Though it’s been almost a year (!) since I’ve written here, my Masaka glasses are still in focus, though I am not conscious of them every day.  My annoyance at Christmastime advertisements has certainly been more acute these past two years.  And then I hear the Dear Santa (I want a stick) song by comedian Sean Morey… I just don’t do well with that kind of humor.  Is he pointing out the extreme differences in kid’s lives around the world to make fun of the ridiculous over-consumption in the US?  Or is it schadenfreude, happiness at the misfortune of others?*

Either way, poverty is too heart breaking to make the butt of a joke.  Grudgingly, the song does bring up an interesting point – what gifts do we give?

My friend Krystal reminded me of an important idea today:  instead of buying more stuff your friends and family may or may not need, donate to an organization that helps people who are in need.  Probably you’ve heard this idea called “alternative” gift giving.  If you’re still looking for gift ideas – for Christmas or anytime – Krystal and I both have on-the-ground experience with the following two organizations:

Heifer Project International (www.heifer.org)
The community group I worked with in Bulayi formed in part to support the education and training needed to be eligible for Heifer Project goats.  One of my Ugandan coworkers, a veterinarian, was employed by Heifer Project to help these families care for their goats.  He explained the extensive process that families go through to be eligible, as well as the monitoring and help that they are given once they receive animals.  One key element is “passing on the gift” – recipients of Heifer Project animals are required to share their animals’ offspring with neighbors.  Read more about the Heifer Project approach to sustainability here.  Recall that according to the Masaka District Development Plan, 72% of residents of Masaka practice subsistence agriculture.  These animals make a difference.

This napping goat is actually one of Maama's.

BUSODA (Buddu Social Development Association)
This is where Krystal completed her internship; it is a human rights organization geared towards improving the communities of the town of Masaka.  Check out her post for more details.

These kids and their grandma are standing in front of their vegetable garden.

Think outside the box!  Happy Holidays!

*Isn’t it great when a language has one perfect word where others take four or five?  Thanks for the German knowledge, Megh!

I trimmed my fingernails today, and when I got to my left thumb I realized I would be cutting off the last physical representation of Rebekkah and Avi’s wedding ceremony that I had been carrying with me since November.  I had a small brown line of henna, a basically permanent stain from the same paste that wore off my skin just a couple of weeks after the wedding.  Somehow I felt that this occurrence needed to be documented.

The day after the henna was applied, it appeared at its darkest. Until today, a line on my thumbnail was all that remained.

I seem to dwell on these physical symbols of experiences that shape me, particularly the monumental experiences.  Traveling in Mumbai and Goa for 10 days for Rebekkah and Avi’s wedding is one such experience; any scale of traveling can jolt me out of my routine and make me reevaluate my habits and my worldview.  When I return home, however, that new worldview to which I was exposed slowly fades.  I cling to tangible, wearable souvenirs as proof of the experience, trying to keep the memories more active in my daily life by having some representative THING.  I wore a friendship bracelet, blue and white, home from Finland as an anklet; it’s long gone now, of course, and I don’t even remember the details of who made it for me.  Katie and I bought similar anklets while traveling in France two summers later.

Though I put psychological weight into these THINGS, I know I embody my traveling experiences and they are now part of me.  This fact becomes evident in my anger every time I hear a generalization about Africa.  According to WorldAtlas.com, Africa is 8 times the size (area) of the US.  It is made up of 53 countries; when I think of the cultural differences within Uganda (about the size of Oregon), I can only begin to imagine the differences over the whole continent.  Basically I am overly sensitive to the way people talk about the continent.  I just have to remember that my experience of “Africa” is one small window on the continent so that someone telling a story about their experience is not wrong.  However, if they tell it like it represents the whole continent, I get mad.

Once again this blog serves an outlet for me, a place to vent my thoughts and frustrations about how to think about and live with these thoughts and realizations that come from visiting these places that seem so different from home.  The difficulty comes from my view that fundamentally they are not so different, though the problems the average person faces in India and Uganda are more about basic needs than I’ve ever had to worry about here.  So I’m faced with a conflicting desire to share my experiences by proclaiming on the one hand that not everyone is starving in Africa but on the other I want to increase awareness about the inequalities that do exist.  The world is a complicated place, and I’m still figuring out how to share my passion about our shared humanity.

On Election Day, Tuesday, November 4, 2008, two Ugandan friends emailed me to say thanks for electing Barack Obama as our next president.  Mwebale okulonda President Obama, Lillian wrote.

