Just When We Thought It Was Safe...

Aaaaah - just when we thought it safe to go out of the house - Al Shabab, a revival and ... Ebola come knockin'. Of all of three - the Revival is the worst of it...  It (10,000 people expected) started Thursday and the only real threat has been to my sanity.  Kaunda Grounds where this event is taking place is next to the big market (cuk madit) and both are just a stones throw from my hacienda... So starting at 6:30 AM going full tilt all day (till at least 9:30 PM) with short breaks - there's been blasting music, bombastic  preaching and throngs of people on the street.  Everything said twice:  once in English from the AMERICAN preacher and again yelled in Acholi.  Lordy,  I am almost certain that it doesn't take 120 decibels to save someones soul.  In fact I think it may be an inverse relationship. It’s late getting started this morning.  With any luck everyone has been saved and we can fore-go another day of deafening evangelizing. If terrorists want to blow up something I can direct them to several PA systems...

 I have purposely stayed away from the market and basically out of town.   The heads up for bizarre behavior came Friday on my way home, just passing Uchumi and my Boda gang - a tall extremely intoxicated Ugandan man approached me with arms flung open preparing to envelope me... I dodged him - not quite ready for a grope and he caught me by the arm saying a few choice phrases like "I want to F*** you."   Well I could have told him to "take a number..." but thought better of it and instead extricated myself and told him to GO.   That seemed to confuse him and he released his hold after a little twisting on my part....  So the crazies are out - and I'm in.

Have read a book, finished a great puzzle, cook chicken curry with my foil packaged chicken and consumed a small roll of Oreos.  Time to go back to work...  I'm out of Oreos.  Steadfastly refusing to do anything productive until tomorrow.  So far, so good.  

So there have been 12 reported cases of the Ebola Virus in the West Nile region - not near here.  There's Nodding Disease (fatal in most cases) in the North affecting kids.  No known cure, no cause determined.  Has everyone baffled.  When things settle a bit, I start reading the news.  Probably not a good idea. But all this comes to us from PC HQ.

Tomorrow (the day I have said I'll be productive)  is here in all its glory... and while I am still resisting being seriously productive, I have to come to Coffee Hut  to send pictures to LABE for a final report. I'm happy to note the town is blissfully quiet.    Only the usual  “praisin’ and prayin’” from surrounding churches. The revival hasn't started yet - giving the churches first go at salvation this morning it would seem.   The revival thing doesn’t work for me – too much historical and philosophical baggage there.  Growing up in Louisiana, Baton Rouge was a target rich environment for evangelists of all ilks. After the really big ones, a neighbor would ceremoniously be hauled off by men-in-white-coats (literally), having locked herself in the closet with the holy-spirit.  I always felt sorry for her kids who were high school  class mates of ours.  Having endured my share of hell-fire-and-brimstone preaching, this tops the scale.  It is just so.... percussive and angry sounding.  Whew! But the mere presence brings up the idea of what people consider uplifting and I can't be the judge of that...  It just doesn't work for me.

However, I actually like the Mulsim call to worship broadcast at intervals through the day (the Mosque is a block away) and I've hiked through the 4 AM fog in China to find the source of Buddhist chanting, bells and incense.  So I'm not totally hardened and have a deep appreciation for spiritual ritual. Timely in a way, that the following came to me this weekend and I think it has elements that are worth some thought. The next paragraph or so of this epistle is a quasi- metaphysical so for those who aren’t interested, fast-forward.  Most of you receiving this, know I think outside the box.  But the box is getting bigger and what used to be outside, is now inside the box and accepted science.  Some is still theoretical, but science, spirituality and neuro-science are overlapping at some interesting junctures.  Those of you who knew me in my previous (pre PC) life will recognize the ideas here, but I like the way they are presented, with a few exceptions of leaps in reasoning. This being the 2012 of  the much talked about SHIFT, there is much circulating about what this means.  Certainly not the end of the world, but perhaps the end of a paradigm that no longer works for us as a civilization.  No gloom and doom here – just something positive I’m passing along to those interested.  I have specifically decided NOT to use this blog as a forum for these types of discussions, so please forgive this transgression. When I received this youtube (Sacred Geometry DNA changes 2012 Mollecular Atom Consciousness.mp4) about Quantum Physics, DNA and reality, I thought I’d pass it along. Because – well – a picture is worth a thousands words?

