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.