Push, Pull, or Shove

         In the last week of November, I covered a lot of ground in only six days. Zipping between Central and Eastern Uganda brought its share of adventures.    

         My trip to Kampala started at 4:44 a.m. on a Sunday.  A friend of mine had spent a few days at my place and had to get up early to start his journey home. I left my house at 6:30 and got on a white Galaxy bus headed to Kampala at 7:00. After hearing from other Volunteers in my area that Sunday was a bad day to travel, I was ecstatic at my good fortune of actually being able to snag a bus that early, and of the possibility of reaching Kampala at a decent hour.  Silly girl!  We didn’t actually leave town until almost 8:30.  After stopping a few times, we reached the Mbale bus park.  I was relieved to be able to make a “short call” (a quick pee) in a pay bathroom.  (It was a step up from most short calls on long bus rides. The bus pulls over on the side of the road while everyone scatters behind bushes.  I tend to follow the teenage girls who must be as self-conscious as me and know the best way to conceal themselves.  Most of the time, I try to dehydrate for these trips. )  We must have waited close to an hour sweating our asses off before we pulled out of the bus park.  Even then, we stopped right outside to pick up another passenger even though all the seats were full.  The other passengers were pissed.  They started yelling at the conductor that they didn’t have any more time to waste.  After making our second stop for fuel, we finally rolled down the highway to Kampala. 

         Just as we approached the bridge to cross the Nile River in Jinja, the police stopped us.  The bus pulled onto a side road as the conductor got off to show the police officers some papers.  After about ten minutes, everyone got off the bus to seek shade under a billboard.  The conductor was making phone calls while the police just laughed at him.  Eventually, he rode off on a motorcycle boda-boda with one of the officers following in a station wagon.  A woman told me that our bus was only licensed to travel between Mbale and Kampala, but not to Soroti.  She was trying to compare it to how planes have to register their flight plans.  All I could think was “WHO CARES?!”  This isn’t the FAA.  We weren’t smuggling drugs or arms.  We weren’t even crossing any international borders.  This was one of those rare occasions where I would have actually supported corruption.  I was very tempted to just yell out, “Someone just bribe him with a few thousand shillings so we can get the hell out of here!” As I watched trucks from Kenya pass by, I resisted the urge to hitch hike with them.  I kept hoping a USAID or Peace Corps vehicle would pass so I could flag it down and beg them for a ride or that some other muzungu (foreigner) would take pity on me.   Instead, I took the opportunity to make another short call.  As I walked up the hill, I noticed that other people had the same idea.  On both sides of the road were steep concrete ditches where one man was squatting to relieve himself.  At least he had the class to try to conceal himself, unlike most men who just turn their back to the road.  I made my way to an abandoned set of water tanks.  As I made my way to the back of one of the massive tanks, a few other women were squatting behind cinder block walls. 

         We were finally allowed to leave, only for our bus to run out of fuel an hour outside of Kampala.  When I heard this, I just started laughing.  I’d had enough adventures on the Galaxy for one day.  So, I joined about ten other passengers when a taxi (minivan that carries about 20 people) pulled over.  When the driver offered me the front seat (the Queen Seat as Linda and Joanna call it) I jumped at the chance, thinking my luck had finally turned. Just as we were getting ready to leave, a man with a STIHL weed eater said if I was going to sit in the Queen seat I would have to hold his “stick” so it could go through the window (it wouldn’t fit anywhere else in the taxi).  Having visions of the weed eater being stolen out of my hands or it hitting something and shattering into a million pieces, I relinquished the Queen Seat to him. Instead, I sat between him and the driver.  Every time the driver shifted gears, he hit my leg.

         I cranked up The Killers on my iPod to drown out the radio broadcast of some football match. It’s amazing how much of an impact music can make on your attitude while you’re travelling.  You can go from “I hate my life. Why does this always happen to me?” to “This is such a fun adventure! I am the master of African transportation” in just a few seconds.  Unfortunately, that high only lasted a few songs before we pulled over in Seeta (on the outskirts of Kampala) to pick up a few more passengers.  While we were stopped, the driver started arguing with two men who were trying to exact a taxi park fee from him.  After about ten minutes, they exchanged phone numbers and we were on our way.  As the Galaxy bus passed us, I regretted getting in that taxi.  At our next stop, some man with crazy eyes came out of nowhere and tried to grab the keys out of the ignition.  My first thought was “Shit! I’m trapped between a weed eater and a fight.”  Luckily, the driver showing the crazy man his phone somehow stopped the argument.  I can only assume that it was related to the previous one.  I finally got to my hotel at 6:30, twelve hours after I left my house. 

