Where fools rush in

A great  meeting with my concert co-conspirators today. Progress. I leave the cafe and head to the closest boda stand (motorcycle taxis) and as I approach I see an obviously very drunk old man being dragged around by his neck. The boda boys have noosed him with a necktie and are pulling on either end, choking and dragging him through the dirt as others kick and hit him. Oh Lord. A boda boy turns on me - "it's 1.5 (shillings) today" "Why, I ask is it 500 more today than yesterday?" He snarls at me and tells me to get my man to buy me my own boda then. "Fine" I say "I will get another ride." He flies across me at the old man who is now staggering about yelling indecipherably and ploughshares him one, two, three brutal blows and blood flies from the mans face and a mob is forming. Instinctively.. because obviously the brain has not fully engaged.. I jump between them and yell to "STOP - this old man is drunk!! He is harmless" Coincidentally, or not, I am carrying a large stick of sugarcane with me and I hold it shakily between me and the fierce, bloodthirsty face in front of me. He stops. Everyone draws back. I threaten to call police - he bolts and the filthy, bleeding old man staggers away unknowing of all that has transpired on his behalf. I know full well that the only thing between me and the slap is my mzungu face and his unknown fate if he hits me.

This is not the first time I have seen this, and probably not the last, but this was the time that I could not stop myself and I am shaken but not sorry. God protects children and drunks they say, and obviously this day a quaking, shaking, fierce and angry woman. Would I do it again knowing the outcome could have been my blood and body? I cannot say for sure. I only know that today was not a day I was prepared to stand down from my principles. I will not visit this corner again, it is notorious I am told for violence. A month ago a man had 3 nails driven through his head here.

The wonder of it to me was to stand in the face of such anger, such a blindingly hateful young man and contemplate fully what a hard life he must face to fill him with such vileness. I feel deep sorrow and pity for him, for his soul, and his heart and his future, for he is surely riding a fast rail to destruction. On another day he will make another wrong choice and succumb to a face as angry as his own or the mob behind it. Or not, there is still time for him.

I have always told my friends that the thing about Africa that draws and pulls you back is that you never know from one day to the next what will happen in front of you. And so it is.

I'm looking at the last line from my post from this morning and smiling for it was never more true than this afternoon.

Plasmodium falciparum

 I’m trying to roll a big rock up the hill this week.. the rock is winning. After the initial adjusting to a new home, project, environment, food, and getting to know the people around you is done, the what if and oh no’s set in and a mosquito called reality smacks you down with a thing called malaria to heighten the insecurities. I lay in bed with racking muscle aches, violent, convulsive shaking.. freezing!.. and the fever rises and the bed is adrift, awash in heat and sweat and the stomach heaves and on it goes in cycles for days. I take the medicine and things become less dense yet my head swims in the drugs. I think I’m in India and it takes a great deal of self dialoguing to be fully convinced I am yet in Africa.

There is clarity though in this state, at how I can afford the medicine, that I have a bed, that I have clean water and clothing and options. This is the strain that kills the most people in Africa. This is the one that kills the babies, that robs them of their mothers and I hear every day of someone who has this malaria as if it were a common cold. I try not to complain too much because of those options I have that others are denied by geography, economics and politics. I put it in another perspective though, Western guilt for being sick.. that really accomplishes a lot!

I am back on my feet now and behind the curve with so much work to do. I am at the internet café daily helping to support Bosco with ideas he has to partner with students in Canada for matching kids here with similar interests and learning partners. The Toronto District School Board are hooking us up and soon kids here will be given the advantage of distance learning and the interchange will foster understanding of similar interests and hope  for futures in disparate cultures. It’s a great project and we are excited that it is taking wing.

Our non-violent voter education training is taking shape and should soon be finished and ready for delivery to our target audience – women and youth. Our fund-raising concert is getting some good buzz and we’re off on a corporate sponsor hunt to fund the various components. So, it is out of the bed and hit the ground running but I am trying to pace myself so I don’t relapse myself back to the ozone layer.

