Jungle

Let us keep the dance of rain our fathers kept and tread our dreams beneath the jungle sky.
Arna Bontemps

Things have been going well lately, and I feel like I might be making progress with work. But, in sad news, another volunteer out of my original group of 12 went home- we're all going to miss her so much! She was awesome- always looking at the bright side of things, no matter what. Our group is now down to 10... when we're all at our separate sites things seem normal, but when we get together, we definitely feel the missing presence of people who have gone home. But, other than being sad to see a friend go, I'm well!!

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Today's post is not really a story, just pretty pictures! I live in an absolutely gorgeous area of Uganda. These are some pictures I took last Wednesday and Thursday, on my way to different meetings in a couple a nearby villages. I love walking to the villages, because it’s so…jungley!

I think most people who live here don’t really realize how beautiful the countryside is; it’s my goal not to become one of those people. Every time I walk to the villages, I think, “I’m walking through the jungle!!! In Africa!!!” I don’t think I’ll be able to stop doing that the whole time I’m here.

Some kids on their way to fetch water:
Banana trees on the main road:

This is the road to one of the villages:


It’s rainy season right now, so the road was a bit muddy in some places:

For Uganda, it might be rainy season, but for me, it’s visitor season, and I am SOOO excited! Maylea (my college roommate) gets here on Sunday!!! Laura (my sister) is coming in May to volunteer at a nearby school for the deaf for a couple months, and Min (my boyfriend) is coming for three weeks, starting in late August! Other people might be visiting next year… I love visitors! Come visit, you’re all invited!

And, on a note of visitors: once you’ve been here for a while, things that would have struck you as odd stop striking you as odd. To combat this phenomenon on my blog, I’m going to have my visitors be “guest bloggers” if they’re agreeable! So, look forward to seeing Uganda through new eyes!

List 2

More random facts…


It is very rude it eat while walking. Maybe “rude” isn’t the right word- more like uncivilized. If you eat and walk, it means you have very bad manners. I was walking home with some teachers the other day when we came across a group of little boys munching on sugarcane on their way home from school. The teachers stopped them on the road and lectured them for a full 5 minutes.

What has four legs, plus two half claw/half legs attached to a triceratops-looking head, plus some things that may or may not be folded wings on its back, two pairs of antennae on its head, plus another pair of butt antennae? I have no idea. Lots and lots of brownie points for anyone who can tell me what this thing is:
I have these bugs in my house sometimes, and I think they are the weirdest looking things ever! The way they move is really weird too- hard to explain, but they seem to be more animal-like than bug-like in their movements.

There are GIANT birds here called Maribou Storks. They are enormous, hideously ugly scavengers, and I am scared half to death of them- they’re over 4 feet tall, taller than my little brother! They’re found in bigger cities, and in Masaka (my nearest big city), they happen to hang out near the post office. While going to check my mailbox is generally a very enjoyable experience (thanks for your letters and packages!!), it is slightly less enjoyable because the birds are there glaring at me! They’re not really scared of people, either, which makes them that much more intimidating. And the worst part of the whole thing: Maribou Storks are not native to Uganda. They apparently migrated here and took up residence when Idi Amin ruled the country and there were so many dead bodies left out in the open.

Something else giant is termite mounds, which are found everywhere! This one is about 8 feet tall:

Tiny kids walk around by themselves. Can you imagine securing your 3 year old to your your 7 year old’s back and then sending them down the road, with their health record cards, to get their immunizations? When my clinic does immunization outreaches to the villages, more than half of the little kids show up unaccompanied.

Tiny kids also play with knives haphazardly, and no one seems to mind. I’m talking big machete-sized knives, too! I’m always afraid there’s going to be a serious accident. Somehow, there never is; I don’t get it.

Fried grasshoppers are a favorite snack here- they’re actually pretty decent. (The legs are removed, so you just eat the body.) People think it’s funny when I tell them that, in my country, we have grasshoppers— but we don’t eat them. After learning of this atrocity, people generally respond that, now that I know grasshoppers can be eaten, I have to share my knowledge with Americans. That way, you guys can all experience the deliciousness of grasshoppers as well. Maybe you shouldn’t ask me to cook Ugandan food for you when I get back… ;)

Uniform

The essence of our effort to see that every child has a chance must be to assure each an equal opportunity, not to become equal, but to become different-to realize whatever unique potential of body, mind and spirit he or she possesses.
John Martin Fischer

For Lecia…


One of my earlier lessons with my secondary school girls was about good communication skills. I asked what I thought was an open-ended question: “What do you think “communication” means?” Several students replied, in unison, THE SENDING AND RECEIVING OF MESSAGES. After this happened again in my second class, I asked why everyone was saying the exact same thing. Turns out, they had recently learned about “communication” in their commerce class.

