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| i sit on a wide wooden bench between the foosball table and the giant speaker as A plays against a guy we don’t know. we all watch in laughing disbelief, becoming increasingly annoyed as he dives over the table to congratulate whichever of them has scored, any time either of them does, by wrapping his arms around A, jostling and apparently slobbering on the poor girl. we wonder out loud why S, who is just standing there near A, doesn’t do something to end it—this would be the perfect time for someone to pretend to be A’s boyfriend, for example, and to throw a protective arm around her. the next time A scores a goal, S jumps in between her and the table, throwing his arms in the air and doing a hilariously out of character victory dance, leaving absolutely no room for her opponent to get anywhere near her. we all erupt in laughter and applause. the creepy guy gets the point and sidles off to another corner of the bar. K missed S’s reckless display of clumsy chivalry because he was off buying drinks for everyone again. i savor the ice and lime in my gin and tonic and watch the men playing pool, and the prostitutes. one girl is very young, and very pretty. she steps onto the bench between the foosball table and the seating area and dances, her slinky skirt swishing around her beautiful legs. when i look back from the pool table a few minutes later, she’s dancing with a fat, drunk white man, who disgusted me even before i saw his hands on her. the two prostitutes hanging around the foosball table both look at least ten years younger than me. M leans over to me and says of one of them, ‘she’s clearly fresh from the village. i want to tell her to just go home, that she’s not fooling anybody.’ the girl is dancing wildly, literally spinning out of control, throwing out her hands to catch her balance and earning only curses from the irritated pool players for her efforts. she’s a big girl wearing an unattractive dress, with a gap between her two front teeth. i cringe to think of the small fee she must charge for her services. a thousand shillings? five hundred? i buy half a dozen tomatoes for five hundred shillings in the village, or three eggs. the other girl, thin and light-skinned, is playing foosball with a rastafarian and two white guys. she is so thin; i remember stories of people doing lines of cocaine off of any available surface here at al’s. expletives and laughter erupt from her lips in a loud, grating, pathetic stream. i am sad, disgusted, angry, though i don’t know exactly where my anger is, or should be, directed. i glance over at R, curious to see his reaction to these girls. he’s fast asleep on the bench next to the speaker blaring classic rock, nile special clutched tightly in his fist. i try to take the beer from him, not wanting him to drop it. he wakes up and is not amused, though i’m not laughing either. M wants to see more of the place, so we climb the wooden stairs and sit at the bar looking out over the floor. the balcony offers the perfect vantage point for watching the odd conglomeration of people who frequent al’s bar, but it also seems to be the place where shady things happen. one older white man passes behind us and issues an invitation to a dark room that sits above another short flight of stairs—‘come on, girls, come and have a joint.’ no thanks. a few minutes later a young, skinny ugandan kid with braids to his shoulders passes by. when we ignore him too, he hisses something about lesbians, which only i heard. after we continue to ignore him, he leaves us alone, but only after making another vulgar comment or two. M and i decided we were ready to go rejoin our friends on the main floor. as we walk down the stairs, i feel as if we’re being chased away, as if all of the people watching us are intent on being vulgar and offensive, as if they want us to feel humiliated and despised. i don’t know if there’s any reason for me to feel that way. we make our way downstairs to where T, A, K are standing after having taken their shots, and M tells them about what has transpired in the last fifteen minutes. i’m mildly disgusted with all of it, but i’m feeling surprisingly at ease in the midst of such a place. the next thing i know, an arm wraps around my neck from behind and above. i am relieved, comforted by the surprise of a friendly, gentle touch from S. as we’re standing there, a ugandan man with an affected british accent approaches S and starts talking to him about chogm, development and whatever else. it begins on a perfectly friendly note, but the guy becomes more antagonistic and intent on blaming, offending and embarrassing as the conversation goes on, in spite of the fact that S is clearly not interested in answering drunken accusations or debating the role that white people play in the state of uganda’s affairs. after a few minutes of this, we all decide we’re finally ready to leave and make our way through the crowd towards the door. as we’re looking for transport back to our hotels, we are approached by yet another young ugandan man who wants to engage us in a conversation. this one, however, apologizes for all the others. he urges us not to go home feeling bad. ‘we’re not all like that,’ he begs us to believe. ‘we’re not all racist. that is not uganda,’ he insists, gesturing towards the bar. we’re all tired (it is nearly 6am by now) and we try to ignore him at first. we tell him we know uganda and