The rat is still an issue.. or should I say rats, I suspect from the activity that there is a colony, a community building into the space above. There is a housing shortage in Arua. I set the trap.. he eats around the snapper. He takes things from the hut and leaves er.. other things. Last night in the dark I stepped on the trap. Yup! That’ll kill him if he ever stumbles into it in the dark lol.

Some of my wash is missing. My hair never gets clean and shiny – the water is hard and gritty. I am bucket bathing. There is a shower but I cannot stand underneath the cold stream without holding my breath and shivering like a little girl. I have never been able to handle cold water. I prefer pouring warm water from basin than sanding off goose pimples in the drying process. I have no idea what the sound of silence is anymore, at all. Let’s see.. rat rustling, crack of dawn roosters, call to prayer, turkeys, neighbors dog, chickens, guinea fowl (and they can let off some mean riffs let me tell you!), voices and clamour from the kitchen, banging metal gate, compound dump truck start up, boda-bodas, crying baby.. and yelling – always yelling to get one another’s attention, "for gosh sake, it’s only a small compound" I think. I long for the green trails behind my home far up north, the quiet hush of footfall and hidden thoughts I can hear in the stillness. 

Ah well, another fine day and Africa is alive and I am grateful for my returning health, my bed, the bucket bath and all that means I am alive in Africa. 

Ack.. Sick

I've been missing home these past few days. Being sick makes me long for the familiarity of smells and sounds and comforts of home.. and a medical system that I can trust won't tell me I have malaria or typhoid or something nasty so they can sell me drugs. This is done all the time here but luckily I'm not terribly ill because the hospital itself is a grim destination. I walked through the grounds the other day with my friend Betty. "What is that dreadful smell?" I asked as we passed one section, "Oh this is the mortuary" she responded as I turned to see a gurney covered in congealed blood and secretion.. oh Lord. Further on, in the courtyard is a carpet of people sweltering in the mid-day heat, cooking, waiting, sleeping, suckling babies, either waiting to be in the hospital because there is no room, or sitting vigil for their loved ones in the hospital. I've seen this before in Ghana, but it all comes back fresh - no cash - no treatment or release. At this place I feel most helpless.

Side note: 2 days later and I am still feeling desperately horrible and get retested - flip side of the clinic coin is that false negatives are also prevalent. I've suffered for 4 days thinking it's the flu and it is actually a high strain of malaria. I am just very fortunate that I can afford the medicine.. rest and nutrition.

I miss my culture.. some people say Canada has no culture, but spending time in another certainly makes me realize that, ya, we do, we have a strong, thriving culture, socially, politically, ethnically and more.. and it's a damn good one at that. While I am accepted here, I am always, always going to be on the outside. I am always going to be mzungu - which, by the way, means white person. I would never be absorbed here into the culture as Canada absorbs minorities and assimilates them into the fabric. There are exceptions, many, I know, but overall, diversity is our hallmark. I could not imagine we would call out from the streets "Hey, black man!" lol.

Things are starting to happen on the work front.. so much that I lament being sick for even a day. People are depending on me now (it does not take long). I have a fundraiser concert that I'm working with musicians and artists to coordinate - an experiment at best - for this has never been done here before. The concept of donating time, resources, goods and talent for a cause is completely foreign to anyone's way of thinking as eking out the daily bread is tough, but slowly we are bringing people on board and the response I usually first encounter of

"no, that can't be done here", is turning tide as we use the Obama tact - YES WE CAN!

Obama is good for Africa, its idea of itself, of potential and achieving dreams. I am excited to think civil responsibility in the form of donation in increments is evolving.

The non-violent election training is moving slowly but I am invited to attend press workshops as they are briefed on effective election reportage, to the International Repulic Institute's training for politicians and am being lobbied to help on many fronts. The downside is time and money for our program. These workshops are all developed for the educated and elites, our focus is on those who don't get have opportunity or advantage of attending and getting the full meal deal (ah, yes, lunch is included - a huge draw). And so we will organize our work around the village people and those who have a vote and yet no concept of what that vote means, what their rights are and the change that can be affected by that one vote, and yes.. we will have the free lunch or biscuits and soda, and transportation money - it is the standard and the draw.

