HIV support and meeting groups to come out of it, and on and on.
So we exchanged phone numbers and he assured me that, while I was gone, he'd meet with the potential counselors and get them interested and mobilized for when I got back.
And he called me while I was in Kampala to find out when I'd be back in Ngora, so he sounds serious.
I'm excited.
Also along the work side of things, the school term is going to be starting up again soon here, and I've already discussed with a couple people the possibility of me teaching some life-skills classes at one or two of the schools around here. (Life-Skills is a program that looks, essentially, at positive living -- self-esteem, decision-making, assertiveness, positive role models, etc -- which is lacking in a lot of Ugandan youth.)
And, recently, I've been kicking around the idea of starting up a Boy Scout troop. Because Uganda has Boy Scouts, it's true.
And that's work, for now. It'll be picking up soon, and I'm really looking forward to it.
The presidential elections here are coming up quickly, as voting starts on February 18. President Museveni is looking to extend his 26 year term, while the challengers talk about it being time for change and a new face and claiming that, "We are the ones we have been waiting for."
The main opposition opponent in this election, as in the last two, is Kizza Besigye, Museveni's former personal physician, and the leader of the FDC party. He had a rally in Ngora recently, giving a speech to a massive (for Ngora) crowd at the primary school across the street from my organization. I listened from outside our offices, not wanting to be in the middle of the crowd since we're not supposed to take part in any sort of political action or activism as volunteers, as the person who was introducing Besigye got the crowd (even more) excited. Crackling over the speakers: "Ngora, oh yeah!" (Crowd cheers.) "FDC, oh yeah!" (Crowd cheers.) "Kizza Besigye, oh yeah!" (Crowd cheers.) And then to more cheers, Besigye took the stand, but most of his speech, though it was in English and then translated, didn't make it from the speakers over the crowd and cars and cows and bristling hot air to where I was standing. But the people who could hear him apparently thought it was quite the speech.
And then, when he was finished, we watched as he drove through the throngs of supporters, standing out of the sunroof of a shiny, late-model SUV, both arms outstretched, looking (unintentionally, I'm sure) very Nixon-esque, as he waved both hands in the signal of the FDC, the peace sign.
And as I watched the crowd disperse (to wherever they came from, because it was definitely more people than the town's population), jubilantly walking away on foot, or hopping onto open-back lorries blasting music, or cramming into cars that then almost ran over a small herd of cows, I had to wonder if he really stood a chance.
It's hard to tell from what people here tell me. Some people say he does have a chance, some say he doesn't. Some say that he'll win, in the vote total, but that it won't matter anyway because Museveni will win, in reality. Some people say that there will be violence and rioting if he wins, some say there will be violence and rioting if he loses, some say there won't be violence or rioting either way (and I probably agree with that last group). Someone told me that the Indian supermarket owners in Soroti weren't fully stocking their shelves because they're worried about rioting, someone else told me that they were fully stocking their shelves because they weren't worried at all (and I don't get up there enough to be able to tell the difference -- there's still more stuff than in the shops here and that's what really matters to me). Peace Corps is still bringing in the newest group of volunteers in a week or ten days or something, so they must not think there are going to be any major issues either, although they do also have us going on Standfast from February 11-25, meaning that, for safety and security reasons, we're all to stay at site that entire time.
But, two things, regardless of what happens -- 1: I can't wait for the elections to be over so that the campaign lorries that blast obscenely loud music and drive around town will (hopefully) stop doing that. And, 2: It's an interesting time to be in Africa. Ivory Coast. South Sudan. Egypt. And now Uganda, which hopefully goes more smoothly than all of those. And I think it will. I'm not worried, just interested.
I came home the other day and one of my neighbors, nowhere to be seen, had their dirty laundry sitting outside in basins ready to be washed. They must have gone back inside for something, because it was left up to me to chase away the goats that were getting ready to eat their clothes.
Sitting outside on my front step the other day, I watch as a kid comes around the corner of the half-constructed house near mine. Looking behind him to make sure he hasn't been spotted, he doesn't notice me either. Thinking he's in the clear, he starts to squat and drop his shorts. That's right. To poop in the grass, not twenty feet from my door. Halfway into his squat, he looks up and sees me, half-surprised, half-trying-not-to-laugh. He pauses, slowly hikes his shorts back up, and tiptoes back around the corner out of my line of sight. Two seconds later, he comes back, shorts pulled up, looks at me, and says, "Ejai emopiira?" -- "Do you have a football?"
Yeah. Let's just move on. Pretend like you weren't just about to do what I saw you about to do.
And no, I don't have a football.
Ugandan quote of the week, to me: "Most Americans are big and strong. I don't know why you are so short and thin." It wasn't meant to be an insult, just pure confusion, and I had no answer for him.
