PC Training and A Story
PC Training
We have language training and technical training this week and next so we’re all away from our sites. The language training has been helpful. We’re given the opportunity to ask questions about some things we wish to say. They do some strange things with the English language here. They use some unique and confusing phrases that may be direct translations from the Runyankore language but doesn’t translate well into English. For example, if they haven’t seen you for a while they will say ‘Obuzire’ (oh-boo-ZEE-reh) which means ‘you have been lost’. Now my translation of this phrase, along with most other English speaking people, would mean that you have been in a place where you didn’t know where you were. But to them it means, ‘You have been lost, aka missing, from this place’. Do you see why it’s confusing? Another one is ‘extend’. If you are sitting in a taxi and someone is going to sit next to you but there is no room and they want you to move over they say ‘extend’. Now my initial reaction to hearing ‘extend’ is to stretch my arms out as far as possible as to ‘extend’ myself, but what they mean is to ‘extend’ your body further down the seat, i.e. ‘move over’. But they say ‘extend’ instead, so it takes a little time to get used to. What’s sad is that in a short few months we have found ourselves saying thins like ‘extend’ or ‘you have been lost’ to one another. Maybe that’s a good sign that we are fitting into our society.
It’s good to be together with all of the other volunteers. They say that we get together after the first 3 months at site because on average this time can be the lowest point in the volunteers experience. The psychological experience for the average PCV is in a wave that starts high with nervous energy and anticipation of changing the world. So much is new and adventurous in the beginning. Then training begins and it’s still new, then you begin to realize that training is LOOOOONNNGG and as Jeffery, our APCD just put it, ‘Training Sucks”. It’s a necessary evil, to an extent, but it’s long and filled with hours of workshops and language training and all you want to do is find out where you’re going and then to just go there. Then when you do finally get to your site, that’s exciting! You have a new home, a new area to explore, new people to meet… and then… you realize “my site sucks!” for various reasons. So we all meet, gripe about our sites, about transportation, our counterparts, etc and tell some hilarious and borderline unbelievable stories about what is happening in our villages (teachers getting students pregnant, a woman getting her head chopped off, witnessing a fatal moped accident, having countless marriage proposals, etc). Our group is our group, they are our families away from home. The support us, they understand us, we’ve gone through training together and we are going through similar though varied experiences together.
A LOOOONG Night
Saturday night was interesting. We were put up by the PC in a hotel in Mbarara for those of us who speak the Runyankore language. Because it was Saturday night some of us went drinking and dancing, not an uncommon thing for us to do when we get together. Now if you know me, then you know that I rarely drink and NEVER dance, but at the endless pleading of everyone else, I decided to join them. Why people would want the guy tagging along who doesn’t drink or dance, I don’t know, but they were pretty insistent. So I joined them for an hour or so before heading back to the hotel for sleep. I’m training for the Kampala Marathon in November and Sundays are my long run days, so I didn’t want to stay out too late. The music they had there and the bass was much, much louder than anywhere I’ve been before, it was unreal, and this is a personal opinion but why is it perceived as fun to go out dancing where you can’t talk because the music is so loud, you can’t hear yourself think for that matter and you spend so much money to buy drink after drink only to watch some guys play pool and to yell to your friends trying in vain to make conversation with them… ??? Again, just my opinion.
So I left the place, not really feeling tired but realizing that I needed to sleep. As I left the nightclub and walked the ½ block to the hotel, I realized that the music wasn’t getting any softer, it was in fact getting louder! I went in and up to my room, keyed in and looked out the window. RIGHT outside my window in the patio area of the hotel which was located right next to another hotel was a wedding party and the music was being played at FULL VOLUME! I had some earplugs, so I put them in in a desperate attempt to acquire some silence…didn’t help. I tried putting my hands over my ears and pressing as hard as I could…I could STILL hear the music!! This was at 1:30am mind you. I tried to read a book…couldn’t think straight. And this music, by the way isn’t in English. Some of it is, but most of it is in Luganda or Runyankore! So, I flipped on the TV to see what was on and the only station that worked was a Nigerian movie, which is a common program to be on TV, however, watching a Nigerian movie is just slightly less thrilling than watching your aunt and uncles summer vacation home videos! The main difference is that the sound, video and acting quality of your Aunt and Uncle would be supremely better! The Ugandans LOVE Nigerian movies, despite the horrific quality (you seriously could use a 20 year old VHS camcorder and record these movies).
Fantasy Football
Well, it’s almost football season, which means that it’s also almost Fantays Football season. The only thing better than watching the NFL is playing Fantasy Football. What could probably be a poster for Fantasy Football was 8 us having a mock draftfor the upcoming fantasy football season, sitting around, in Africa, drinking beer and going through, pick by pick, round by round, drafting NFL players for a mock draft…just for fun. I’ve been playing fantasy football since 1994, back in the days before the internet when we had to get box scores out of the newspaper after the game and record the statistics manually. So I invited about 6 guys here to be in one of my leagues this year. It’s a great way to increase the camaraderie and sportsmanship between us from week to week. Truth is I have several friends I haven’t spoken to in years but through fantasy football our friendship is renewed every week on the fantasy gridiron.