Off to the cafe to see Bosco and organize promo materials, prospectus and corporate sponsorship plea letters and in hopes we can make the concert fly. I feel better - not 100% but I am not in the hospital line-up and that is a blessing.

There is no black like as pure as the African night. It is not deigned the dark continent for naught. Pitch dark as a coal mine (and I have worked in one so I know), you cannot reach out and see your hand in front of your face. The only respite from the ebony is the blinding flash of lightening illuminating faces around you in startling clarity. I fear little and venture far, but caught out in the night when electricity is cut at 11pm is daunting and scary and yet full of intrigue. The constellations and milky way are within reach and I realize what we miss in our neon enclaves ... and yet I long sometimes for that safety net of knowing what I will find around the next corner.

As well, I wonder why I am intrigued to stay up long past the electricity has gone to bed to ponder such things.

The Work - Peace for All International (PFAI)

Thus far I've used this blog to bring some personal insight to my daily life and experiences in Uganda.. I'm not sure if I've captured the true essence as I read back through my initial entries, it all sounds a bit Western whiny and aw shucks and wow in its perspective. Truly, the accommodations are great, my hosts could not be more gracious, the sights and sounds and smells are Africa and that, after all, is why I chose this place. For all its contradiction in terms, for every complexity and seemingly impossible obstacle, there are a hundred or more positive, initiatives in the works. The work that PFAI has done here with so little is impressive in its scope and the many lives they have touched in such a short time period have shown positive results. I can only hope my small contribution will serve to assist in some growth and exposure for the organization.

And so we get down to work and formulate a plan to develop and deliver training components towards educating people, primarily women and youth, in the Arua district in transparent democratic election processes. The window leading towards the 2011 elections is finite and timing is crucial to complete programming and training components.

As was evidenced by the violence in the primary elections across Uganda, this program is essential to inaugurate as soon as funding can be procured. Primary elections in Uganda were held on August 30, 2010. According to news media reports, nationwide only 60 out of 117 polling districts held smooth elections, 30 had partial elections while 18 had their polls postponed due to improprieties by electoral offices. Some of the gravest concerns for the upcoming general elections as experienced by the primaries are the following: tampering with election materials, violence by candidates and their supporters, late delivery and disappearance of election materials, vote rigging and ballot box stuffing, amongst other violations. It is reported that over 100 party members were arrested including 8 soldiers along with students from a secondary school accused of inciting disruption and violence. Overall, the voting irregularities, on an unprecedented scale during the primaries, give indication that similar occurrences or worse may occur in the upcoming general elections in February 2011, and it is therefore imperative to put into place educational programs and to disseminate information in the promotion of transparent, violence-free electoral processes.

The project scope is designed as an ongoing educational initiative to empower women and youth in instilling leadership capacities towards the future of good governance in Uganda. Our greatest obstacle, of which most grassroots organizations can lament, is funding, so our think tank of PFAI volunteers are compiling lists of funders and sending out proposals to anyone we can think of to aid us in putting wheels underneath the program.

If you are reading this, and have any suggestions or contacts who would be able to assist in this important endeavour, your help would be most appreciated. In the mean time the team is compiling information, making appointments with electoral district officials, religious leaders, clan and tribe leaders and members of civil society to organize attendance at workshops designed to educate voters on good governance, election procedures, voter rights and peacebuilding initiatives. I've heard the word is out in Arua as to our work and that people are eager to participate. We're networking like crazy and hopefully in the next month or so we'll be well on our way to deliverables. Peace out.