This evening I went to a hear Alexandra Fuller speak about growing up during the Rhodesia/Zimbabwe independence/civil war and how it has affected her and the writing she has done.  This post is essentially borrowing many other people’s thoughts, particularly those of poets, writers and thinkers that she mentioned, in addition to the insights that she herself shared.  I haven’t heard the word “soul” in too long, and I regret that I feel the pull of studio so that I will not probe too deeply beyond the thoughts that she shared.

To begin with, before we get to soul, I was immediately reminded about the deplorable state of my African history knowledge, so I consulted Wikipedia when I got back here to the Design building, particularly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodesia and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Rhodesia.

The area now known as Zimbabwe was named Rhodesia in 1895 after the Briton who obtained mineral rights for the area in 1888.  There is a lot of complicated history in the meantime, but for tonight I’ll skip ahead:  Rhodesia declared itself independent from Britain in 1965 and was ruled by white settlers until 1979.  The civil war between Rhodesians (whites) and native blacks began in 1972, known as the “Bush War” to whites and the Second Rebellion to blacks.  Blacks outnumbered whites 22:1 in Rhodesia, yet many Western countries supported the Rhodesians, including the US.  Fuller told the story of getting her driver’s license in Idaho around the mid- to late 1980s:  when she approached the counter, the clerk recognized her accent as Rhodesian and commented about it.  Fuller was astonished, until the clerk told her that Rhodesian pilots were trained in Idaho for that civil war.

In 1980, the Republic of Zimbabwe became independent, with a president whose name should be familiar, Robert Mugabe.  Soon after that Fuller moved to the US, and, at age 24, she had the right to free speech for the first time.  Please pause and let that sink in.

Fuller’s mother wanted her to become a writer, saying something like “you can pay someone to do your math but no one but you can find your voice.”  After Fuller moved to the US, she began writing Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight.  She wrote ten versions, all of which ignored or downplayed the presence and pervasiveness of alcoholism and racism in her childhood.  Then she wrote the truth, which became the published memoir.  She said “having written that book, I am in exile forever.”  She spoke of the deep loneliness in the realization that however heinous the Rhodesians were, she can never be part of the community in which she was born.  She then quoted part of Walt Whitman’s Preface to Leaves of Grass, 1855, the need to “re-examine all you have been told at school or church, or in any books, and dismiss whatever insults your soul.”

While talking about her writing process and what drives her to write, Fuller told the following parable.  Three people are in a locked cell; two of the prisoners are sleeping when the third realizes that the air is running out in the cell.  The awake prisoner can be kind and allow the other two prisoners to remain sleeping, or she can be honest and wake them up.  If she wakes them up, there is also a chance that one of them will know how to unlock the door.  As a storyteller, Fuller strives to write with honesty, considering the chance that she will wake someone up from their locked cell, and they will realize they have the key to open it.  She hasn’t given them the key, but the ability to find their key.

Fuller also spoke of the South African poet Breyten Breytenbach; he was held a prisoner in solitary confinement for his anti-apartheid views when he returned to South Africa illegally in 1975.  The only way for prisoners to communicate with each other was by singing each night.  This was also a death-row holding area, where a prisoner was hung about every three days.  The prisoners would sing together each night, except on the night before a hanging.  That night, the prisoner sentenced to die would sing alone.  During that last song of the prisoner, Breytenbach spoke of needing to change the quality of listening.  Fuller connected to that need of changing the quality of listening as she researched her books. While writing her latest book, The Legend of Colton H. Bryant, she realized her own prejudices were holding her back from hearing the story of the Wyoming roughneck.  She spoke of the need to dismiss the labels and become authentically herself, saying “scrape away at your beliefs to make sure they don’t calcify into prejudice.”  Remember that we’re all made from the same soul.

Fuller recalled a common saying: “the only book that’s worth writing is the one that almost kills you.”  She said it should kill you, it should shift your soul.  “The clothes you wore while writing no longer fit.”

She ended by returning to Breytenbach.  When he was released from jail, he was overjoyed to see COLOR in the world again, having been surrounded by grays – even his eyesight had become somewhat grayed due to vitamin deficiency.  Once out of jail, he felt as if zombies surrounded him since he was so amazed to see the brightness of colors.  This is a very strange thing since it would seem that life would be more zombie-like within jail.  She closed with this:

“Your only job on the planet is to realize that you have one shot at this [life on earth]… your only job is to find your voice.  When you find your voice, you will be awake.  The challenge is to STAY AWAKE.”

An early morning walk through Doolittle

More of Whitman’s Preface to Leaves of Grass
“This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun, and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men; go freely with the powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and mothers, of families: read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life:  re-examine all you have been told at school or church, or in any books, and dismiss whatever insults your soul.” (for the whole Preface, see http://www.bartleby.com/39/45.html)

For some interviews with Alexandra Fuller, to get a better feel for her tone than I have been able to capture in my notes:

http://www.powells.com/authors/fuller.html

http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/0303/fuller/interview.html

http://www.alexandrafuller.org/

Tonight during supper with my family Mom asked if I am still using my Masaka eyes.

