THE TRUTH COMES OUT-THIS IS A LONG ONE...

I've discovered that it is much easier to write a public access journal when you're loving life, excited and fired up. I have been avoiding writing an entry for weeks because I haven't had many positive things to say. It's challenging to be honest when the truth is ugly and doesn't make me look particularly nice.

I see clearly now that I had many expectations regarding my time here, unspoken and developed over the years of dreaming about Africa. Slowly over the past three weeks my reality has come crashing in on me, along with any romanticized view I had of my time and work here. I imagined arriving, seeing clearly and quickly the work that needed to be done...and doing it. There would be interesting cultural moments, a few challenges that would be met and overcome rapidly, people would adore me and I would write home about the amazing orphanage I built. My motivations for coming to Africa are mixed and include a healthy, ever-needing-to-be-checked ego and a 'Mother Theresa complex.' I imagined the possibility of ending poverty-I mean, I have 6 months. Actually, now I have a little more than 5 months (not that anyone is counting down the days or anything.)

On my 23rd day in Uganda, I have to report that poverty is still rampant, HIV continues to spread, orphans remain homeless and I am not always culturally sensitive. Nor do I always love and enjoy the Ugandan life. Sometimes, I downright hate it. There, I said it. Ugh...I can hear the furious email responses being written....'don't be ungrateful, you wanted this experience, bloom where planted, etc...'

How funny, I'm sitting at an internet cafe in Kampala about to write that I have no idea how to be of service here, etc...(I'll probably still get into that later) then a gentleman sat down next to me and asked if he could speak to me about his organization. This type of thing happens rather frequently here...everyone has, or is starting an NGO (non-governmental organization). I don't know if I can help this particular gentleman but I'll visit his website and see what he's about. I've been searching for something to do while I'm here. The NGO I work with is fine, they run a nursery school, staffed by teachers that speak both English and Lugandan. They offer pre and post HIV test counselling at a local hospital, run by counsellors who have all had 8 month training courses. They also visit local homes where "orphans" live. An "orphan" here is any child that has lost either one or both parents. So it's a decent organization, I wouldn't call it vibrant or growing but it's fine. I've participated in everything that has been available and I cannot seem to find where I am supposed to fit in. The truth is, the org. runs fine without me, they seem content to keep doing the same stuff they've been doing for years. Honestly, it feels like they got my money and now they are happy to have me tag along to their events so I can feel good about myself. Yuck, what a friggin' waste of time. Maybe that would be cool for a month but I'm staring down a long road and the idea of a 6 month vacation in Naggalama (not the vacation spot of my dreams) is too much to bare most nights.

The GVN website mentioned that this would be a good placement for self-starters, they weren't kidding. If I want to actually do something while I'm here, I will need to determine what that will be, plan it out, figure out how to do it, probably pay for it, etc... So for the past two weeks, I have been lying awake at night trying to come up with an idea, something, anything... Not because I'm some wonderful gal that's dying to be of service, it's come down to survival. There is a possibility that my brain will actually kill itself with over-introspection and guilt if I do not find a focus.

Part Two

Feeling crazy and depressed has taken up some time. Other moments have been filled with adventure. I've been learning about "Africa time", the idea that nothing need ever be on time. Last Monday I was delivering school fees to a bunch of schools in the area (turns out schools are EVERYWHERE, down every darn dirtroad) with Sam and Elijah, two MUMYO members. They asked me when I had to be back for lunch, I told them 1pm. Tespista is the lady that cooks my meals and she is the only woman I know who intimidates me in curlers. If she says lunch is at 1pm, lunch is at 1pm. Elijah convinced me that 2:45pm would be a fine time to show up. So I ate lunch that had sat outside cooling for over an hour and I got sick. I mean REALLY SICK. I was driven to the hospital Tuesday morning after a crazy night of no fluid retention (didn't worry too much about the cockroaches that night). So I was losing liquid from all of my orafices, then I came down with a fever, then the sweating began. After I developed a vicious headaches, I requested a hospital visit. That was a good decision. They hooked me up to an IV, shot me in the arse a few times because I kept throwing up medication, then kept me overnight for observation. I wasn't much to observe. It's almost a week later and I'm almost physically normal, whatever that means. But I'm way careful about food which is okay because my appetite is slow to return (best diet ever.) So when I'm offered plates of local street foods, I usually decline. I know it's culturally insensitive but eating it is physiologically insensitive.

Visited a local prison with another muzungu (hate that word and hope each morning that I won't have to hear it yelled at me until after I've had my tea). The prison isn't exactly a part of my project but again...I'm searching desperately for something to do. Anywho, Joyce is Australian and a total nut, a very good nut. She is appropriately named because she has this ability to create joy in very mundane situations. So we visit the prison and the 8 lady inmates. I'm not at all sure what's going to happen but Joyce just starts chatting away and before I know it has started dancing with the ladies. I so planned on sitting on the sidelines watching but eventually the general good vibe took over and I was dancing in spite of myself. The ladies loved seeing belly dancing and swing dancing, they like the moves where you shake your booty. It was that simple, couldn't have planned it, just needed to show up. I'll visit the ladies again next week.