One Final Story
One last story I’ll tell which requires a great deal of humility and loss of dignity. I’m only making this public information at the request of Marcus, my fellow Hoosier who is here. After hearing the story he tells me, “You HAVE to put that on your blog!” So…here goes… We travel with this thing that is typically called a ‘travel sock’. It is a sock that contains medical stuff like Tylenol, anti-malarial medication, pepto-bismal…whatever you want to keep in it for a travel emergency. It’s handy to just grab if you’re heading out of town because it’s usually just packed and ready to go. About a month ago I was in Mbarara staying at the Pelikan Hotel. I awoke early in the morning on Saturday, before the sun had come up, to catch a taxi back to Ntungamo in order to be there for our Center Day when all of our Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs) come. As I was walking the mile or so I needed to walk to get to where I was hoping the taxis would be I started to feel a little…queasy. My stomach was turning and I was feeling very nauseous. I kept walking hoping that it was just a passing moment and that I would be OK for the 1 hour ride home. I hadn’t eaten anything or drank anything that morning and I hadn’t hand anything to drink (alcohol wise) the night before. I had felt fine for the past several weeks so I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Before I knew it, it hit me. Hard. Have you ever had to go so bad that you couldn’t walk and couldn’t move? That was me! I had to find somewhere to go, #2, and FAST. I looked around. It was 5:45 in the morning and I wasn’t exactly in a populated area. There was a bank near by and a park. No public toilets anywhere. No bushes that I could see either. There were a few trees in the park but it was getting daylight and the moon was shining like it has never shone before. I didn’t have ANY toilet paper on me, of course, why would I, but I KNEW that there was no choice in the matter… I HAD TO GO! The only ‘shelter’ I could find was a row of hedges nearby. The would serve as a nice barricade from being seen by anybody walking or driving by. The only problem was that they were in the MEDIAN of the road!!! I had no choice. I dashed into the bushes and barely got my trousers down in time, if only barely. As I squatted there between the bushes, cars and trucks passed by. I was hoping that by the time their headlights hit me (there was a narrow opeining in the bushes) they wouldn’t know what that flash of white was that they saw…
Now my next problem was what was I to use to wipe with… Possibly a bigger dilemma than where to go! The shrubs provided no help and I wasn’t going to use the clothing I had packed. I immediately remembered my travel sock!! It was perfect in some ways and it would have to do! I got into my bag and quickly dumped the contents out. The advantage to using the travel sock, I thought, would be that I have a mate to it somewhere that isn’t being used, so it can be an easy replacement. I finished my business, felt MUCH better, and continued to Ntungamo with no lingering problems aside from missing a sock…
I received a report from a fellow volunteer that Marcel had purchased 15 beds (not sure if they were double decker or triples), mattresses and sheets. They were thrilled and grateful to say the least! Thanks again for making that happen! I’ll post pictures as soon as I can!
That’s all for now. The Fantasy Football magazine that you sent, mom and dad, has been passed around all week by the other volunteers and they’ve poured over it page by page! Another week of training and then it’s back to site!
Neighbors and the NFL
Power at last!
We have power now at Compassion. And computers. Shortly after I arrived we purchased 3 computers but now we have power to go with them. The building was already wired for electricity. The building we are in is an old church that is next to the new church that has been built. There was power going to the church, so all that was necessary was for a line to be run from the pole to our building. I’ve heard it said that nearly 60% of the electricity in Uganda is stolen, meaning that they have illegally connected to the power lines. I know at my homestay we didn’t have power one day so Kefa, my homestay brother, took a long pole and poked around at the power lines at the top of the telephone pole and eventually the power worked. Now I don’t think that was an example of stolen power, but to be poking around a power line with a long stick is not exactly my idea of a good time. I thought about trying to talk him out of it but then I realized that this wasn’t exactly the first time he’s done this and apparently it has some success. You might be surprised at how many things I see where I think, “that’s not safe” or “shouldn’t you instead try…” but then I just sit back and watch them do what they do, knowing that it’s just a cultural thing and that’s why I’m here, to learn another culture and another way of doing things.
Sometimes to get electricity (or a variety of other services for that matter) it must be accompanied by a bribe. They might even say something to the effect of, “If you could provide us with some small assistance.” Basically your application is put in a pile and to move your stack up the pile means to pay some additional money, which the processor places in his pocket. Bribery is common here. Police do it. They might even be considered the worst. They pull you over, instead of paying the full fine you pay them something. They also have one of the worst pays in this country as well. I personally was asked to pay a bribe while visiting a primary school. The man who would be equivalent to the superintendent and I were talking. Apparently this school wasn’t taking regular attendance (which is strange, most do) and he wanted me to create a form for them to record attendance and then pay ‘some small contribution to assist them’. I couldn’t believe my ears. “Me pay something for you to do your JOB?” I though. What a crook! But that’s life in the 3rd world I guess. If you really think about it, we have bribes in America. We just call them ‘service charges’ or ‘processing fees’ and we charge them to everyone, not just to a select few. The other fact remains that if you want to get something done in a timely manner, you almost have to pay the bribes. Some volunteers say they just hound the company that is refusing to help without the bribe, calling them every day for electricity for example, thus believing that the squeaky wheel will get the oil.