Lately it’s felt more like Masaka glasses, that pair that are often left forgotten in the other room.  Occasionally I will have moments of memories, like a week ago after a lecture about global warming.  I was hovering in the periphery of a small group discussion and someone mentioned the idea that the human population on earth must be brought under control, particularly in Third World countries.  Here’s when my dilemma about how to talk about my time in Uganda comes up.  I guess I said something like I had an internship in Uganda this past summer and from my observations, children have a much different importance there than they do here.  For many people in Uganda, children are the main hope of economic support.  There is no Social Security or retirement paycheck on which to depend.  Maama would still be living in a mud house if her daughter and son-in-law hadn’t paid for the construction of her concrete home.  She would still be fetching water from the spring each day if they hadn’t helped to pay for her water pump.

Ah here comes the rain.  As I walked around the neighborhood this evening the lightning flickered brighter and the thunder boomed louder.  A streetlight went out just as I passed under it on two different occasions; it made me think of my host brothers learning that I actually preferred to sit outside in the dark with my evening tea.  At first they would light one of the lanterns and set it on the bench behind the house.  I had to tell them several times that I would rather have them use the lantern in the kitchen – that I preferred to watch the stars.  I told them I prefer to watch the stars than TV and they laughed.

I saw so many shooting stars in Masaka.  In Luganda, shooting star is kilabwamu, which means “star only one person sees.”  The two biggest shooting stars I have ever seen both occurred on my boda boda ride home after shopping in town with Maama on my first day with my family.  Maybe it’s silly, but seeing those shooting stars gave me strength and a sense of calm as I clung to my second ever boda boda.  The boda boda driver steered up that steep hill in the semi-darkness, avoiding the gully that had cut its way down through the gravel.

I had another moment of celestial strength when I was on the airplane from Detroit to Amsterdam.  It was 4:50 AM Amsterdam time, I had duly noted in my almost ceaseless journaling during the flights.  In the dark cabin, I looked out my window and who was there but my friend Auriga, one of a handful of constellations I had committed to memory during 9th grade earth science.  If I had remembered the story I would have felt even more struck by the chance sighting:  Auriga is Latin for charioteer, and its brightest star, Capella, means little female goat in Greek.  Both stories are quite accurate for a flight to Uganda.

In my struggle to remember my Masaka glasses, seeing my tattooed shoe can help.

It’s not only abstract thoughts that remind me of my time in Uganda.  Ugandan motorcycles physically marked both my shoes and my Chaco sandals.  My left shoe has two parallel oil stripes from swinging my foot onto Jjagwe’s motorcycle’s chain, and my right sandal is missing a chunk from its side due to swinging my foot into the chain while on a boda boda into town.  Whew, thank goodness for those thick soles!

Now I only hear the rain still falling from the downspout and distant thunder.

Though I’ve only been back in the States for a week now, it sort of feels like I never went anywhere – amazing how quickly home and summer vacation routines take over. In spite of this my Masaka eyes are continuing to see the world differently.

I just returned from a road trip, visiting friends in Memphis and small-town Arkansas. It’s strange that one (long) day’s drive can take me to such a different world – no air travel necessary. The town where my friend Meghan is living as a Teach For America teacher is completely racially divided. We drove along the lake and admired the beautiful houses and their private docks, though as far as Megh knows, only one Black family lives on the lakeshore. Off of the lakeshore drive, the town is literally divided in half – south of Main Street is White and north of Main Street is Black. The churches are divided by race as well. I felt uncomfortable when we went to the grocery store – how do you interact with this community? If I saw a white person, I tried to suppress assumptions about how racist they must be and if I saw a black person, I realized that if I was too friendly they would probably just assume I was trying to be culturally superior by ignoring the enormous elephant in the room that is racial injustice. It was depressing. How is it possible to get out of that cycle of racism?

Driving a personal car on those smooth US interstates seemed to be the utmost in luxury after Uganda’s crowded taxis and pothole-ridden roads. In fact, in Uganda my preferred mode of short-distance transportation was the boda boda, essentially a motorcycle taxi. A motorcycle’s two wheels could avoid the potholes more efficiently than a car could. I never mentioned them earlier because of a silly superstition – I reasoned that if I widely admitted to taking boda bodas, I would jinx myself and die in a terrible crash. The Peace Corps have strict rules against boda bodas for insurance reasons, but frankly, if you refuse to take a boda boda you severely limit your ability to travel in East Africa.