that we’re leaving the bar, not because we’ve been mistreated, but because we’re tired. but he continues to plead with us not to allow our experience with those ‘bad people’ taint our impression of his country. i don’t know who he is or how he knows he wants to say those things, whether he’s overheard some of our interactions inside or just assumes them. but i appreciate the fact that he’s troubled by the way we’ve been treated and wants to enact some brand of reconciliation before we leave the place. as we drive away, i see a bizarre vision of that young man in his pressed white shirt standing guard outside of al’s bar night after night, waiting for harassed and disillusioned bazungu to exit the bar so that he can rush to their side to repair the damage and restore their faith in a country that prides itself on its hospitality to visitors. ‘go home feeling free,’ he’s urged us. and i do. | | |
| my time in uganda is split between two places—kalangala town, which ‘looks more like a village’ according to teachers at my school, and kampala, uganda’s capital city. kalangala is situated at the top of a hill on buggala island. you can see the waters of lake victoria from just about anywhere in town. there are a few cars and a few lorries, but the main modes of transportation are bikes and motorcycles. the island is quiet. the birds wake me up every morning. i visit schools or go to meetings in town. i write a lot of letters, read a lot of books, occasionally go to the beach for a cold drink. i cook and bathe by candlelight. i’m asleep well before midnight on a normal night. i’m one of only a very few bazungu in the place (i think there are now four of us) and many people greet me by my kiganda name, nasaka, as i walk through town. the women at the market know me and actually give me more tomatoes for my money because they get such a kick out of my speaking luganda with them. kampala is the place where i get to see other volunteers and feel like a normal person once or twice a month. i talk to people who are experiencing things very much like what i experience on a daily basis. i don’t have to adjust my accent when i talk to people. i drink beer in public. i get to wear trousers. i still get a lot of attention because of my skin color, but people ‘greet’ me with ‘hey, muzungu!’ or ‘hey, chogm!’ instead of my name. (chogm, the commonwealth heads of government meeting, will take place in kampala later this month; the queen of england and 53 heads of state will attend. the government is spending millions of shillings repairing roads and cleaning up the city in preparation. the question ‘are you ready for chogm?’ which appears on billboards everywhere has become something of a joke, and boda drivers have replaced ‘muzungu’ with ‘chogm’ when they’re addressing any white person.) i generally assume that i’m being overcharged for any kind of transport or anything i try to buy in a market, so i’ve had a lot of practice in bargaining and arguing, with varying degrees of success. in a lot of ways, the two towns are polar opposites, and yet they’re both part of ‘our uganda’. as i try to process what my experience in uganda has been, is, should be, i’m constantly comparing and contrasting, both between uganda and home, and among different experiences that i have within this country. all of these observations continue to fascinate me, so i’m writing about some of them, perhaps to try to conclude something, or just to share more bits of my life. | | |
| after months of waiting, anticipating, wondering if this thing was actually going to work, i finally got a text message just before my short trip home in september from one of the peace corps staff saying, ‘just got word from pc washington—your partnership project is fully funded. we should have your check within a couple of weeks. congratulations!’
although it’s always hard to leave my family and home, it was easier this time because i was excited to get back to uganda, pick up the check and get started on the project. on monday this week, after talking to just about everyone in the peace corps office in kampala, i finally tracked down the check, signed for it and immediately deposited it in the bank.
on wednesday this week, i withdrew the first bunch of money and handed it over to Michael, the director of the school, and he’s been purchasing building materials for the school.
we’ve begun.
i’m writing this post particularly to express our gratitude to all of the people who contributed funds to make this project possible. i’m trying to get a list of donors’ names from peace corps so that i can thank people individually, but so far all i can do is throw this out into the world and hope it lands on the right ears: thank you! i (we) really do appreciate your willingness to contribute towards the construction of this primary school in a village you’ve never heard of before, for the benefit of these children you’ve never seen; many people in the world would just rather not be bothered. the positive response to my request for funds also encourages me personally; i appreciate your involvement in the work that i am trying to do here in kalangala. it feels like a long, slow process, and it’s really good to feel the support of so many of you back at home. so thank you, once again. now that we’ve begun work on the school, i’ll do my best to keep posting updates on the progress of the project so that you can see exactly where your contribution has gone.
thank you!
