solstice

Two people were killed and 41 injured in an explosion next to a Kampala-bound bus in downtown Nairobi on Monday night. The blast occurred at 7.40pm as passengers were boarding a Kampala Coach bus in the River Road area.

Most of the people on the bus were Ugandans on their way home for Christmas. Earlier in the day, warnings were issued by Ugandan Police about terrorist attacks during the holiday season. This is the second grenade attack in Nairobi in December. Two grenades were detonated in suburbs near the city earlier this month. Police think today's explosion was from the same type of Russian made grenade.

Today I feel nervous. When I hear about this type of violence in a place where I have been (and will soon return to) my stomach tightens and my heart beats a little too fast.

My plan is to return to Uganda in January and then leave in mid-February during the election. I will take a bus from Jinja to Nairobi and then on to Mombasa. I will relax at the beach until the election results are confirmed and life returns to normal.

Today's news puts a dent in my confidence. And then there's Ivory Coast. I should probably also mention the January 9th referendum in South Sudan.

I can't control what will happen. For now I'll go with my motto: "plan for nothing, prepare for everything" but frankly, I'm a little frightened. I want to overcome this fear. I don't want to live in fear. I don't even want to live with fear. I want to feel confident and secure.

weather: you like it or not

raining in nyc today. doing a little uganda research...

---from WikiLeaks via The Guardian: Yet the President's autocratic tendencies, as well as Uganda's pervasive corruption, sharpening ethnic divisions, and explosive population growth have eroding Uganda's status as an African success story. Holding a credible and peaceful presidential election in February 2011 could restore Uganda's image, while failing in that task could lead to domestic political violence and regional instability. read the rest here

This cable continues on to outline major issues facing Uganda in the near future: human rights and corruption, the LRA and ethnic tensions, HIV/AIDS, oil and the economy. The attitude presented here is one of Uganda as a "fading democracy" faced with numerous domestic challenges and foreign pressure to stand up and re-establish its role as "a confident and outspoken regional leader."

-- one of the first issues facing the region in 2011 is the South Sudan referendum on 9 January. From The Independent magazine in Uganda: "Uganda should pay close attention to the 2011 South Sudan elections." The TIME Magazine issue for this week asks the question, “South Sudan: Can this be the World’s Newest Nation?” The question is very pertinent for the world, but it is an extremely important question for Uganda and Africa. As a country, Uganda should be paying particularly close attention to the political situation in South Sudan. The result of the 2011 referendum could hurt or benefit Uganda. the rest here

This blog post draws out the impact of the referendum down to two possibilities: A) The referendum in southern Sudan does not go smoothly and Sudan descends into civil war. Uganda has a history of supporting the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA - representing the southern part of Sudan) while the government in Khartoum has supported Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. (LRA - infamous rebel group from Northern Uganda) A civil war could mean increased tension between Uganda and Sudan as each country supports the enemy of the other. Option B) The referendum does go smoothly and South Sudan is gtanted independence. Uganda already has strong economic ties to South Sudan. The region is "blessed" with oil and South Sudan's independence could result in major investment from oil companies.

-- And a hopeful note for the day...Project Justice

Imagine being brutally attacked by your husband. You are rushed to the hospital, on the verge of death. At the hospital, you are cared for, and when you are slightly stronger, you are sent back home to the perpetrator of the crime because the hospital workers are ignorant of the law and the police require a bribe to file a police report.

Or, imagine you are a 13-year-old girl, raped and impregnated by your assailant. Your family is so poor and ignorant of the law that they accept a cow from the family of the man as settlement for the deed. Case closed.

Incidents like these are what inspired Just Like My Child Foundation’s “Project Justice” – a comprehensive human rights education program conducted in partnership with FIDA, a Federation of Women Attorneys that is Promoting the Dignity & Human Rights of Women & Children Using Law as a Tool of Social Justice.

SIGNING OFF TO SELL,SELL,SELL!

C O L D

chilly in the booth today. eating pretzels to stay warm.

the booth, the whole booth, and nothing bu the booth

day three. still excited. coffee helps. so does money in my hand. today i learned that most dogs in central park wear clothes. i saw a beagle wearing a green t-shirt, a blue down vest and a yellow scarf.

i went to the big library on 42nd st. i love the reading room at the top floor. the ceiling is painted with blue skies and clouds. there are two levels of books around the perimeter. above the books are tall arched windows. its like grand central station for books. there are long tables with wide, sturdy seats. each place - the seat and the table - are numbered. you could say, meet me at the big library, in the reading room on the top floor, i'll be at seat 662. i like that a lot. i'm not sure why. maybe because its so concrete. it exists. it has existed for a long time and will continue to exist. i think that's what they call legacy. maybe not.

tomorrow is saturday. usually saturday means lounging by the pool or baking brownies. tomorrow i want to work hard. i want to sell necklaces and bags and make my pitch 500 times.

market madness

made some sales today. yay.

cool and dry. my opening line is "good morning/afternoon/evening. our beads are made from recycled paper by 93 women in uganda.

staying at 62&lex (thankyou dora) a magical place. can order food on the internet and pay for with credit card. and it just shows up, right at your door all warm and juicy and mexican/thai/italian/chinese/burger.

need to find some music/cultural activity soon.

holy social media batman! i've never been more entertained by the internets. i'm warming my hands by the tweety glow. but its not enough. i turned on the space heater. i feel like a wimp, but its day one.

day one at columbus circle holiday market. rainy. really rainy. not too many people around. our necklaces look pretty. our online credit checkout is ready to go. the euro scarf/necklace girls across the cobblestone have a customer. she's looking at wallets. i'm intensely jealous.

more later...