Yumbe, Matatus and Eid

Where to begin? At the beginning. Hurrying to catch the matatu to Yumbe we sit for 2 hours as it cannot leave until it is full. 14 is the maximum number (as indicated in bold letters on the door – lol). And finally we are lumbering down the road. Good so far and everyone is comfortably uncomfortable but soon we are stopping and jamming people in like sausages, 15, 16, 17, 18. Ok, ok.. so I know I’m not going to change Africa or anything but I get into it with the driver along with Asina, (Asina is my Ugandan compound host) as we point out that this is not cool. He ignores us and then gets agitated - Him: ‘Hey, this is Africa, this is how it is’ Me: ‘No, it’s not, you are false advertising.’ Asina: ‘We can’t move over any more than we are – why are you stopping everywhere?’ ‘If you wanted a bus, you should buy one – we are not supposed to stop everywhere!’ Him: ‘Why are you siding with the mzungu?! Now you are becoming the Commander.’ She: ‘I know my rights!’ He to me: (after 2 bribes to cops) ‘You see mama – this is how it works in Africa.’ Me: ‘This is how it works for you, this is Your Africa, but not for all. People are not sheep!’ And so it goes and I laugh and he broods, and I can see him visibly re-inflate as we are passed to a car to continue the journey in more comfort. Ya, I know.. futile. But is it really?

We reach Yumbe at nightfall and it is dark but for the eyes of the children who light our way to the fire. I spend my evening in A,B,C’s and 1,2,3s and holding hands and laughter and welcome. They have made a lovely bed for me and heat my bath water and it is dark but the children light my night. It is the end of the 30 day fast of Ramadan and everyone is excited for tomorrow as I fall asleep to the sounds of life in the village for you hear everything when there is nothing.

Eid! Everyone is dressed in their finery and my mzungu clothes are more than lacking in appropriateness. Zam, the lady of the hut digs and hums and rustles and comes up with the shariata for me – I am transformed as my hair is hidden and I am clothed as part of this Muslim family. We are privileged as we head to the open Mosque in Ayiko’s car following masses of people on foot, on bikes, piled high on trucks; hundreds gather for the prayers. Not more than a few eyes are startled when they see me. I am told I am the first mzungu at these Eid prayers. Well, now I know how movie stars and felons must feel in public. The Imam appears and I bow and pray with the ladies and learn about Islam as they whisper to me in asides. And I think of all the similarities, rather than the differences, of devotion.

I’m thinking (yup, always thinking) now we all gather and eat, but the feast is not a huge gathering as I expected, nor is it now. At the village we have tea and I am invited to another Mosque. I pull up the headgear and trek alongside the ladies to the small building in the village. Here I experience firsthand how it is for the women of Islam as we seat ourselves behind the segregated wall. My Western brain doesn’t like this! Who are they to keep me behind a wall?! I really must learn more about this before I decide about what I think. My lasting impression though regards the wall – we are looking at World Food Program sacks hung from poles – Millet.

Finally the food. There is no big gathering; everyone eats in their own time. I spend my time with the children and when they bring my food to the hut I ask to sit with the other women, not alone, as they think I want to be. If I could live in your head, and you in mine for one day – what we would learn of one another?

Now I spend my time with little Peace – she who who leads me to the toilet and holds my hand and stands over my bed at night and she who teaches me how children are in their purest, loving form. It’s been a journey this trip, and a trip this journey. I ate the sheep; I refused the offal. I learned what it was like to don the Shariata and hide my thoughts and all but my face, to be an honoured guest; to be immediately loved and accepted by a family, a religion.. a child not my own.

Isn’t it interesting that the girl who stole my heart is named Peace and that this is 9/11?

Sad News

Tomorrow we go to Ayiko's village. His cousin was struck by lightening and he has to arrange for the body to come to Arua. The rainy season can be deadly.

Bosco

The first day I came to town I met a young man named Bosco. He is 23. I was told by my friends who had been here before that I would like him, but what I did not know, or anticipate, is how quickly I could come to love someone. He is a bright and beautiful spirit, a musician, a poet, a thinker and more. He has the soulful eyes of a sage and a smile that pulls at the corners of your own mouth when he gifts it to you. The first day we sat and talked he told about his music and played his guitar for me I knew that his was a talent that deserves to shine on the world.