The teaching style here is: Ask “…what?” to see if everyone is paying attention.
The learning style here is: REPEAT IN UNISON if you are paying attention.

Lessons go like this…
Today we are going to learn about Idi Amin’s regime. We are going to learn about what?
IDI AMIN’S REGIME.
Idi Amin was the leader, was what?
THE LEADER
of our country from 1971 to 1971. During his what? his rule, there was turmoil, was what?
TURMOIL
in our country. Now take your what? your notebooks, and copy these sentences from the board: Idi Amin was the leader of our country from 1971 to 1979. During his rule there was much turmoil.

And that is how they are taught, every subject. There are no open-ended queries; there is no discussion or debate, and certainly no time for student questions. And there is only one right answer, always. From the green school uniforms to the requisite shaved heads to the 48-page notebooks to the posho & beans they eat twice a day every single day, everything and everyone is exactly the same.

I want my girls to think, not copy. I want them to be unique. I want them to know that there is often more than one answer. I want them to create, to daydream. I want them to have their own beliefs. I want them to use some imagination.

But, it’s hard to use your imagination when your whole education system seems aimed at uniformity. And if no one ever tells you that you have a thing called an imagination, maybe you just don’t know it exists.

I think maybe what they need is a good art teacher.

A good what?
ART TEACHER.

List 1

Beware of the man who won't be bothered with details.
-William Feather

It’s hard to know how to give an accurate description of a place so unlike your home, and to be sure, there is really no such thing as an “accurate” description. The stories and thoughts that I post on here tell things to some extent, but so many times, I feel like the details are lost. So, I have decided on an additional method of conveying my experience: a list of random facts. These are things that have struck me as odd, things I have found interesting, unusual, extraordinary…



While the Luganda language lacks specificity for some things (particularly science-related things), it is very specific in other regards. A while ago my tutor taught me 16 words for the different parts of a banana tree. There are more than 16 parts, of course, but we stuck to the basics.

I live a little bit south of the equator.

The main form of shorter-distance transportation is boda-boda (motorcycle taxi). The Peace Corps does not allow volunteers to ride boda-bodas; if you’re caught, you’re automatically sent home, no excuses. Most volunteers occasionally take the chance of getting caught; in many cases it is extremely inconvenient NOT to ride bodas, and Ugandans don’t really understand when you say you can’t. It would be like saying you can’t ride in a car in America. I think that volunteers should be properly informed of the risks, and allowed to ride bodas if they choose to. However, I personally don’t ride them. Bodas (particularly in busy areas) are dangerous; that’s why there’s the rule. In the six months I’ve been here, two of our nuns have been in semi-serious boda accidents, and our carpenter, a really nice man who helped me hang my mosquito net, died in one.

While the thought of contracting malaria is awful to foreigners, getting malaria is not a big deal here- everyone gets it, multiple times. You take 4 pills morning and night for three days, and it goes away. It’s kind of like having a cold in the States.

My nuns run a primary school for deaf students. After mass let out the other day, some of the students were racing each other, running full-speed back to their school. It occurred to me that they can’t hear the crunchy slap of their shoes on the packed dirt road. I love that sound.

To get to town to check my mail, use the interenet, and buy food, I walk about 2 miles to the main road, then flag down “public transportation,” a car. The car is usually a very old, very small Toyota. There are usually about 10 people plus a baby or two already in the car when I squeeze in. Luckily, it’s only 7 or so miles to town.

Students here all wear brightly colored uniforms, which look amazing on their dark dark skin. Everyone in the whole school wears the same color. Imagine 500 little kids, all in turquoise. (Or bright pink, or purple, or green, or sky blue…)

It is very important to dress nicely here. I wear an ironed skirt (always below-the-knee) and an ironed collared shirt most days of the week. It is also important to wash and shine your shoes. Who would have thought I would ever own a shoe brush and tin of shoe polish? I do. It is good to look “smart” (well-dressed) at all times. (If you want to say that someone is intelligent, you would say “bright,” because “smart” always refers to appearance.)

Goats, cows with really long horns, and chickens roam everywhere, and somehow everyone knows whose animals are whose. Nothing runs away, nothing gets lost.