I don’t think we suffered that, however. We went down to the electric office in Mbarara, paid them, 2 weeks later (standard turnover time) they came and attached the wire, which they charged $25 for the wire. I’m not sure if that was a bribe or standard. Most purchases are negotiated here, so prices aren’t exactly fixed. Regardless, we now have power and working computers. I spent the day today teaching Barbarah what a ‘left click’ and a ‘double click’ was and then got her busy on a program called Typing Master which teaches typing. The bad thing is that I have workshops for the next 2 weeks and won’t be around to dig them out of trouble, but I guess that’s a good way to learn. Figure it out on your own…
Kampala Marathon
The Kampala marathon is in November. There are a couple of us running it. Should be a good time. As good as running 26.2 miles can be. There were about 3,000 runners last year. Not sure what to expect as far as water stations, etc. like a regular marathon would be, but I guess that’ll come later. Meantime I’m trying to recruit some supporting cast along the way.
NFL in Uganda
Some GREEEAAAATTT news!!! No, the NFL isn’t playing a game in Uganda in the pre-season next year… nice try though. Instead, Jacob and I (and other volunteers) will be able to watch the NFL in Uganda!!! They have an international ESPN station (I think broadcast from Israel) and we found a schedule online and have discovered that they play 2 games a week. The Sunday game is played on Monday and the Tuesday game is played on Wednesday. So every week at 5pm on Tuesday and Wednesday we will be kicked back at our favorite restaurant that serves Mzungu (white person) food (and the BEST fries in all of Uganda!), watching REAL AMERICAN FOOTBALL!! Here ALL they watch and think about and are interested is in European Soccer! Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool… I’ve never heard of these teams before I came. So they always as me what football team I support, expecting me to say Man U or Arsenal and I proudly exclaim ‘The Colts, Baby!’ at which point they get a confused look and then try and fail to even pronounce the word ‘Colts’ (they don’t use the letter L here much, kind of like in Japan) So… Manning vs Manning, Colts vs Giants on Sept 10… I’ll be watching it (be it tape delayed) They show the games live but they’re at like 4am or something ridiculous like that.
My Neighbors
I live in a quiet neighborhood. My house is really an office building that happens to have a bathing area in one room. I live next to the Cannon and his wife. They live in a very modest house and have a house girl (very very common here). Close by is the assistant headmaster of the primary school named Willy and then it’s the Compassion House which houses the compassion staff (in a few months I’ll move in there, they are building additional housing). Then after that it’s another house where a teacher lives and then it’s Jacob and Aine (ah-EE-ney), the headmaster of the primary school. Jacob lives in basicly a du-plex. Then it’s another few houses on the hill and that’s it. It’s quiet but there are enough people to feel secure. The Cannon (it’s a religious title within the Anglican Church) has children who are older and are either on their own or in college (university). I do, however, see several young children that stay at his house. There is a boy who is about 7 named Keith. Keith is one of my favorites! He’s all boy, but he’s SO shy! He loves hanging around, but if you ask him how he is, he smiles and looks down. He’s so shy it’s what you could call ‘adorable’ if you were a female (men don’t say things are adorable). Now he’s usually taking care of a little guy named Mark who is about 1. Keith LOVES Mark. He is so kind and patient and gentle with him. Now the Cannon is too old to have these kids, so I asked someone on the compassion staff about them and here’s the explanation I got: For Keith, he is one of the Cannon’s son’s kids, but because he is still in the university he leaves the child with the grandparents (apparently this is common). Now Mark… this is interesting to me… Marks father is another one of Cannon’s son’s. Now before I go further, let me say that the Cannon is such a kind, caring, soft spoken but highly respected man in the community. He just has this ‘way’ about him where you know he’s a trustworthy, wise man, but when you find out about his kids… you just think, ‘wow!’ Where did the apple fall from that tree? So Mark’s dad is one of the Cannon’s son’s. Apparently the son came home from the university for a weekend and slept with one of the girls at the high school which is a boarding school here at Kyamate. There are only a few buildings up here on the hill. The church, compassion, the few houses and the 2secondary school. So this girl got pregnant and confronted the son. He did admit that the child was his and so… the girls mother went to the Cannon and said, basicly, “Either I’m going to the Police and your son will be thrown in prison for 2 years for defilement, or you must meet my demands… You will pay for my daughters education through high school and you must look after her child until she is out of school.” So the Cannon more or less had no choice. So goes life in Africa…
The Next 2 weeks.
For the 2 weeks I’ll have some workshops that the PC is putting on, so my internet availability may be limited. I’ll try to post again next Tuesday, but no promises. Also… I realized that I had not ‘posted’ a couple of blogs this month but had only saved them as ‘drafts’ so if you scroll down you might find a couple of new postings that weren’t there before… sorry about that.
Video
I’ve recently added a few Videos. Check to see if you can view them… It’s called My Videos under the Albums section in the Right Column. I'm doing something weird with my hands in some of them... not sure what that's about...
Power at last!
