25 August 2008 12:05

Last night Carolyn and I went to another prayer service at Dr. Opio's clinic. I think when someone is sick the whole family comes and hangs out at the clinic because it is a cool place to be. Dr Opio had a crackling and squeaking PA system set up, and there was singing and dancing. One song was performed by the clinic staff in English just for us. I am continually amazed by the natural voice and rhythm ability of these people. I feel like a clunky white girl. Forget about all the "how black are you" facebook quizzes. I am as white as they come. Ok, maybe Carolyn has me beat by a step or two. Here they tell her that she smells like "wet chips" or potato chips when she sweats. I wonder what I smell like?

My sunburn is intensifying. My favorite is when the strap of my bag or camera chafe across my neck just right. And my face feels like it is perpetually on fire.

This morning we went to the market to buy oxen for the villages. It was great. Funny that all the animals made me feel at home. I just felt like the cows and goats would probably speak English if they could talk at all, and we would get along like gangbusters. With the help of Emmanuel, Francis, Jasper, and a very handsome Tony, Carolyn bought six handsome bulls, one goat (for emmanuel) 100 oranges and a pile of casava. The guys herded their livestock back to their respective villages and we took the oranges and casava home.

When we got back, somehow Carolyn miraculously talked the girls out of making lunch for us so I was spared another foray into the adventureland of the Ugandan diet. Felix told us that on his last visit to the US, his host had stocked his apartment with food for him, which he didn't discover for about 5 days, and when he did, he told his host that all the food wouldn't do him any good because as an African man he could no more cook than birth a child. Leeroy would love it here.

Esther took us to the shops to buy fabric to make me an african dress. She is a very skilled seamstress. Even I am impressed.

24 August 2008 14:20

For the first time since I arrived in Africa I have my headphones on and I am basking in the american glory of... Hannah Montana? Who the heck loaded this iPod? The random shuffle started with Usher. It was a little too african. Now that is pathetic.

This morning we went to church at faith mission. It was everything you would expect a north Ugandan charismatic church service to be. Esther and Felix graciously took us to the early "English" service, which, I have a feeling, is also the service for the upper class and more well educated congregation. It is nice to see the caste system alive and flourishing somewhere.

(author's side note: after a having been saved from religion and then suddenly re-immersed in it, it is an ongoing war with the jaded cynic in my head.)

24 August 2008

Akello Livia. This is my African name. "One who follows" like a younger sibling. I am Carolyn's protegé.

Favour

Yesterday, after Carolyn and I took Sarah shopping for school clothes, Felix dropped Esther, Favour, Carolyn and I off in Anyanga Puc, the village that Felix and Esther are from. We were greeted at the church by a swarm of dancing, singing people, waving flowers and leaves at us as we climbed out of the vehicle. Very few of the villagers spoke English, except to say "You are Welcome!" again and again and again. Carolyn is like a celebrity here. Her faithfulness to these people seems to surprise them. We had come to meet with the people and see the women's gardening project. We were guided by some of the pastors as well as Esther since they spoke English. Esther gave a mini sermon about it being the day for women, and the time for women to start changing their own lives. When one of the pastors interjected that the men were there to step in as support when the burden got too heavy, Esther quickly exhorted the women that the women needed to strengthen themselves to move their own burdens. Esther was in her element. This is a woman who grows almost all of her own food, while raising about 16 children, some of her own, and some adopted, and runs several different households. She is also an expert seamstress, a teacher and an amazing leader in her own right. She is the right hand to her husbands work, without seeing any financial compensation. Esther, more than anyone I have met so far, has earned my love and respect. She is a great lady.

Our afternoon in the village ended at Esther's new house, which by Ugandan standards is nearly a palace, even without a water system installed. They plan to move there in a couple of years, after the major obstacle of water supply is overcome.

Selfishly, I have to admit that I find myself retreating into my own brain to count the days, hours, minutes until I am on American soil again. I am so far outside of my comfort zone that I feel at a loss to describe it, and even so, Carolyn says I seem at ease and like I fit in. I must be a better actress than I thought. The interesting thing is that the discomfort isn't because of the rustic surroundings, quite the opposite. I would almost feel better staying in one of the mud huts and living like so many of the villagers. There is something about watching the middle class struggle to have indoor plumbing and electricity against so many different oppositions. It feels almost like an unnatural and forced transition.

