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.