We have power now at Compassion. And computers. Shortly after I arrived we purchased 3 computers but now we have power to go with them. The building was already wired for electricity. The building we are in is an old church that is next to the new church that has been built. There was power going to the church, so all that was necessary was for a line to be run from the pole to our building. I’ve heard it said that nearly 60% of the electricity in Uganda is stolen, meaning that they have illegally connected to the power lines. I know at my homestay we didn’t have power one day so Kefa, my homestay brother, took a long pole and poked around at the power lines at the top of the telephone pole and eventually the power worked. Now I don’t think that was an example of stolen power, but to be poking around a power line with a long stick is not exactly my idea of a good time. I thought about trying to talk him out of it but then I realized that this wasn’t exactly the first time he’s done this and apparently it has some success. You might be surprised at how many things I see where I think, “that’s not safe” or “shouldn’t you instead try…” but then I just sit back and watch them do what they do, knowing that it’s just a cultural thing and that’s why I’m here, to learn another culture and another way of doing things.
Sometimes to get electricity (or a variety of other services for that matter) it must be accompanied by a bribe. They might even say something to the effect of, “If you could provide us with some small assistance.” Basically your application is put in a pile and to move your stack up the pile means to pay some additional money, which the processor places in his pocket. Bribery is common here. Police do it. They might even be considered the worst. They pull you over, instead of paying the full fine you pay them something. They also have one of the worst pays in this country as well. I personally was asked to pay a bribe while visiting a primary school. The man who would be equivalent to the superintendent and I were talking. Apparently this school wasn’t taking regular attendance (which is strange, most do) and he wanted me to create a form for them to record attendance and then pay ‘some small contribution to assist them’. I couldn’t believe my ears. “Me pay something for you to do your JOB?” I though. What a crook! But that’s life in the 3rd world I guess. If you really think about it, we have bribes in America. We just call them ‘service charges’ or ‘processing fees’ and we charge them to everyone, not just to a select few. The other fact remains that if you want to get something done in a timely manner, you almost have to pay the bribes. Some volunteers say they just hound the company that is refusing to help without the bribe, calling them every day for electricity for example, thus believing that the squeaky wheel will get the oil.
I don’t think we suffered that, however. We went down to the electric office in Mbarara, paid them, 2 weeks later (standard turnover time) they came and attached the wire, which they charged $25 for the wire. I’m not sure if that was a bribe or standard. Most purchases are negotiated here, so prices aren’t exactly fixed. Regardless, we now have power and working computers. I spent the day today teaching Barbarah what a ‘left click’ and a ‘double click’ was and then got her busy on a program called Typing Master which teaches typing. The bad thing is that I have workshops for the next 2 weeks and won’t be around to dig them out of trouble, but I guess that’s a good way to learn. Figure it out on your own…
Kampala Marathon
The Kampala marathon is in November. There are a couple of us running it. Should be a good time. As good as running 26.2 miles can be. There were about 3,000 runners last year. Not sure what to expect as far as water stations, etc. like a regular marathon would be, but I guess that’ll come later. Meantime I’m trying to recruit some supporting cast along the way.
NFL in Uganda
Some GREEEAAAATTT news!!! No, the NFL isn’t playing a game in Uganda in the pre-season next year… nice try though. Instead, Jacob and I (and other volunteers) will be able to watch the NFL in Uganda!!! They have an international ESPN station (I think broadcast from Israel) and we found a schedule online and have discovered that they play 2 games a week. The Sunday game is played on Monday and the Tuesday game is played on Wednesday. So every week at 5pm on Tuesday and Wednesday we will be kicked back at our favorite restaurant that serves Mzungu (white person) food (and the BEST fries in all of Uganda!), watching REAL AMERICAN FOOTBALL!! Here ALL they watch and think about and are interested is in European Soccer! Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool… I’ve never heard of these teams before I came. So they always as me what football team I support, expecting me to say Man U or Arsenal and I proudly exclaim ‘The Colts, Baby!’ at which point they get a confused look and then try and fail to even pronounce the word ‘Colts’ (they don’t use the letter L here much, kind of like in Japan) So… Manning vs Manning, Colts vs Giants on Sept 10… I’ll be watching it (be it tape delayed) They show the games live but they’re at like 4am or something ridiculous like that.