The little children here are fascinated with me. They love to touch and pinch my pale skin. The parents swell with pride when one of their children gets to sit in my lap and I pay attention to them. I feel like some sort of rock star, bending to the adorning masses. This must be what Angelina likes so much. It makes me so sad when they come and kneel in front of me, head bowed, for the chance to shake my hand. Who taught them that? Shame, shame on them. The tyrants of inequality. Is it once again, our pasty white religious influence, kissing the ring and all of that? I wish I could undo the centuries of brainwashing and condemnation.

I am trying to figure out why the oldest country in the world (Adam and Eve?) are in this place. Why aren't all of the modern conveniences here? Why didn't they originate here? They have had thousands of years, and amazing resources with which they could have developed all kinds of technology and better ways of doing things centuries, even thousands of years, before we did. Why didn't they? It makes no sense. Masses of intelligent human beings, natural and cultural resources any nation would envy - Where is the productivity? I am sure religion would protest that it is the lack of god in the nation that impedes their progress. But Africa has had the earliest possible exposure to almost every religion in the world. Why hasn't African education and technology evolved to surpass all the other cultures of the world? What is the hang up? I can't find a good reason in my very small mind.

Back to complaining...

I have to confess, there are moments when I think that if I have to eat one more bite I will not be able to keep it all down. I am such a spoiled American child.

22 August 2008

Today we visited Dr. Opio's clinic. It was sobering. No running water, sparse lighting, filthy, dirty surroundings. The pharmacy was barren, championed by a single bottle of Kirkland Acetaminophen. Go Costco.

(author's side note: I feel like a piece of American crap. I am attributing it to my period and all of the fruit that I have been eating, but it makes me so thankful for good old american drugs. Ahhh pharmacopaea.)

I am a cynic. I think the depth of my cynicism was fully revealed to me as we lurched along a series of ravines that someone thought to call a road, listening to optimistic christian banter about the inevitable success of god centeredness. It's not that I am anti-god. To the contrary, I am pro god and pro religion as long as it is getting something done, which in this case I guess it is, so I won't raise an issue. But I am still cynical. And I believe that there must be more than one way to skin the proverbial cat, or in this case, make a difference in war ravaged and parched villages. It really has nothing to do with believing in god. I believe just fine. I don't think this amazing world could have made itself on an accidental whim. But I am not convinced he is really all that interested in what we do to screw things up . He wound the top and set it spinning, and he's got a lot of crazy stuff to entertain him. Sure, he can raise people from the dead, flood the earth, part the seas, or he can (and usually does) not. Not to worry though, I am sure that he knows we can handle issues like overpopulation with our penchant for violence and filthy diseases. I am sure he figures he can sit back and wait for us to destroy the planet, melt the polar ice caps, annihilate civilization with nuclear holocaust, and then heave a big sigh and watch earth regenerate itself as it was so brilliantly designed to do. All the while future Noahs and their descendants will be writing down a bunch of superstitious rituals that they will be able to sell as absolutes, since, being survivors, obviously they have an "in" with the big man.

All of that religious falderal aside Felix took Carolyn and I out to the projects that MTI has been working on since April. Three clinic/maternity wards, all funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and a youth center, which, in Africa, is actually an HIV/AIDS clinic. Felix is a mover and a shaker. He has accomplished all of this after returning from a fundraising trip in March. This is where I see god - specific people who will take action for their own land and people.

This morning we had lunch with Felix and David, the clinical officer, David told us that while most of the IDP camps have been disbanded, there are still armed land mines and hand grenades floating randomly throughout the war torn north country. He told us the story of a person in a village who found a mine, claimed it as scrap metal and attempted to pound it into a compressed and sell able form. He detonated it, killing himself and 8 others. David also told a story of two children playing catch with a grenade. It went off and incinerated both children and injured several others. These are daily realities that we cannot imagine in the US.