         My trip home to Soroti on Tuesday was relatively smooth.  But the next morning, I was off again to Katakwi for two nights to help some district health workers carry out Integrated Support Supervision. East of Soroti, Katakwi borders Karamoja (which borders Kenya), which might be one of the least developed areas in Uganda.  Kadeppo National Park in the northern part of the district is supposedly one of the most pristine and beautiful parks in the country.  Peace Corps forbids us to travel to Karamoja as people are often killed during cattle raids.  There are many stereotypes about the Karamajong people including how they like to fight and walk around naked (but not at the same time, I hope). If Karamoja is the wild west of Uganda, then Katakwi is its slightly tamer neighbor. 

         It takes about an hour and a half to reach Katawki muncipality from Soroti.  The road between Soroti and Moroto (in Karamoja) is notorious for being the worst road in Uganda.  Articles about the state of the road often appear in the national papers accompanied by pictures of busses stuck in the mud.  Luckily, a private car took me to Katakwi.  The road there was dusty and rough, but nothing like what we would face the next day. 

          Thursday morning six of us piled into a station wagon and headed out.  On our way to the first health center, we saw a few men rolling huge concrete pipes along the narrow dirt road. They were constructing culverts.  We all got out of the car to see that two huge drop-offs stood between us and our next stop.  Our car was too wide to make it across and we couldn’t go around because we were surrounded by a swamp.  But, they filled one hole with huge rocks and our station wagon miraculously made it across.   

         Not long after that, our car got stuck in a huge puddle.  This time, I thought “well, this is it. I’m going to have to spend the night here and no one will even know where I am.” For those three days, I didn’t have phone coverage as there was no Orange network in Katakwi.  But, an Orange tower was being constructed.  I hadn’t even informed Peace Corps that I would be in Katakwi.  So if something happened, I wouldn’t even be able to reach them on my phone.  Two of the women walked to the nearby village to get help because they knew many people there.  They had to resort to pushing it out of the puddle.  My vanity (if I was going to have to sleep in those same clothes and wear them a second day I might as well try to keep them clean) prevented me from helping until the very end when I knew I wouldn’t get mud sprayed on me. Just as the car got out, about five men showed up to help us, which was reassuring that we wouldn’t have been totally deserted.

         After we stopped for some “bites”, the road got even more isolated as we drove through the rain.  But the scenery was beautiful as we moved towards Mt. Motoro (in Karamoja).   On clear days, I can see Mt. Moroto from Soroti, so I was really happy to finally see it close up. But then we reached what looked like the worst spot on the worst road in the entire country.  There was no way that little station wagon (without four wheel drive) was going to make it through the muddy pit.  I thought we were going to have to turn around and return to town.  Tree branches were scattered around from previous drivers trying to gain traction.  We all got out and walked ahead to get out his way.  Somehow, he had less trouble getting through it than the last one.

         Our next health center to visit was at SOFAD (School of Artillery and Defense), a military base near the border of Karamoja.  Get this - it’s an area called Bagdad.  As we got closer to the small town just before SOFAD, strange noises were coming from one of the wheels.  We managed to pull into another smaller health center so the driver could try to repair it.  At that point, I just accepted that I would actually be spending the night there.  A few people told us that we could walk the rest of the way, so we took off on foot.  As I was walking towards Mt. Moroto in the most remote place I had been to in Uganda, I had a “Whoa, I really live in Africa” moment.  Very few cars were passing by.  After five minutes, we flagged down a small white Isuzu pickup truck, and the driver gave us agreed to give us a lift.  The five of us climbed into the bed of the truck and I sat on two old tires.  After about a five minute ride, we were dropped off at the road leading to SOFAD.  It was actually pretty fun.

         The “gate” to the base was made of tree branches and controlled by two soldiers.  We were directed to a small building where we waited for the commander in an office where the windows were filled with mud and sticks.  As we walked to the health center, I noticed about one hundred small straw tents on the ground.  At first I thought they were for animals.  But when I asked someone what they were, I was shocked to learn that the soldiers slept in them.  The commander told us earlier that this location was temporary for the base and that huts for the soldiers would soon be constructed. 