There is a lot of trash on the ground. There aren’t so many trash cans. It is not wrong to throw an empty water bottle out of your taxi window, to drop a wrapper on the side of the road, to dump your plastic bag of rubbish wherever is most convenient. If trash IS collected, it is burned. A lot of the trash is plastic, so I can’t decide which way is worse for the environment; despite the unsightliness, I think it actually might be better just to have it on the ground.

I never cook meat for myself. I still eat it when it is served to me or when I go to a restaurant, but I would never buy it. If I wanted chicken I would have to buy the chicken and kill it and clean it myself. (Which I have done, once, under the helpful supervision and guidance of my host family. I wouldn’t do it myself.) If I wanted anything other than chicken, buying it would involve going up to a hanging carcass and having them chop off a kilo for me. I don’t want meat that badly.

It is not rude to comment on someone’s acne/pimples/zits, a fact which PCVs can find very annoying. Given the fact that most volunteers, myself included, have breakouts as bad as when we were 13, there are a lot of comments. (I attribute my breakouts to the fact that I slather on sunscreen every morning, then sweat all day long…) Many Ugandans, however, think we have been surreptitiously attacked by a million mosquitos; perhaps we don’t know that we should sleep under a net? So, in addition to having your blotches pointed out in the first place, you further have to explain that, no they are not mosquito bites, and despite the fact that you thought you were done getting pimples about 5 years ago, they are, in fact, pimples. Yes, pimples. No, not mosquito bites. Pimples. Really.

You have to boil water before you drink it, always. I am among a very small percentage of people in Uganda who have running water, and even after I boil my water, I let the dirt particles settle to the bottom before I drink it. I don’t think running water is necessarily cleaner than water from a borehole; in fact, it might be dirtier. I brush my teeth with straight tap water, though.


More random facts to come in the future... stay tuned!

Religion

That’s me in the corner / That’s me in the spotlight, losing my religion.
-REM

Some of the students/workers dressed for a reenactment of Jesus's crucifixion

Today I had an interesting conversation with one of my nuns. She’s older, exceptionally nice, and particularly astute. We were waiting for the afternoon’s service to commence; as the students were still adjusting their stools on the chapel lawn, I took the seat beside her on the veranda, where all the nuns were seated. (I never know exactly where to sit. I’m not a student, not a worker, not a nun…I usually sit with the nuns, though.) She was reading a small book while waiting- it was light blue and had a cross on it- I think it was titled “Revelation.” I asked her about it. The particular part she was reading dealt with native religion in Africa, she said. This, of course, prompted many more questions from me, which she willingly answered. She told me, “It’s so interesting- when Africa had native religions, they occupied every corner of life. Everything that you did or didn’t do had to do with religion- they way you spoke to people, the way you behaved- everything. Religious beliefs permeated everything. In every corner of life, the reason was religion. Now, it’s completely different. Religion is not as much a focus.”

And she’s right, it is completely different. Uganda is now a predominately Christian nation, although there are a significant number of Muslims as well. Regardless of classification, everyone has a religion; you will not find a single person who would say they don’t believe in God. Those still holding “native” beliefs are few and very far between.

It’s interesting that something that was once such a shaping factor in how a life was lived would no longer have such influence. But, with older faiths, she seemed to say, justice was more inherent. There were direct consequences for your actions; ill-treat someone and your cow might die, be disrespectful and your crops would dry up. Thus, as she put it, “every corner of life” was involved- every deed was duly considered with regards to faith. In the Uganda of today, being religious means attending church and reciting prayers.

I asked if she thought Ugandans are less religious now than they used to be when native religions were predominant. She said, “It depends on what you mean by ‘less religious.’ With native religions, people were very religious, but the beliefs were so much on the mind that it was a source of fear- fear of retribution for your wrongs. Now, for people who really understand Christianity, everything is not so fearful. But, for many people, Christianity is still a foreign religion- it’s still the white foreigner’s God. It’s hard to incorporate that into life here. You have to start from the beginning- from Genesis- and realize that we all- black, white- were made the same. You have to start with the things we have in common.”

As the priests started their walk to the altar and our conversation came to a close, she said, “Thank you, my dear, for all of your challenging questions.” It was a simple statement, but in a place where people seem to dislike questioning… well, I could have hugged her. I didn’t. I just said, “Thank you for answering all of my challenging questions.”

And the service for Good Friday began.

Uganglish

Uganda boasts more languages than I can name... guidebooks usually say some number in the 30s or 40s. For a country the size of Oregon, that is A LOT. The most commonly spoken Ugandan language is Luganda, which is the language I was taught during training and the language I now attempt to speak. We were taught certain languages depending on which region we were to be assigned to; even in my small training group of 12 volunteers, we were divided into 4 different language classes! Some Ugandan languages are similar- I could probably halfway understand someone speaking Lusoga. Others are very very different- there is no way I could understand anything said in Luo. The national language of Uganda is English, which is taught in secondary schools (and to a small degree in primary schools). Thus, English is the “common” Ugandan language, for those who have been educated.

