Transitioning

Trying to coax my slow, soft body into a jog seems incongruent next to the woman on the road across from me. She is tying up a huge bundle of thorns and then carrying them on her head, probably to use in her village kraal, keeping the animals in and the thieves out. She carries this large, sharp, awkward load with the easy grace of long practice and the lean strength of a body used to hard living and hard work. She greets me as I trundle past with a word and a genuine smile, amused and curious as to why I could possibly be running so slow out here in the bush.

Later, further down the road, a man is walking with two sheep tied together at the neck. A stripped blanket is draped over his shoulder and he carries a long shepherd’s stick. The sheep are brown and white with dangling jowls and fat, wiggley tails that follow them like a weirdly misplaced camel hump, turned up whimsically at the ends. As I come to a jogging interval, I move from a brisk walk into a poky jog and pass the man and his sheep. When the jogging interval ends and I walk again, I see the man pass me chasing his sheep. I hope I didn’t spook them as I watch him run with them down the road, but he is not showing any signs that such running is difficult or unwelcome.

Jogging slowly on the unpaved, dusty orange road, I look at the footmarks: cows, dogs, birds, goats, sheep, bare human feet, shoe and tire treads have all left their traces. The air is clear. I can see the blue mountain Toror over the tall heads of the green sorghum stalks, and I think of what it will be like jogging in Chicago. The air will be sweaty with car fumes, and when I get there, frozen with cold and wind. It will be dark and the hulking buildings will tower over me, blocking. The pavement will be grey, and people will leave no footprints apart from the trodden gum and vomit and spilled mochaccinos. There will be no animals but the cockroaches and the rats and the poofy little dogs of the wealthy.

However,

I won’t have to sleep under a mosquito net, or fear getting malaria or amoebas. I will have a bedside lamp. There won’t be so much environmental dust that I always wear shoes inside my house. My shower won’t be made of concrete. My toilet will flush. I will drink milk that has been skimmed but not ultra-high temperature pasteurized or powdered. I won’t have to do laundry by hand. When I use the bathroom at work, I won’t have to dread the children shouting “White Person!” at me or fear their curious eyes at the crack of the pit-latrine door. I will be able to have phone conversations with my neighbors where I don’t have to slow my speech to a crawl to be understood. People will most likely not pee on the side of the road. Roads will be paved. I will be able to eat fresh foods like broccoli and celery and apples and yoghurt whenever I want. My mattress won’t be made of foam. I will not be begged for five cents or shown crying babies and asked for sweets on a daily basis…probably.

I will not go to peace meetings under trees anymore. I will not see the old men pray and sing together, sharing calabashes of blood and beer. I will not see the mothers dancing in their beads with joyful abandon. I will not hear the stories of sorrow and loss. I will not hear the amusing stories of brave warriors and clever evasion of enemies. I will not smell the sweet grassy scent of Bishop’s cattle at night, or hear their lowing. I will not hear the neighbors playing the adungu or the xylophone or the drum. I will not hear faraway singing in the night and follow the music with my housemate until we find it and witness the beautiful prayers to the mystery-god, prayer about hunger and this dry land here, stomping, clapping, dancing, singing prayers full of pain and joy and tradition and glory.

I have some mixed feelings. :) 

How I met the Mayor

Yesterday I went to the market during lunch.

Lunch is a terrible time to go to the market. The sun is high and HOT. The wind is harsh. The dust forms a layer of grit over every exposed millimeter of one’s skin, and then the unexposed parts too.

But go I did.

More soldiers were in town than usual for I know not what reason. When I first got to Simon’s shop (one of the largest and best stocked shops in town, still probably only about the size of your bedroom or kitchen…maybe the master bathroom if your house is really nice) I left almost immediately because the small space was crammed with soldiers and so many large guns in so enclosed a space, I’ll admit, made me a trifle nervous. You never know if their guns even have a safety, much less if it’s on.

So I went away and came back when there were fewer soldiers inside.

ANYWAY, by the time I got to the fresh market stalls and out of the shops, all I needed was bananas. While I was picking out said bananas, some of the nearby market ladies started calling out to me using my Ngakarimojong name, “Nakiru.”

“Nakiru!” They called. “You come sit with us!”

Now, going to the market during my lunch break has the added perk that I’m not in a hurry as long as I’m not too hungry. I wasn’t, so I sat with them on a small wooden folding chair under their plastic-tarp-and-stick-built shade.

I felt like I had suddenly been allowed into a secret club. We chatted and laughed in their little shade, with each of them occasionally rising to parcel out tiny bags of sim-sim (sesame seeds), malaquan seeds (a type of sour green leafy vegetable), or nacede (small silver smelly dried fish) to customers coming by.