Sciurus carolinensis

america.

i ate pretzels and apple pie. it was store bought, but so what. i'm prepping my palate for the home made version next week. tonight its my job to make lasagna. should i consult a cookbook or just go freestyle?

sending away for a 6 month multi-entry visa. maybe i won't have to play up the tourist card so much. a tourist visa only lasts 90 days and then you have to get a new one. ugandan visas are only single entry, so when you have to get a new one if you leave the country. this means that the best times for me to leave uganda are each time my visa expires.

this is me at border 4 times per year. its usually the middle of the night after 6 hours of bumpy road on a bus or a few transfers on small planes. i've got my crisp $50 bill and yellow fever card in hand:

immigration officer: i see you've been in uganda for some time.

me: i love uganda so much!

io: what are you doing in uganda?

me: rafting, traveling around. meeting people. ugandans are so friendly!

io: where do you stay in uganda?

me: oh here and there. i really like jinja. the river is awesome!

io: you've got $50? ok. (stamp, stamp)

i'm in.

counting necklaces. so many necklaces. they're hung airing in the garage. they're on the futon in the basement. they like to fall out of their velcro groupings, so i'll be counting them all again. we count them when we buy them at the meeting. twice, actually. first what we receive from each suubi lady. then, again into bundles of 10 or 25. at epoh, they're washed and counted again before being put into fedex boxes or fiber bags to be taken back to magwa. the ones that come to magwa are counted again when they're packed into suitcases to come to america. if we're lucky, the bags only have to be packed once. if things get confusing, we'll take the necklaces out and do it all over again. now i have the bags in america. i took them out to air. i'll count them again and pack them again to take to the Holiday Booth in NYC.

FICTION

A day in the life of three Suubi women…

With a single shot from a single drop on the tin roof, Christine wakes up. It’s still dark. She sits up on the foam mat she shares with the baby. A strong gust rattles the windows’ wooden shutters. The rain sounds like war on her roof. She reaches for the matchbox and lights the paraffin lamp on the floor. The baby moves behind her. She turns around. His mouth is open and she can see his small sharp teeth. The combat on the roof increases and noise fills the room around her. Its so loud she can’t hear him cry.

Florence tightens the kitenge around her waist and feels for the coins and notes tied in the corner of the top skirt. She hopes she has left for the market early enough to make it back with time to cook for and feed her children lunch at mid-day. She waves and calls out Good Morning to the neighbor unlocking the door of the shop. She reminds herself to stop here on the way home to buy an onion, three tomatoes, and two peppers to mix with the beans that are already on the charcoal stove. She hurries and turns the corner onto the main road. She steps off the curb to avoid the grass flung by the slasher cutting the grass in the drainage ditch. She steps back up as a boda carrying two men and a driver swerves toward her around a pothole. The motorcycle follows the same path worn smooth by every two-wheeled vehicle that has come before. At the market she buys three packets of gold seed beads and one bundle of lightweight fishing line. If she hurries she’ll make it back home in time.

Elizabeth sits on a fiber mat under the jackfruit tree. She can hear her grandchildren playing on the other side of the house. She picks up a string of varnished beads and cuts them with a razor. She pushes the beads from the line into a plastic container. She calls to her youngest daughter to bring the rest of her supplies from inside the house. The oldest child runs toward her with a knob of sugar cane in each hand. The next born runs close behind and shoves the older child. She calls both of their names and scolds them for fighting. She picks up another string of beads, cuts the line, and pushes them into the container. She calls for her daughter again to bring her supplies.

Bakunzi, Anneti Group A Number 1

Anneti is tall and thin. Her hands are soft when she offers you a gentle handshake. She is older with a quiet, dignified presence. Anneti usually has a serious expression on her face, but is quick to smile when greeted. She cares for three of her children and one grandchild.

Anneti in her own words:

"When I was in P5 (fifth grade) my mother passed away, that’s when my problems began. When I reached P7 (seventh grade) my father told me to drop out of school to give chance for the others to study. I got married when I was 22. We stayed together for some time until my husband impregnated a girl who was under my care and whose family was friends with my husband. We became two wives but we were not getting enough love. We stayed until 2005 and then I moved to JInja. I moved to Jinja because I needed medical treatment (I have some complications with my head) and my husband was not taking enough care of me, so I decided to come to my sister who was supporting me well. Since I joined Suubi I can afford my medication, send some money to my child in Secondary school and even try to save some. Suubi has encouraged us to save in the bank which is very helpful to us."

andrea's birthday

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-OV16ZOkOg

watch the video here

it happens

looking at the last date of my blog and feeling a little ashamed. i'm immediately filled with excuses...the internet is so slow, i don't know what to say, no one reads this anyway. but that's not right.