I had my first Ugandan baby named after me. About a month or so ago, I was out with MM, driving around doing something, when she got a phone call that someone she knew was at one of the health centres near town, in labor, with complications. Since we were already in the car, and since she had to be transferred from the HC to one of the bigger hospitals in the area, we went and picked her up, went to the nearest hospital where they could help, in Kumi, 20km away, then found out, after some waiting around, that the doctor wasn't there, and, so, took off to the next closest hospital, probably at least 20km farther away, where we dropped her off, again, after not a little bit of waiting around. So basically, I had nothing to do with this, or with the delivery, but it was a healthy baby boy, and, since I was there, though not when he was actually born, they named him Daniel. Despite doing nothing to earn having the baby named after me, I still felt pretty good about it.
One reason I felt good about it was that, the vast majority of the time, when I tell Ugandans what my name is, they don't understand me at all. It usually goes like this -- Me: "Nice to meet you, my name is Daniel." Ugandan: "Channelrelyel...lel?" Me: "Good enough."
I tried introducing myself as Danny for a couple months, but that always came across as Tony. Which, I guess, is at least a real name, but still.
However, success of the day today, I introduced myself to someone while I was at the dairy buying a bag of freshly boiled whole milk, and, unbelievable as it sounds, he understood me. Blew my mind. And was almost as awesome as having that baby named after me.
I mentioned the "pterodactyl birds" in my last blog post. Unfortunately that's not their real name -- they're actually called maribou storks -- but it's a pretty good descriptor. Standing up, they probably come up at least to my elbow, are hideously ugly, with bald heads covered in places with a few stringy hairs and pink, rubbery waddles hanging from their necks and massive beaks that you can hear clopping together if you're close enough. There are, literally, flocks of them everywhere in Kampala. And they are easily the most hideous animal I've ever seen. Anyway. At IST, a friend and I were joking about running up to one and punching it. I said that I'd punch it right on the top of the head, while she thought it would be a better idea to go straight in with a gut-punch. We debated which was better, and after I helped her buy a bike later, we almost got to test those theories. We were walking the bike back past a flock of six or seven of them standing in the grass about a hundred feet away. We both looked at each other, looked at the birds, looked at the bike, and then I hopped on and started pedaling straight at them. Drive-by punch to the skull. Or that was the idea anyway. I sped closer and closer, they barely flinched, but I definitely did and veered away at the last second. No way I was actually going to touch one of those things. But it's the thought that counts.
I'm a terrible saver. I had an awesome package from home waiting for me when I got back from IST. Velveeta shells and cheese, caramel popcorn, a couple Clif Bars, instant oatmeal packets, water-flavoring packets, along with a couple books, crossword puzzles, my nice rain jacket, and a sweatshirt for whenever I go way down to the southwest or end up climbing Mt. Elgon. I opened the package as soon as I got home, and within less than 48 hours, had eaten the shells and cheese, all the caramel popcorn, both of the Clif Bars, several oatmeal packets, and several drink packets. And I don't feel bad about that at all.
I don't know if I've talked about the Rolex before, but it's long overdue, if I haven't. It's a popular Ugandan street food, where fried eggs are mixed with cabbage, tomatoes, and salt, and then wrapped in a chapati, like a delicious breakfast burrito. I was fortunate enough to have a Rolex Guy in Ngora, and I made sure he knew how happy I was about that by giving him lots and lots of business over the last few months. Until I got home from Christmas.
One night, a day or two after I got back, at about 8:00, I walked over into town to get a couple Rolexes. I was really excited about it. A good Rolex is a very, very good thing. It was pitch dark out, since there was no moon, but I managed to make it to where Rolex Guy always is with his stand. Or to where I thought he was. The broken-down lorry that had been sitting on blocks next to his Rolex stand since I got to Ngora (one of the biggest landmarks in town, especially when it's dark out) was gone, and Rolex Guy was replaced by the tenth Chicken-and-Chapati Guy in town. I couldn't believe it. I was actually so confused that I just stood there for about fifteen seconds, wondering where I was. But then I realized what had happened. Rolex Guy was gone. Devastating. (It might not sound like much to people back home, but, believe me: devastating. I might actually lose even more weight now.)
One of my favorite Ugandan-English phrases is "You were lost!" They say it to you when they first see you after you've just gotten back from any sort of extended trip. It's like you only meant to leave for a few minutes and then spent all the rest of that time trying to find your way back home. Or, maybe, it's like you left and when they realized that, they spent the entire time you were away searching everywhere for you. And now that they've found you, after all that desperate searching, the only thing to say is, "You were lost!" I like it.
I went to an introduction ceremony for a guy who works at my organization. The introduction ceremony is one step before marriage here, where the groom-to-be is "introduced" to the family of the bride-to-be, people give a lot of speeches that I can't understand, they figure out what the dowry is going to be, and then there's food and drink and dancing.
At this introduction, though, the negotiation of the dowry was taking forever. Usually the have a pretty good idea of what it's going to be coming in, so it's all just finishing up the details at that point. But after an hour had passed, during which time all the other guests and I (since the committee who negotiates the dowry does so in private) were just sitting around making small talk and waiting for dinner, I asked what was making this take so much longer than I had been told it would.