One woman was clearly the “elder” among them, and it was she who was in charge. She greeted me with the few English words she knew and then went searching the market for someone who spoke more English, laughing and repeating “English Finisss!” Meaning to say that she’d finished all the English she knew. She brought a nearby shopkeeper who introduced me to her as “Our Grandmother and our Mayor.”

Mayor of the Market!

It made me wish that she were running for some sort of election next week when the other national elections are taking place so that people could vote for her.

I laughed and thanked her for her work and shook her hand heartily. I told the other women they should vote for her next week.

I imagine that as the Market Mayor she has real power in settling disputes and determining who can sell what when and where.

I sat with them for a while. We talked amicably about their lack of English and my lack of Luo (these ladies are Etur from Abim, rather than Karimojong, so they speak Luo.) I know three words in Luo: Apoyo (Thank you/How Are You), Matek (Very Much), and Ber (Good/You’re Welcome). One lady taught me how to say Good Afternoon (Apoyo Ria).  They asked about my dog (because we feed her those small fish) and I told them about how she’s pregnant now.

Eventually they were all busy with customers and I told them I wanted to go home and prepare lunch. We parted and I walked home feeling somehow victorious. They didn’t want anything from me but my company for a few minutes.

People tend to be welcoming. People tend to be curious. But visitors come and go. Outsiders never stay for long. Keeping them on the outside is the only sensible thing to do. It has taken over two years, but in some meaningful ways, I have been let in. Not just by a simple chat in the market, but among our neighbors and other friends as well. It’s not easy to let a stranger into your community, your family. In some meaningful way, among a few people, we are not strangers anymore.

I will greet these women in the market next time, and the time after that, for as long as I’m here. I will try not to be so busy or rushed when I go that I don’t have time to sit with them if they wish. We have a relationship now, however small it seems; I know it is not a small thing to be asked to sit. I know it is not a small thing to be invited.

I went home and made a sandwich for lunch. It was a great sandwich, and spontaneously inspired the Captain Planet theme song to run through my head, only it was “Captain Sandwich, he’s a hero! Gonna take your hunger down to almost zero (…you know if you also eat some fruit salad and some M&Ms your parents sent)…and he’s fighting on the Sandwich siiiiiiide!”

Oh, brain. So silly.

Complaining

Note: a lot of good stuff has happened between my last update and now. A lot. But now I’m going to complain. I will try to write another post about the fantastic Moruanajece Peace Ritual (which I didn’t attend, but is incredibly significant) when I get a chance.

So, I’m working on the job descriptions of my potential successors, if we can get funding for another position when my contract is up later this year.

In the writing of those new job description(s), I’m using my old (practically useless) job description as a template. I hate doing my reports and re-examining my job description because it forces me to see how much I’m NOT doing my job. Partly I don’t do it because I can’t or think I don’t know how, and partly it’s because I really don’t know how, or I think it’d be inappropriate to do certain things as an outsider. (Such as presume to “develop learning materials for community peace structures,” especially since I’ve never understood what that means.)

I’d love for there to be newspaper articles published about the truth of what’s happening in Karamoja. I’d love to establish a relationship with The Daily Monitor and send them periodic articles about cattle raids and UPDF mismanagement of situations. But getting the confirmed information for those articles would be like squeezing water from a stone. My boss gets reports and other staff members write reports; people know things and DON’T SAY ANYTHING…especially not to me. But isn’t that was A DOCUMENTATION OFFICER is supposed to do?

I’d love for ANYONE apart from me to be interested in the upkeep of the website and newsletter. I created it a year and a half ago and STILL no one else uses it. I asked my boss to look at it and give me feedback/approval so we could officially launch it and tell our partners about it, but he never did. So it’s just sitting there, all but abandoned, in cyber space. I taught our office assistant how to log in and make changes or updates, but she hasn’t touched it since. And I asked our other staff for ideas/updates on their projects and no one got back to me.

Originally when I asked about newspaper articles and lobbying (which are in my job description), the answer I got was, “Don’t do it,” with the implication that if I did, I’d either be deported or secretly made an assassination target…or taken to court for libel, even if it was true. And no one was interested in helping me figure out what the heck I was supposed to do. So for a long time I did nothing. Then I started a newsletter and a website, both of which have fallen into disrepair. I updated the bulletin board (using skills I learned as a primary school teacher-helper when I was in high school—not difficult). I instituted an office calendar on a white board so we could keep track of each other’s schedules/movements/official activities. Of course, I’m really the only one who writes on it.

