Monday, February 21, 2011

Right Answer


When I first came back to the US; my Dad asked me if the cultural understanding of honesty is different in Uganda.

Instead, there is a strong emphasis on the right answer. For seven (or more) years of their lives, people are taught the "right answer"

Ex: Teacher "What did you eat for breakfast this morning?"
Children (in unison) "Bread and tea"
-- even if it was bananas
"Bread and tea"
-- even if it is nothing
"Bread and tea"
-- even if you don't know what bread is
"Bread and tea"

Therefore, when you grow up and you are asked how much you paid your worker
it is 50,000 shillings-- even if half of that is still in your pocket, not budging.

Therefore, when a policy is written on proper hand washing facilities and the inspector comes, you tell him how the children just tore down the hand washing stand this morning-- sorry you missed it!

Therefore, when the white person asks you any question about life, you tell him/her how terrible life is so they will give you money.

Therefore, when you are a personal driver with more than one vehicle, a farm, and a shop, you talk about how poor you are and you can't pay your child's school fees.

Therefore, in church you agree with everything then return home to your multiple wives.

Therefore, when someone asks you where you are from, you never give the right answer.

One day, I finally told one of the sisters-- you just can't tell the truth, can you!

Some Poetry

I ran across some poetry from when I first came to Uganda and found that it was still true; enjoy!

MOVING
When you cannot keep
In touch with all
When THEY are cherished
but not part
when there is no reason
to contact
nothing
to say

You realize
they are not essential
and you are also
a memory

II So I die
many small deaths
emerge from countless labors
all I want
is one

III But I see
the worshiping
firewood
the metal parts in trees
appreciate
sun rising
setting
savoring

IV And now
I go
the night before travel
NOT hectic, disorganized
dirty,
packing
the work of mornings, afternoons

Now fulfilled,
exhausted,
rest,
I have run well.


WORK
It is not the work
that kills
sapping strength
from marrow
joy
from
life

it is the
boredom
sitting, doing
nothing
waiting tor the next
opportunity,
person

That is why we
chop into small pieces
cook, wash, dig
slowly, methodically, carelessly
That is why we
go to the well,
carry, water,
not using
donated pumps.

We think
there is nothing else
to do

Looking up from
computers, desks, papers
out from TV's, DVD's WII's

Around, from rolls
choking
fat

Maybe there isn't!

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Death to Mediocrity



In Uganda, there are two seasons; hot dry dusty sunshine and pouring, flooding, drenching, daily rain(I am presently scorching under the former). There are about two choices of ketchup: terrible and sweet and poorly packaged tomato sauce, and Heinz ketchup, glass bottle and all. There are two types of roof; grass thatched and corrugated iron. There are two types of schools, the small, largely poor performing rural and public schools, and the "cream" schools, of the rich elite. There are two socioeconomic classes: the poor (largely peasant) hand to mouth people and the very rich ruling class. There is very little in between. There is very little halfway; little mediocre.
Despite its issues, I credit Peace Corps for one thing in my life and the lives of several other volunteers: death to mediocrity. I often think: what does Peace Corps do to us? I think it takes out the comfortable but bone drying “living to get by.” There is no Sam’s club brand. No one (no one that lasts their whole service, that is) can stay on the couch watching TV. No one can ignore themselves, the realities of life, or the role of their existence in it. No wonder so many Peace Corps volunteers become professors, doctors, lawyers, diplomats. No wonder so many former PCVs make great impacts on their communities—becoming teachers that teach ecologically friendly living, becoming health practitioners that emphasize community oriented health, becoming citizens that challenge their leaders’ foreign policy choices.
I also think that we realize we are capable of anything. Some things may be hard but none are impossible. Besides, compared to the difficult things we have all gone through here (packing all of your worldly goods on two seats of a minibus, for example, or making a cooking stove out of mud and bricks, or learning an obscure ethnic language, bathing in one cup of water-- and getting clean!) other stuff just doesn’t seem very intimidating. Secondly, when you see people that really work—people that make bricks by hand, people that depend on their two acres of land for EVERYTHING, or children that raise their siblings, you feel like a wimp for wanting a comfortable life. After all, when I think about the fact that I have lived for two years without many of life’s comforts—no fridge or heating or AC, having hordes of rats in my ceiling, washing by hand, ironing with charcoal, peeing in the dark in a hole, and just having very little that is soft around, I realize that comfort is largely overrated. It is definitely not important enough to make it a life goal.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Elections and Delivery!