22 August 2008

I slept like a baby, in spite of the family of mosquitos inside my net all night. This morning Esther gave me two grass baskets that the women in the villages made. They smell like a sweet hay barn and they are beautiful.

 

Carolyn mentioned doing devotions together in the morning and asked if that was ok since she didn't really know where I was spiritually. Where am I spiritually? There's the question of the decade, or maybe even century; not that anyone else would ask it, or even care. Or as if it has any historical significance whatsoever, so I should probably just be content with decade. But who knows. If I had to sum up my "spiritual condition" or "place" in one word, I would like for it to be: open. But as I consider that, I realize that there are actually a great many religious ideas I am fairly well closed off to. And if I was perfectly honest, the repercussions of "christianity", in whatever form it was presented, on this small, overpopulated nation goes, are questionable. We have taught these expressive, beautiful, alive cultures the fine art of repression, condemnation, shame, and best of all prudishness. Their resilient spirit and ethnic beauty sparkles from underneath the pious and dowdy exterior, masked in proper western business suits and silly sunday dresses, and in the worship of this "civilized" god, they are still joyful and exuberant.

At any rate, I am doing devotions with Carolyn.

21 August 2008

21 August 2008 13:34

I find it ironic that Uganda's biggest export is coffee, and we have been drinking Nescafe instant coffee in the mornings. I am on a mission to procure fresh coffee and vanilla beans while I am here.

Today Denis is driving us to Lira. It is lush and beautiful here. Green and thick and the air is heavy. It looks a lot like Hawaii. The roads, as I have heard, are basically small patches of asphalt between colossal potholes. But Denis pilots the Landcruiser like a champion slalom racer and keeps the horn in constant action at the passing cars. and cows, chickens, people, etc.

21 August 2008 22:20

We have arrived at Felix and Esther's house. By Ugandan standards, it is very nice. They live among the upper echelon of Lira-ites, with electricity (most days), running water, tv... all of the modern conveniences. Even a gas cookstove that Felix gave to Esther for an anniversary or some occasion. Another gift to Esther was a red toyota station wagon that we drove across town to her garden, bottoming out on the "roads" the whole way. These roads are amazing. Like frost heaves on steroids, but the most recent freeze here was the last ice age. Right under the equator, the sun rises and sets and seven o'clock morning and night, every day, all year round, and even though there are rainy and dry seasons, it's pretty much always hot. Theoretically we are in the rainy season, but Lira seems relatively dry.

At this stage in the game I am extremely homesick. I miss my kids, my house, dog, fire, everything. I am eating trail mix because it feels normal, and when I think of the things I have eaten in the last few days I get queasy. It doesn't help that I am bleeding profusely from one of the heaviest periods in the history of estrus, but at least here at Esther and Felix' I have running water and a flushing toilet. I can't find a garbage can to save my life (pretty sure they just toss it out on the street) so I am hauling a short ton of biohazardous waste at least as far as Kampala with me.

I am so thankful for the USA. Even with our ridiculousness.

20 August 2008

20 August 2008 12:00 (midnight) Kampala

I slept most of the way from Amsterdam, with a little chemical support. We got in close to 9 and waited for our four million pounds of luggage along with a rag tag bunch of international students packing guitars and puppets and some vision to save the world through entertainment, which I can almost buy into. Denis picked us up at the airport in his quintessential African Landcruiser with the tall roof racks, all safari ready. Denis Omodi Alyela is 29 years old, working on his second masters degree in some assortment of management and planning topics, and I will say he is pretty much one of the smartest, coolest Ugandans I have met. Granted, I am just getting started, but he's pretty cool. His dad Felix met us at the Kohlping House Hotel, and it was quickly apparent where Denis gets his charisma and intelligence. We sat in the restaurant at the hotel and ate Tilapia until midnight and then after one of the best showers I have ever had (as Felix promised), I am going to learn to sleep under a mosquito net. Wish me luck. You know how I toss and turn. At least I am not on the plane anymore. 

This place is balmy, cool in the dark evening and it smells like a spicy mix of smoke, unbathed bodies and something that I have yet to discover. It is rich and spicy and most definitely weird. There were more pedestrians and bicyclists, scooters and motorcycles, riding on the unlit streets, than I imagine a New York sidewalk would have in the middle of the day. The locals seem to drive as though the lines painted on the road (if there happen to be any) are there more as suggestions than actual objective parameters. Horns and high beams are used with extraordinary finesse and alarming frequency. 