My Neighbors
I live in a quiet neighborhood. My house is really an office building that happens to have a bathing area in one room. I live next to the Cannon and his wife. They live in a very modest house and have a house girl (very very common here). Close by is the assistant headmaster of the primary school named Willy and then it’s the Compassion House which houses the compassion staff (in a few months I’ll move in there, they are building additional housing). Then after that it’s another house where a teacher lives and then it’s Jacob and Aine (ah-EE-ney), the headmaster of the primary school. Jacob lives in basicly a du-plex. Then it’s another few houses on the hill and that’s it. It’s quiet but there are enough people to feel secure. The Cannon (it’s a religious title within the Anglican Church) has children who are older and are either on their own or in college (university). I do, however, see several young children that stay at his house. There is a boy who is about 7 named Keith. Keith is one of my favorites! He’s all boy, but he’s SO shy! He loves hanging around, but if you ask him how he is, he smiles and looks down. He’s so shy it’s what you could call ‘adorable’ if you were a female (men don’t say things are adorable). Now he’s usually taking care of a little guy named Mark who is about 1. Keith LOVES Mark. He is so kind and patient and gentle with him. Now the Cannon is too old to have these kids, so I asked someone on the compassion staff about them and here’s the explanation I got: For Keith, he is one of the Cannon’s son’s kids, but because he is still in the university he leaves the child with the grandparents (apparently this is common). Now Mark… this is interesting to me… Marks father is another one of Cannon’s son’s. Now before I go further, let me say that the Cannon is such a kind, caring, soft spoken but highly respected man in the community. He just has this ‘way’ about him where you know he’s a trustworthy, wise man, but when you find out about his kids… you just think, ‘wow!’ Where did the apple fall from that tree? So Mark’s dad is one of the Cannon’s son’s. Apparently the son came home from the university for a weekend and slept with one of the girls at the high school which is a boarding school here at Kyamate. There are only a few buildings up here on the hill. The church, compassion, the few houses and the 2secondary school. So this girl got pregnant and confronted the son. He did admit that the child was his and so… the girls mother went to the Cannon and said, basicly, “Either I’m going to the Police and your son will be thrown in prison for 2 years for defilement, or you must meet my demands… You will pay for my daughters education through high school and you must look after her child until she is out of school.” So the Cannon more or less had no choice. So goes life in Africa…
The Next 2 weeks.
For the 2 weeks I’ll have some workshops that the PC is putting on, so my internet availability may be limited. I’ll try to post again next Tuesday, but no promises. Also… I realized that I had not ‘posted’ a couple of blogs this month but had only saved them as ‘drafts’ so if you scroll down you might find a couple of new postings that weren’t there before… sorry about that.
Video
I’ve recently added a few Videos. Check to see if you can view them… It’s called My Videos under the Albums section in the Right Column. I'm doing something weird with my hands in some of them... not sure what that's about...
"...and that's why I punched the guy in the face, officer."
OK, so I haven’t punched anyone yet, and I probably won’t but nonetheless I feel like I could or at least I intensely want to and that’s saying a lot because I’m about as violent as your average fruit fly. At first it didn’t bother me but the more it goes on the more it wears on my last nerve. And I guess it shouldn’t. It doesn’t carry the same connotations as labels we use in America. It simply means ‘white traveler’ and nothing more. It’s a descriptive term when it’s translated into English.
Let me give you an example. I ride my bike into town and the first sign of civilization I pass is a slummy looking area where there are usually no less than 10 men standing around looking at 5 bicycles flipped upside down being worked on. Mechanics here fix bicycles for a living. As I speedily approach, I begin to hear it, “Eh! Eh!” which means they’ve seen me coming and they can’t believe there’s a white man coming on a bicycle wearing a large funny shiny thing on his head. It’s also to let EVERYONE around also know that there’s something coming up the road that EVERYONE should stop to stare at. It’s usually soon followed by, “Mzungu! Mzungu!” There’s usually an, “Iwe (EE-way)! Iwe!” in there somewhere and sometimes a “Gwe! Gwe!” as well. Iwe means You in Runyankore, and Gwe isn’t even Runyankore, it’s Luganda which is spoken in east Uganda! So in essence they’re yelling “Hey You! Hey You!” And what they want is for you to look over there at them at which point they’ll just wave or laugh. It’s like a 4 year old child that CONTINUALLY calls to their father to (and I think you know where this is going) “Watch me, Daddy! Watch me!” The first few dozen times you do it, too. And then you realize that they want you to watch them doing EVERYTHING from stacking block #1 onto block #2 to watching them climb into the chair across the room (talking about the child here, not the African). After a while you just can’t divert your attention 20 times every 3 minutes or you’ll completely lose your insanity!
You hear it 6 times going in any direction. By 6 times I mean from 6 different people. Sometimes they throw a Jambo in there which is Swahili which they teach in some schools. People who are flying by on mopeds will yell it. If they’re riding in the back of a truck they’ll yell it. People just passing you on the street will yell it, and it’s yelled at a decibel level that nearly makes you jump out of your skin sometimes. It really is somewhat frightening at times.
Additional calls that I get:
tsss –this is common. It’s what they do instead of whistling. It’s also the same way they call their dogs.
Give me money –most often from kids but also from adults. This one usually comes once a week. I typically respond by telling them to give me money in Runyankore and then telling them they have bad manners (in Runyankore). This might sound like a cruel response but it seems to shut them up pretty quickly and they apologize. One PCV told a story where he was wanting to know what white person ran through the streets Uganda throwing money out to all of the people to give them the idea that when white people come they just reach into their pockets and start giving money away.
Brian-ee –this is how they say my name, so if they know it and can get my attention using this method then they’ll try it.
How are you? Which sounds more like a robot saying “Awa U.” Like it’s the name of some African University. They all know enough English to know a greeting like this. They also know enough English to greet you in the evening by saying “Good morning, sir”
Also staring. It’s not rude to stare here so they do. A lot. Apparently they never had 3 older sisters constantly reminding them, “Brian! Don’t stare at people. It’s rude!”
If you’re walking or biking behind someone and they turn to see who it is, they always do a double take. The first look is to check who is coming then once they’ve seen you and realized that you don’t posses the same dark pigments in your skin as the ‘normal’ people living there it’s followed by a second and MUCH LONGER look back as they walk. Secretly I seem to be hoping they’ll step in a hole or trip on a rock sticking out of the ground as they’re staring backwards and walking forwards, but it never seems to happen. If they pass on a moped then the driver will stare back for a short time but the passenger will stare back for significantly longer.