The bride-to-be got pregnant before the wedding, was the answer. And since the groom-to-be was the one to get her pregnant before the wedding, his family was going to have to pay more for the dowry.
But by "got pregnant before the wedding," I mean, "they have a three year-old daughter." So, it's like a shotgun wedding. It's just moving on African time.
Speaking of kids: As I left my house to go to work the other day, a little boy, maybe not even two years old, ran up to me, alone, grabbed my hand and started walking with me. We walked, super slowly because of his tiny-little-kid steps, for a good five minutes, while the neighbors laughed and asked where I got the kid (or something like that), and I kept waiting for him to realize that he was getting farther and farther from home (I assumed) and wondering what I was going to do with him when he ended up walking all the way across town with me because he definitely did look like he was planning on letting go any time soon, and we almost made it to the main road, when a woman, maybe his mom, maybe not, called to him and he looked at her, then looked at me, then ran off. It was pretty awesome. Mostly I just like it when kids aren't A: completely terrified of me, or B: asking me for money. The ones that just want to kick it make me happy.
Crazy newspaper story: 30 baboons were killed by a vermin control team in Luweero District last week after farmers were complaining that the baboons were destroying their crops and scaring women and children as they went for water. Crazy. But the best part is that the story said that the vermin control team attacked the baboons "at their hideout" like they were a posse of Wild West bandits, although, more than the Wild West, all I could think of was the movie Congo and gorillas with laser guns strapped to their backs. Crazy story, but awesome mental image.
One last story, that's not actually mine, but it's too good not to share. Another volunteer was in her room at home the other day, middle of the afternoon, she was lying in bed reading and dozed off for a minute, lying on her side, facing the wall. She woke up to a sort of shuffling sound, something moving around a little bit, but figured it was the neighbor girls in the next room over. Then she rolled over and found herself face-to-face with a massive cow that had walked into her bedroom. It was just standing there. Inches from her bed. Understandably surprised, she slapped the cow in the face with her book and it, since it was fully and entirely inside her bedroom, turned around and shuffled out. She had no idea how long it had been in there. That's got to be the quintessential living-in-rural-Africa story of the month. Awesome.
That's pretty much it for now.
Except for rafting. We spent the day on the Nile, charging over a bunch of Class 5 rapids (with Class 6 being the highest, and, also, being technically impassable), flipping the raft on a smaller one, falling out a few times even when the raft didn't flip, and getting out and floating down the river on the flat parts, balancing, for a while, pineapple slices on our chests like otters. It was my first time rafting and it will be pretty hard to top it. Just awesome all around. And this is what it looked like when we flipped (that's me in the middle in the blue shirt). Good. Times.
15 November 2010
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.
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.
16 September 2010
One More Really Quickly
And then I swear I'll put up the big one that's sitting on my laptop at home.
In the tiny town of Pader in northern Uganda right now, just on the internet for a few minutes, as usual. I'm here with Eliza (who's another PCT) and we're visiting Sandi who's been here for a year. She works at a secondary school for girls who were orphaned/abducted by the LRA, helping (among other things) to teach life skills to girls who haven't lived normal lives in years or ever and so we're going over there in a bit. It sounds really intense, but also really awesome.
Five hour bus from Kampala to Gulu on Tuesday, saw Jamie Roach's (for those of you on Mom's side of the family) picture on the wall of the cafe there that he helped start with IC, then yesterday we took a 3.5 hour matatu (shared minibus taxi with 12 other people) out here. Really awesome. Eliza and I were sitting there, hot and dirty, as Peace Corps kids sharing a car with 12 Ugandans on a middle-of-nowhere red dirt road dodging pond-sized potholes and lorries and white NGO Land Cruisers that drive straight at you until the last minute (so don't stick your hand out the window) and goats and kids and bicyclers, passing concrete schools with uniformed kids playing football in the field outside and round mud huts with grass-thatched roofs listening to Bob Marley on her iPod. Stereotypes.
But it is good to be here. Good to be out of Wakiso. Good to be away from lots of other white people (not in a bad way) (except in Gulu, which was nice, but was also NGO-Central, which actually was a lot more noticeable than I thought it would be, not only with the logo-ed Land Cruisers and white people, but also infrastructure-wise as far as roads and cleanliness and all that; but that's a whole other story) and good to travel somewhere and sit in a bus and a taxi and look out the window and see somewhere new. All that goes to say that I'm really excited to be here. Which is why we're getting off the internet in a few.
But, one more story. Yesterday we saw an older man who was sitting outside leaning against his hut and when we walked by, he went to wave at us, we realized he had no hands and no feet, and it took me a beat to realize that he was not born like that, and that he had hands and feet at one point, and they were savagely taken away from him. So that's what it's like up here, I guess. Just constant small reminders that they've been in a war for 20+ years that no one is unaffected by, even if it isn't as obvious as with that smiling, happy-looking man who's obviously been through things that would keep most people from smiling again.