i'm looking for a good metaphor of how i feel about blogging. i feel the same way about mediating disagreements between workers, about standing on line at the bank for an hour and my music player dies 5 minutes into it and the man behind me is touching me and i inch forward and the bag that the lady is holding is touching my leg and the man behind me moves forward again and now i'm touching both of them. i feel the same way about picking the nasties out of the drain on sunday because they haven't been picked since friday and they're full of fruit flies and ants. i feel the same way when i'm sleeping and wake up hearing someone outside the neighbor's gate calling someone's name for hours and hours.

what can i say about life in africa now?

its cool here and cloudy. its hot in the morning and the clouds build in the afternoon. it thunders and thunders and BOOM it rains. the wind blows and dust flies before it gets down to mud. then its over and its cool and the clouds are splattery (dotty? smeared?) like clouds in autumn in new jersey. like the clouds in pennsylvania when we camped out in the mountains in a small tent. it rained that night and we were cold. in the morning we were damp and our tent was covered in heavy red, yellow, orange, brown wet leaves. the car was warm. we drove back to jersey. the clouds were streaked, some dark and heavy, others light, feathered, airy. the air was cold and the wet leaves sparkled in the low-angled sunlight.

it looked just like that the other day. i was on a boda from here to there. it was cool. the breeze was even cool. the clouds were light and dark; fluffy and streaky and spotty. i looked up and went back to that weekend in pennsylvania. driving in a volkswagen. drinking coffee out of a wax-coated paper cup with a plastic lid. listening to cds around sharp curves and talking about the future, what we would do after and after and after.

then i looked down. we were behind a truck filled with sugar cane spewing diesel fumes and dust. we swerved around it, passed the posho factory, the bread factory, the muslim school. in the afternoon men walk with baskets on their heads filled with small plastic bags of nuts and seeds. they're selling afterschool snacks. every afternoon, i'm driving in, they're walking out. we pass, each on our way to work. we pass goats and chickens, small children holding machetes cut chunks of sugar cane. the boda men cleaning their motorcycles in the pools of water that collect next to the road between gardens. up over bumps and humps. slowing just enough to make it over then gun the engine to make it up the hill. children in school uniforms with only one or two functional buttons. all ugandans wear black sensible shoes to work. men dismount heavy black bicycles and walk the rest of the way up the hill. the pavement ends, the dirt road is marked by a smooth boda path.

when i arrive in danida at the suubi building i'm disoriented. what a long ride from pennsylvania. dust and diesel on my face. i've taken to listening to music while on the boda. drawn back to other places and times. do you remember when we sang that song in the fire pit dug out of the snow? we made snow benches that got softer and wetter as the fire grew. we sang that song and we were drumming on buckets. i was beating a metal shovel because it sounded like a steel drum. we sat in the snow. wet asses, dreaming of tropical places.

i pay the boda man. carry the bag of bananas and popcorn into the building. children call my name. it sounds like ambo or lambo. i sit on an orange bench. another orange bench is broken. at this rate we'll all be sitting on the floor by christmas. i greet them all.

"how are you?"

"how is the day?"

"irimaber?"

"ber"

"gang?"

"ber"

i sit again and think of what to do and think of what to say.

"it is cold."

"yes, we are cold"

"it is rainy season"

"yes it will rain"

"kot obicwe is how you say it, right?"

"aya, kot obicwe, it will rain."

yesterday i officially made water boil using the sun. i built a solar oven out of cardboard and aluminum foil. i put a dark wine bottle full of water in a clear plastic bag (that originally held 36 rolls of toilet paper) and set it on the solar cooker. Within an hour, the water boiled! So today I'm going to try rice. I want to build solar cookers with all of the suubi ladies and tailors so they can save money (and time and the atmosphere and their health) by sterilizing their water and cooking food without using charcoal or wood. there are a million reasons why solar cookers are great, but this is my number one. hopefully, we can get these going soon. I'm going to acquire some WAPIs so we know when the water has reached a high enough temperature to kill most of the bacteria and viruses.

We've had a bunch of visitors recently, more are coming today. I find it challenging to take people out for a day and give them the right amount of information. In a day, people want to hear what we do, details about the past, present and future regarding: who we work with, what products we make, how we sell them in america, what we hope to actually accomplish. I am working on summarizing and figuring out how to tailor my spiel to the audience. Its hard to not just start spewing about every detail of everything. I want to be intentional about telling the truth in a way that people can get a realistic picture of who we are, not just get stuck in the details of what we're doing right now. I guess I need to take my own advice and focus more on the big picture and not just get stuck in the details of right now.

Well, off to solar cooking, tours, breakfast club, english class, and fun!

i'm reading an article at cnn about "voluntourism," the idea that people want to do good works in a foreign place in addition to traditional holiday activities. they say that women take volunteer holidays more than men because they want cultural immersion in a safe place, camaraderie with fellow travelers, and want to reduce the "guilt" of vacationing. mom and dad and family are visiting in October for a little bit of voluntouring. mom and the aunties are going to do some sort of "clinic." (or at least look all the suubi ladies in the eye while they take their blood pressure and heart rate) We're going to install dad in the Suubi building with beading and macrame and tie-dye.

right now i'm drinking ugandan wine. its made here in jinja from hibiscus flowers and sold commercially from the winery where it is made across the river in njeru. the bottle says it has an "elegant taste" which my untrained palate finds as intensely sweet at the first followed by astringent then ending on something like old, leather boat shoes. i've almost finished my first glass.

its 7:30 pm and its officially dark. i have to get up and turn ... never mind, the power is out. Good night.