         The health center, which also serves the civilian community, was one of the most depilated structures I had ever seen.  It was a small building with holes in the roof and wasp nests.  But the soldiers and staff couldn’t have been nicer or more hospitable.  A few of us settled in on the front porch to get data from their registers.  In the distance the sunlight was hitting a rock structure so perfectly that I had to resist the urge to run towards it with my camera.  It looked like something in Monument Valley, Utah. As the wind picked up and the temperature dropped, I moved inside to avoid the impending rain.  After a few minutes, it really started pouring.  Bed-ridden patients were wheeled to the center of the room away from the windows.  Water started seeping in and forced everyone towards the interior of the building.  After I found a dry spot, more people started crowding in and I found myself in an old bathroom waiting out the storm with a few female soldiers.  Once the rain let up, I sat on two cheap green plastic chairs (they had to be stacked on each other to support me because both had huge cracks in them) in the interior with one of the health workers who used a flashlight to help me read the register.

         After we finished our work and made our way back to the entrance, Sapphire came to our rescue. Sapphire is the name I gave to Fred’s blue Toyota Hilux four-wheel drive truck. Sometimes a man named Abdallah drove Sapphire when we needed an extra vehicle in the field. I had never been so happy to see her.  Besides Abdallah, six of us crowded into Sapphire.  It was almost 7:00, and dark by the time we left the base.  After a few minutes, we saw an old woman (an amojong in Ateso) walking towards us on the road.  Her hands were up and she was saying something.  At first, I thought she was trying to get a ride from us (as I had seen this gesture from younger women before trying to get a ride).  But then someone said, “Look at that drunk amojong!” She wasn’t trying to flag us down; she was just talking to herself.  Not long after that, we saw a woman getting a little wobbly on her bike.  She slowly fell over, looked back at us and grinned.  We all died laughing.  Someone said “That’s the problem with drinking.  I said “you think she was drunk?” to which they replied “she definitely tasted something!” 

         My experiences are pretty typical of travelling in Africa.  It was more inconvenience than anything else.  Honestly, I wouldn’t trade any of these experiences for anything in the world.  After all, it’s what makes such great stories.  Some people have much worse tales.  A few weeks ago, my coworker, Ruth walked into the office and started wiping her face with tissues.  A baby had thrown up on her during a short taxi ride from Kumi.  

         Tomorrow I head to Kampala for the third time in three weeks to meet Mom at Entebbe Airport.  Instead of subjecting her to public transportation, we are splurging on a private tour company to drive us to some of the national parks and Soroti.  But I’m sure our trip won’t be without a few hiccups.  Stay tuned!              

  

          

Catholics, Hindus, and Teargas: All Things That Make Me Cry (October 17, 2012)

Catholics

Last Sunday, I journeyed out to Madera, a village out past the flying school, to attend Chelsea’s baptism.  When I first got to the Catholic church, I thought I was in the wrong place.  The building was still under construction with no windows, huge parts of the roof missing, and bricks piled up everywhere.  There were dozens of people standing outside the church.  Joanna arrived right after me and we made our way inside.  Someone offered us their plastic chairs as we sat off to the side of the altar.  We caught the tail end of the English mass which had started at 7:30.  The next mass would be held in Ateso.  Joanna was in charge of video, and I took still photos with Chelsea’s very intimidating camera.  But I really enjoyed it.  Joanna and I joked that we should go into business after Peace Corps.

Although the mass had several similarities of Catholic services I had attended back home, (as they say here), it felt very “free”.  A group of musicians played local instruments and sang unfamiliar, but uplifting hymns.  A troupe of young girls sporting blue and white dresses danced down the aisles to accompany the offering or the communion. Women would yell “AIYAYAIAYAIYAI-YAAAAAAAAH!” in the middle of a song.  This was not confined to the church service.  One of the women who worked at Enakyu Village Hotel made this sound as we approached the entrance and startled us.  Even the nuns made did this during the small, informal reception afterwards. 

Besides Chelsea, there were two other people who got baptized that day.  The man was a boda boda (motorcycle) driver, and the woman, Margaret, was a nurse.  They all wore white.  Chelsea had on a simple, but beautiful knee-length dress with lacey sleeves.  Margaret wore a traditional gomesi (a Ugandan dress with huge, puffy, pointy sleeves and a big belt). I’m not incredibly religious, but I teared up several times.  Between the music, the dancing, and the outbursts of joy, I just couldn’t help but get swept up with everyone else.  Also, I was really touched that Chelsea invited me to be a part of such an important day although we had only known each other a few months.  Even though I was the new kid on the block, I was welcomed with open arms by people she had known for two years.   