That's all. It's intense. But it's good. I'm happy to be here -- Pader-here and Uganda-in-general-here, I mean.
(Also, we crossed the Nile on the way to Gulu, so now I've seen it right near it's source and it's mouth, and I thought that was neat.)
In the tiny town of Pader in northern Uganda right now, just on the internet for a few minutes, as usual. I'm here with Eliza (who's another PCT) and we're visiting Sandi who's been here for a year. She works at a secondary school for girls who were orphaned/abducted by the LRA, helping (among other things) to teach life skills to girls who haven't lived normal lives in years or ever and so we're going over there in a bit. It sounds really intense, but also really awesome.
Five hour bus from Kampala to Gulu on Tuesday, saw Jamie Roach's (for those of you on Mom's side of the family) picture on the wall of the cafe there that he helped start with IC, then yesterday we took a 3.5 hour matatu (shared minibus taxi with 12 other people) out here. Really awesome. Eliza and I were sitting there, hot and dirty, as Peace Corps kids sharing a car with 12 Ugandans on a middle-of-nowhere red dirt road dodging pond-sized potholes and lorries and white NGO Land Cruisers that drive straight at you until the last minute (so don't stick your hand out the window) and goats and kids and bicyclers, passing concrete schools with uniformed kids playing football in the field outside and round mud huts with grass-thatched roofs listening to Bob Marley on her iPod. Stereotypes.
But it is good to be here. Good to be out of Wakiso. Good to be away from lots of other white people (not in a bad way) (except in Gulu, which was nice, but was also NGO-Central, which actually was a lot more noticeable than I thought it would be, not only with the logo-ed Land Cruisers and white people, but also infrastructure-wise as far as roads and cleanliness and all that; but that's a whole other story) and good to travel somewhere and sit in a bus and a taxi and look out the window and see somewhere new. All that goes to say that I'm really excited to be here. Which is why we're getting off the internet in a few.
But, one more story. Yesterday we saw an older man who was sitting outside leaning against his hut and when we walked by, he went to wave at us, we realized he had no hands and no feet, and it took me a beat to realize that he was not born like that, and that he had hands and feet at one point, and they were savagely taken away from him. So that's what it's like up here, I guess. Just constant small reminders that they've been in a war for 20+ years that no one is unaffected by, even if it isn't as obvious as with that smiling, happy-looking man who's obviously been through things that would keep most people from smiling again.
That's all. It's intense. But it's good. I'm happy to be here -- Pader-here and Uganda-in-general-here, I mean.
(Also, we crossed the Nile on the way to Gulu, so now I've seen it right near it's source and it's mouth, and I thought that was neat.)
15 June 2010
Wow.
I'm sure most of you have heard, but violence has been erupting in Kyrgyzstan this last week or so. But what you might not know is that Kyrgyzstan is also a country with Peace Corps volunteers.
So if you've ever wondered what the Peace Corps does to protect and evacuate volunteers in the event of such terrible, widespread chaos and violence, this is an incredible first-hand account (and also, obviously, an exception to the majority of Peace Corps experiences). It's frightening, and I can't possibly imagine what it would be like to be in such a situation, but at the same time, it makes me feel pretty safe if something like this were to happen in Uganda (which, hopefully, is unlikely). I feel like the hiring of armed local drivers shows that the Peace Corps is willing to go to some extreme (and necessary) lengths to protect volunteers.
I had actually read a different version of this last night, but was skeptical about the fact that it was passed on by a "friend of a friend on Facebook" and the idea of the Peace Corps hiring "five masked Kyrgyz gunmen" to evacuate volunteers.
Apparently, it's true. And all volunteers are safe and accounted for.
Now we just pray for an end to the violence (there and everywhere).
So if you've ever wondered what the Peace Corps does to protect and evacuate volunteers in the event of such terrible, widespread chaos and violence, this is an incredible first-hand account (and also, obviously, an exception to the majority of Peace Corps experiences). It's frightening, and I can't possibly imagine what it would be like to be in such a situation, but at the same time, it makes me feel pretty safe if something like this were to happen in Uganda (which, hopefully, is unlikely). I feel like the hiring of armed local drivers shows that the Peace Corps is willing to go to some extreme (and necessary) lengths to protect volunteers.
I had actually read a different version of this last night, but was skeptical about the fact that it was passed on by a "friend of a friend on Facebook" and the idea of the Peace Corps hiring "five masked Kyrgyz gunmen" to evacuate volunteers.
Apparently, it's true. And all volunteers are safe and accounted for.
Now we just pray for an end to the violence (there and everywhere).
