23 January 2007

A Story

Once upon a time there was girl named Jess…

Jess lived in a VERY nice convent in Uganda. Her friend Nora once said, “Jess is the Jay-Z of Uganda. Her house is big pimpin’.” Yet, despite her super-clean big pimpin’ house, Jess would find mysterious droppings in her bedroom, almost daily. Jess cleaned meticulously, sweeping, mopping, and dousing everything in bleach on a regular basis, but to no avail. The reason that the droppings were so mysterious was this: other than lizards, Jess never saw or heard anything in her house. She did see lizards, though. Jess didn’t mind lizards at all; in fact, she liked them, because they ate bugs. Jess convinced herself (because she had seen nothing else) that maybe lizards poop. She asked friends, but no one knew: do lizards really poop? Jess concluded that lizards MUST poop, because she found droppings in relatively high places, like on her desk, or on the top of her toilet tank. These were also places that she had seen lizards, and certainly places that only lizards could reach.

One day, about a month after the droppings first started appearing, Jess heard some rustling in her kitchen. She everything out from the wall, and a rat ran through her kitchen and under her front door. Jess was pretty freaked out by this, especially since her friends were coming to visit the very next night. But, her friends came to visit, and they all had a wonderful time, no rats involved.

The night after her friends left, Jess decided that she would block the door so that the rat could not get back in. She looked around for something that would cover the crack under the door, and found her chacos. Chacos were the best, most durable shoes in the world— heavy duty hiking sandals that were guaranteed for life. Surely, this would work. Jess placed her beloved sandals outside her door, effectively blocking the rat-sized space between the bottom of her door and the floor. Jess slept somewhat more peacefully that night.

The next day, Jess opened her door and picked up her chacos. To her surprise, several little rubber bits rained down. Upon closer inspection, Jess discovered the following:

A chunk out of her favorite shoes. She knew Ugandan rats were tough, but tougher than chacos??? This was too much. Jess declared war. She was not a very tough warrior though, and actually cried a little bit out of sheer frustration. Not only was an evil rat in her house that she had kept so diligently clean, this rat was so evil that it had eaten her favorite shoes. Jess felt like a wuss because her friend Hannah had had rats in her ceiling every night since she got to site. But, at least Hannah’s rats had only eaten telephone wires, not chacos! Jess felt a big mixture of shock, fear, disgust, and anger. She felt like this:

Jess couldn’t decide whether having a rat-eaten chunk out of her chacos was just disgusting, or if it perhaps increased her coolness factor by a little bit. After all, she thought, you have to be pretty darn cool to have had anything destroy your indestructible chacos. (She knew this was a ridiculous thought, but she was trying very very hard to be optimistic.) But, cool isn’t really the right word for having a rat in your house. Jess decided it was just plain disgusting. She then moved on to rocks. She found several flat rocks, and lined them up outside her door. Certainly a rat wouldn’t gnaw through rocks.

A couple nights later (when the electricity was off, of course) Jess walked into her bathroom. She was wearing her hottest fashion accessory—her headlamp— and saw the rat in her shower. The rat saw her too, and ran to her kitchen.

Jess had had enough. She went outside and found the convent cat, and eventually got it into her kitchen. The cat was only half-way tame, so this took a substantial effort. The cat didn’t seem to notice anything unusual. Jess couldn’t find the rat in her kitchen either. She hoped that it had run outside when she went to get the cat. She let the cat go back outside, and went to bed. During the night, she heard some banging around, but she didn’t feel like getting up. Since there was no electricity, there was not much searching she could do, and no lights just plain made things scarier. Plus, she suspected that the rat lived in the store room next to her kitchen, and she couldn’t really tell where the noise was coming from. The store room did not belong to her, so she didn’t have the key. She slept, sort of.

The next morning, Jess went to her kitchen. The door of her cabinet was open (but, it had a tendency to swing open on its own sometimes). She looked in her cabinets. She found droppings all over the place, and a lot of her spices had been knocked over. This time she was really really grossed out. She also heard some shuffling, but couldn’t find the rat. She began removing everything from her cabinets. Finally, the rat ran out. It ran to the front door, but couldn’t get out… the rocks were still there, and they worked very well at blocking the space under the door. Unfortunately, the rat was blocked from going out, rather than blocked from coming in. After realizing it could not get through rocks, the rat ran to her bedroom. Jess followed, by this point more pissed off than scared. She looked around her bedroom, but couldn’t find the rat. She heard something behind her wardrobe. She looked. She didn’t see anything. She looked harder. She looked up. Balancing itself in mid-air, she found the NAVY SEAL CAPTAIN of RATS:

It was not the captain because of its size, for it was still young. It was the captain because of its pure athletic talent. With its back pressed against the wall and its feet pressed against the back of the wardrobe, the rat said, “Hi Jess. I know I’m about a foot and a half off the ground right now, but, you know, just practicing my wall-scaling skills today. Thought I would rest my hairy little in-shape butt on your outlet here for a second.”