mama rachel

a beautiful day

another week. another suubi meeting. another 5 million paid.

yesterday i completed our first "direct deposit." within the past month, we have doubled the suubi ladies' salaries. this is a very, very good thing that can lead to very, very bad choices. you know what i'm talking about if you've ever had your salary doubled. suddenly, things that you struggled for are accessible. anyway... i want to promote banking among the suubi ladies. i found my suubi lady banking obsession when i first began to visit the suubi ladies and noticed that when they wanted to buy me a soda they reached under their couch cushion and grabbed some coins. money management is not high on the priority list when you don't have that much money. but now we're giving our ladies some money and its my priority to make sure they don't lose it under the chair.

now, more than one year later, more than 45 of our 93 ladies have bank accounts. during the last two weeks of April, we paid each of the 93 women 50,000 each. we told them that they could choose the amount of "direct deposit" in 10,000 increments. so the ladies brought us their bank account numbers and i made a neat excel table. during the suubi buying meetings we asked each lady how much she wanted to deposit. some ladies chose 10,000 or 20,000. some chose more. some even put all 50,000 in the bank.

on friday afternoon i went to the PRIDE bank. i stood on line for a long time. i brought a bag of 20,000 notes and printed out my neat list. i gave it to the teller and he nearly fainted. for the next three hours he alternated between doing a suubi lady deposit and taking a customer from the line. it wasn't fun, but it was worth it. i deposited a total of 1.8 million shillings into 45 bank accounts.

maybe it will rain, maybe it will just thunder

some random updates.

- Afrigadget is freaking awesome. its all about ingenious africans making something out of nothing. inspiring stories about creativity, entrepreneurship, and general boot-strap lifting.

- we're voting for teachers this week. the suubi group is already divided into three ordering sub-groups (A, B, C) now we're subdividing again to make three sections in each group (A1, A2, A3, B1...etc) and assigning a teacher to each section of 10-ish women. this week, we're having group meetings for each woman to nominate three teachers for her group. here's my criteria:

How to select teachers:

Good Character: HONESTY AND RESPECT. Someone who is a role-model. Someone who can both talk and listen. Someone who can solve problems and reduce conflict.

Good Commitment: HAS ENOUGH TIME TO ATTEND MEETINGS. Someone who has the time to organize the members in their section. Someone who can move around to meet the members one-on-one if needed. Someone who can follow through and complete tasks and paperwork.

Good Necklaces: KNOWS THE DESIGN. Someone who makes necklaces correctly. Someone who understands how necklaces are made and can learn new designs easily. Someone who can teach others.

Each person will nominate three people who they believe will be good teachers. They will write three names on a piece of paper and turn them in.

Light Gives Heat staff will count the nominations and interview those people with the most votes.

two of the three groups have voted on monday and tuesday. the third will vote on thursday. we've identified 4-5 people from each group to interview. i'm working on a rubric that will take into account the number of votes, a rating from each staff member from the interview, and a review of their necklace balance over the past few months.

the next step is to find some interview questions. i think i'll just adjust the ones i've been using for tailor interviews.

- the tailor interviews are fascinating. first you have to determine which language the applicant feels most comfortable speaking in: english, luganda, lusoga, luo. the applicants are very nervous and tend to clam up when you get them at the table. there is a fine balance in creating a warm, conversational environment where they'll actually give you some information and spoon feeding them questions that don't really tell you anything.

- collecting 10 random necklaces from 93 women is hard. they piled up on my lap and i clasped them and put bundles on my knees and shoulders and the back of the chair. eventually, i couldn't keep up with closing them and paying the women and having them sign and give us their bank account information. we've made this process a lot more complex. they are getting paper, we are subtracting that cost from their payment. they are selling us black plastic bags for 100/= each. (the bags are for the next epoh design) we add that to their payment. they're bringing in the "balance" of necklaces that were rejected for the previous week. they're bringing in their random necklaces plus those of friends. i am very thankful some observant suubi women saw me drowning in necklaces and assisted us in closing them and wrapping them before the end of the meeting.

- went to the unfortunately named, fabio office here in jinja. they are working on a map and directory of bicycle tracks in the area. still looking for a bike. i'm still waffling between a single-speed giant, heavy african bicycle and a mzungu mountain bike.

tuesday again

the end of march. usually a funny, melty, end of winter, hectic inside, still too cold outside time of year. the time when you wait for the big thaw. the one that matters because its never going to freeze that much again until october. when you know you are on your way out of constricting winter and someday soon, you'll actually get to wear a short sleeve shirt. for the love of just one layer.

here its different. its actually getting a little chillier. at least when abrupt, violent thunderstorms pass. the wind picks up and the temperature drops 20 degrees and the wall of clouds draw a line in the sky. it splatters briefly, then picks up and rains, and finally monsoons. waves water spray in all directions. it monsoons from up and left and right and then ground is quickly flooded and then it splashes and it even rains from down.

i was on a motorcycle on sunday in something like that. we drove right into it. he kept looking behind to see if the sun would keep up with us. but it was moving in our direction. i felt the splatters and a minute later it felt like a hailstorm. my boda man was speeding through this storm. he had his hand flat out in front of his face shielding his eyes from the piercing drops. luckily, he had his wits about him. he slowed and drove through the rushing water in the ditch on the side of the road up to some shops with an awning.