Now with children I don’t mind so much. I can’t. They’re too cute and it’s totally different with them. The first thing they do is stop whatever they’re doing, run to the edge of the road and stand and wait to speak until you are almost ready to pass them. To them, you are like Ronald McDonald or the Easter Bunny walking through their town and when you wave at them after they’ve been yelling ‘Mzungu’ or ‘Agandi’ (a-GAN-dee) which is a greeting that means ‘what news’, they smile and turn and skip away feeling so good that the guy with the red curly hair, yellow jumpsuit and big clown shoes just waved at them. And they’re done yelling at that point as well. Unless there are other children near by, then they realize that they didn’t get a red-painted smile and a white-glove wave so they begin to call too until they get the aforementioned attention. And then once you’ve done it one day as you’ve passed, then you must do it every day that you pass. And they love it. It makes their entire day, every day when you just wave and acknowledge them. But the adults…grrrrrrr.
So what have I done about the adults? Well, I tried ignoring it. Hasn’t helped, but Jacob insists that it will. I’ve tried saying “African” the same way they say “Mzungu” but that hasn’t done a thing. My newest thing is to yell back “Iwe (you)”. So what if it’s childish, it’s what I’m trying. I’ve considered a couple of other options as well. One includes whenever anyone says anything to me I casually stroll up to them and introduce myself, ask who they are, tell them that I’m not called Mzungu and then be on my way. A kill-them-with-kindness method if you will. My favorite option that I haven’t tried is to take on an alternate personality and just have fun with it. For example be a loud, friendly American cowboy personality “Howdy! How’s y’all doin’? I show do appreciate all this wonderful welcoming y’all are giving me here in this town!” Just the loudness and friendliness, I think, might just freak them out enough to think I’m weird and leave me alone… or it could make them do it more, which is the likelier of the two.
Home Visits and Transportation
Let me take a moment to describe 2 things. Home visits and transportation. Home visits because it’s a fairly big part of what I do and transportation because it’s both one of the most fascinating and frustrating things that I do here.
Home Visits
I try to do home visits 2x per week, on Thursdays and Fridays. I always have to go with someone in our organization because of the language barrier. I’ve stated it before, the national language in Uganda is English, however there are somewhere around 55 tribal languages and the people are more comfortable speaking their native tongue than one imposed on them by the government. So Alice-the-nurse and I begin around 9am. We flash one of the moped drivers (get your mind out of the gutter!). A ‘flash’ is when you call someone and hang up before they answer. It doesn’t charge your phone any minutes and the driver of the moped knows to go to your house or business to pick you up. If he ‘flashes’ you back, then he can’t make it. It’s a fascinating system. So Alice ‘flashes’ a moped aka ‘boda’ driver, normally David, and within a few moments he arrives. We travel a couple of miles to a nearby primary school and meet with our children and they tell us where they live. We try in a given day to visit between 8-10 kids’ homes, and even this takes all day, about 45 minutes or so per visit. We get the directions and set out.
Now I know, back home, you have nice paved roads to all of your houses with nice big mailboxes with your addresses on them. Here you have main roads and side roads which eventually turn into footpaths. I once went on a bike ride in a random direction and the road became narrower and narrower until eventually I was just biking right by peoples houses, into their back yards and then to their neighbors houses, from one neighbor to another and eventually I got back to the main road. I was afraid the trail was just going to stop outright at someone’s house. Dead end. Nowhere else to go but back, but it didn’t.
So we visit these kids’ houses to check on a lot of things. We look at the condition of the house. What is it made of? Mud or concrete? Is the roof Iron sheets (corrugated metal sheets) or thatched reeds? Is it dirt floor or concrete? What is the overall condition? How many people sleep in the house? How many sleeping rooms are there? We then move on to the kids beds. Compassion provides foam sleeping mattresses for all of the kids. Are they using them? How many kids are sleeping on them? It’s not uncommon to find that 2 kids are sleeping on each bed. Do they still have the cover on them? Compassion gives each kid a mosquito net. Are they using them? Are they clean? Do they have holes? Is the child using the toothbrush that was given to them?