Onward:  

On other fronts, I spent most of last week going to training sessions in the field.  LABE is training its Parent Educators on how to create Home Learning Centers in their villages.  It's a cram course on what children need  physically, emotionally and mentally to learn.  Good start.  In the span of a week,  PEs are trained on how to teach numbers, reading, vocab etc.  Since text books and standard materials are non-existent, they are taught how to make their own teaching aids out of local materials.  LABE supplies construction paper, glue, markers and number and alphabet reference pages - and ideas. 

Their (PEs and trainers) commitment is daunting.  Twenty seven or so adults rode their bicycles miles to get get to daily training for a week.  It took place  in a "conference center" (spare building at the school) consisting of wooden benches and tables (one center had tables - the other nothing but benches). No lights.  Wooden shutters on some of the windows opened.    These went beyond the usual training and focused on Early Childhood.  One woman came with her new-born, but most of the others were older.

When we drove into the school compound, kids were busy sweeping the school grounds with brooms made from brush collected from around the school and home.  Everyone is expected to bring a broom.  The penalty for not coming with your broom is to pick up rubbish by hand.  All the kids are sweeping...  but the ones getting the center ready are also picking rubbish by hand...

When they see our truck, I notice they all stop what they are doing and kneel - a sign of respect.  Having a truck come in means someone serious has arrived.    I can't get used to the kneeling ritual, but it is expected of children and women.  When I went out to take pictures, some of the kids got a bit confused - keep sweeping or kneel?  Not doing one or the other can result in punishment.  Realizing what was happening, I went back inside.

After a bit the school-gong sounds.  The first sound results in all children kneeling - a sign that they heard it and are getting ready for assembly, which takes place outside. They gather for a school song and a prayer, after which they all file out to their classes.  Most are dressed in tattered school uniforms;  all are barefooted. Uniforms are the only way to tell girls and boys apart at this age:  all have their heads shaved.  This is a poor country, but this school is better kept than most and has some new buildings and teachers quarters.

There are a few new-looking buildings in the rear of the property that don't seem to be in use.  Seems that the contractor took his share off the top and to costs, neglected to put any cement in the "cement.' Built the walls from sand and mud causing them to collapse right after the money was spent...   Engineer noticed it at final inspection, so the buildings are now condemned.   An NGO came in a put up new replacement buildings.

Ah - now 6PM and the Revival is back in force.  Think I may hit that beer in the fridge and start another mystery...  Sorry Jenna, I'll replace it (the beer)  before you get home ;-)  So that's this week's  report from land-locked Uganda...     Almost a year - and counting...

Peace Camp

Every Year, some Peace Corps Volunteers put on what is called Peace Camp, one of several camps sponsored by Peace Corps through the year.    The goal is to work with young people who have been impacted by the war that raged here for 20 years, ending only in 2008.  Young men and women, from four different tribes among which animosities still exist, come together to learn skills they can take back to their communities and contribute to “peace building.”    Everyone in the north has been affected by the war and anyone working in Northern Uganda will tell you the north has a different feel to it.  It is definitely what is called “post-conflict” and has an aura that is very different from other parts of Uganda.  Certainly part of that is related to landscape and the lack of infrastructures that support the basic kinds of services one become accustomed in the First World – or to some degree in other parts of Uganda.

Other aspects of this different “feel” are related to the fact that Northern Uganda is 20+ years behind in every aspect of life imaginable:  education, social structure, services, etc. But there is another aspect to this area and it mystifies me. It is the gentleness, kindness and generosity of spirit of its people.  I know you've heard me say that before, but in the face of some of the things you will read below, it is amazing. Yes – things don’t get done; there is an apathy about things that drive a westerner and many Ugandans flat out nuts.   I’m not even going to go there, but it requires backing up and putting some distance between the frustrations and our western perspectives.  (That is not to say that they are not important especially in terms of where Uganda wants to go developmentally).  It’s just that  - as I’ve said before – when you’ve been abducted or identified your family from a boiling pot of human remains  – or had your house burned – or become maimed – being on time or getting a food order right?  Well – they just don’t make the short list in things to worry about.