today, work is work is work is work. paperwork tuesday is a drag. actually, i've been meaning to ask. is there anyone out there in the HR world looking to do a mitzvah, get some karma, or do a good deed? i'm working on a staff manual of policies in the workplace for our tailors and suubi women. just some basics on payment schedules and sick days and what to do if you have a problem and all sorts of stuff like that. i've been spending some time on hr.com looking at all of the titles and headings. is there anyone out there who likes to do this stuff? does anyone want to help me write a staff manual for a small group (10) of full time employees and a larger group (100) of contract employees. speaking of contract work...does anyone know how to calculate labor in to pay-per-piece contract work? does it need to be calculated in at all in determining profit margins for the contract workers?

if you have any idea about what i'm talking about. or if you've successfully complete a fair trade federation producers to retailers application, let me know. i would be eternally grateful and african women will sing songs of praise and love in your honor. (seriously, i'll get it and send you the dvd)

i think i'm alone now

there doesn't seem to be anyone around

my garbage is someone's meal

It's Wednesday morning. It's windy outside. It's also very hot. There are many things that I am planning on doing today. First, I'm going to help Harriet clean out some of the back rooms here in the compound so we can move beds on Friday. Then I'm going to order a bunch of furniture: metal shelves, stools, poles for mosquito nets. Then it will be time for English class. I'm going to leave you here with some of my manifesto on empowerment. Let me know what you think.
LGH Grows: From mission to vision

Mission: Empowering Africans through the encouragement of economic
sustainability and creative endeavors. Motivating people in the west
to “be the change” they want to see in the world.

What does empowerment look like?

Empowerment means to give someone the authority or power to do
something. Empowerment means to enable someone to do something.
Empowerment means to make someone stronger and more confident,
especially in controlling their life and claiming their rights.
Empowerment means emancipating, unshackling, freeing, and liberating.

Empowerment is real; it is giving people authority and power through
meaningful activities that have a defined impact on their lives.
Empowerment has measureable outcomes that are beneficial to the both
the parties giving and receiving the power because a balanced
relationship is a healthy relationship.

Empowerment is lasting change. It is both self-sufficiency and
interdependence. Empowerment is Africans who can live and thrive
without Western charities and aid. It is acknowledging that socially
responsible capitalism requires that Africans will own successful,
respectful businesses and that those businesses can control methods of
production and have access to international markets without Western
middlemen.

Empowerment acknowledges that both Africans and Westerners can help
each other in meaningful, lasting ways. Empowerment begins from truth.
The truth about what each party knows and possesses. It starts from an
understanding of each other and the mutual creation of a place where
individuals can bring their strengths and weaknesses, their hopes and
fears to a place of fairness and honesty.

tuesday

waiting, waiting, waiting...

for andrea to return from kampala so i can help unload kilos of tailoring stuff.

for baker to (hopefully) call and chat.

for something to happen or i'm going to bed.

i'm looking forward...

to going to sleep in my giant bed with the room all to myself.

to teaching English class tomorrow. we're going to talk about the English and Luo words for feelings and emotions.

to planning a trip over Easter. there are some volcanos in the west and a big mountain called elgon in the east.

things i will accomplish this week...

getting a high quality bunk bed (they call it a double decker) built for a fair price and getting 2 good mattresses for it.

building some kind of wall behind the garage door to block bugs and sound and make it a little more bedroomy. urg, that sounds difficult just thinking about it.

fixing the volunteer costs google doc to reflect new changes.

i am so fixated on lists. i have so many notebooks of different sizes full of lists of things to buy and do and communicate about.

my brain is just stuck on lists. i want to make an exciting list. is that possible?

list of exciting things:

cutting t-shirts into new designs to improve bodily airflow. (ok not that exciting)

going on a mini-vacation to eden rock campsite this weekend and socializing in an appropriate manner.

finding that i had just omitted a 0 on the accounting and not actually lost 50,000/= place value is important kids.

the possibility of finding music in uganda that doesn't suck.

this list is depressingly short, i'm going to work on it. i'll let you know of progress

a cow is mooing in the distance

I used to get a lot of alone time. I used to sit and stare and carry things and read and cook and think and read and plan and reflect and basically do very little for extended periods of time.

I could be alone inside and outside and in town and even when I was working there was quiet time when I just sat and thought about anything I chose. From my house I could usually hear the ocean, and if it was out I heard the refrigerator hum, the magpies on the roof, maybe a car passing.

It is different now. The house is never empty. I suddenly notice when silence happens, it is deafening here. I wake up in the middle of the night realizing the power has gone out and the fan is off and everything is black and silent. I can hear myself breathe and my heart beat.

Then something happens and the crickets begin again and a dog barks and a horn sounds in the distance and I’m brought right back here. This place is so strong. I am always moving, being dragged in 100 directions by everyone’s wants and needs.

From the moment I wake up until the time I go horizontal, I am planning for other people and weighing their concerns and my concerns and the groups concerns and the organizations concerns and what concerns we all may have in the future. Assessing how all of those line up and which ones should be acted on in what order is perpetual.

Each day through the choices I make, I am increasing or decreasing the amount of easy or hard work for myself in the future. This is always the case, but here it is somehow amplified. Like I’m doing everything for the first time and those impressions are the most important. Being diplomatic all the time is exhausting.