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| the journey from columbia to kalangala begins sunday afternoon when i drive away from my mom’s house with tim and mel, and finally ends on thursday evening when the taxi brings me up the hill from the ferry to my house. the in-between days and nights are spent in sioux falls, omaha, chicago, entebbe, with my siblings in their respective places, with friends and strangers, and finally alone in a tent for a night, because the hostel has neglected to reserve my room, or else given it away; either is equally likely. i’m actually grateful to be alone on my first night back in uganda; if i must sleep in a tent, i’d rather not have company.
throughout the long journey, i observe fellow travelers and ponder my findings. my seatmates on the three flights, all young men around my age, are about as diverse a sample as i could hope for, all of them exceptionally friendly and open. from omaha to chicago, i sit next to a young african american man who’s been visiting his family in omaha, his hometown. this short visit has been his first time back to omaha since he moved to atlanta several years ago to pursue a career having something to do with information technology. he expresses wonder and a certain disdain at how ‘everything there was exactly the same’ as he left it, and frustration with his family’s reluctance to break out of the rut they’ve created for themselves. when the conversation inevitably turns to me and why i’m on my way to chicago, i explain that i’m just going to stay with my sister for a night before flying back to uganda, where i’ve lived for the past year and a half. his mouth drops open, and he fires a hundred questions at me about what made me decide to move to africa, what it’s like to live there, and how i feel about going back. he keeps shaking his head in disbelief in a way that makes me smile, and says more than once, ‘i’d be scared to death to move to africa!’ and yet, i point out, he is the only one in his family who has found the courage to leave omaha to pursue his vision of a better, richer, more satisfying life for himself. he is no coward.
on the flight from chicago to amsterdam, my neighbor and i are lucky enough to have an empty seat between us, which we pile full of headsets, blankets, pillows, and all of the plastic wrappers from all of those things. the distance afforded by the not-so-empty seat between us doesn’t prevent this young man from striking up a conversation about where we’re each coming from and why. he’s from france, and is on his way home from visiting friends in california. i’m not eager to talk about myself, so our conversation feels more like an interview as i persist in asking him for more details about himself. i learn that he studied in minnesota and california and has friends all over the states, whom he visits several times a year. i laugh as i ask what kind of job he has that allows him time and money to travel so often. then i laugh again at his sheepish smile and his explanation, ‘i don’t work; my parents own businesses.’ he goes on to explain that he also started a business of his own when he was still young. it was something dealing with coffee, most of which he sold to starbucks several years ago, and now he doesn’t really have to worry about working ever again and splits his time between skiing and traveling the world. i comment that he must be grateful, since there aren’t very many people in the world who have the luxury of a lifetime of play. i’m thinking, of course, not only of people i’m leaving in the midwest, who generally work hard to pay the bills, but of the ones i will soon rejoin in uganda, most of whom work hard and live in homes built of wood or mud, send their children to school without shoes or lunch, and will never travel outside of their home districts. he shakes his head and says, ‘there are more people like me than you think,’ referring to his friends in california as an example. that’s probably true, i concede, and add silently, but there are more people than you think living in ways that you don’t care to imagine.
perhaps my conversation with that young rich man is partly to blame, but as i sit in the airport in amsterdam, i find myself drawn not to other westerners, but to the africans who are waiting at the gate. i warm to their quick wide smiles and friendly courtesy, and prefer them in their familiar brightly patterned clothing to the impenetrable cool of impeccably dressed europeans or the self-satisfied, self-sufficient scruffiness of american backpackers. it comes as a jolt when i realize that these people, the africans who can afford international travel, belong to the same class of people that i view with measured contempt when we’re all passengers on the ferry to kalangala. here in this airport we are all travelers together, going home. there on the ship, they are tourists, flaunting their wealth and impatient with anything or anyone that gets in the way of their holiday, or so it seems to me, and i am unique, a foreigner choosing to associate with teachers and old women, ridiculously assuming i know more, or at least care more, about the way the people live than do these flamboyant elements of uganda’s upper crust. context is everything, i remind myself.