So, back to Peace Camp.  My housemate is a regional coordinator and is receiving applications from “youngsters” between the ages of 17 and 25.  Remember, many of these individuals were in the bush or IDP camps for a decade or more of their years, so these ages don’t translate in the same way as they might elsewhere.

One of the questions applicants must answer is: “How has the war in Northern Uganda affected your life?” The answers are understated, because there are no words to convey  these concepts to someone who has not experienced what they have.  Interesting to read these and discover that many of the kids who were abducted don't even mentioned the fact. That fact is so wide-spread,  I wonder if there is the assumption that almost everyone was abducted, so why mention a "given."   Because it’s impossible for someone who has grown up with peace to identify with the atrocities that were commonplace here, especially given the romanticized version of violence that comes through Hollywood, some of these answers may surprise you.  Most people never mention the war and people don't easily offer up their experiences.  Those that haven't faced it can't understand; those that have - don't want to relive it. But here is what some of the applicants wrote.  In their words:

Girl, age 18:

 “I lost some of my relatives in the war and I had to move from our home to the town areas like the bus park for safety. And also lost most of the people of my area were also killed and others were boiled in the pot.  This affected my life a lot in the war.”

Girl age 17:

“These war has made me to become an orphan by lacking both of my parents and other relatives –in addition to that it also delay my study which I am not happy about it.  These war has made some people in the community to lose of their body parts like ear, arm, leg, lips and breasts which is so painful.”

Boy, age 15:

"The was affected my health of which it led to disability (i.e. I am not able to work and use wheelchair since I am also disable.) I also lost one of my parents hence am too frustrated with no one to help.”

Girl, age 22:

"The war brought me down into a shameful life that led me to a painful life i.e. I loose my study. I became homeless, disable, too frustrated and too confused and the greatest of this is me being shot by the gun and I became lame  and sad in my heart.”

Boy age 17:

"The war has brought poor standard of living in our family i.e. it destroyed most of our properties and they even captured two brothers of mine and taken them in the bush and now as I talk they are not yet back.”

Girl, age 17:

"I was captured and my mother and my father were also killed. The war has made me totally an orphan.  War has made me confuse in my mine.  Killing of many people still make me to remember.”

Girl, age 18:

"I loss both my parents. I started my study late. Paying my school fees is also another problem. I loss all my relatives that would help me to pay my school fees in time.”

Girl, age 17:

“ The war interrupted my education when I was abducted by the rebels.  It has also made me an orphan since both of my parent were disturbed in that my mother was killed (murdered) in this very time of war.”

Girl, age 17:

“The war has affected me in such way that my grandfather’s one side of ear and toe was cut off and it was making me not sleep in the house through running to the bush looking for a place for hiding.”

Girl, age 21:

It affected me in the following ways:  1) Led to a delay in my education because during the period of studying, rebels came to schools with the intention of killing the teachers, head teachers and grabbing pupils to be trained to become rebels. Due to that process, my head teacher and the Ministry of Education decided to close the school … until the schools around our village were free from wars and conflict.  Hence, it left me for two years without studying. 2) It spread diseases like malaria 3) led to loss of life due to the burning of houses.  One day rebels got me and my family members at home.  They put us in one house and set it on fire. With God’s mercy, we managed to get out. When my father got out, they killed him… they were waiting behind the house to kill anyone who escaped.”

Male, age 24:

“My mother was raped by a soldier and… was infected by him with HIV/AIDS. After one year, she died of AIDS in 1997. My grandfather, who used to pay our school fees, was also killed by the rebels. That caused me to stay at home for nearly four years, after which my brother started helping me with his meager earnings.  Furthermore, I was slapped on the ears by a rebel when I was crying for my mother. She had escaped into the bush to avoid being captured. And hence, my ears are damaged.  Now I cannot hear well due to the permanent damage (chronic pus discharge from both ears). It has proved to be the worse experiences in the war because it left me a disabled person.”