However common, Ugandan English is phrased very differently than American or British English. Peace Corps Volunteers dub it “Ugan-glish,” and we speak it regularly. It is spoken more slowly, with different emphasis. It is now automatic for me to speak Uganglish any time I am talking to a Ugandan; it is so much easier to be understood. (If you are among those who have been on the phone with me when I paused to say something to a Ugandan, you will have heard me involuntarily slip into a different lilt.) If I were to speak the way I speak in America, no one would recognize my words.

It is hard to describe what exactly is different about Uganglish; in addition to phrasing, a lot of it has to do with weight, tempo, and the space between words, rather than what exactly is said. Nevertheless, I’ve written an example conversation for you, between me and a Ugandan:

Me: Hello!
Ug: Nakivumbi Jesca! You are lost!
Me: I have come back!
Ug: You are most welcome!
Me: Thank you. How has been the day?
Ug: The day has been good.
Me: Mmm.
Ug: Mmm. Thaaank you for the work you are doing.
Me: And-uh you, thank you also for the work.
Ug: You have been in-uh-which place?
Me: I have been with myyy friend in-uh Sanje.
Ug: In-uh Sanje?
Me: Mmm. Near with Kyotera, in-uh Rakai.
Ug: Mmm. How is there?
Me: There is good. And-uh-how is here?
Ug: We are OOH-kay.
Me: Also me, I am OOH-kay.
Ug: Kale. (“Kaaah-ley”) Nice time!
Me: Kale. Good-d-day!


I find my American English skills degenerating rapidly, but I also feel that Ugandans are more and more likely to understand my English, or, I should say, my Uganglish. A fair trade-off, I suppose. Sometimes, though, I slip. If I am talking to Americans who also speak Uganglish (ie fellow volunteers), I sometimes accidentally speak Uganglish. The substitutions are slight, but still noticeable; the other day I said to my volunteer friend, “You are looking for what?” whereas in America I would have said, “Whaddareya lookin for?”

There are casual differences, too: fellow volunteers remark on my quick “aht-AHT” (“No.”) or my sing-songy “uh-HUH” (“Yes / That’s right”) when I don’t even realize I’m doing it. I find myself responding to questions as Ugandans do, with a raise of the eyebrows or a “Mmm,” both of which mean “Yes.” (These responses were very disconcerting at first, especially the former. If you are asking someone an important question and all they do is raise their eyebrows to say yes, you don’t exactly feel confident that they have confirmed. But, you get used to it.)

While it can be frustrating to not be able to convey my exact meaning in my own too-complex form of English, speaking Uganglish is fun, not to mention extremely useful. I worry that, when I return to the States, friends will find my cadence odd. But, just as I have let Uganglish creep into my vocabulary here, I think it will creep back out when I return home.

Nice time!

In-Service

My last two weeks of March were spent in Peace Corps “In-Service Training”- first some language refresher classes, and then lots of classes on how to make an organizational plan. (The latter was for both volunteers and the people we work with.) Most importantly, I got to see my friends!!! The training was for the group of us that came together in September- it was the first time we’ve all been together since training. And, also very much worth mentioning is that on March 29th, we officially celebrated SIX MONTHS in Uganda! And what a six months it has been.

Piled on my bed during our lunch break…

Alexis in back, Hannah, Me, & Sarah in the middle, Courtney on top

Our accommodations for the week were a bit over the top… and by over the top I mean, well, I don’t exactly know. Let’s just say there were leopard-print bedcovers. A leopard-print headboard. There was no toilet seat on our toilet. The water wasn’t on half the time. Our light bulb was blue. We had plastic yellow chandelier. The hotel logo (on the staff’s shirts, and screen-printed on our sheets) seemed improper for such a conservative country. Sarah and I were roommates, and we couldn’t resist taking pictures…

Posing with the screen-printed pillowcase… this is a very scandalous pillowcase for Uganda!

Our chandelier! The flash makes the lighting in the room look a normal color… it was very blue.


Despite our…unusual… accommodations, the staff was amazing! Everyone was so friendly and nice! They even made us pizza, twice!!! On our last night, they played American music for us in their meeting room so that we could have a dance party- some of them even came and danced with us! If I’m ever in Mukono again, I am stopping by to say hi!