05 June 2010
Aspiration Statement
Once you've formally accepted your invitation to the Peace Corps, they ask you to write an aspiration statement (along with an update resume) which is the first information the people in your country will find out about you. Basically it's an introduction of yourself, along with what your expectations of PC service are and how you see yourself working in your project, strategies for adapting to a new culture and your aspirations for service, natch.
Mine ended up going on for a while -- almost three single-spaced pages -- as things that I write tend to do, so I'm not going to post the whole thing here. But here's some of it, anyway.
On what I hope to learn during pre-service training to best serve my community and project: I am very excited to delve deep into an unfamiliar language, one that I have never experienced before. I think that being able to speak the local dialect would go a long way towards an improved standing in a community and I am looking forward to working as hard on learning the language as I ever have on anything else.
While I do have prior training on HIV/AIDS, I am looking forward to gaining more first-hand insight into the reality of living with HIV/AIDS and how it affects the individual and the community both physically and psychologically. The only way to really help someone is to have intimate knowledge of their situation and their point of view.
I hope to build upon that knowledge of how HIV/AIDS affects everyone it touches in order to learn and create positive strategies for coping with the effects of HIV/AIDS as well as curbing the spread and preventing new infections. Education and prevention may well be the best way to fight the AIDS epidemic. I hope to gain valuable teaching skills during my pre-service training so that I will be able to play a part in improving the situation in the community in which I’ll be living.
On adapting to a new culture:
And on the aspirations I hope to fulfill during my Peace Corps service: When I think about my aspirations for my Peace Corps service, I often find myself having to temper them somewhat. It’s somewhat easy for me to set lofty goals as if I were going to go to Uganda and change the country, that the reverberations of my impact would be felt by millions. Of course, as much as I would want it to happen, this is probably unlikely. Fortunately, in my time as a social worker, I’ve grown to realize the importance of making a small impact in one person’s daily life. One seemingly insignificant step forward is sometimes the only way to begin. But that small step can often lead to a larger impact in an unexpected area and soon there is a ripple-effect of progress. This is what I am aspiring to in the Peace Corps. I realize that progress may be slow or minor at first, but I believe that once that first small goal is met, the ripples will begin to spread.
For my Peace Corps service, I have aspirations of making an impact in the fight against an epidemic that is wiping out generations of people. While HIV/AIDS is daunting, to say the very least, I want to be at the forefront of the battle against it. In my role as a Community Health Volunteer, I want to do this through participating in or creating campaigns of education, monitoring, and prevention.
For myself, I have aspirations of expanding and changing my world-view; of learning about Uganda, community health, and myself; of being able to have fun amongst the work and appreciating every moment of an experience that I feel extremely fortunate to be having; and of working hard and putting everything I have into my role as a Peace Corps Volunteer. By accomplishing all that, I will be well on my way to fulfilling my aspirations and making an impact during my Peace Corps service.
So, yeah. That's how Uganda's going to make their first impressions of me (or at least the Peace Corps staff in Uganda, anyway). And that's that.
Mine ended up going on for a while -- almost three single-spaced pages -- as things that I write tend to do, so I'm not going to post the whole thing here. But here's some of it, anyway.
On what I hope to learn during pre-service training to best serve my community and project: I am very excited to delve deep into an unfamiliar language, one that I have never experienced before. I think that being able to speak the local dialect would go a long way towards an improved standing in a community and I am looking forward to working as hard on learning the language as I ever have on anything else.
While I do have prior training on HIV/AIDS, I am looking forward to gaining more first-hand insight into the reality of living with HIV/AIDS and how it affects the individual and the community both physically and psychologically. The only way to really help someone is to have intimate knowledge of their situation and their point of view.
I hope to build upon that knowledge of how HIV/AIDS affects everyone it touches in order to learn and create positive strategies for coping with the effects of HIV/AIDS as well as curbing the spread and preventing new infections. Education and prevention may well be the best way to fight the AIDS epidemic. I hope to gain valuable teaching skills during my pre-service training so that I will be able to play a part in improving the situation in the community in which I’ll be living.
On adapting to a new culture:
And on the aspirations I hope to fulfill during my Peace Corps service: When I think about my aspirations for my Peace Corps service, I often find myself having to temper them somewhat. It’s somewhat easy for me to set lofty goals as if I were going to go to Uganda and change the country, that the reverberations of my impact would be felt by millions. Of course, as much as I would want it to happen, this is probably unlikely. Fortunately, in my time as a social worker, I’ve grown to realize the importance of making a small impact in one person’s daily life. One seemingly insignificant step forward is sometimes the only way to begin. But that small step can often lead to a larger impact in an unexpected area and soon there is a ripple-effect of progress. This is what I am aspiring to in the Peace Corps. I realize that progress may be slow or minor at first, but I believe that once that first small goal is met, the ripples will begin to spread.
For my Peace Corps service, I have aspirations of making an impact in the fight against an epidemic that is wiping out generations of people. While HIV/AIDS is daunting, to say the very least, I want to be at the forefront of the battle against it. In my role as a Community Health Volunteer, I want to do this through participating in or creating campaigns of education, monitoring, and prevention.
