Friday, February 22, 2013

Frogs in the Toilet and a Mouse in Space


I take back everything I said about this being a “kinder, gentler” dry season.    What ever relief that was rendered with the teaser of rain on Sunday (by various account – 4 drops of liquid fell from the sky and that may have been bird droppings for all I know) has been  compensated for with a vengeance.  It’s horrid.  Even the white ants have vacated. And Lizzy, thank you for your offer of a roll of duct tape to fix the holes in the screens to keep the little bastards out.  Unfortunately, there’s not enough duct tape on the planet to fix this place.   They come under the doors, through the “screened” vents, through the open places around the windows.  Too bad I can’t learn to like eating them. Next lifetime perhaps.

Soon – and it’s already getting there – it will not even cool down at night.  The upside is – there is still water, though my neighbors say they have been hauling theirs.  I think I just still have some in the tank.  Thank you God.  Climate change, whatever its origins, is also manifesting here according to the locals.  This year there has been spotty rain in the middle of dry season – almost unheard of.   Usually, when it’s dry season, there’s not a hint of moisture anywhere. 

Last weekend I spent a day playing tour guide to an Irish woman who will be here for two years with VSO (Volunteers Services Overseas). I love it because she has a potty mouth (or trucker’s mouth it’s been called) to match mine, but she does it with an Irish brogue and it is somehow … charming. You’d hardly know you’d just been told to “go to hell.”  I’ll have to work on a different accent I guess. She’s also closer to my age (i.e only 20 years younger as opposed to 40 years younger…) and it’s nice sometimes to pal around with someone in your century.  It was fun showing a new person around, but in this heat – exhausting.  I also paid a visit to Peter, my “surrogate Ugandan child” who has now finished a week plus in school.  He greeted me with a reminder that he still needs 13 notebooks.  This is costing more than I anticipated.  Silly me – I should know better.  So – in the god-awful heat, I went to find 13 more notebooks… and delivered them back to the school.  This is going to be interesting and I can only hope that it will help him change his life. Maybe just knowing someone out there cares will make a difference for him.  If he’s a good student and can stay engaged, it will be he’ll have a better shot at life. Anyway, after the errands the only respite from the heat and grit was a few minutes in the shower.  The perversity of it is, that dry season  - when all you want is a cold shower - is the ONE time of time the year that the water is hot.

So today, there was another planning meeting.  Ugandans love planning meetings.  These things take on a life of their own, so I sat chatting with the only other Munu in the room, another British VSO volunteer who told me his tale of going to a workshop in Pakwach – I think.  Stayed in a hotel (loosely called – a bed and a “proper toilet.”) Went to flush the toilet and three frogs came out.  After being flushed into the bowl, they climbed back into the tank.  So of course – the entertainment value  of this frog-show being high in the village of Pakwach – he flushed again: again producing three frogs – and so on and so on this went.   Then he told the tale of going to a restaurant which he assumed would have a “proper bathroom” and found it – but had to share it with a pig.    

The other adventure was the purchase and cooking of a frozen chicken.  Yes – even cooking a chicken can be an adventure infused with mystery here.  Here, if you want a chicken – you kill it yourself.  My last effort at this – and I was just a bystander – was gruesome because cutting off a chicken’s neck with a knife that will hardly cut butter – is well – grisly for both cutter and cut-ee.  Not doing that again… So I have found two places where I can sometimes buy a very pricey frozen one.  Still – it’s not all that straight forward, because one needs to know it’s been frozen the whole time since processing.  As you know, power has the habit of going in and out, so that’s the way a lot of stomach problems happen here.  You eat something you think has been refrigerated from start-to-finish, and realize it’s been thawed several times.  So, back to the chicken.  It was a scrawny little runt of a thing, but I took it home and cooked it.  Most chicken you get here is so tough it is truly un-cuttable with anything but a bandsaw and I haven’t actually tried that.  It gives new meaning to the term rubber-chicken.  This one was edible, if a little tough. From the carcass of this entire chicken - picked absolutely clean, I got a little over a cup of meat.  With the broth I made Mexican chicken soup with fresh (or shall we say “revived) cilantro on the top and it brought me right home to Texas.  So it was worth it every shilling.  I doctored the rest of the meat with the Marsala spice Mix and have had a few meals from it. My new excitement is iceberg lettuce, which I would hardly give a second look in the States, but it’s a rare delicacy here.   So I’ve chicken salad, tuna salad, veggie salad!  Life is thrilling.

