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.

testing...testing...

does this still work?