Now I talk and I work and I write emails and lists and lists about what I’m going to write in emails. I am always listening to dream re-enactments and other people’s to do lists and trying to figure out what someone is saying in another language. Now I am always right here in this present moment actively making decisions.

When it rains, it gets really hot afterward...

Forgive me reader for I have sinned; it has been 12 days since my last post.

This week has been another busy one. Life moves quickly here. I've spent most of my days being diplomatic. Talk of fairness and honesty and positive communication. Sometimes its hard to take my own advice. My communication as of late oscillates between platitudes and making it all better and telling people what they want to hear and arguing with people who I want things from about prices and amounts and times. How about telling people the truth that they need to hear or finding the closest thing to truth when you want what they've got and don't want to pay more than everyone else for it?

Maybe that's too much to ask. I have so many questions sometimes. Is it worth my energy to do this? Is it going to make anything any better? Is this going to be a lasting solution? Is there such a thing as a lasting solution or will I find more satisfaction looking at everything as an ongoing journey full of dilemmas and slight relative progress? The funny part is that I'm not even questioning the big picture. The big questions are out of my control: Why the street kids are hungry when I'm full. Why women work so hard and are ok with their husbands playing games on the street corners all day. Inequality, unfairness, and suffering are inherent pieces of the system. I know that I'm here to do the best I can with what I have. I pay women to make necklaces and tailors to make bags. I create and motivate dynamic, beneficial programming focused on education and self-empowerment. I can do that.

How does my personal satisfaction play into this? How can I make the choices each day that will bring maximum benefit to the myself and the group? I know that the martyr thing doesn't work. I can't bring anymore joy or happiness into the cosmic equations if I don't have those things in excess. How do I get there everyday? My basic needs are met. Lord knows I am well fed and I sleep and I read and I get to be creative and I have time to work hard and time to rest and I even get to dictating my general schedule for each day. I am not dissatisfied. Is turmoil part of the game? Do I make myself a better person when I critique and second-guess and ruminate over my choices and attitude? Does it help or hurt when I practice having difficult conversations in my head?

Some days I can address these issues. Some days I am diplomatic and level-headed and eloquent. Some days I am avoidant. I will turn away from issues that should be addressed. I let them sit and get bigger because I am unwilling to have those difficult conversations. Is the struggle not to take the easy way out unending? I know the answer to that one. I know that I should make the best decisions I know how to make each time I am presented by the choice even (especially) when it is difficult and doing the right thing requires more effort and follow-through.

I am allowed to be lazy. I am allowed to make mistakes. Am I allowed to be lazy in order to avoid potentially making mistakes when I know that's what I'm doing? Coping skills be damned. Avoidance is my dilemma.

That and I've been having this recurring dream about a wilderness park with elephants and bears in separate, large holding areas on two sides of mountains. I am walking in between. Think Jurassic Park the movie without the electric SUVs. I can see the bears on one side and the elephants on the other. They come tumbling down the mountain and stop at the fence and look at me. I am definitely avoiding that one. I've decided that I don't have to decide between elephants and bears. Longing for one is not longing for the other and it doesn't make a difference which one I'm longing for. They are two sides to the same coin that both exist at the same time. You can't see both sides at once, who wants to walk on the edge of a coin? I have to pick just for the sake of picking. Just for the sake of deciding and being decisive and not being avoidant.

Kopango...

So here I am on another Monday night writing to you. Whoever you are. I like writing blogs on Mondays; it feels like a good time for reflection about the previous week. I’m pretty sure this week has been quite busy; I’m just having some trouble right now remembering all the things that I did. I don’t want to get up and find my planner; it seems like cheating and I will definitely start sweating if I move more than my fingertips. So you’re just stuck reading this semi-nonfiction based on me and my brain.

Last week we had our first necklace class. We rolled a bunch of black box beads that were a little too fat and a little too loose (insert American joke here) to be pretty. We didn’t have the right glue. But ladies came and we explained what we were ordering in great detail and generally had a good time.

I taught English class on Wednesday. I really like doing that. For me it’s a comfortable environment and I get to translate everything from English to acholi. It is definitely helping with my language skills. This week I learned about the low “ng” sound. I can do it on its own, but it’s really hard to throw into the middle of a word or sentence. One of the most difficult things to say is “nyngya…” which is “my name is…” it’s a good thing everyone already knows my name.

On Thursday nights, I cook dinner for everyone in the house, forcing them to sit and have “official” check ins about their week. We talk about the mission and the vision of LGH and how the work we do fits in. We try to highlight specific achievements for the previous week and talk about our big goals.

On Friday we officially began “the breakfast club.” No, rob Lowe and Molly ringwald weren’t there. But we took mzungu breakfast: scrambled eggs, toast, and tea to a group of suubi ladies that live in a section of town called babu. They enjoyed the food very much and we sat and chatted for a few hours. We had some great conversations about how the ladies can best approach us to talk about their problems and what kinds of assistance/support we can offer. We talked about Ugandan dentistry (scary) and birth control (6 different types are available here.) It was quite fun. Next week we’ll do breakfast with the epoh tailors.