In other worthless news, but perhaps it will re-ignite the pioneer spirit deep within, is the adventure of the stopped up sink.  Normally one might hop in the car or maybe if you’re an environmentally sensitive sort – you’d hop on your bike or walk to your local supermarket-hardware-store-Jiffymart: any of which would be likely to have drain cleaner. You’d pour some of the toxic stuff down the afflicted drain, go have a cup of coffee or ICE TEA, watch an episode of Downton Abbey, do a chore – something…. And in a bit of time you would return to a clear drain. 

Not so here.  After wasting my time pouring boiling water down the drain, picking tidbits of slime out with a pair of tweezers, etc. I walked through a cloud of dust dodging Bodas, bikes, cars and goats to the nearest grocery store and tried in vain to explain drain cleaner.  Clerk: “Ah! You need JEK (local Clorox product).”  Me: “No, I don’t want to sanitize it; I want to open it up so water can move.”  Clerk: “ You first try   …. (demonstrating a plumber’s friend with great up-and-down clasped hands motion.”) No, I explained, there’s a curve in the sink and besides the last one turned up its little rubber lip and died that way.    There is no such chemical as drain cleaner in town – at least at this place.  So I left with a new plunger.  Admittedly, this one was an improvement over the last, but still pretty poor action.   Finally, I used a crochet hook, tweezers and a pair of 14-inch knitting needles (in lieu of the required wire coat hanger of which there are none in all of northern Uganda) and performed minor surgery on the drain.   I’m happy to report that both patient and surgeon survived and the drain now does what’s it’s supposed to – but slowly-slowly as they say in Uganda.

How someone can write two paragraphs on clearing a clogged drain would have been incomprehensible to me 18 months ago.  But here I am, brought to my knees by a clogged drain, white ants and dust.  How will I ever adjust to civilization again?  Better hang on to those knitting needles…

New rant: Planning ahead is not done here.  It’s always a continuing source of frustration, but for some organizations, it’s an art form.  I - along with all staff - are expected at a big regional symposium this weekend.  It’s in one of those places you can’t get to from here. So it’s a full day of travel Friday.  Meanwhile, I have made plans for the weekend that if I cancel will impact others.   Organizations do this all the time.  Failure to plan is one of the reasons Uganda is still a “developing country.”   They continue to do it because everyone just drops everything so things that were scheduled don’t get done, etc. etc. etc.  I screwed up my courage and said I could not go, due t short notice.  I anticipated horrible fall-out, but there was none.  Note to self:  don’t right short stories about consequences, just stand your ground…

And in other news not to be missed is: Uganda launches mouse into space.
The picture come from a FB invitation from PCVs to PCVs to help celebrate the event, consistent with at least the younger crowd's commitment to find any excuse for a party ;-) Thank you Andrew.
 Now - if I could just recruit those mice in my kitchen... for space, not partying.  All evidence would indicate they've been having one in my kitchen - and I can tell you they are not nearly this cute or well groomed.



And in closing, I have discovered quiet in Gulu.  I’m sitting at Sankofa, a little eating place on the “outskirts,” where the Ex-pats live and it is blissfully quite except for a few chickens crowing in the background. It’s still morning, so the lunch crown hasn’t hit and I’ve come here to work.  Out office is moving – theoretically sometime this year. It’s almost twice the distance for me to walk, so that means no more going home for lunch, but it’s close to this place.   I think it might be a blessing in disguise, although I’ll have to start buying lunch. 

That's all for now.   Probably should get back to work.





Saturday, February 9, 2013

"It takes a village..."

 
A choking fog of malaise has drifted and settled over Gulu sifting into the nooks and crannies of the psyche like the cloud of fine red silt that is beginning to blow down the streets. Permeating hair, skin, nostrils, computers, clothes, sheets, mosquito net and shoes I am constantly covered in a rust-colored veneer.  I’m sure when I return to the States, people will asked when I dyed my skin because all one has to do is walk outside and whatever was washed off is instantly replaced. Dry season has hit with a vengeance.   It’s not really wicked-hot yet, but still debilitating.  Yesterday I ran errands all day with a young man I decided to sponsor for school.  Mid-afternoon I came home and stood under a cold shower for 20 minutes and was somewhat revived, but by 8:30 I was so exhausted I climbed into bed.

Several interesting events this week:

First, a couple of PCV friends were going to come to dinner on Saturday, but that was pre-empted by catastrophe.  Seems my friend and her supervisor left to go to the field in one car setting off an hour later than the car (we’ll call Car One) with a couple of co-workers.  Bad roads are legendary here and Saturday’s route took them along a road where work was being done and the road narrowed to one lane (as opposed to the 1.5 lane width usually available on a good road).  The driver of Car One, slowing to avoid oncoming traffic - swerved to avoid a pothole and in the process hit a rock which popped the car over onto its side: hitting three children in the process.  One infant being carried on the back of his older brother (still a small child himself) died on scene.   An angry mob of villagers wielding machetes and rocks instantly surrounded the car ready to exact  their pound of flesh for the death. 