At the reception afterwards, we ate, drank, and laughed. The most memorable part was drinking sherry with nuns.  Of course, mine was mixed with beer.  As part of Ugandan tradition, everyone has to introduce themselves and say a little speech.  Chelsea, Jo, and I cried several times.  Ibrahim’s host father joined us and said something very touching at the end of the reception:  “If America and Peace Corps keeps sending people like you, who are on the ground, to other countries, I believe that America will be the one to bring countries together and improve international relations.”      

Hindus

Today as I was shopping in OM Supermarket, I spotted a brown tabby cat.  When one of the clerks noticed me to trying to call it over, he guided me to the back room to show me a kitten.  Two Indian men were eating lunch; I apologized for disturbing them and said I just wanted to see the kitten.  I took off my shoes and one invited me to sit on the couch.  The clerk brought the kitten to me (incredibly ADORABLE with tortoise shell markings), but it leapt out of my lap after a few seconds. Not able to get my kitty fix, I was ready to leave, but the man sitting across from me in a swing said “You will eat Indian food?”  Um, Is Gandhi Hindu? YES!!  A local girl served me Masala rice with cilantro, yogurt, and something similar to papadum (imagine a giant, round corn chip).  We introduced ourselves and his name is Situ (I’m sure I’m butchering the spelling).  I had seen him several times as his family runs OM and MY Supermarkets, which I shop in one or the other almost everyday.  Every time I saw him, he greeted me with a silent smile and his hands folded like he was praying.  So, I was happy to finally have the chance to talk to him.  He’s been in Uganda for twelve years and his wife just had their second daughter yesterday back in India.  Like many other Indians I’ve met that emigrated out of the country, he’s from Gujarat, a state in the western part of India.  Gandhi was from there.  In 2009, I visited its capital city of Ahmedabad with a few other Peace Corps Volunteers so we could tour the ashram where Gandhi launched his non-violent independence campaign.  Situ actually reminded me of Gandhi.  With a shaved head and one leg tucked under him on that swing, he had very peaceful aura.

After we finished eating, he really started talking, mostly about Hinduism and its scripture, the Gita, which was next to him.  I was suddenly in no hurry to leave.  All around the room were pictures of Hindu gods:  Ganesha (half elephant, half-man), Shiva the Destroyer (one of my favorites…I actually have a batik of him), and Krishna. He said “Hinduism has many gods. But I believe that no matter what religion we are, we are praying in a parallel way”.  He was pointing with both his hands up and would alternate inching up them up towards the ceiling.  I agreed with him and told him that was a really beautiful way of phrasing it. I never got tears in my eyes, but at some point during our conversation, I got a lump in my throat.  His hospitality and sense of contentment derived from his faith humbled me. Tomorrow he’s flying home to meet his new daughter.  After I thanked him, he gave me a standing invitation to come back anytime I want to eat lunch with them.        

Teargas

The last time I had been in that same room was my first week in Soroti when Linda and I ran there because we heard gunshots being fired in neighboring Independence Square.  People were running away from the square screaming.  She grabbed my arm and led me to a room where we found Situ and his family eating lunch.  We apologized and explained the situation to them.  A few days later, we found out that it was tear gas that had been fired at a crowd because a political rally was being held without the proper permits. This was my first encounter with tear gas, but not my last. 

Last night, Paul was driving me to my house with my new table and chairs.  Just before we turned off Lira Road, he said, “did you see that?! It was like a cloud shot across the sky very low.”  I joked that it was UFO, which I had to explain to him.  When we turned onto my little road, there were dozens of people walking in our direction.  He said that it a high school farewell party (similar to a graduation ceremony) must have ended.  When we parked the truck, they started running.  But I noticed several people were smiling and laughing, so I didn’t think too much about it.  Paul said “I think the farewell party must have ended badly.”

After we moved the furniture in and Paul left, I kicked a ball around the yard with Joshua (the oldest boy on the compound), Innocent (second youngest son of Kristen), and Juliet, a woman in her twenties.  After a few minutes, they were all standing on a sand pile trying to look over the fence at the people passing on the road.  When I asked what was going on, Joshua said “they are running from tear gas”.  Joshua and Sheila (a 3-4 year old girl from a different family) wondered outside the gate to check things out.  I didn’t feel like it was a good idea to just let them just hang out there.  So, I followed them out there where I overheard a woman sitting on the other side of the road saying “I don’t know what has gotten into children these days.  They must be possessed by the devil!”  I told Joshua to get inside and I picked up Sheila.  Joshua started to hold his nose and fan his face.  At first, I thought he was exaggerating because I didn’t smell or notice anything different.  But as I went around back to return Sheila to her parents, sure enough, my nose started to burn and run.  It was getting dark and I could start to see the smoke.  I noticed that my laundry was still on the line from this afternoon.  Great.  Not only do I have to take in the laundry while breathing in tear gas, I have to do it in the dark because the power is out.