Saturday was a very busy day. I gave the landlord some of the rent money. The household met as a group to discuss their plans/activities for the following week and prioritize any specific things that need to be accomplished. Then we went dancing…Acholi dancing. I don’t think I’ll ever find the right words to express all of the emotions I feel when we go dancing. First we had to find the ladies. We did and they said we had to go pick up the drums and calabashes on the other side of town. I went on a long walk and located them at a suubi lady’s house. We brought them back to the field near the suubi building where a large group of onlookers and suubi women had gathered. We set up benches for the drummers, the ladies who sing grabbed calabashes and wires for scraping them, the dance leader had her whistle in her mouth. The dancers make two lines and the clabashers make two more lines on the outside of them. The calabashers start singing and the drum starts 4 beats later and the calabashes keep the time. The dancers respond to the calabashers calls and they all march together. Then the lines split and form circles. The dances are called one directly after another. The crowd of onlookers pushes forward and ladies with sticks move around the circle to keep space. The dust rises from the foot stomping and makes visible streams of burning sunlight. The dancers move into two lines again and the leader faces them and demonstrates each move before they do it. There is a lot of hip popping and chest shaking. The ladies wear sashes and beads around their waists to accentuate the hips. Their heads stay in one place but their necks and shoulders vibrate on an off-beat from their feet and hips.

When I watch acholi dancing I think about humanity and the creation of culture. I think about how each acholi woman, no matter how well she dances or sings or calabashes or drums, knows her exact place in the universe while she is participating. No matter who she is as an individual: many children or none; grandmother or daughter; able to send her children to boarding school or not able to feed them; good husband or none, she belongs in this place at this time doing this thing because it is what acholi women do. It is what acholi women have done since there were acholi women. I feel a certain sense of purity and lack of judgment. As an outsider and leader, my voice is listened to when I speak and I am given special attention, food, and chairs. When I watch acholi dancing, even if the ladies are doing it because we scheduled it for that day and time and even if we purchased and brought the drums, I don’t really matter. This has happened for centuries before my existence and will continue for centuries after. My presence and existence are only acknowledged if I choose to participate and be an acholi woman in that place at that time.

the rooster crows at seven

Greetings from Jinja. I missed my Monday night deadline, so here is a tasty Tuesday blog. I am currently sitting at the dining room table watching Andrea and Jenny pack for their shop-fest in Kampala. We are in the process of designing and producing many new styles of necklaces and bags, so we need lots of orange paper and stretchy plastic line and fabric lining and more scraps. I'm happy that Andrea is here and likes to do this stuff. Kampala is quite overwhelming. Today I'm going to drop off the van at the mechanic's house so he can fix the brakes (yay for stopping!) and research some more cell phone plans. Then I get to go find the landlord for the tailoring compound and put down a deposit on another garage. Then I'll go to FINCA bank, the best poor-people's bank ever, and deposit some dough for some SUUBI ladies. Then, if it's not to hot and I'm not too tired, I might varnish some beads. I should at least buy some methylated spirits to prep the varnish. Then in the evening maybe to the market to do some food shopping.

The past week was mostly fun. We decided to take the plunge and divide the SUUBI group into three subgroups. We got colored stickers, labled them A, B, C, and wrote up a summary to announce at the beginning of the Saturday meeting. We had a hard time deciding what to order from the ladies for the following week. We need black box-shaped beads for bracelets. We also need orange beads, but didn't yet get the paper printed in the proper color. We need giant red, yellow, brown, and orange beads with giant holes and a new (can I say complicated?) flavour. We also promised the ladies that we would purchase the same amount from them each week. So if group A was doing black box beads, how many giant-hole beads from group B does that equal? We did our best job with the math, but there was a lot of guessing involved.

One of the funnest parts of my job is getting to pray at the beginning of the meetings. Now, the ladies are pretty conservative about their prayers, but I'm not one to limit myself to just one deity. We need all the help we can get. I have a great time invoking the assistance of the muses of patience and helpfulness and creativity as well as the higher powers of love and understanding. I like to pray for thankfulness and thank everyone for their prayers. Sometimes we pray for the American stock market and sometimes for the health of sick children. I've never enjoyed praying so much.

So after the prayer, I started introducing the concept of three groups. I already did some pre-teaching at English class on the previous Wednesday, so I didn't have 94 Acholi women looking at me like I was crazy. (It was more like 65) I get to stand up and make a few statements which are translated by Santa into Luo (the language of the Acholi people) For some reason, as I'm being translated, my phrases get shorter and shorter. I'll start out saying "We're going to split the SUUBI group into three smaller groups. We will all still meet together on Saturdays and be paid the same, but each group will make different necklaces." and Santa will say "Luo. Luo. Luo. Acholi. Acholi. Acholi." And then the ladies will start talking amongst themselves and firing questions in Luo back in my direction. So after a few exchanges like this, my speech gets a lot shorter. I'll say "Group A will make..." and look at Santa and she'll say "Group A. Luo. Luo. Luo." "...80 giant red, yellow, orange, and brown beads." and look at Santa to translate again. I don't think it makes anything easier, but I retain control of the conversation.

This time I drew a three by three chart on the blackboard. Across each row I wrote the Group name and what we were ordering for the 30th of Jan and the 6th of Feb. I even color coded it. As it turns out, this may not be the best way to organize and communicate information to unschooled, mostly illiterate African women, but I don't think it was the worst way. We spent the next 30 minutes clarifying and explaining. Different ladies got up and stood in front of the board and pointed to the squares that made up the chart and explained each one. Some ladies chastised others for talking in the middle of the explanation. And others just appeared to sit and nod and (hopefully) understand.