For myself, I have aspirations of expanding and changing my world-view; of learning about Uganda, community health, and myself; of being able to have fun amongst the work and appreciating every moment of an experience that I feel extremely fortunate to be having; and of working hard and putting everything I have into my role as a Peace Corps Volunteer. By accomplishing all that, I will be well on my way to fulfilling my aspirations and making an impact during my Peace Corps service.
So, yeah. That's how Uganda's going to make their first impressions of me (or at least the Peace Corps staff in Uganda, anyway). And that's that.
04 June 2010
Stove of Death
Over the long weekend, four friends and I went to a three-day music festival in Eastern Washington called Sasquatch. It was amazing. And I got maybe the smallest of previews of some things I'll face in the Peace Corps. And one thing I hopefully won't.
One small bucket shower (actually just hair-washing) over the course of three long days.
Dirt that wouldn't come off of my hands.
No outside news all weekend.
Squatting over the port-o-potties (because you did not want to sit down on them. I mean, I assume you wouldn't, maybe someone would, but I did not).
The most exciting part however was cooking with a propane camping stove, just like what I might be using for 27 months.
Normally, cooking on a camping stove is not really all that exciting. Normally, I say. Because normally your stove does not explode into flames while you're cooking on it. The second night we were there, the five of us were sitting around the campsite, Emily was cooking dinner on the stove, the rest of us were helping get dinner together and chatting and eating and whoosh the stove went up in twelve inches of orange flames that spread four feet across the grass in a matter of milliseconds so I jumped out of the way of the flames (safety first!) and Katie stopped, dropped, and rolled as the fire singed the hem of her dress and Emily kicked at the stove as the flames spread underneath the hood of Rory's car as the neighbors ran over with water and the flames spread to the propane tank and Zach ran to the burning tank of explosive gas, ran to it, and bent face-first over it and, while we yelled at him to stop, he unscrewed the tank, the burning tank of explosive gas, and we doused and stamped the rest of the flames and then looked at each other in disbelief and all started talking at once about how everything almost exploded and then we all needed a beer.
And that was all in maybe twenty seconds.
So. If we can't make it two nights without our propane stove exploding in flames, what do we want to set the over-under at for how long I can cook over one and still have eyebrows?
Also, should I put "Have experience with exploding camp stove" on the version of my resume that's going to Uganda now? Because it may be relevant.
One small bucket shower (actually just hair-washing) over the course of three long days.
Dirt that wouldn't come off of my hands.
No outside news all weekend.
Squatting over the port-o-potties (because you did not want to sit down on them. I mean, I assume you wouldn't, maybe someone would, but I did not).
The most exciting part however was cooking with a propane camping stove, just like what I might be using for 27 months.
Normally, cooking on a camping stove is not really all that exciting. Normally, I say. Because normally your stove does not explode into flames while you're cooking on it. The second night we were there, the five of us were sitting around the campsite, Emily was cooking dinner on the stove, the rest of us were helping get dinner together and chatting and eating and whoosh the stove went up in twelve inches of orange flames that spread four feet across the grass in a matter of milliseconds so I jumped out of the way of the flames (safety first!) and Katie stopped, dropped, and rolled as the fire singed the hem of her dress and Emily kicked at the stove as the flames spread underneath the hood of Rory's car as the neighbors ran over with water and the flames spread to the propane tank and Zach ran to the burning tank of explosive gas, ran to it, and bent face-first over it and, while we yelled at him to stop, he unscrewed the tank, the burning tank of explosive gas, and we doused and stamped the rest of the flames and then looked at each other in disbelief and all started talking at once about how everything almost exploded and then we all needed a beer.
And that was all in maybe twenty seconds.
So. If we can't make it two nights without our propane stove exploding in flames, what do we want to set the over-under at for how long I can cook over one and still have eyebrows?
Also, should I put "Have experience with exploding camp stove" on the version of my resume that's going to Uganda now? Because it may be relevant.
23 May 2010
Now What? And Where?
Seriously. What's this going to be like?
The part of the invitation kit that I was most eager to read was the job description. Just exactly what would I be signing up to spend two years doing? Acting as a Community Health Volunteer, sure, but what does that mean?
Fortunately, the Peace Corps included in the invitation kit a handy little booklet explaining just that. It's like they're in my head!
Says the booklet:
Other fun facts from this booklet:
I'll likely be living in a rural community, and my housing will be what they call "modest" and will consist of two self-contained rooms along with areas to cook and bathe (both of which may be outside) and a private latrine (read: pit). There probably won't be running water or electricity, so I'll be using a kerosene lantern and stove. Housing does come with some furnishing though, and a settling-in allowance to supplement that.