So what do I do all day? I write the reports that my sending NGO requires. I surf the internet and write personal emails to my friends and family. I do small technical things for my boss like create an office letterhead and design countless new logos for the board to disapprove. I help my boss attach pictures to his emails or change files from word to pdf documents or change the font of a letter. I teach my co-worker how to insert pictures into a word document for a report. I proofread things for terrible grammar. Today I taught my boss that "ctrl Z" is the shortcut for "undo."

And then every once in a while something great happens. A peace meeting looks successful. We have elders fingerprint a treaty. People sacrifice a bull for peace and partake of the roast meat and milk and blood under a tamarind tree. I go to the field to look into the eyes of the people my work is supposed to be helping. Then I remember that when I help my boss change the font, I’m helping him write to someone to ask for funding. When I update our website I’m stepping forward on the way to getting our work recognized. When I write reports for my sending NGO, I’m securing the first extended chance at education for an entire marginalized people group.

In a small and boring way, I’m helping make possible the ululation under the branches of peace. 

My Mom Can Read Me Like A Blog

Below is an email my mom just set me today. I've been twiddling my thumbs about updates/blog posts/mass emails for the past X months, not knowing what to post or how to talk honestly and with hope about what I am experiencing and learning. (Just now I realized I haven't posted anything here since February. It is now July. #@%*.)

In an email I sent to my mom I guess I expressed myself well enough that she sent this response, which nails on the head exactly how I'm feeling, and embraces it with great empathy and love. My mother is a wonderful human being.

(Note: Please forgive me for having given my agnostic but spiritual mother a book by Rick Warren. I have since repented, but I suppose I meant well at the time. Also, I never read that book.)

Dearest Sweet Pea,

   I know you feel lost right now; separated and doubtful of many things in your life you used to feel so sure about. You have my total empathy. 

   I think your experience in Uganda is very common to relief workers anywhere. Although you are not technically offering relief, you continue to think you should try to make some kind of difference, but have become tired of trying. Then you feel bad about giving up. You seem to have lost your footing and are slipping down the slope of disinterest and apathy. Then you feel guilty about this. Then you feel depressed. You feel anxiety about being exposed to your friends back in the Chicago area as a selfish, cynical, do-nothing lost person. Self-loathing floats all around you.  You have no idea about what you want to do with your life after this job. So you become numb to feeling anything. Ouch!

   If you think you really can’t deal with continuing your work in Uganda, what would be the implications of resigning? And what would be the consequence of going back to Uganda when your heart isn’t in it? Perhaps being back home [in the Sept/Oct] will help you put some perspective on these questions.

   You gave me the book, The Purpose Driven Life, by Rick Warren. Although I don’t share the same beliefs as the author, I can still get some meaning from his writing. Are you having a crisis of faith? Or is it merely that your faith seems obscured to you right now? Perhaps being back with your friends in Chicago will be a homecoming of sorts and help you through this difficult time. Friendship can grow stronger through difficult times. True friends love us even when we feel little love for ourselves. Being honest with yourself and your friends can assist in coming out of the darkness of doubt, although your patience and theirs may be stretched.

   I don’t believe in predestination. I believe choice is our greatest freedom and burden. What you are experiencing now will happen again and again. Sorry. That’s the truth, and I try to be honest with you. But this difficult time you are experiencing now will strengthen you in ways you cannot imagine. Believe me. I’ve gone through many of these storms myself. But I ride them out. I cannot help but look to the physical universe around me to know that out of destruction comes creation. Why should our emotional and spiritual selves be any different?

   I have no clue about what my actual “purpose” is in this lifetime, but I sense that this little dust mote upon which we exist; this bubble of matter that we call home is both our refuge and our prison. We’re stuck here with ourselves and one another; fighting, fearing, wanting to conquer our fears and be in charge of our lives. And loving, caring about ourselves and one another when we wake up to what’s important.

   Does God care about me? I don’t know. But I care about me, and you, and Daddy and many others whose lives have crossed my path in this lifetime. Yes, I am selfish. Yes, I am not always honest as I try to make myself look more acceptable to those I fear will judge me. But I am my most aggressive judge, and if I can forgive my errors and try every day to do better, then my life continues to be worthwhile. Perhaps that is my purpose.

   I hope you get your faith back; faith in yourself primarily. If you feel distant from God, and this makes you miserable, I hope you will talk honestly with your friends about it. In time, you’ll find your way.

   I think I have loved you, the real you, forever. If this is the kind of love that God is supposed to have for us, then we are blessed indeed.

Your ever-lovin’,

Mommy

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HOPE