Boy, age 22:

“The war affected me in the following ways: I lost my father, who was killed. Secondly, all our properties were vandalized.  All our animals were taken. I myself was burned in a grass thatch house and set fire, but I survived. I have only one sister and one brother. The rest of my brothers were killed.  I have an injury from bayonet. My mother was paralyzed. This made me head of household. 

And finally, one girl (age 17) states that she was not really “affected” by the war in that her parents were already dead and she had no parents to lose.  Living alone in a hut from the age of six, until she was found at the age of 11, in her words:  “This war did not really affect me that much because I have no family so I did not loose anyone because I am an orphan who stays alone, but still I got so traumatized by how human beings were killed and boiled in the pot and then the young ones were taken for training to become soldiers leading to total displacement of people… mothers were taken as a wife to Kony and a husband as a soldier leaving total suffering.”

I just finished a book, A Long Way Gone, by a Ishmael Beah, a young man who was forced to become a child soldier during the war in Sierra Leone.  It’s horrifying, but also illuminating and tells of his experience, his rescue by UNESCO and rehabilitation.  An amazing story that reminds me of how, even though this area is “at peace,” how much pain and anger lies just beneath the surface. One can feel it in ways that are hard to explain or identify.  It’s just there.

The stories you have read here are a mere ripple on the water of a storm tossed sea.  And people tell them in a very matter of fact manner as though they were saying "and yesterday I went to the store..."  belying the depth of their experience and sorrow.  In many ways, emotions have shut down as a copying mechanism.

These are shared as a way of letting you know about the people we work with and share space with on a daily basis.  Rest assured that - contrary to the KONY 2012 youtube hype - these events are not going on in our midst and to the best of anyone's knowledge, Kony is not camped out in the back yard!  I know this because I have four lovely Ugandan's living in my back yard ;-)

To your health and well-being... 

UFO's and Odd Ramblings

Back in Gulu and readjusting to the constant noise and the oddities of place.  When I was burglarized I re-arranged my room in a not very Feng Shui way to thwart anyone else who thought they might reap the rewards of using a 20-foot pole to  explore my room.  I haven't liked it since, nor have I slept particularly well.  There are lots of reasons for that - noise being at the top of the list.  Noise, mice, strange vibes - take your pick.  So this weekend, I re-arranged it again and again I like sleeping there.   Still, when I awake in the night, I am dis-oriented, and wonder where I am.  I thought I'd get over this, but it lingers.  

Anyway,  few nights ago I awoke at 5:30 AM when it is still pitch black outside and inside.  But this time, there were interesting little sparkles that looked for all the world like I was outside looking up at the night sky.    For a minute I thought it was just an ocular trick - like when you bend over and come back up quickly and the extra oxygen in your blood stream causes you to see sparkles.  Nothing like that happening here.   So I began to look around and what emerged was a faint, but perfectly discernible  image of what I can only describe as a UFO.   For old Star Trek fans that would be "partial cloaking."  Large - no fancy lights.  No beaming me up.  Just hanging out.  I continued to study this for about 10 minutes and it never varied. 

Shirly McClain, in her book Out On A Limb, talked about an identical experience in Machu Pichu. While staying in a tiny shed of a room, the ceiling became transparent and she could see a very clear UFO through the ceiling.   One of my sons had the same experience when he was about 5 years old and too young to even KNOW about UFOs.   It wasn't a Mefloquin Dream (giant beetle in that one...) But more importantly, it wasn't a dream.  Anyway - something to ponder.  It got me to wondering about any other sightings in Uganda and there have been a few, but none very well documented.  Gee - do you think someone may "beam me up?"   Just let me get my year in - so I can get RPCV status - that is if they return me.   