Elections were held today. This, for me, means being stuck at site with restricted movement. You may think this is boring; being stuck in a village waiting to make sure everything is peaceful. Not so--- things are literally popping. At least, in the maternity ward in the local clinic, that is.
What? You may wonder what the heck I am doing in the maternity ward. Like a good Ugandan politician, I am visiting all my constituencies. Remember, as per the last blog, I am in my own personal life elections.
I saw what happens one to three times every day at the local clinic’s maternity ward; a baby being born. Now, of course, there was no paraffin so they couldn't light the burner to boil the water and clean the instruments, so they couldn't cut (or do anything like) operate or use forceps, even if they wanted to. Everything was REALLY REALLY "au naturale"--- more natural than any of those yoga/labor classes. There were no clothes, no sheets, no instruments. There was a piece of plastic on the torn mattress of the bed, a piece of cloth brought by the woman in labour for mopping up blood, a small basin under the bed where waste and vomit went, a small bedpan to catch the poop and urine, a string to tie the umbilical chord, and a 2 cent razor to cut it. And one pair of gloves-- oh wait, one glove didn't go on very well so three gloves, not only two, were used. Biggest component used--- cotton wads!
The child came out just fine, despite evidence that the mother had ingested a substantial quantity of local herbs—as for the type of evidence, you can guess. About two hours of watching and waiting, and in about two minutes, pop and she was out!
It was really cool seeing the nurse (they use someone with a certificate in nursing to handle the maternity ward, birthing is not important enough for the doctor or RN to deal with here) have such a vital impact on the woman in labor and the child. No, she was not writing the UN manual for childbirth procedures, but who really reads that, anyway?
You know, this life/ career crisis thing is a choice of humility. It’s kind of a “downward mobility” thing. I used to think that I didn't want something as small as treating individual people in a hospital or office.
I think I am now changing. For one, I had a spiritual conversion, in which God, the Almighty Father is a lot bigger than I used to think. So are other people, whether they be people in the rural Midwest, or rustbelt cities, or Africa. I, however, am a lot smaller. I used to have this pseudo- Messianic idea of my purpose in life. It is still there, but it is morphing into something deeper. Meaningfulness is now a lot less universal, and a lot less about being in the world's boiler room planning huge changes. For one, I am close to giving up at finding that boiler room key. Secondly, in light of the new democracy spread across the Middle East and North Africa, I don’t think that those boiler rooms should really exist. Instead, I want to be a meaningful part of other people's lives. I also see that the real power for change is in a local community.
The other thing that is happening, was happening, and will happen is death. I have known so many people to die here!!!! Whether by mysterious illness, car accident, or the omnipresent HIV and malaria, I sometimes feel as though everyone is dying. Wait, we are! I am faced with my mortality every time I see an Ebola poster or step into a taxi here, and in the light of life’s brevity, I kind of want to give something all I’ve got. Living just to get by just doesn’t make sense, especially when I have not popped out any kids to care for. These are my manifestos as I move along in my personal election. As I said, one of the outcomes is really winning, but we won’t know for sure until we tally the votes, but after that, we are moving ahead!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Elections

Elections
As of tomorrow, all Peace Corps volunteers, including yours truly, will be on “lock down” or confined to their sites until further notice, because of the upcoming elections. Last Sunday morning, in a larger town, I saw hundreds of people marching on the street with large (rifle size) uniform sticks – local vigilante groups?—and decided to get home ASAP. So my big plan is to take a machete and hide in the banana plantation (hey, I have to use some method of cutting the bananas and wild animals for sustenance while I hide out!)
Meanwhile, I am holding my own elections. I realized a few months ago that I don’t really know what to do when I leave the Peace Corps. A few months after that, I realized that I could really do anything. So, I’ve been thinking a million different thoughts (in seven categories) and putting a mark by one for every day I think of it. The seven are: research/Ph.D, foreign service, big aid (USAID, UN), small aid (Mants’ase Children’s Home), social work (you hatch ‘em, we snatch ‘em), medicine, and sustenance farming. Don’t worry; the last did not accumulate many votes yet.
Some of you may think that I am absolutely insane. Why don’t I get a normal job and settle down?? I think, however, that I am like a London cab horse with my blinders taken off. I am only 25 years old, I have been out of undergrad for four years, and have acquired a graduate degree. I performed well in both undergrad and graduate school and will have a negligible amount of debt when I get out of the Peace Corps. So, I think that my options are quite wide open.
I had an uncle once tell me to stay in school for ever because life is all downhill when you leave. I refuse that. I want to have a life that is colorful, meaningful, and good at every year. I also am over my macro- only thinking. I used to want to do things at the top and influence everyone. I am learning, however, that the “most personal is also the most universal” (Henri Nowen). In the end of the day, I’m attracted to improving one person’s world; I don’t need the whole world of everyone.
That being said, a friend advised me to really conduct this election like a true Ugandan politician and visit everywhere. That being said, I have spoken with big aid and small aid and foreign policy people. I have done my share of research and am trying to be in contact with others who are doing theirs. Today, I scrubbed trash cans at the health center, witnessed the emergency stitching of a man whose forehead was sliced open in an accident, and then walked to a friend’s sustenance farm.
Friends and family, please bear with me. I think that I’ll end up with one of the above directions (one of them is getting quite a few votes but I can’t tell you which). I can only say this; I am over racing to the plateau of a dull, non- thinking day- to- day. I don’t want to live the same day over again for fifty years. So, if I took 4-5 years to really think and see the world, I hope they help my future 45 year career to become all the more fruitful.

Besides, it never hurts to do things early. With this early midlife crisis out of the way, it's all smooth sailing from here on out