on my third and final flight, i sit next to a young ugandan man who wears a gold band on his left hand and reads a book with a title i recognize from my days working in the counseling center. both of those things—the wedding ring and the book—indicate that he’s not a typical ugandan man, and my curiosity is piqued. it isn’t until we’re preparing to land, however, that some of my questions are answered. he’s the one to open the conversation, asking if i’m just visiting uganda, and how long i’ll stay. i explain my situation, learn that he’s never visited kalangala, that he’s from the southwestern part of the country but now lives in kampala, where he is a doctor at mulago. i had guessed as much, i say, gesturing towards the epidemiology book stuck in the pocket of the seat in front of him. since i’ve already practically confessed that i’ve been spying on him, i ask about the other book that he’s been reading, the improve the health of your marriage book. he doesn’t seem embarrassed at all when he explains that they’ve been married five years and that it takes constant work to maintain a good relationship. i nod in agreement and silently marvel at this man’s openness and humility, neither of which are easy to find in people anywhere, of any age, but which seem especially scarce among his contemporaries. the plane lands, we welcome each other home, and walk down the slightly shaky metal steps into the warm evening breeze.
after retrieving my bag and securing a driver, tasks which take much longer than i think they should, i direct the driver to the hostel where i am welcomed by the proprietor’s exclamation that i am ‘like a daughter!’ to him and then the unfortunate news that there is no room for me. i ask about the tent, assuring him that i just want sleep, i don’t really care where i get it. he makes the arrangements and finally i curl up in my own private ‘room’ of the large tent and immediately sink into sleep.
upon reaching the island, i am welcomed back with comments like, ‘oh, you look good! you’ve returned to your normal color, which means our african sun must have burnt you black!’ i break the news as gently as i can—if i was brown before, i will be soon enough again. yes, i am back. i’m back in this strange land where you can’t even ask a pregnant woman her due date because it implies that you know she’s had sex at least once in her life, but where people don’t hesitate to tell you all the things you don’t want to hear about your appearance (you’ve grown fat! how white you are!) and have the gall to think they’re complimenting you.
somehow, it’s good to be back.
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| for the first nine months that i spent in kalangala, most of my ‘friends’ were kids, either children of teachers or other staff or pupils of the school, ranging in age from 2 to 15. the small ones kept me company during the day when everyone else was busy at work or school and i was just looking for something to do. the older ones visited me in the evenings and on weekends to chat, play cards, learn to bake cakes, and answer all my questions about uganda, their experiences growing up here, and why people do the things they do. i love these kids, and i have them to thank for the fact that i’ve rarely felt lonely at kibanga. it’s only been in the last few months that i’ve found myself becoming friends with people my own age. i’ve spent a lot of time working with other adults, and living with them, interacting with them and making small talk, but those things don’t count as friendship. friendship is staying to take tea with someone, not because you have to or just because you were invited, but because you don’t want to interrupt your conversation to go home and prepare your own. or it’s someone being willing to meet you in kampala to take you around to all the hidden electronics shops in search of a fair deal on equipment for the center’s computers. it’s exploring the island together, or agreeing to paint someone else’s toenails, or meeting for lunch in another town to meet the son no one else at school knows about. i was almost surprised one evening to find myself in my own little house in kalangala, chatting with two guys my own age about things that actually, genuinely interested me and enjoying their company instead of trying to figure out a way to make them leave. it was just like hanging out with friends at home, except for the kerosene lantern, and that happens infrequently enough that it apparently is something to write home about. i appreciate these friends of mine, with whom i can relax and who understand me, because they are rare, and rare things are valuable. of course, i still love my kids. i am still delighted by abby’s endless chatter and the fact that she doesn’t seem to notice that i mostly don’t understand it. the few words i pick out and respond to carry us right along, and we are quite at home with each other. i still welcome henry’s grinning presence and admire his drawings, and he continues to help me, running off to buy kerosene at dusk when i fail to plan ahead. i still wait for the tap on my front door that comes most evenings, and kopia will always be my best ally in kalangala. he is a source of endless information and entertainment, and i feel the sort of protective tenderness for him that one would feel for a much-younger sibling. i recently told him that if he has gone back to his mother’s village for the holiday and isn’t around when my brother comes to visit me, i’ll have to bring tim to wherever they are, because i can’t have him come all the way to uganda and fail to meet kopia. (tim, you’d better be ready for a long journey and an awkward visit because i think they’re already making preparations for us to come!) if i was in a different stage of life and had any way of supporting a child at home, i’d be tempted to try to take one of these ones home with me. it’s strange to think about, especially considering that many parents would probably be willing to part with a child if it meant that child would find a home in america. building these relationships with people in my community is the single most significant accomplishment of the past year and a half. perhaps that's obvious; other people have certainly said the same thing. when i look back on the time i've spent in uganda, i'm pretty sure i'll forget about the frustrations of workshops and failed projects and the mundane challenges of living in a developing country, and will remember instead these friends that have become so dear to me. | | |
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