In other news, there are more random tales coming in from other PCVs.  The one that takes the prize comes from a young woman riding one of the infamous buses Iyou've heard so much about.  Shortly after a "short call" stop where her seat mate did not avail himself of the facilities, he proceeded to whip out his penis and pee in a water bottle.  As if that weren't offensive enough, he then proceeded to open his window and pour it out as the bus is traveling at about 70, thereby blowing the substance back up on passengers behind him.    Then there is my dear friend (you know who you are) who was bitten on the hand by some unknown insect I suppose and her hand swelled to twice its size.  A Dutch doctor who happened to be on  hand prescribed antihistamines, so she dutifully took them every  4 hours, but in changing purses and backpacks, mistakenly substituted taking three Mefloquin tablets within a few hours instead of antihistamines.  We take Mef once a WEEK and still there are side effects.  It acts on the nervous system and has all manner of wicked side effects:  anxiety, sleeplessness. sometime schizophrenia, mood swings.  As if life weren't already loaded with opportunities for calamity, we often sabotage ourselves when trying to take care of ourselves.  For example, in my effort to hide things from a would be burglar, I end up hiding them from myself.  Still looking for my US bank card and when we have electricity during the day, I will probably find it.  Also,  I've developed a itchy rash on my neck so slathered myself with hydro-cortisone cream. In my somnambulistic state of this morning, having wakened several times with itching during the night, I proceeded to brush my teeth with the stuff and didn't realize it until my lips felt numb.   Well - at least my mouth doesn't itch...

And the band plays on...  I do love this marching band.  They are very earnest and proud and so terribly out of tune - it's endearing. 

It's a busy week at work.  More massive organization is taking place between final reports due for our funding.  Folks from Holland are in town to see what we are doing.  Everything is due at once, and of course there is no power and no fuel to run the generator.  Ah - Uganda.

But power has just come back on in the last few minutes and it seems I will sleep with a fan tonight.  No - not that kind of fan...  but hope springs eternal ;-)

A Walk Through Kampala

Once again I am  "footing" through the streets of Kampala to buy my bus ticket for the ride back into Gulu tomorrow.  What always strikes me, now that I am not “fearing” and have extra attention simply to observe, is the contrast of sights, sounds and emotions that assault the senses. In case you’d like to take a walk with me… not sure I can do it justice, but here goes:

This time I leave from Garden City where I have indulged in breakfast.  Ben, a very well-spoken and intelligent young waiter who knows my name and preferences, asks if I want English coffee (black coffee with hot milk on the side) and an Almond Croissant, but I order pancakes instead.  Next time I’ll stick with the croissant.   But it’s pleasant out – cool breeze, people meeting over coffee at this upscale place.

Remembering I need to buy my bus ticket, I set off through the 30 or so Boda drivers blocking the sidewalk signaling and calling, “Madame! Muzungu! – Boda?”  Declining their offers, I pick up my pace and thread my way through traffic, remembering to look out for and avoid the flock of street urchins begging money in the median yesterday, but they haven’t assembled yet -  just more Boda drivers on the other side.  I walk up the hill, past the Annex skirting the old women street sweepers, bending at the waist to brush rubbish into rice sacks using the local 3-foot brush-broom and wonder if their backs hurt.  Stepping over a few sewer openings (literally open) and holding my breath as I hop over questionable streams of foul-smelling icky water coming down the hill in my direction,  I see a Hindu meditation store front with books about chanting and reincarnation and a young woman arranging a basket of roses celebrating the birth of a baby girl. On my right is the National Theater and African Market, just setting up for business; a line of waiting vehicles – matatus, the ubiquitous white NGO SUV’s with whip antennas, Private Hires - is already blocking the entrance. A few private hire tax drivers whose names I now know ask if this is the day I'll ride with them.  Not today - but someday!