As each lady came up to sell their necklaces, we put a sticker on their name badge, or on their money if they didn't have one and explained to each of them individually what their order was for the following week. Each lady is supposed to move from left to right in front of our coffee table (our sign of power and authority) first handing her necklaces to Jenny, who checks for tension and length and passes them to Andrea, who checks the clasps. If the necklaces pass, Marayah asks the woman for her name badge and asks her to sign the buying sheet and I hand out the right amount of money. Easy enough. Some ladies don't like this left to right business and will sit themselves down right in the middle of the process and thrust their necklaces into the mix. Some ladies bring necklaces for other ladies and will have piles of necklaces. Some bring necklaces from the previous week that they had to take home and fix. Greetings are very important, culturally speaking, so each lady greets each one of us as she enters the building and again as she sells her necklaces to us.

Approximately two and a half hours later, we have paid approximately 1.7 million shillings to 94 women and collected just under 400 necklaces. All in a day's work.

week one

Monday again in Jinja Town. We just returned from the market. I love the market at night. The vendors have small kerosene lamps made of old tins. From far off, they are orange globes surrounded by colorful fruits and vegetables. The main market area is closed off at dark, so the goods are moved to blankets and tables on the sidewalk and street. There is always a festive, salubrious atmosphere. The vendors try to sell as much as possible before they put their wares in wicker baskets covered with banana leaves for the night. The prices are very good. Somehow, Andrea got it in her head that night meat was better than day meat. So we sauntered over to the meat tables. We have an affinity for goat, so after passing the beef tables, we initiated a negotiation with a man standing in front of a whole skinned side of goat and some random chunks of legs? ribs? We agreed on 6000 for one kilo. He sharpened his 3 foot long machete in his right hand against the 3 foot long machete in his left hand and gently sliced off a strip of leg meat and flipped it onto the scale. Then he raised his hand, made eye contact with all of us, and brought it down across the bone and tossed it in. A boy came up and sold us a cavera (black plastic bag) and we put the meat in. We put that cavera into our bigger bag of tomatoes, onions, peppers, cabbage, beans, bread and cassava and I practiced my African head carrying skills back to the car.

The past week was full and busy. I had extensive conversations with Andrea and Marayah about where they want to go with their aspects of the program: epoh bags and volunteers respectively, and how they see the mission of LGH fitting into their lives. How do we empower Africans? How to we motivate Americans to live with hope? I'm envisioning a big group juggle of hope and empowerment. We'll toss around hope and empowerment to each other like bean bags and rubber chickens, each holding one idea long enough to acknowledge it's existence in our lives despite our inability to possess or control it and realize our amazing ability to share it with others.

I went to English class and a Suubi meeting and made speeches like I was the boss. I purchased, washed, and shipped 461 necklaces with lots of help and support. I met with the boys I taught last year and watched popeye cartoons while eating pineapple on saturday morning. I did a lot of shopping for water tubs and sitting mats and notebooks and pens and chalk. I wrote many emails about the landlord (big meeting 9am tomorrow) and night guard (repaying loans) and exactly how much money to pay for everything (tailor's salaries, walkie talkies, a safe, fixing the brakes in the van)

I did not get bitten by a snake while eating fried eggplant and cucumber sandwiches in tall grass near the river. I did not get sunburned while sitting in the sun by the pool for 5 hours. I did not get stressed out when the money was off by 40,000, the van was not starting, and the shipping boxes were not this town.

I want to figure out if we will have to move, so I can caulk the showers and toilets and reorganize the kitchen and get the fastest internet East Africa has to offer. I want to buy a boat and go out on the Lake. I want to delegate responsibilities, set reasonable time frames, and see productivity and progress. And I think right now I want to go to bed.

I'll leave you with a photo of the bajaj motorbike that Andrea and I want to purchase for the low, low price of just over 6 million shillings. They're not even legal in Uganda yet, we're going to be so freaking trendy.

greetings from jinja

holy frijoles! i actually made it! here i am in jinja, uganda at 5:30 am sitting on the uncomfortable brown couch in the front room listening to george sweep leaves and the rooster send his greetings to the neighborhood. uganda remains: the smell of humidity and burning and dust, damp mornings, the fastest sunrises. the compound and the house are oddly unchanged. betty and i stood chatting at the facing sinks: she was outside hand washing clothes, i washed dishes inside. i have to keep reminding myself that one year has passed.

yesterday andrea and i drove from the entebbe backpackers (all of my belongings and i arrived unscathed, i was so happy i pulled out my harmonica and started tooting away until the shout from the room next door reminded me that it was well past midnight) to kampala (the driver, abdullah, and i had a lovely chat about ugandan and american concepts family and the benefits and detriments of one's responsibility to their relations) and on to jinja (i was greeted by all of betty's wild jumping and dancing and ululating) ululating is an undulating high pitched call that many african women make when they are happy. it can best be described as an opera singer impersonating a rooster or perhaps a rooster impersonating an opera singer.

well, the sun is nearly up. although i don't think anyone inside this house is close. i think i'll go for a walk before the sun realizes its full potential.