The driver called the supervisor in the car following and explained the situation.  Naturally phones were either out of airtime or out of juice and that complicated matters, as the crowd was growing angrier by the moment.  Thankfully, the car’s doors locked when it flipped, so no one could get into the car and drag out the driver. The PCV called Peace Corps security (Fred) and god bless Fred – because he magically was able to contact some local official who staved off a massacre (literally) and removed the driver and passenger to a police barracks, with the crowd following.  When the threats turned to burning down the barracks,  another call was made and PC security was able to get someone to come and escort the driver to another village.

The crowd began to settle down when the driver said he would take care of the burial. The next day the brother of the infant died making matters worse.   This event is not uncommon in Uganda – in the villages.  Mob justice reigns.

In other news, nine people were beheaded in a town far south of here over some land dispute involving the church.   And yes, we actually feel quite safe here as these are local matters and have nothing to do with politics or Muzungus…  that would be us. Still – it’s a bit unsettling.  Beheadings and poisonings are not exactly routine, but they are the preferred method of doing away with people who annoy you. 

On a more cheerful note, I’m now sponsoring a young man to go back to school.  Peter (Okwir Diken Peter) is his name and I met and became friends with him after several conversations on the street.  Peter was a street kid evidently for a good while.  I don’t know what brought him to the street, but almost certainly it was related to the war or effects of war.  In Gulu, there are about 100 like him ranging in age from 5 – 21.  Peter is 17 and has made it to the 7th grade.  Considering that he’s been on the street for a long time, his grades are good and while he has not been able to earn the money to go to school himself, he’s been working toward getting an NGO here to help the street kids: find them a group shelter, food, counseling and hopefully a way back to their families or school. This problem characterizes the north.

Peter, amazingly never asked me for help.  We just talked about his efforts to get shelter for the street kids.  In the process, I discovered he wanted to go back to school but didn’t have the funds.  We’re talking boarding school because he needs a place to sleep and a food source.   There are clearly other issues: he’s become accustomed to total freedom and lack of any authority other than himself, so it’s been a tough re-entry into the routine and requirements of school.  But – he was admitted back in to the level of P7 because he’s bright, well-mannered and motivated and has some community leaders advocating for him.  I began to have the feeling that the best way to help him with his street kids, is to help him get back in school so that he has a "voice."

So here we are.  I paid his fees for this term – part of them anyway – enough to get him in.  And as we get our PC stipend each month I’ll add to it.  He’ll work on holidays to finish it out, but the requirement with boarding school is that you don’t leave campus unescorted for the full three months of the term.    Interestingly, school fees include a contribution to: cement for repairs, a lightening rod, beans and posho, exam fees and an odd assortment of miscellany.   It amounts to 286,000 shillings (about $100 US).  The dorm consists of a large room with cement floors, where the boys lay their mattresses butted up against each other on the floor.  They share an outdoor latrine and bathing area (bucket baths) and are required to bring their own toilet paper, copy paper and broom – among other things.   He couldn’t afford the socks or the flashlight or the toilet paper or the shoe polish or Vaseline or –or –or the 6 passport pictures or the 21 notebooks - so we’re piecing that all together.   I’ll post a picture when I get one.

Today I walked to the school to take him a bag of supplies and it was an odd feeling to be helping another young man with school: a mixture of old memories of going to school for my own kids and somehow becoming a surrogate mother to a 17 year old  man-child.

This term is a test of sorts to see how he does.  Considering the fact that last year was his first year back in school and part of that time he was working to pay for it, he’s done pretty well.  In the process of getting him back in, I’ve met what amounts to a handful of people who represent his support system.   Since he has no home to go over the holidays, someone has agreed to find him “some small space.   Others have agreed to continue to seek a place for his street kids.  It’s rather daunting and the Nigerian proverb "it takes a whole village to raise a child" has become real. Here it’s quite literal.

As we were walking back to the school yesterday he asked what we do in American when the electricity goes out.  I answered that that rarely happens and he was stunned.  Then he said:  “I hear that in the UK they don’t use candles for light, they are only used for celebrations! Can that really be true?”    When I answered “yes” he was silent for a long time after uttering an almost reverent, “wow!”

And that’s my week in review. It's now Sunday morning and it's uncharacteristically quite.  The club music provided a thud all might and turned into the Call t Prayer this morning followed by church music on steroids.  I guess everyone has finally fallen asleep, because the only sound is a rooster and the wind through the trees.  Onward to another cup of coffee...