On up the hill, across another death-defying intersection, I become aware of a freakish number of  dark blue trucks with POLICE stenciled on the door and double joined bench seats in the truck bed seating 12 camo-attired police brandishing big guns.  What’s up?  There’s a lot of hubbub near Parliament– not a demonstration – but just lots of coming and going of people with brief cases.  Peppering this mix are old women in their bright Gomez dresses (always shiny with pointed sleeves at the shoulder and a wide trailing bow at the waist), others balancing monstrous baskets of bananas or mangoes on their heads, Muslim women dressed in their Hijabs, vendors selling everything from phone-time, artificial hair, and school supplies to sliced mangoes and newspapers.  The newspapers have headlines like:  Congo Rebels to Take Kabili in 90 Days (things are heating up there again), Sex Scandals Rock Parliament…., Deadly Mudslides Near Mt. Elgon.  I’m walking, I’m walking…..  Now onto Kampala Road preparing for the assault of matatus with their conductors yelling destinations I don't know, accented by the constant honking of horns.  (You can’t drive without a horn here.)  The new Museveni owned buses add to this mix, theoretically reducing the clamor of Matatus and Bodas. The verdict is still out on that one.   Onward I trudge, past a pitifully emaciated man with skeletal legs pretzeled beneath him – sitting with his hand out.  A young Ugandan woman with spiked Halloween-orange and black hair and a row of ear studs struts past a dazzlingly beautiful woman with an elegant headdress, but in shabby clothes, and both weave among students, people in business suites and women in traditional dresses of bright African prints.  It is dizzying mix.   Many of the Ugandans meet my eyes and we exchange hellos, but the Muzungus stare robotically ahead, speaking and smiling at no one.

I have my purse searched before being allowed to enter the Post Office, buy my ticket, and head back via the same route, stopping at Aristoc to check out office supplies for a project at Peace Corps.  This feels kind-of normal, but lost in a time warp. 

Back the same route… to arrive at the Annex and call to see what time my ride from LABE will “pick me” for my meeting with the Director.   As I sit here in my room and write, there is a jack-hammer to my left down below and two doors down, an adopted Ugandan toddler who has been wailing for the past 30 minutes.   His very Nordic parents are pacing up and down the halls and stairway to try to console him – but it’s not working… only reverberating and bouncing off the concrete walls. This portends a long day - glad I'm leaving. 

And so that’s my morning in Kampala and it’s 12:01.   Later, at LABE, I read in the paper that today is the day before the one year anniversary of the Al Shabab terrorist activity in Uganda and things always get tense on anniversaries.  Tomorrow seems to be a good day to be leaving Kampala and - after buying my Bus ticket, it seems LABE has a vehicle going that way and I'm getting to make the trip with them.  Yeah!  The Gods smile again.

The day is done and it's time for my weekly chat with Brett.  Always gives me a lift and he finished third in the Mt. Hoodathon!  Training for the Portland Marathon.  Congrats Brett!  Travis is now is Qatar for a one month fill-in and I got to Google chat with him as well, an unexpected treat because in Iraq, Google chat was off limits.  When he gets back, he'll head to Afghanistan.  So close to here, and but his work being what it is, he can't get here from there without going back through D.C. !  Thank God great kids, good friends and Internet and phone service ;-)

Of Pigs and Cats and Goats

This past week has been a combination of lovely and sometimes comical  happenings that have been unexpected but welcomed.  I left the lovely town of Gula for Kampala after splashing through the dark and the rain to catch the 7 AM Post Bus last Monday.   It was a decent ride and I sat by a young woman with an 8 month old baby, praying: "please don't let this baby pee or throw up on me" (a not uncommon experience on the bus).  It was a good ride and I have to admit it brought back fond memories to have tiny baby fingers exploring my arm and little feet pushing into me.  He did not throw up.  

I worked on a project at the PC office for the first three days and was ferried to the training location on Friday morning. Remember that this was to be held at the SWAMP and I'd been dreading it for two weeks.  A much intentioned reprieve was delivered because the SWAMP wasn't ready for habitation it seems.  So instead, training was held at Kulika, a perma-gardening demonstration project an hour's ride from Kampala.  The universe was smiling on us all.  Without going into details, I was able to stay at the site and ensconced in a room with another volunteer.  

So this was a week of unexpected gifts, the first being a good seat mate for 5.5 hour ride into Kampala, the second being the Kulika-reprieve and the third being a night of utter silence - if you don't count the pig grunting around outside my window...  Really - no noise, no blasting radios-calls-to-prayer-marching bands.  I slept without ear-plugs.  I gave my first session the next day and it went well-enough.  One learns to be grateful for things like there being a projector and computer for the three Power Point presentations loaded onto a flash drive and the fact that there was power to actually use the projector.  Good so far.