Transportation will be by foot, bicycle, or local public transport. Public transport is "likely to be crowded, uncomfortable, and unreliable," just like you would expect. I'll get money to buy a bicycle and will probably find that many of the communities I'll work with are a very demanding bicycle ride away from my house. No riding motorcycle-taxis, known as boda-bodas (laaame). And no driving a motor vehicle of any kind. No exceptions.
And, as is to be expected, there are many challenges I can expect to face. But, according to the booklet, "your ability to cope with these challenges, as well as those that come from daily life, will depend upon your flexibility, patience, humility, and good humor." Not to toot my own horn, but I mean, who's more humble, more patient, and funnier than this guy? (Beep-beep.)
The part of the invitation kit that I was most eager to read was the job description. Just exactly what would I be signing up to spend two years doing? Acting as a Community Health Volunteer, sure, but what does that mean?
Fortunately, the Peace Corps included in the invitation kit a handy little booklet explaining just that. It's like they're in my head!
Says the booklet:
Volunteers in our Community Health and Economic Development Program work as staff members of a variety of host organizations in Uganda. Uganda's Ministry of Health, and local and international organizations request Volunteers to assist them with developing and implementing programs with the goals of improving overall levels of community health and economic development, preventing HIV/AIDS among adults and youth, caring for orphans and vulnerable children, and supporting people living with AIDS, their families, and their caregivers.So that's it in the largest of nutshells. It goes on to list more specific activities and efforts I might be engaging in, but they're all firmly entrenched within the fight against HIV/AIDS. And they all sound exactly like what I was hoping for when I began to fill out my application almost a year ago.
Other fun facts from this booklet:
I'll likely be living in a rural community, and my housing will be what they call "modest" and will consist of two self-contained rooms along with areas to cook and bathe (both of which may be outside) and a private latrine (read: pit). There probably won't be running water or electricity, so I'll be using a kerosene lantern and stove. Housing does come with some furnishing though, and a settling-in allowance to supplement that.
Transportation will be by foot, bicycle, or local public transport. Public transport is "likely to be crowded, uncomfortable, and unreliable," just like you would expect. I'll get money to buy a bicycle and will probably find that many of the communities I'll work with are a very demanding bicycle ride away from my house. No riding motorcycle-taxis, known as boda-bodas (laaame). And no driving a motor vehicle of any kind. No exceptions.
And, as is to be expected, there are many challenges I can expect to face. But, according to the booklet, "your ability to cope with these challenges, as well as those that come from daily life, will depend upon your flexibility, patience, humility, and good humor." Not to toot my own horn, but I mean, who's more humble, more patient, and funnier than this guy? (Beep-beep.)
22 May 2010
Quick!
Name that country!
Here's a hint: It starts with a "U" and ends with a "OhhhMG, I'm going to Uganda!"
Answer? It's Uganda!
I swung by the apartment on Friday afternoon to check the mail. As I got out of the car, I saw it. My invitation kit! Just sitting underneath the mailbox, like it owned the place. So I ran up the rest of the steps and snatched it up, heart racing and mouth dry and hands a little shaky (but that could have been from my skewed caffeine-to-calories ratio that morning). There was no way I could open it alone, so I leaped back down the stairs, back into the car, and managed to drive downtown without actually thinking about driving at all. Sarah took an extended break at work and we opened it. Or rather, she opened it first and read it and said she was happy with it and for me.
And then I read it.
Country: Uganda
Job Title: Community Health Volunteer
Orientation Dates: Aug. 9-10, 2010
Pre-service Training (In Uganda): Aug. 11-Oct. 23, 2010
Dates of Service: Oct. 24, 2010-Oct. 23, 2012 (!!!)
And then I told everyone else. And then I tried to let it all register and process. And I couldn't.
Wow.
(More Uganda facts to come!)
20 May 2010
Oh, hey.
All that waiting? Yeah, it's pretty much over. Because I woke up to this this morning:
Ok, so the waiting's not completely done with. But I'm in! And now I'm just waiting for the invitation kit to come in the mail. It says they posted it yesterday, so I'm hoping tomorrow or Saturday, and that I don't have to wait until Monday.
I was pretty confused when I saw this page on my Toolkit this morning though. I hadn't heard anything from the Placement Office for two weeks, and before that all I had gotten was an email request for an updated resume and one additional essay. Then nothing. Then this. So I called them immediately, worried they had somehow made a mistake. And, as is wont to happen, I had to leave a voicemail. Fortunately they called me back only a couple hours later to tell me that, no, no mistake, the Placement Officer didn't have anything else to ask you (which is a good thing) and your invitation is in the mail!
At that point, it was relief. Happiness, definitely. But relief first. To have worked and waited and worked on something for so long, without knowing how it was going to work out, and then to finally get it. Relief. Like I feel like I need to take a nap, or something.
And now, even though I have to wait a few more days to find out where and when I'm going, I don't even care. I'm interested and excited to find out, but I'm not anxious at all. All the parts of the process that I had anxiety over are just that: over. (For now. Until I find out where and when I'm leaving. Then I'm sure I'll be anxious and nervous all over again, to an entirely new degree. But I don't care! Because I'm in!)