After I was settled in the house, I heard sirens approaching.  On the rare occasion I do hear sirens, it’s almost always an ambulance.  Last night I was almost certain that they were police sirens.  I’m curious to see if this will be in the national newspaper.  Never a dull moment in Nakatunya!

   

Baggage (September 21, 2012)

The only baggage you can bring is all that you can’t leave behind

…………………………………………………………………………………….

You’re packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been

A place that has to believed to be seen

Lyrics from “Walk On” by U2

In the months leading up to the big move into my new house, I fantasized about unpacking in a deliriously happy frenzy.   The reality is that I’m having a really hard time doing it.  I tell myself that it’s because I don’t have enough shelf space in my closet yet.  Every day I only unpack a few articles of clothing or toiletries, and even that feels like a chore.  My big red backpack is still sitting on my bedroom floor with a heap of clothes on top of it.  Amidst black caveras (Swahili for plastic bag), books, random kitchen supplies, and pillows scattered across my tiled living room floor is my green rolling duffel bag.  I just don’t feel like dragging it into my bedroom.  So, everyday I pick through each bag or heap looking for something moderately “smart”, clean, and unwrinkled to wear.  And admittedly, today I’m wearing a shirt that I pulled out of the dirty laundry bucket.  Unpacking my navy blue Samsonite toiletry bag was downright painful.  As I forced myself to transfer things into plastic baskets, I never felt satisfied no matter how many times I rearranged them.  I’m afraid that once I am completely unpacked, I will feel just like my bags: empty.

When I look at my bags, I’m reminded of the people who gave them to me and all the places I’ve carried them.  I bought “Big Red” in Scotland in 2001 while shopping with Alice, and its yellow cover was purchased in China.  My brother, Steve gave me the green duffel as a Christmas gift before making its maiden voyage to Japan in 2003.  It somehow ripped near the zipper en route to the Dakar airport.  Nicole, another PCV, lent me some tape to repair it.  I’ll never forget trying to rip the tape with my teeth, sweat dripping down my legs as we shuffled towards the check-in counter with our carts.  It probably will retire in Uganda.  The blue Samsonite was a gift from Mom and I refuse to think about the day when I have to replace it.  

It’s not the bags I’m attached to, but my nomadic lifestyle. Honestly, I was so used to living out of my bags and staying in a different place almost every week, that I probably could have done it for the remaining nine months of my service.        

Last night I went for quick walk around my neighborhood, Nakatunya.  I walked down the dirt road past my house, weaving past a boys’ hostel, people cooking outside their houses, and little kids playing with tire tubes. Instead of doubling back, I decided to walk on Lira Road.  Lira Road is like the Highway 62 of Eastern Uganda.  It’s actually paved really well (thanks to the People’s Republic of China) and is always crowded with people riding bikes, motorcycle boda bodas, uniformed students going to and from school, mutatu taxi vans, and semi trucks travelling between Kenya and South Sudan.  Because it was just getting dark, there were lots of people out socializing around barber shops housed in little shacks, shops and bars.  For some strange reason, while walking down that stretch of Lira Road for the first time, it didn’t feel like I was in Soroti or even Uganda.  It felt like I had just arrived in an unfamiliar part of Africa.  I guess in a way I had reached a different place, just not in the geographical sense.

The smell of g-nuts (short for groundnuts, which I think are peanuts, but my coworkers debate this with me) drew me over to a woman sitting next to several Tupperware containers of g-nut sauce for sale.  I didn’t have any money on me, but I plan on going back to buy a small one so I can cook with it.   

My friend Danielle made a brilliant post on facebook this morning:

“I've decided the cruel thing about life is that when you have security you want freedom and when you have freedom you want security.”

I couldn’t agree more.  Yesterday morning I woke up smelling bacon and yearned to be in my Mom’s house in Kentucky.  I’m almost certain that when I get back to Kentucky I’ll miss the smell of g-nut paste in Uganda.