Last night I helped out at a fashion show that another volunteer put on. It was incredible, seriously feel humbled by the creativity and love these women designers (and one man) put into creating outfits that reflected 'the spirit of the African woman.' And they were really good. Clothes made from bananes leaves, plant stems, bottle caps, loofah material (yeah, i know). Miss South Africa somehow ended up being one of the models...it was wild. I was the score keeper, wrote all the judges marks on the stage. The judges were primarily volunteers, they didn't want Ugandan judges because of the normality of cheating (the locals requested the judges be volunteers). At one point I might've questioned the relevance of holding a fashion show while there are so many big issues to deal with but seeing the creativity and intelligence and hope of these woman convinced me otherwise. That reminds me, I need face paints, water balloons and anything else that could be used for an orphans day we will host each month. If anyone wants to send those types of things, let me know.

Other things have happened, bad and good. The days are up and down like a rollercoaster ride. Sometimes I like it, other days I loathe it. But I'm still here and that is going to have to be enough for this reluctant volunteer, today.

Next week...the national elections, corruption and having a 'lifeist' attitude.

WINTER AND SUMMER

I get the impression that tears dry up pretty quickly here in the dusty red soil. Do people cry here?

I'm struggling a bit today, feeling very homesick and close to some invisible breaking point. Didn't take long. It's not the cockroaches, the albino lizard that lives with me, dreading my nightly toilet run, the constant anti-malarial drug enduced nightmares, being called 'white person' a hundred times a day, standing out everywhere I go (thought I would've liked that), trying to be culturally sensitive when I am hungry, angry, lonely and tired, messing up the few Lugandan phrases I know, missing friends and family, children either laughing at me or crying at the sight of me, the constant power-outtages-it's the feeling of being alone in the middle of it.

So poor me huh...people are living in mud huts around me (literally), suriving hand to mouth, dying of AIDS, running around parentless, fighting malaria (with poor meds), working seven days a week for peanuts, begging in order to put together a measly $20 for school fees (I just read that in America we will start rewarding school attendance with ipods, etc...) and more.

My "apartment manager" lives in the room across from me. He cooks on a little stove outside, sleeps on a mat on his cement floor and fills water jugs (from the bore hole nearby) for the building inhabitants. His job is a good job, pays well enough that he lives hours away from his wife and seven kids to keep it. He visits his family once a month. His is not a six month engagement, there is no end in sight. He smiles all the time. I've been away for nine days and I feel sad enough to stay in bed all day and hide from this foreign place.

Then I think about the Mulago Clinic I visited. A government run hospital that treats HIV positive Ugandans. Rooms full of people slowly dying, waiting hours in a hot room for an ARV injection, trying to 'live positively.' They stared back at me and I couldn't begin to fathom what they were thinking or feeling. I asked a doctor there if he ever just sat down and cried. He laughed and told me that some days, after treating 400 patients, he feels a bit overwhelmed. I didn't ask him too many questions, his time was too hot a commodity. How do you find hope in Uganda?

Perhaps I should think of the hundreds of street kids that run around barefoot in Kampala, the grubby, begging, starving street children. Does anyone love them? Or maybe I should think of the hundreds of orphans in Naggalama alone that are considered 'lost children' and a burden.

I hesitate writing this, I have this second voice that tells me to keep it light, make it sound funny. There will be days like that but today it's bare bones truth. This is tough. I didn't realize how much I appreciate basic sanitation, vegetables, clean water, Starbucks, email access and how incredibly cushioned my life has been. I didn't realize that I depended on many outside things to keep me sane, happy and useful. I don't feel useful today, I feel trapped in my own fears and thoughts, fully aware that my attitude is the key determinant in how I perceive the world. So I want outside factors to change but I know it's me that has to open my eyes, heart and mind to the beauty, hope and richness that are here somewhere.

Reading emails from home is a powerful thing, my one friend told me I would be in her kitchen nook with her Saturday morning as she wrote me a letter, there would be tea and muffins. Another friend suggested I name the roaches, I've already named the lizard 'Willy.' Wow...truly held and supported today from thousands of miles away. Thank you.

No matter what, I don't need to fly home, get drunk or 'fix' my feelings. I get to sit in this-whatever it is because it's a part of my experience and an intimate, much longed for view of another reality. Camus once wrote 'In the midst of winter, I suddenly discovered that there was in me an invincible summer.' I am searching for my invincible summer.