30 June 2009
Yes.
Nailed it.
Again: yes. My interview went well. Not nearly as intense as I was expecting and preparing for. I was there for probably about an hour and a half, but, really, the interview part only lasted about 40 minutes. I gave sweet answers to questions about my leadership skills and successes and working in an unstructured environment and my motivations. And that was that. Then we just pretty much chatted -- his time in the Peace Corps, training, nominations to invitations, et cetera, et cetera.
But. The important part. He said I am solidly qualified to serve as a health program volunteer. Huzzah! Good news! Then came the not-so-good news -- there aren't any positions open right now. But then some better news -- they'll be getting a new "batch" of positions later in July.
So, assuming he finds one of the spots later in July that I'm a good fit for and nominates me for that, then it would most likely be to leave next summer, July, August, around there. He said I should hear from him in about three weeks, which would be the week of the 21st. Not too, too long of a wait. And pretty much what I expected and much better than I was worried about, that being no open positions until late 2010, early 2011. But summer 2010? Again: yes (and a possibility of something opening up sooner is also awesome).
I asked what were the odds of, if I get nominated, actually solidifying that formal invitation. He said that as long as I was medically cleared and the program didn't get canceled or anything, then it's not quite a sure thing, but pretty close. He said he's nominated people before who've then gotten turned down once their application got to DC, but he's always set those people up, told them that he'd go ahead and nominate them despite less-than-stellar qualifications. I'm not one of those people. Again: yes.
So I am happy. I am trying not to be too happy. It's still such a long process, there's still the dreaded medical clearance, there hasn't even been a nomination yet. But I did my part. And now it's basically out of my hands, for better or worse (I can't decide which but would lean towards worse because, well, if it was in my hands, I'd give myself a spot today).
So, (again:) yes. I am happy.
And now comes that most fun of all aspects of applying to the Peace Corps: waiting.
Again: yes. My interview went well. Not nearly as intense as I was expecting and preparing for. I was there for probably about an hour and a half, but, really, the interview part only lasted about 40 minutes. I gave sweet answers to questions about my leadership skills and successes and working in an unstructured environment and my motivations. And that was that. Then we just pretty much chatted -- his time in the Peace Corps, training, nominations to invitations, et cetera, et cetera.
But. The important part. He said I am solidly qualified to serve as a health program volunteer. Huzzah! Good news! Then came the not-so-good news -- there aren't any positions open right now. But then some better news -- they'll be getting a new "batch" of positions later in July.
So, assuming he finds one of the spots later in July that I'm a good fit for and nominates me for that, then it would most likely be to leave next summer, July, August, around there. He said I should hear from him in about three weeks, which would be the week of the 21st. Not too, too long of a wait. And pretty much what I expected and much better than I was worried about, that being no open positions until late 2010, early 2011. But summer 2010? Again: yes (and a possibility of something opening up sooner is also awesome).
I asked what were the odds of, if I get nominated, actually solidifying that formal invitation. He said that as long as I was medically cleared and the program didn't get canceled or anything, then it's not quite a sure thing, but pretty close. He said he's nominated people before who've then gotten turned down once their application got to DC, but he's always set those people up, told them that he'd go ahead and nominate them despite less-than-stellar qualifications. I'm not one of those people. Again: yes.
So I am happy. I am trying not to be too happy. It's still such a long process, there's still the dreaded medical clearance, there hasn't even been a nomination yet. But I did my part. And now it's basically out of my hands, for better or worse (I can't decide which but would lean towards worse because, well, if it was in my hands, I'd give myself a spot today).
So, (again:) yes. I am happy.
And now comes that most fun of all aspects of applying to the Peace Corps: waiting.
25 June 2009
Oh. Well look at this.
I'm blogging? Huh.
Well, ok. I think everyone I know is already sick of hearing me stress out about my Peace Corps application process (which, really, has barely even begun). So I figure that this is a better way to get the anxiety out. I've never really blogged before, so who knows how long I'll keep it up, but I figure that if I end up getting into the Peace Corps, I'll start blogging anyway, so I might as well include the application process too..
Let me just start by saying this much though: a year-to-year-and-a-half long application process is really going to test my patience. But the end will be worth it. Totally.
My interview is on Tuesday (the 30th).
And here we go..
Well, ok. I think everyone I know is already sick of hearing me stress out about my Peace Corps application process (which, really, has barely even begun). So I figure that this is a better way to get the anxiety out. I've never really blogged before, so who knows how long I'll keep it up, but I figure that if I end up getting into the Peace Corps, I'll start blogging anyway, so I might as well include the application process too..
Let me just start by saying this much though: a year-to-year-and-a-half long application process is really going to test my patience. But the end will be worth it. Totally.
My interview is on Tuesday (the 30th).
And here we go..
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