The new group of trainees seems solid and their training experience appears to be far superior to the one we survived.  We raised so much hell about ours, they redesigned the model and it seems to be paying off.  Whereas we had 10 weeks of home-stay and trekking 45 minutes to an hour through manure strewn fields, past belligerent cows and marauding attacks of local children, deep mud, insects, barbed wire and other assorted obstacles to get to training and then back again at night, they trained and lodged at the same location which was - in itself - beautiful. That one change leaves lots of time for study, guitar playing, conversation and rest.  They appear to be in MUCH better emotional and physical condition that we were by this time in the process.    

Saturday I conducted a session that I've presented at home many times and was delighted and surprised to be able to offer here.  It's the one on neural-networks, motivation, boundary setting and staying positive.  It was very well received and opened the door for a lot of interesting conversations and a meditation session the next day.  Radically different from any training PC has offered in the past, it felt good to share that part of my life and expertise here.  Sunday was a totally free and unstructured day and the weather was perfect: cool and breezy accented with bird song and the occasional pig snort and turkey gobble.  Now - I have kind of a soft spot for pigs (not turkeys), as my grandmother had an enormous hog that I adored as a toddler in north Louisiana.  I named this beast Dear-Sweet-Pig and docile creature that she was she allowed me to commune with her through the fence and wiggle my fingers in her piggy-nostrils (how utterly disgusting!).  Why I didn't lose a hand, I'll never know because the pigs I have met since, have been a bit more - well - beastly. Though I've yet to try the finger maneuver on any other porcine subjects - it just  might be a secret hypnotic Mudra for a pig ;-)  I was inconsolable when my parents wouldn't let me bring Dear-Sweet-Pig home to live in our living room in Baton Rouge.   So the next morning of training, when a very business like pig trotted up the driveway looking like he ran the place, it seemed fitting tribute to Pig.  The next day he was joined by some disreputable looking friends, running through the compound causing general havoc and scattering trainees,  but that seemed perfectly in keeping with the cow who doubled as the snooze alarm in the morning.   I like this place. 

Now to Jonathan:  a fine specimen of a feline living on the property. He  does love his Muzungus, though as a respectable cat, he could never admit to such weakness.  In fact, Jonathan became know as a fearless-stalker-of-pigs, until said pig called his bluff and chased him around the yard.  Not to be outdone, Jonathan completely upstaged me in today's presentation on Monitoring and Evaluation (not hard to be upstaged there however...).  About half way through he strutted straight to the front of the room with a sizable mouse dangling from his mouth. He threw it about and tormented it to death and when he'd exhausted his fun, he retired to lounge around with his sleek brown trophy displayed under the flip chart.  Clearly time for me to call it a day.

I'm back in the Annex in Kampala and the party is tuning up outside my window.  But I've had a dessert-first dinner, which started with a three scoop hot fudge sundae at Cafe Java.   Real ice cream: vanilla, mango and coconut.  May as well end this trip with a smile on my face.  Such Bacchanalian behavior can be blamed on the only really weak link at Kulika: the food.  It was edible, but lacking.  On Sunday as I was taking a walk through the farm, we passed a goat being man-handled into submission. On the way back, said goat had been strung up and was being skinned.  At dinner, we were "treated" to the results.  I've not liked goat or lamb since having one disemboweled within a foot of our tent at a Ramadan festival in Tunisia  38 years ago.   Well, the other weak link was the stench wafting in on the evening breeze from the pig-excrement collection pond that feeds the methane gas production process that runs the generators, lights, etc.    I have to let you know that just in case you thought I'd spent the last few days at the Four Seasons... or gone all Pollyanna on you.

Happy Monday all!

Departures

Leavings never get easier...  In the insane cacophony of this particular Sunday morning - which started off nicely enough with a slow rain, the soft patter having been rudely replaced by a trio of workers descending onto my front porch with all the gear to "slash" the grass - my good friend Karla has left Gulu.  The scene is played out amidst a back drop of slashing gone "high tech" and is cast with an impossibly loud gas driven weed-eater.  