He told me about the eucalyptus trees and how they rent the water table so that other trees and smaller plants can’t survive and how the atmosphere is changed because of the water they emit to the sky, and of tobacco crops that leach the soil and rob the farmers of better livelihoods because of the multicorporation that owns the rights, and of his love of computers, and people and the rights of people. All of this in one go, and then he played me his own songs of warlords and child soldiers and I let myself cry a little inside. He’s the sole employee at the Peace for All internet café which he runs with competency and great care having only learned computers not so long ago from my cohort David. He runs the café with professionalism and greets everyone warmly and takes pride in his skill and aptitude in the humblest of fashions. He told me of his dream to do his own music, his own way. To not let the popular, jingo-y, commercial music despoil his art and I nodded in solidarity because his is the kind of spirit that if it perseveres, will lead to the changes we are all hoping we are brave enough to stand for. I am honoured to know him. He brings light and music and love to everyone he touches.

Surprises

The rhythm of life here settles in on me now and I am seeing the details and complexities and simplicities instead of the seeming chaos. It's an easy place to be lazy, to let the day go by just watching and waiting for the gate to open and the next surprise to appear. Today I woke up to find workers waiting to install a flush toilet in my hut. I could not be more pleased and honoured. Ayiko asked me the most challenging thing for me here and I laughingly told him the squat was definitely at the top of the list. I don't mind shared toilets but the balancing act, the darkness, mosquitos, and the aiming and such (without going into too much detail) is an accomplishment in itself. Ok.. a chicken just roamed in to see the goings on..

The toilet - another humbling .. I did not expect this, it is a generous and expensive thing to do. I will be more careful in the future to express any discomforts I may have. Everyone here tries to make my experience comfortable and pleasant and I am grateful. I can see it will be an easy thing to come to love them all and the short months I have now seems a short span of time to offer anything I can to help.

Oh and Rafiki is out of the dark and causing all his usual mischiefs as happy babies are wont to do.

September 6, 2010

Day 3..

Slaying dragons and spreading peace across the land is hardly on the agenda though Ayiko and I did manage to have a meeting to discuss our way forward. We hope to find some funding (always with the funding) to move forward with some non-violent election training for the youth and women. Truly, it’s not a terribly ambitious, over-reaching project but the money finding is always the obstacle. I recall with vivid clarity my first residency in ’08 crowing “where’s the money coming from? Who’s the funder? What’s their agenda? “ Bgawk! and here it is again. So, while we hammer out the theme and scope of our projects and side by each degree thematics of elections and non-violence and gender equity, the money elephant takes up residence in the room. We’re working on it to be sure but today is a bit of write off as Ayiko is summoned to take his uncles’ wife to the hospital for the third day in a row. The poor woman is suffering from some ailment and the doctors have been drunk, and the hospital wants money, and I am called into service to be the mzungu on the phone with some authority to bring the doctor to the maternity clinic for an ultrasound. And so the day goes by with murderous rain and earth shaking thunder and lightening.

Again with the barnyard, I kid you not. A dozen turkeys, one of which is being eviscerated a short distance from me. I avert my eyes knowing it’s on the menu tonight. Yep, I’m squeamish about the food thing. I’m sorry but I’m just not the type to get to know her food before she eats it. I’ve spent the better part of the afternoon in the black and angry rain planted at my hut doorway outpost squaring off with a rooster in steely-eyed stare down. No question who wins that one.. cock a doodle doo is a victory cry in this yard. It seems I am fated to be amongst the noise and clatter of children and babies and critters and thinking there must be something I have to learn from that. I thought the suite I abandoned at home was the last I would have to endure of screaming children, the laugh, it seems, is on me; escaping for a cappacino isn’t even vaguely in the cards. Three months I tell myself after only 3 days! I’m not so much culture shocked as in a here we go again state of mind… my time in Ghana floats back to remind me.