Jess was horrified. She went and got the convent cat again. After another substantial effort and a few scratches, Jess finally got the cat into her bedroom. The rat was no longer on the wall, and the cat couldn’t find it either. Jess knew the rat had to be in her house somewhere, probably still in her bedroom. This time, she was not going to be idealistic and assume that it had run out during her struggle with the cat. She left the cat in her bedroom and shut her bedroom door. She then turned to cleaning her poop-filled cabinets.

Not five minutes later, she heard, “Jesca! Jesca!” It was her counterpart (i.e. boss). Her counterpart knew Jess had been having rat problems, and, as Jess had not shown up to work that morning, came to check on her. Jess told her counterpart that the rat was in her bedroom, as was the cat. Her counterpart laughed. Jess took her counterpart to her bedroom to show her the cat. Soon after she opened the door, a rustling noise was heard by all. The cat sprang to attention, the counterpart actually believed Jess, and Jess got the heebie-jeebies.

The noise had come from the wardrobe. Jess and her counterpart wanted to move the wardrobe so that the rat would run out, but the wardrobe was too heavy, in part because there were many books on top. Jess stood on a chair to remove the books. As she was doing this, the rat ran out, with the cat in hot pursuit. Jess was very glad to be standing on a chair at this moment.

Unfortunately for the rat, Jess had an unlikely secret weapon: a lovely long mosquito net hanging around her bed. It went all the way to the floor. As the evil rat ran under her bed, it got tangled up in the mosquito net. This was the cat’s lucky day...

There was much untangling to be done. At first, Jess and her counterpart thought that the cat was just sitting on the mosquito net, but they soon realized the mosquito net was much more involved then they thought. The cat was biting the rat, under the bed, through the mosquito net. Jess and her counterpart had to move the bed, because the cat didn’t want to come out. After pushing the bed a good distance, Jess and her counterpart managed to wrestle the mosquito net away from the cat. This last part actually didn’t take too long, as the cat seemed to realize that it could soon have an un-mosquito-net-wrapped rat, and cooperated nicely.

Jess had to clean up blood off of her floor and had to wash her mosquito net, so she was pretty grossed out by the whole affair. But, mostly she was very happy to be rid of the rat. The cat (who was also very happy) became her personal hero, and Jess slept peacefully ever after in Ugandan paradise.


Actually, this is no fairy tale, so let’s be honest: Jess’s nerves are shot. Most concerning to her is the fact that, for a whole month, she managed to sleep through a rat running around her house, all around her bed, on her desk, on her toilet tank, etc. She has always been thankful that she is an extremely heavy sleeper, but now she is not so sure that this is a good thing. She sleeps just as heavily, but certainly doesn’t fall asleep as fast as she used to. She sleeps clutching her headlamp, or, sometimes, with it on her head. She also sleeps holding or wearing her glasses. She is extremely jumpy, especially at night.
However, things are definitely looking up: Jess is slowly but surely becoming accustomed to the normal, non-rat noises in her house. She figures she’ll be good after another rat-free week or so.

The end, hopefully!





15 January 2007

Famous

Did you ever think about life as a metaphor for television?
-Chuck Palahniuk

Last month for Christmas I went to stay with my fellow PCV friend Amanda, who lives right outside of Kampala. She lives in a very loud and busy alley that’s replete with friendly women and their curious children. When I stayed with her, I met the great majority of them. Amanda told me that, ever since I left, her neighbors tell her, “We see Nakivumbi on tv all the time! She’s on tv!”

Now, first I should explain that many people in Uganda are quite terrible at telling white people apart from each other. They also often think that any two non-Ugandans look alike. When I show them a picture of me and Min (who is Chinese), they tell me, “you resemble.” Any time there is a lighter skinned (but still Ugandan!) baby at one of our immunization days, the people tell me it must be my child because we look so much alike. They are joking about it actually being mine, of course, but not entirely—they really do think that all light-skinned babies look like me.

So, when Amanda’s neighbors told her that I was on tv, of course she didn’t believe them. Apparently they tell her that they see me quite often, too. To further her skepticism, ever since Nora visited her, her neighbors have also been saying that Nora too is on tv! Amanda relayed the story to me and Nora, and we all had a good laugh about Ugandans who can’t tell muzungus apart.

But…
The other day I got a text message from Amanda: “So it is true after all.”

Amanda has now seen it for herself- I am actually on Ugandan tv. My, Nora’s, and Christina’s backs are on a commercial for the Kampala guesthouse that we stayed at when we first got to Uganda! I don’t know how Amanda’s neighbors recognized our backs, but they did, and they were astonishingly right! Funny thing is, none of us remember any video cameras at the guest house. But, however it happened, we’re on tv!! in Uganda!!!

