Public Transportation

This passage is from my journal, dated 12th Sept, 2008, and describes my experience taking public transportation home the last time I came to Masaka.

It rained hard again yesterday, though I was inside the internet cafe for all of it. It has been cooler since the rain - yesterday I was glad to have brought my rain jacket, and today, I am wearing long sleeves even as I cook beside our small fire. I got to the taxi park around 5:00 yesterday, but it was already starting to empty. Note to self: don't stay in town so late! I got in the taxi to Kyanjalay, but it took forever to fill and leave, making me worry that I'd be stuck in town after dark. Anyhow, we eventually left the park, but kept picking people up. At one point, there were 9 adults in the five passenger car (4 up front; 5 in the back); at another, 8 adults and one baby. As we let people out, we kept picking more up. The man beside me wondered once where all these new people were going to sit - but it is the choice of the driver to pick up passengers and the responsibility of the passengers to figure out how to fit. As I sat there, cramped and slightly uncomfortable, sometimes feeling every breath the man beside me took and other times with an old woman half on my lap, I felt an uncontrollable urge to laugh. Not because of anything particularly humourous in the situation, but mostly just at the strangeness of it. Laughter seemed to be the only appropriate response to the situation.

Oh, yes, I obviously survived the experience and continue to ride in taxis when necessary, but mostly, I prefer taking a boda if I can.

Loving the mystery...

I have recently been meditating often on this passage from Wendell Berry (one of my favorites, which I was delighted to find in the book Melissa made for me when I came to Uganda), and have been thinking about memorizing it. It is worth reading and re-reading...

Manifesto:

The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay. Want more of everything ready-made. Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head. Not even your future will be a mystery anymore. Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something, they will call you. When they want you to die for profit, they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something that won't compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace the flag. Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands. Give your approval to all you cannot understand. Praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered, he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers. Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias. Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into mold. Call that profit. Prophesy such returns. Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years.

Listen to carrion - put your ear close, and hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world. Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts. So long as women do not go cheap for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: will this satisfy a woman satisfied to bear a child? Will this disturb the sleep of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields. Lie down in the shade. Rest your head in her lap. Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it. Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn't go.

Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

This place where...

Third term has begun, and school has brought a new routine to my life. I am teaching English in primary 4, primary 5, and primary 6, as well as Maths in primary 5, and occasional English lessons to primary 7. As you can imagine, school keeps me very busy, but I also continue to learn Luganda and build friendships.

These lines have been running through my head lately, so I thought I'd share...

It still feels strange to me, this place where...

• I where socks and shoes when teaching on dirt floors to avoid jiggers.
• random people ask about the "rash" on my arms.
• so many people watch what I eat, fearing that I will lose weight and eventually waste away, while I have forgotten what "hunger" feels like.
• even the youngest students in baby class can be boarders.
• I treat my father with all the respect and submission due an African man.
• people are so eagre to have pen friends in America.
• I am never quite sure if I have spelled a word correctly.
• bad or poorly prepared food can turn a night into abdominal torture.
• reading and writing for pleasure seems strange to most.
• Friday afternoon lessons can be traded for digging in the garden and shelling corn in the back of the primary 5 classroom.
• I am expected to be weak and "delicate" because of my white skin and American citizenship.
• I teach dictionary skills to a class of 30+ students in a school with a single dictionary.

But it is beginning to feel like home to me, this place where...

• I awake before the sun to "shower" with a basin of cold water.
• I tuck myself under a mosquito net every night.
• I somehow often use phrases like "some few" and "somehow."
• my sentences are structured according to the syntactical rules of Ugandan English.
• I often feel like the pied piper as I walk to and from school amidst a crowd of students in various local school uniforms.
• my Luganda is slowly allowing me to communicate.
• drinking water must be boiled and is rarely cold.
• my skin has grown dark under the African sun, yet it is still only the shade of my brother's palm at dusk.
• we have no "sunrises" and "sunsets" because the sky lightens and darkens too quickly.
• I look forward to eating matooke for supper every night.
• my primary means of transportation are my own two feet or the backseat of a boda boda.
• I feel comfortable in a skirt or dress.
• I put on long sleeves on "cold" mornings, but shed them in the mid-day sun.
• I walk home with friends, stopping to shell groundnuts or learn a few new Luganda phrases along the way.
• I am beginning to learn student names and the routine of school.
• my back and knees sometimes ache, but I am steadily becoming more flexible as I learn the "right" way to sit and work.
• I am known as Nakaweesi or Chrishtine, and students greet me as "dear Aunt" when I enter a classroom.
• children spend their lunch hour playing in the sun and grass.
• most of the village greets me by name.
• I am rarely alone, but often find time for introspection.
• I write everything on the blackboard and watch my students copy it into their exercise books because we lack enough textbooks.
• "why don't you...?" is not a question, but an instruction about proper behavior.
• my friend escorts me halfway home after I have been to visit.
• some nights I wish the power were off, while others, I wish it were on.

These am I learning...

Lest the excerpts from my journal lead you to think that all my time is spent philosophisizing about my experiences here in Uganda, here are a few more random thoughts and observations...