Boda Boda boys waiting for passengers; the sign posted on the tree lists the going rates for the most common rides from Ssaza.

When I first arrived in Masaka I remember wondering about all the motorcycle gangs collecting at every street corner… until I realized that they were boda boda boys waiting for their next jobs. Official boda boda drivers hold a special license and are members of professional boda boda unions. According to an article in The New Vision newspaper, boda bodas originated in the Uganda-Kenya border town of Busia (10 July 2008). They were bicycles ridden across the border in order to smuggle coffee. This evolved into transporting people across the border without the necessary documents – bicyclists would shout, “border border” to potential passengers, though their pronunciation was “boda boda.” Boda boda use has now spread outwards from that border town to fill a niche in public transportation needs. Motorcycles now seem to be more favored than bicycles, at least in the hilly town of Masaka.

FSD did their part to scare us out of boda boda use during our orientation week. During my first day with my host family, however, Maama told me we were going in to town to pick up some things. I thought “town” could just mean Ssaza, the town we walked to, but then all of a sudden she was approaching the boda boda stage in Ssaza, debating prices with the drivers, and then what could I do but hop on? And by hop on I mean sit sidesaddle because of wearing a skirt!

Boda boda riding is an acquired taste. At first, it’s terrifying and you’re pretty sure that you’re going to die whenever you get on. Riding sidesaddle seemed very precarious. Plus, not knowing the routes very well in the beginning made me put all my trust in the driver’s professionalism. I was trying to figure out why I wasn’t learning the roads very quickly… until I realized it was because I only ever saw the left side of the road! My route to town looked completely different from my route home. I solved this by honing my sidesaddle technique in order to face more forward.

After a handful of rides, it became somewhat enjoyable, and definitely an indispensable part of life. I came to prefer riding sidesaddle even if I was wearing trousers – the better to hop off if necessary. It was only necessary once, during my closest brush with a crash in Nyendo, when my driver pulled out in front of a lorry. Luckily, the lorry driver saw us quick enough to stop and my driver also realized his error and stopped abruptly, almost losing balance. I have a lot of respect for these drivers, being able to balance one to three passengers and maneuvering through the potholes and traffic.

Generally I would take a boda boda from my office in Ssaza to Masaka Town for 1,000 UGX and then back home to Namaseenene for 1,500 UGX. After my confidence about the whole process was sufficient, I really enjoyed hailing boda bodas and then practicing Luganda with the drivers, telling them where to take me and determining the price. Boda boda boys are notorious for overcharging, so it was important to know the acceptable price for the distance. I found that generally they were sufficiently surprised and happy to hear me speak Luganda, so they would give me a fair price right away.

This boda boda driver is waiting for a Rolex, a classic street food item that is basically a scrambled egg wrapped in a chapatti.

Another option for short-distance travel between Nyendo and Masaka Town were car taxis. These were usually white sedans, and you could tell them apart from private vehicles in Town because they would drive slowly and honk short, intermittent beeps, signifying “there’s room for more passengers.” Though it felt sort of like hitch-hiking, such a car ride between Town and Nyendo was only 500 UGX, while a boda boda would be probably 1,000 UGX and more dangerous on that stretch of busy highway.

I will make it clear that I have never taken a boda boda in Kampala, because I think that really is a death wish. In Uganda, drivers yield to larger vehicles only, and in Kampala, the sheer volume of traffic is enough to keep me in four-wheeled vehicles. The hierarchy I have observed goes something like this: Greyhound/Charter-type buses can do whatever they want, barreling down the middle of the highway and yielding for no one. Lorries and other large trucks come next, then coasters and mini-bus taxis. Personal cars are just below that. Then come the two-wheelers, the motorcycles and the bicycles, staying close to the shoulder. If a vehicle is coming up behind a motorcycle or bicycle, the vehicle driver will lay on the horn, forcing the two-wheeler off the road and onto the shoulder. Vehicles slow down only as the very last resort to avoid someone.

If you are on foot, you better be prepared to run across the road because people will NOT slow down for you like they do here in Ames. This took some time to get used to, particularly since I had to remember to look to the right first when crossing a road. Legally, Ugandans drive on the left, but in practice, they drive to avoid potholes and other obstacles without slowing down. During my first week in Masaka, I would see cars coming at me WITH NO DRIVER, until I remembered that the driver sits on the right. I have easily transitioned back to driving on the right here, though I have caught myself walking on the left, confusing some fellow pedestrians.

Another situation where I would be afraid to take a boda boda: Queen Elizabeth National Park. In addition to the hippo, note the amount of stuff that can be squeezed onto a motorcycle behind the passenger.