20 August 2008 17:50 

The Kohlping house provided us with a very continental breakfast, complete with white toast, instant coffee and Summer Olympics updates on the BBC. For being such a small island, England sure left her fingerprints all over the globe. Big thumbs up for manifest destiny and redeeming the savage nations!

Kampala is amazing. Big and dirty and full of people who are always busy but seem to be in no hurry. We went to visit a slum with Denis where a nurse named Helen has a clinic that she has run for the last 10 years, and we were swarmed with happy, friendly, adorable children with crusted over scabs and running noses, a veritable first hand advertisement for feed the children. Of course every one of them wants to shake our hands and touch the hem of our garments. I don't think I felt clean until the last day of our trip when we revisited the Kohlping house and I was able to use those wonderful showers again. But how I wished that I had had some bright little trinkets or pieces of candy to give all of them. They were so excited to see us - "munu! munu!" they yelled, as if we were Santa Clause popping through the front door, only I didn't have a bag of presents. They were all so cute. Adorable with their big soft chocolate eyes and round cheeks. Oblivious to the squalor they have always known. Tiny shacks that were so small and dirty most of us wouldn't let our chickens live in them. No running water, no electricity. Nurse Helen runs her clinic without equipment or medication, unless she can scrape enough money together from the meager donations of the patients lined up outside with a broad assortment of communicable, deadly and undiagnosed illnesses. The clinic itself is a two room hut with a few rickety "beds" and or tables that appear to be constructed identically and draped with an assortment of linens and oddly out of place lace tablecloths hanging over the open windows and doors. Helen's only helper, Amos, who is also her oldest son, does as much footwork for her as he can, running for supplies and meds as necessity and money dictates. On one of the beds a woman lies shivering and chilled with malaria, which made me thankful that the mosquito bites that I had already obtained here in spite of my netting were most assuredly inflicted by the 1 out of 10 mosquitos that was not a carrier. I am pretty sure. 

One of the things I've noticed about this place is that almost everybody has some sort of a "shop", selling, in the middle of the slums, everything from brand new knock off Caterpillar boots to cell phone sim cards and deep fried things that look almost good enough to risk the epidemic surprise inside. People actually live, and survive, in these conditions. Of course they die too. Obviously. It's like the worst homes in Northport, only these people really don't have access to soap or the luxury of running water, much less a washer and dryer. In Northport they have those things and just avoid their use voluntarily. 

At this point, I feel much like I did when I left. Clueless, insecure, a little worthless, but definitely curious. The kids at Helen's clinic reminded me that kids are kids, regardless of what the adults in their country have done to screw things up, and if only I had a bag of M&M's I could be a superhero, just like at home. And really, I feel like at the very least I am here to be Carolyn's personal assistant, since I can totally handle remembering where she "filed" the notes from her meeting with Ndjoli this morning, (who, by the way is a very cool Congolese man, even for a pastor!) and next time we fly, I think I'll hold the boarding passes. 

It is a bit odd the way my life and Carolyn's do a few loop-de-loops around each other since 1993 when we did the Music Man together at Woodland's Theater. After she confided to me that Jones wasn't a last name that she had fantasized about and practiced in her high school doodling, I admitted to her that her son Bowe took me on my one and only sort of date in 1994 to the Addy New Life youth Valentine's banquet, after his sister Kemper set us up. I guess you could say we're bonding. It is funny to think I am on the underside of the world with a woman who is now dating the father of my best friend through high school, but that whole life seems so very very far away in years and miles that it is hard to connect all of the dots.  

While as yet I don't picture myself spending extended periods of time here, seeing Helen's clinic today exposed me to the possibility of helping in a tangible way. 2 weeks, A couple thousand dollars, and a little bit of training would go a heck of a long way there. It would get so much accomplished. If I had the resources of just one of the medical units on our fires, that entire slum would be taken care of, at least for a week or two. I doubt any of those kids has ever seen a tube of chapstick.