I have been paying attention and I have some ideas-I believe finding a focus for myself will help. There are so many orphans in Naggalama, they need a home and some love.

ANGELINA JOLIE, FALLING DOWN AND COCKROACHES

So living in a remote village in the middle of Uganda is not quite as glamorous as I pictured it might be. It’s not that I imagined it would be glamorous so much as I thought my dealing with it would be more…graceful.

I’ve been here for 5 days and I feel like I slipped off one planet and fallen onto another one. Naggalama is a small village along the main road running from Kampala. It is approximately 40 minutes from Setta (where I am now), email access and pseudo-city life. I was insistent upon living in a village, wanted a taste of the Real Uganda and I have it. My apartment is a 5 minute walk from village center. It consists of two cement floored rooms and a small anti-chamber with a drain, my bathroom. It is furnished with local wicker chairs, a wooden coffee table, a bed and a mosquito net. It is actually beautiful to me. I unpacked in a couple of minutes and reveled in the simplicity of it. My place is a swank pad compared to the majority of local homes and I am grateful beyond measure that I have a little haven to retreat to. I have electricity every other night, candles when the power is out. Laying under my net, candles burning (nice fire hazard), listening to my ipod and scanning the walls for bugs is actually very meditative.
The one ‘hitch’ is my toilet or latrine as it is called here. It’s a small stall around the corner from my place. I expected the hole in the ground, the smell, etc…wasn’t quite as prepared for the cockroaches. HUGE cockroaches that stare at me and wiggle their vicious little antennae. When I saw the stall during the day I was so happy, it’s really not that bad. Then I visited it at night…it took me 5 minutes of motivational pep talks, negotiating with the (did I say HUGE) cockroaches and mustering up courage before I could use the hole. Since that time I’ve decided that I will stop drinking liquid after 6pm. My hope is that I will never need to use the loo at night again. I can’t decide if it’s better to face them or have my back to them.

Spent yesterday visiting an even more remote village (who knew they got more remote) while Lawrence, the director of Mumyo (NGO I will work with) spoke to the villagers about government, voting rights, etc… The elections are coming up so this is good work that he is doing. Such a wild, bizarre, incredible experience. The village is in the middle of a sugarcane/tea plantation, the homes are mud huts with a few brick and cement buildings for managers. When we arrived, a woman set up two small stools for us and the villagers began to gather round. It took 20 minutes or so for the word to get out…Lawrence took out a newspaper and read. I sat there and tried to smile while 50 or so people sat and stared at me. Some children began to cry when I waved and smiled at them. Apparently they were afraid because they have never seen someone like me before. Finally Lawrence gave his mini-workshop, then introduced me and had me say a few words. Wow…words just didn’t flow. I think I said ‘thank you, you have a wonderful village, I am here to learn about Ugandans’ and sat down.

After his speech, I felt bolder and asked if I could tour their village. They seemed very excited by that. One woman spoke English, she walked with me and acted as translator. I walked through their village, looked inside their one room homes, waved and smiled. I didn’t know what else to do. The children became bolder too, soon two little ones were holding my hands and the rest of them joined the tour. Some of them touched me like it was a dare, as if I might feel different. One little girl outlined the veins on the top of my hand with great concentration. I was quite moved. The tour wrapped up, I braved their toilet, then headed down the hill with Lawrence. I was walking away, feeling like Angelina Jolie, I turned to wave to the children with a kind, gentle smile on my face and fell right on my ass in the dirt. The kids loved it!!! Laughed hysterically. Took me a second but I laughed too, doesn’t the Universe have an awesome way of reminding us of who we are.

The conditions in the village were unreal. I’m trying to look at life here without the prejudices of my upbringing. It’s tough. The village was torn up, the children were very dirty, they all wore very old, tattered clothing. The people seemed half asleep, kind but hardly vibrant. These were not a hopeful people, it was not a hopeful way of life. Many people do nothing all day here. They do not have jobs, education is too expensive for many, life is bland. I came here wanting to believe that Ugandans were actually very happy people despite their circumstances. I have had many conversations already with Ugandans and that does not seem to be the majority experience.

I think I wanted to come here and find obvious answers to the myriad of problems facing people in Africa. The problems are so overwhelming to me at this point, that I find it difficult to see any solutions. These are early days and I imagine my perspective will change frequently but today I am greatly distressed by what I am seeing. I have found myself wondering why did I end up so lucky? Why do some people have such a tough lot in life? Questions like these have been swirling around my head for the past 2 days. I escaped to Setta today to reconnect with another world to keep my sanity. Questions that have no answers will drive me mad if I dwell in them.

My wise friend emailed me, wrote about paying attention. Perhaps if I pay attention, my work here will become clear to me. I will not be teaching at a school in Naggalama-there is no real school in Naggalama. I’m not sure what I will do. Pay attention I guess.