09 January 2007

Celebrate

Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance / And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance / I hope you dance… I hope you dance.
-Lee Ann Womack

This weekend was chock-full of celebrations, it was so much fun! Every year on January 8th, the new sisters profess their vows. After you profess your vows the first year, you reaffirm those vows every year for the next 4 years. If you decide that religious life is not for you, you can choose not to reaffirm your vows during those years. (As I was telling Laura, The Sound of Music makes so much more sense to me now- I never understood how Maria could just quit being a nun!) The 5th year that you reaffirm your vows, you reaffirm them for good- you officially dedicate your life to God and to being poor, chaste, and obedient. So, January 8th is a big day, for the new people, for the 5th year people, and also for the people who are celebrating their anniversary of affirmation. Three nuns were celebrating 75 years! Not 75 years old, 75 years of being a nun!!! One of the three is the nun who taught me how to make broom- I was really happy that she was well enough to attend! So, the celebration is basically a big long mass, with the affirmation and reaffirmation as part of it. I sang with the choir (in Luganda) and it was so much fun! It was a really nice day, and sooooo many people came to celebrate.

After mass was lunch, and after lunch there was a lot of socializing as well as many dance performances. Dancing here is amazing- these people can really move their bodies, let me tell you! They have this piece of cowhide (but the fur is long, so it looks more like feathers) that they tie around their hips, which further emphasizes the shaking. There was a group from Rwanda that was hired to come and give dance performances, but at one point some of the sisters joined in and, of course, dragged me with them. I resisted their first attempts, but then several of them came up to me, tied the feathery stuff to my butt despite my protests, and shoved me out there. So, what was I to do? I danced. It was a blast. It was also super embarrassing and kind of caused an uproar, but one thousand Ugandans are now impressed that a white girl too can shake her booty.

03 January 2007

Know

Yesterday I had a short but really great meeting with the headmistress of one of the secondary schools. She really wants me to teach health classes at her school- right now the students have no health classes whatsoever. She wants me to teach them things like how to brush their teeth, because, despite the fact that they are in secondary school (7th-12th grades, in America), no one has ever taught them about things like dental hygiene. We also talked about me teaching reproductive health… WOOOOHOOOOO! This is just what I’ve been wanting to do, I’m so glad someone is going to let me do it! There is an appalling lack of basic reproductive health knowledge among girls here. (Case in point: a few weeks ago I met a secondary school student and we were talking about how to not get pregnant if you can’t use a condom. She was quite surprised to learn that I, as a white woman, knew what menstruation was, and also menstruate. She was probably 16 or 17 years old.)

Anyway, I asked the headmistress if I could teach the girls about AIDS and she told me, “YES! Please teach them how bad it is; they’re not scared of AIDS anymore.” I asked her to explain, so she did. This part I’m paraphrasing: “They grew up in a generation that had AIDS. It’s different now. When HIV first came about in Uganda, when people had it, you could tell. They got sick, their skin looked terrible, and they got really thin. Now, with all of the medicines, you can’t tell anymore. The girls know that they could have HIV and no one would know- you can’t see it anymore, because now it’s possible to have HIV and still be big and healthy. They think it must not be that bad, because you can take medicine and still look and feel mostly normal. They need to know it’s bad. Ever since the medicines have been available, they don’t really know that. They’ve lived with AIDS all around them. Because they’ve grown up that way, they think that they have no control over whether or not they get it. AIDS is like cancer; even though there are things you can do to prevent it, a lot of it is just by chance. Just luck. That’s what they think. They need to know how bad it is.”


Now I just have to wait until February when they get back from holiday!

02 January 2007

Clean Sweep

Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.
-Goethe


This morning I went to the "sanitorium," as they call it- the place where the older sisters stay. It's like a nursing home- all of them are handicapped in one way or another and need assistance. Usually there is an exercise class on Monday and Tuesday mornings, but with the holiday, there were no classes this week. Instead, this morning, they made brooms! One of the sisters taught me how. Making a broom is pretty hard work. Brooms here are made out of weeds called buukansi. I have no idea what that is in English, but I suppose it doesn't matter- all you need to know is that they are long and skinny good for tying together in a big bunch. First you have to line them up one by one, very neatly, and then you have to temporarily tie them all of the stalks together with a banana fiber. After you have a couple bunches, you combine them into a bigger bunch, and you use this plasticy rope stuff to permanently tie all of the stalks together. Then you go back and reinforce it with more plastic rope, using a big huge needle to sew it all together. I had no idea it was so hard to make a broom! It took me a few hours, and my thumb was red and sore. But, the sister that taught me was very patient- she's so cute. She's really really old, in a wheelchair, and has big black plastic glasses that make her eyes look gigantic. She doesn't speak any English, and my command of Luganda is not so great, but I did learn a new word today: "siika!"- pull! Yet another word I won't soon forget. After we finished, she let me keep the broom, and you can believe that no one has ever been more proud of owning a broom. Let's just hope that I siika-ed hard enough on the rope so that it all stays together!

Kulika Omwaka- Happy New Year!