Karla, the nearest PC friend of my rough age group (not twenty something) is leaving.  I mean LEAVING!  She has been re-located to another area (beautiful in fact) as far from here as-the-crow flies as Kampala, but twice as far when you consider that to get there you have to go through Kampala and then to Ft. Portal.  So she is almost in another country.  It's not an exaggeration to say we have been each others link to sanity for the past 9 months.  So I will miss her and her WalMart pancake mix.  The feelings it evoked were not unlike those experienced when you send your child off to college, the Navy, Portland -  knowing you will only see them when the rare necessity of their return home dictates.  She, however, is literally going to a "far-far better place."  Fort Portal has trees and hills and a clean town and when traveling through, looks from the roadside like Napa Valley, the hills studded with tea plantations instead of vineyards.  Up close and personal, it is of course still Uganda, but it's the town I visualized when - having been assigned to Gulu - some demented person said, "Oh, you'll love Gulu, it's a beautiful town."  Get a rope!

But yesterday was lovely in a Gulu sort-of-way. After hiking around the town to do errands, me fighting some stomach malady, we ultimately landed at the Acholi Inn, the only garden-spot in Gulu and had fish and chips.  One of the good foods here is fish:  fresh talapia that usually comes from the Nile.  How can you not like fish that comes from the NILE RIVER?  Then there was the bacon and avacado sandwich that was delivered without bacon, but with multiple slices of bread held together with Blue-Band (local version of margarine) because bacon "is not there." There was however, what passes for cheese  (Chedda) here, which we scraped off.   Well - the fish was good.  Coming back we made an unscheduled stop by the auto-parts (it would be a mistake to visualize something like an ACE hardware store here)  store to get onions...    Aah - the rich smell of old grease and melting rubber.  Warms the soul and apparently the onions, some of which we rotten.  Somewhere around 4:30 some jack-ass on the other side of the fence a few feet from my front door, started a gas-leaking generator and the fumes wafted over carried on the same breeze that delivered sounds resembling a jack-hammer.  This is no doubt the same evolved individual who chopped down perfectly good trees at the 6 foot height and let them topple into my front yard - leaving them there to rot and hide snakes. A  live band with an announcer with a voice like Cruella de Vil  tuned up in the middle of this and thudding bass combined with distant crowds watching a sporting event finished off the evening leaving an after taste of wine gone bad.   Somewhere around 9:30 it all mysteriously stopped, like someone has pulled the plug. We wondered if the world had ended and we'd been left to turn out the lights, but alas, we awoke to find the world still here and delivering another round of church music and yes,  the weed-eater crew.   We have come full circle.

We had gone to one of the local pork joints (yes - called Pork Joint) to get meat for a stir fry.  On the way we were hailed by my friendly Boda Driver fan club and we asked directions, garnering - in the process - a request for pork.  We actually did get extra and gave them an order to share, met by great rejoicing, since they hadn't really expected us to get them any.  My stock just went up.    This hopefully will offset  that fact that I turned away (politely) the nine-year-old girl who followed me home night before last asking me if she could stay here for just the night.  I explained that her mother/auntie would be sad if she didn't come home, hoping that that would be the truth.  She gave me a somewhat pitiful look, so I gave her the only thing I could come up with - a granola bar.  My Acholi friend said "she'll be baaaack," and she was.  She returned yesterday with a friend in tow, telling me now that she lives next door.  I don't want to be rude, but I'm really not fond of being followed home and asked for food, money or lodging - all of which has happened.   It's creepy.

Preparing today to go to the swamp:  packing my insect-treated sleep sac in case there are bed bugs,

mosquito repellant,  anti-itch lotion, sun-screen and three power point presentations on a flash drive, because the connector from my Mac to a projector was stolen in the burglary. But we may not have power ANYWAY....   One learns to roll with the punches because there is no choice. 

I periodically wonder if I did something really egregious in a previous lifetime to deserve this  placement.  Other people got countries with a coast line, beautiful scenery, great PC support.  I sometimes remember my mother telling me:  "Nancy, the concept of Hell is a myth.  Hell is what some people experience here on earth and it is usually of their own making."  In the words my sons have spoken from time to time:  "Mom - I'm only gonna say this once:  You might be right!"