We then go outside. Now remember, people don’t live in their house. They live in the yard around the house. They sweep the dirt around the house and that’s their ‘living room’. So is that neatly swept. It should be swept to keep away bugs, collecting water and trip hazards, and for appearance purposes. Do they have a ‘drying rack’ for dishes? A simple stand should be erected where plates and dishes are placed in the sun to dry. The sun kills some germs and it keeps the dishes up off the ground. There should also be rocks underneath for drainage and to prevent hookworms. Next is the pit latrine. What shape is it in. How far is it from the house? Is it too far? Is it too close? One family had to go down a STEEP hill about 75 yards into the middle of a banana plantation to use their pit latrine. And can you imagine having to do that after a rain or in the dark??? A basic pit latrine has a concrete floor with a ‘hole’ about 8 inches by 12 inches which you squat over to urinate and defecate into. I’m just trying to describe it if you don’t already know. Often instead of a concrete floor there is a pit dug with several logs placed across the hole and mud filling in the cracks but a large crack left open in the middle to use. We also check to see if there is something to cover the hole of the latrine to prevent flies. Flies spread disease. After the latrine it’s on to the bathing area. Most of the village people here take bucket baths outside. They have planted some bushes or have fixed some mats in a 4ft x 4ft area near their house. The bathing area is constructed for privacy. This also has rocks in the bottom to prevent hookworm. On a couple of occasions we have found that people just bathe outside when it gets dark. This includes my wash lady, Justine, who lives in what would be equivalent to an apartment complex. In addition we are looking for a rubbish pit, somewhere for them to put trash. Trash. I would imagine when you think of Africa you would think of fresh air, a natural habitat for animals, fresh fruits and vegetables. What you don’t think of is the TRASH that is EVERYWHERE. People here DO NOT value their land so they throw plastic bags and plastic water bottles wherever. I’ll give people some candy and they’ll open it and just drop the rapper on the ground and it drives me CRAZY!! We also try to get an idea of their monthly income and how they earn a living. Most that we visit live on less than a dollar a day for their family and they are peasant farmers, just living off what they grow and sell. Lastly, we ask how the kids are behaving at home. Some of our kids live with their grandparents and they know that they are bigger and stronger and so act defiantly. So if we get a bad report then the kids are in trouble w/ us.
Transportation
Public transportation is everywhere in Uganda. Moped, aka ‘boda’ is the easiest way to get from one point to another if you are traveling just a few blocks. It’s cheap too, you can ride for a couple of miles for about $0.25. It was funny at first to see 2 and 3 guys on these mopeds. You know that saying about fat chicks and mopeds? Well it’s not true here. Ugandans like them both! On occasion you’ll see one guy driving the moped and another guy on the back holding a bed! Or a 20 ft long pipe! I once saw the passenger holding a suitcase and the driver had one in his lap as well. Sometimes you’ll see a child in front of the driver and 2 in the back. You’ll also see mothers on the back riding side-saddle holding a baby, or perhaps they baby is tied to their back. You NEVER see a woman driving a moped! NEVER! And you walk through the town and see the drivers congregating and they’re notorious for being the roughnecks, so they give cat-calls and make comments. Many are school dropouts. They probably earn something like $5 a day which isn’t terribly bad. In areas that are flat then you have the bicycle ‘boda’ drivers who will peddle you across town. It’s the same concept only slower and cheaper.
On to the van-taxis. First off, these taxis come from Japan, so some of them have Japanese writing. Ed, one of our trainers, told us that in Japan they have a law about how long a vehicle can be on the road, so after that point the vehicle ends up here. The vehicle is composed of the driver and a conductor. The conductor hangs out the window as they drive around town and ‘barks’ for passengers and collects money. You are supposed to go to the taxi park to get a vehicle. This is where they congregate. However, you’ll wait and wait and wait and wait for the vehicle to fill up before you leave. Often for HOURS! So what I normally do is go to the edge of town and wait for either one that is leaving or one that is passing through town that has room. Now a ‘matatu’ as it’s called here, holds 15 people… let me rephrase that, it has 15 seats. There are supposed to be 3 people per row, 5 rows, but they typically have 4 per row. That’s the norm. There is no concept of personal space in this country. Fortunately people are skinny here. In this van that is supposed to hold 15, it’s common to have 20 or 25. I’ve personally been in one that had 27. 27 people in what is supposed to hold 15. The most I’ve heard of is 48! Forty Eight! In a vehicle that holds 15! Does that sound like one of those clown cars at the circus or what?? Now the 48 were a group of high school kids on their way to a soccer game, but still! Now these and the buses are cheap. You can go a couple of hundred miles for $5-$6. And gas is about the same price here as it is back home. It’s a little over a dollar a liter. Now there are taxi ‘cars’ as well. Some are official taxis and some are just guys going to a certain town trying to get his fuel paid for. Taxi cars, which are small (think Honda Civic), won’t leave until there are around 11 people in them. The last one of these I attempted to ride in had me sitting in the drivers seat with the driver and my feet were UNDER his pedals. My knees were wedged under the steering wheel and he was trying to convince me to move my feet and get situated. I told him to pull over and that I was getting out. I’ve ridden where I straddled the stick shift too. I was ok in the even numbered gears, but when he went to the odd numbered gears it was getting a little personal! I was in a ‘matatu’ once that went for fuel. The were out so the driver pulled up a few blocks to a guys house who brought out some plastic jugs and began to pour them into the fuel tank. I asked the guy next to me if they charged more for this new gas and he told me that they often charge less. Apparently people who receive gas from their work, such as some government officials, will siphon the gas from their tanks and sell it. Sometimes even mixing it with water to make it last longer!!
So that’s a little bit of travel in Uganda. Remember that the next time you’re stuck in traffic in your own personal, spacious car with the thermostat adjusted to the perfect temperature as you’re listing to your favorite radio station play your favorite song.
Thanks to Karen for the care package!! Wow!! You’re amazing!! Thank you so much!! It was perfect!