It’s the monkey though that has my attention and gnaws at my conscience (as though it were my conscience to be nagged). Locked in a room in the dark without food or water with only a ratty old towel to hug and box full of yappy young chickens for company.. geezus.. a baby alone. I take my book in with some water and give her some company. A rat careens across the room and I shudder, I knew they were here… I think they’re in my roof. An email from Bruce assures me that it’s probably lizards. And so the day goes. I look at the monkey and think it’s a metaphor, we’re both locked in our rooms not knowing what is to come next and where we have landed and what if anything is on the menu tonight?

It is late now.. the creature, which we are confirming is a rat, is running rampant in the roof. My skin crawls with each frantic scuttle that passes above me. I have seen them. They are considerable and hideous. Hut living is not all it’s cracked up to be but I love the sounds from the kitchen, the singing and laughter and warmth.

September 5, 2010

First two days in “the compound” .. As it is Ramadan, the family is fasting and though they know I am not, the food is not plentiful. As I await dinner, I am offered porridge.. a thick soupy gruel made from millet. It’s sour pungent taste is completely unfamiliar to my palate and I’m not sure if I’m in the like/not like zone or if my brain is just calculating the nature of the substance my mouth has presented it with. I’m thinking, well this is just the beginning as they bring out a tray of slathery, sauce laden pumpkin and potatos only to find that this is my ration, this and a cup of tea. Damn, I’m hungry. A stashed bag of peanuts, and a bottle of water serve to quell the gurgling tummy as lights promptly shut down. Can’t help feel like I’m punished, sent to bed without dinner as resurfaces the childhood memory. And so I cheat and read with the flashlight like so many years before.

Animals, turkeys, bunnies, guinea fowl, chickens and that monkey! I’ve spent half my day chasing him around as he tries to slip thru the gate and reach what he presumes is freedom but what the rest of us know is going to be a hell of a lot worse than the pampered life he’s living behind these walls. Rafiki.. friend..his name. We’re working on it.

I’m feeling stymied and some frustration and the word dread seeping in as this “internship” seems it may be more of an idle-ship. Nothing has been done since the last interns left – 4 stalwart, inventive, vigorous students from ’08 cohort who hammered something out of nothing – an NGO for peace with ambitious programs and creating a registered charity to move forward in a variety of areas – all of which lie now dormant due to lack of funding and attention. As they say, I have my work cut out for me. I can only hope that monolithic chicken coup doesn’t come down with the avian flu or the like for the air that I’m breathing is thick with feathers and fowl exhalations. I love the idea of the farm life but this may all be a bit close for comfort. Welcome to Arua Shelley

Early Days

September 4, 2010

I think I am about to learn how little I know. Each trip to Africa has its humbling moments and I am compelled to sink further into my cache of what I don’t knows in an effort to overcome the what I think I knows and the assumptions of what I think to be and a whole new spin on perception as truth.

It is so easy to give in our society, to drive someone somewhere, to offer a meal or a bed; none of it comes at a sacrifice. The thing to watch, to become aware of in this world is the level of sacrifice to offer such things as though it were easy and yet to observe and internalize how much it truly costs each person who extends a courtesy beyond their means, well knowing that I have deeper lined pockets, a ticket home and a passport back to the life of easy give, easy take.

I don’t mean to glamorize or roll around in the generosity of the people here, but neither do I mean to trivialize or condescend to its charms for I also know that often underneath the offer is a higher price than I am prepared to pay for it differentiates me from the reason of being here. For every offer to help the mzungu places me in different category. That I cannot fend, that I am to be feted and tenderly handled keeps me from the understanding and the gap that bridges, for if I receive all that I am offered, I am above the life that I have come to try and comprehend. Every one of my fellow travelers on that bus, the mucky roads, the bank line up is as numb and sore and frustrated as I am.. I just need to learn how not to have that look on my face.. that in itself is a challenge to overcome.