-Njiga Olugana empola empola. Translated, that reads, I am learning Luganda slowly by slowly. My Maama teases me that I speak in "broken Luganda," and the sweet elderly priest tells me that learning languages is a feminine gift. Slowly by slowly, I am beginning to communicate in the local language. And, my Ugandan English has improved greatly in the last few weeks.

-My favorite mode of transportation is definitely the boda. There is a great sense of freedom in flying down the road... and it is always exhilarating to dodge other vehicles (in Kampala, this is causes more anxiety than exhilaration, at least sometimes), children, and bikes. I'm definitely planning to get my motocycle license when I return to the states.

-I have been learning to wash, cook and "dig" Ugandan style. "Digging" refers to any farming/gardening activities... this week, it has meant tilling the earth of our banana plantation with hoes.

-I can now carry 2 20 Liter jerry cans of water back from the well, one in each hand. Since we have started digging, we often fetch water in the evening. For me, I definitely prefer fetching water during the first hour of morning (around 6:45) rather than the first hour of night (around 6:45). I'd rather walk to the well as the sun is rising than trudge back as full dark is falling.

-School starts Monday. It was supposed to start this week, but the holiday got extended a bit to allow the builders extra time to finish working. I am excited and nervous... definitely something to keep in mind if you feel like praying, encouraging, or writing.

-Speaking of writing... if I post a letter to you, will some of you please keep me some stamps? Trust me, you won't all keep the same ones... it's always a guessing game as to what increments the postal clerk will have when I come :)

-The rainy season has finally begun in southern Uganda, though the rains are still much later and lighter than needed. It rained on Monday, hence the commencement of our digging activities this week. Since then, it has not rained again, though I have my rain coat today because the sky is cloudy and overcast. So, while northern Uganda needs the rains to stop, southern Uganda really needs them to begin.

-Yesterday afternoon, as we were cooking, Maama noticed a blister on one of my toes. I figured I'd bumped it against something and had counted it amongst the bruises, scrapes, and blisters I've been accumulating (remember how graceful I am?). She recognized it as a jigger, a small insect which burrows into the flesh of the feet/toes and lays eggs. Apparently mine had been there long enough to start reproducing, but she dug it out (with a safety pin) before it could spread. I think they're supposed to be pretty itchy after awhile, but mine didn't hurt at all. Thank goodness for a host mom who recognizes what I never would have!

Okay, signing off now and heading down to the taxi park in an attempt to beat the rain... :)

"Mjungu"

An excerpt from yesterday morning's journal...

This morning, for the first time in Uganda, I'm wearing my khaki linen skirt. Already it has a few traces of dirt, but mostly it stands out in stark contrast to the brown dirt and my tan skin. And I am certain the contrast would be even greater against the beautiful dark brown of my Maama's skin. Perhaps this skirt will not stay so white as I continue to live in the dusty dirt of Bukoto village (soon to become mud if the rains after begin in earnest), but then again, the way my sisters wash clothes, it has a decently good chance!

The contrast of this skirt and my skin makes me feel a little less white - and paired with my black cotton tank top with a collar, I feel a sort of professional confidence in this outfit. It will be good for teaching, simply for how it makes me feel. How strange it feels to admit that a simple outfit can boost my sense of confidence and self-esteem, but I think, more than I would normally like to admit, that this is often the case.

Anyhow, part of my reason for writing about the skirt was to process some of the contemplations I've been having lately about my whiteness. I have heard or read somewhere (more than once) that it is the great privilege of the white person in North American and European societies to not have to think about the color of their skin. We whites have the advantage - we are the majority and often the wealthier race (by far). We don't have to contemplate our advantage and the racial power differential unless we choose to. And that ability to choose - and to remain ignorant if we desire - is itself a great privilege and advantage.

Here in Uganda, though, especially immersed in the life of a rural village, I find myself the stranger and the racial minority (by far!). And I discover that the choice has been taken away from me. Children stare and yell "bye-ee mzungu" (mzungu = white person). Michael, my youngest brother, continues to call me "mjungu" rather than any of my names. People thank me for doing the simplest tasks, for coming to Uganda, for learning their language. Again and again, I am reminded that I am different. First impressions are always formed on the basis of my skin pigmentation. I do not appreciate all the assumptions - that I am weak, that I am rich, that I am an expert on all things American - but I am beginning to expect them. I do not like - or feel that I deserve - the sense of celebrity status that my skin seems to have afforded me, but I am learning to laugh and wave anyway. It is not fair or right that people treat me as if I am better than them.

I often wish my whiteness was something I could hide, something that did not so quickly label me as a stranger, an outsider. It is strange, this dynamic. I have been stripped of the anonymity my white skin grants me in America. But the privilege and advantage of that same whiteness has not only become more obvious, it has also increased in tangible ways.

A month, a year from now, how will I feel about this? How will it affect my life and relationships when I return to America? Only time will tell, though already it tires me to always be so aware of my racial identity. Some days, I wish for another mzungu in town. I wish to be treated as simply another family member, another villager - and that is slowly beginning to happen. But mostly, I wish to be known first as a person, rather than as a mzungu.