I read something in Runners World I want to share before I go. It was said by an 83 year old man upon nearing the finish line of a marathon. He said, “The pain of discipline is less than the pain of regret.” Remember that the next time you’re going through something difficult but you know that it’s till the ‘right thing’.
Caio!
ps Amber, can you email me? I couldn't get your hotmail account to work...
more home visits and a traffic accident
Things here are moving right along. Compassion is still keeping me busy. Last week Japheth, our director (similar position as to what Chet Walker has) and I went and did some home visits. We had received word that one of our compassion kids called Bogere, who has been skipping school lately, was living with his older brother because they had kicked the mother out of the house. Apparently the mother has 5 children with the father, who is now dead, and she also now as 3 other children from different fathers for a grand total of 8 children. The last-born has 4 men that could be the father. So the oldest kids decided that the mother wasn't listening to them when they told her that they were poor and shouldn't have any more kids, they're tired of men coming in and out of their home, so they kicked the mother out and she's been staying with the grandmother. They're bigger and stronger than her because they're in secondary school (high school). Now what also happened was that the grandmother came over and got into a heated argument with the sons over the issue and after she made a deeply insulting remark. Now get this, one of the most insulting gestures anyone can make here, but I think it’s especially reserved for elder people and only really deeper in the villages, not in the more civilized towns. This grandmother was so furious about these kids behavior that she reached down, grabbed the hem of her gown and exposed herself to these sons. The gesture is so insulting that it basically means that she would rather they were dead! Upon seeing this they threw a charcoal iron at her (I don't know if it was hot or not), so she came to Compassion and told us to intervene.
Now Japheth went in the morning to sort things out there and found Bogere running away up the hill when he heard the motorbike coming, so we went back that evening and again he wasn't there, but he was eventually found by a sibling and brought back. So, Japheth talked late into the night with the grandmother, mother, and brothers, and he's good at that sort of thing. It was mostly in Runyankore so I couldn't understand it, but what I gathered it was about the mother taking responsibility for her actions and her family and for the sons to honor their mother and the older brother who the younger brothers have reported has been beating them.
On Sunday Jacob was having a meal at the Sky Blue restaurant and hotel when tragedy happened. Apparently a truck and a moped had a head on collision right in front of the Sky Blue. Jacob was the first one on the scene. It happened just a few dozen yards away. Although he was looking in the direction he said he didn’t see the accident, he only heard it and when he looked he saw the moped skidding and saw sparks. Upon arriving on the scene he said there was a bunch of blood and that he thought that the man and the woman who were on the moped had both died. It was such a traumatic thing to see that he just turned away to gather himself. At which point the woman began to move. Shortly after a pickup truck arrived to take her to the hospital which is in a town called Itojo, some 10 km away. I have seen ambulances in Uganda, but let’s face it, they’re few and far between. The man, however, had died. I also just heard that they were reported to be coming from a party so they think that he could have had something to drink.
Now the truck that struck the couple proceeded down the road after the accident. Apparently they were not traveling fast. I’ve talked about this before I think, but in this country they have mob justice. If this truck would have stopped and tried to help, bystanders would have taken the law into their own hand and would have beaten and stoned the driver and possibly passengers to death!! It would have happened! It’s only if the police get there before the mob has their way is the driver safe. Even if someone is hit and you are administering First Aid you can be attacked by the ‘mob’ if they believe you were at fault for the accident!! It certainly can make you hesitate to help in such a situation. Now the driver did stop someplace down the road and someone got their story of what had happened.
I think I’ve told this story before but it’s worth another turn. When I was staying in Luweero for training a few people from our peace corps group was heading to the market when a man ran past them at full speed with a small group of men chasing after him. They eventually caught him and were preparing to put tires around him and burn him to death. And they would have done it too if the police hadn’t intervened to stop them.
My home stay father was a reverend in the Church of Uganda so I asked him about this, if this was the right thing to do. His response was, “well you don’t want a thief running around do you?” The people who would have been doing the lynching, mind you, would have been the church going people carrying out their cultural way of dealing with this type of incident. Every once in a while I read in the paper where a man is burned to death for one such incident. It happens here. Very, very hard to believe but it does. It would certainly make you think twice about stealing something.
My bike broke last week. I was exploring some waking trails behind the Muslim center when the piece that changes the gears in the back, known to the Ugandans as the ‘gear changer’ broke off from my bike. I gathered that this could have been a curse on me from those who were praying behind the Muslim center. So I took my bike and tied it on the front of the bus going to Kampala and spent the weekend getting that fixed. The coffee plants are in bloom right now so for miles on end you smell the most wonderful fragrance! It’s a real treat! On the way back I ended up getting on a bus with my PCV friend Keith by chance and we had several good conversations on the way back while a Ugandan man sat on my armrest and practically in my lap for the 6 hour bus ride back to Ntungamo. They put extra people on these busses. One time there was a police stopping point and the man got on the bus and gave the conductor a fine of 60,000 Ugandan Shillings ($30) which was equivalent to what these men had collectively paid who were riding in the aisle. I thought to my self, if you want to fine the bus, give them a fine! This was more like a slap on the wrist…
I’m working on a photography project of taking pictures of some local homes and shops just to give you an idea of daily life here. I hope to have it up in the next week or so.
