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December 27^th, 2010

The brisk northeastern air catches in my lungs and shocks my body to attention, like ice cold Merrimack waters on a 4AM crew practice.  No sleeping through this, no matter how jetlagged.  I feel energized, invigorated, alive – I am a New Englander by blood, and this is my home.  I find myself enjoying the softness of the grey Capricornian daylight, whispering rumors of snowstorms, as a welcome change to the blazing direct sun I’ve grown used to.  Any lethargy induced by months of equatorial heat is whisked away by the first icy gust of wind, and my skin welcomes the cold like a hug from a long lost friend… for about 30 seconds.  At that point images of warm things enter my mind, becoming obsessions I can’t shake until I’ve planted my body in front of my parents’ woodstove, hot cup of tea in hand and vowing not to move until my skin is at risk of spontaneously combusting.  Apparently I’ve lost my tolerance; but that doesn’t change the fact that I love winter like my border collie loves her special holiday PB & BBQ bones (sounds horrible, but somehow good).

I lounge on the couch of my parents’ 1779 farm house, where I spent all of my formative years.  On the coffee table rests a National Geographic article on the fast approaching Sudanese referendum, which in January will either spur the official separation of an independent southern Sudan, or the start of a fresh civil war after 5 years of shaky peace.  Uganda, just to the south, will hold its own presidential elections in February, which are unlikely to change the 25-year rule of the current leadership despite what the people of Uganda may want.  Meanwhile people I feel honored to know are fighting a court case for human rights in Kampala.  From a distance I realize how much of my heart is invested in East Africa right now.  I want to go back.

And from up close, as I soak up the peaceful energy of my living room, I am reminded how truly irreplaceable home is, and I want this week to last forever.  Nine short nights will slip by faster than I can blink, and while I refuse to cram them full of activity, I want to fill them with as much love as humanly possible.

Love.  Love is hearing the sound of friends’ voices for the first time in four months, and hearing each other smile through the telephone.  Love is getting an unexpected care package from soul mates I’m unable to visit, reminding me I still have a home waiting for me on the west coast whenever I am ready to return.  Love is baking six loaves of cranberry bread while listening to Billie Holiday, and marveling at my dad who’s learned the art of pie-baking during my absence.  Love is having your parents drive 3 hours and your brother take the day off from work so they can all meet you at the airport, and then take you out for a pint of real Guinness on draft (sorry Uganda – that’s one thing we have over you).  Love is having people ask you questions until you’re blue in the face from answering, because they’re really truly interested.

Over the course of my life I’ve learned that I have the ability to connect and create a home for myself almost anywhere I go.  I consider this a blessing, as it has enabled me to now call so many places around the world “home.”  But what does “home” mean?  Is home even based in a physical location?  Can it be?

For instance, my home in the truest geographical sense of the word will always be this old house on Brown Road, in a cow town of upstate New York.  Wherever else I go in the world, this will speak “home” to my heart in a language more native than any other.  At the same time I know I will never again live here, and there will quite likely reach a time when neither of my parents do either.  This language that speaks “home” originates from a town that offers little of what my soul needs now – but does this make it any less home?

Crossing the Atlantic at an unknown inter-time zone early-morning hour on Monday, I read a surprisingly philosophical article for an airplane magazine, reflecting on one traveler’s ponderings on home.  “Travel is ever more important precisely because it challenges our sense of home,” they said.  When travel introduces new ideas and people that speak to your soul – new foods you could be happy eating for the rest of your life, new landscapes that sing to your heart, new connections that enrich your life in a way you didn’t realize you were craving – where does that leave home?  For those of us that travel, do we all end up with as many homes as we have sides of ourselves?  The mountains and valleys of upstate New York are home to my body in a visceral, indescribable and even preverbal way.  Grungy Lowell, with its Beat influence and water canals winding through abandoned mill buildings, is home for having shaped and molded my creativity over years of good memories.  Seattle speaks to an authenticity and naturalness of being I’ve never found elsewhere, and where I met some of my closest comrades.  Boston is home because of its muddy waters, Red Sox and loud crabby people that love to hate the weather.  East Africa, while I cannot yet call it home, speaks to a feisty passion in my soul that I’m still attempting to figure out.  Western and Northern Ireland have the same affect, pulling at some hidden strings within my heart – of course I’ve heard everyone who goes to Ireland, Irish or not, feels at home while they’re there, so I probably shouldn’t romanticize it.  Besides, I’m Scottish.

With all of these places slipping off my tongue alongside the word “home,” can home possibly be just a place?  The same traveler in the article described home as “essentially an idea,” a piece of soul, and I want to sit with this thought a bit.  I feel at home when I feel connected – to blood family, to soul mate friends and loves, to a mountain or piece of ocean or willow tree, even to a music or a culture.  Home is a piece of soul when my soul blends with others and I’m reminded that we all share the same molecules of air.

So in this way, home is when I close my eyes and feel my family hugging me from across an ocean.  It’s the modern technology of cell phones and skype that allow me to stay connected to places I can’t physically be.  It’s finding the small seeds of connection in places so foreign and different you feel like a fish on a sandbar, and nurturing these seeds.  It’s meditating each morning (or desperately avoiding this practice…) and learning to sit and connect to myself, so that first and foremost I might be at home with me.  And it’s realizing that, if I have this, I can never be homeless.

My favorite way to start the morning - cereal with chopsticks and tea by the woodstove.

Brodie

Cooking our traditional breakfast, Christmas morning.

Beautiful.

regarding the dead cells coming out of your head

It’s something that people of all genders from many societies put a great deal of focus, energy and attention into.  In today’s media-saturated world, it’s something of especial importance to women: hair.  Since shaving off my curls last summer I’ve received interesting reactions from many people I know and others I don’t know.  Those that knew I was coming to Africa in the fall for some reason assumed that I had done it in preparation for my trip (to cope with the hotter weather?), and some even said I “looked African.”  In reality my decision to shave my head was completely unrelated to Africa.  My white skin and facial features, at least in my opinion, make it impossible for me to look African the way that was being implied (exception made for white Africans), nor did I think that I should look African when going to Africa, anymore than I should wear a beret when going to France.  (What does it even mean to look African?)  My reasons for engaging the clippers stem back more years than any thoughts about the continent and have more to do with personal anti-norm (aka, western-defined attractiveness) sentiments than anything else.  (Plus my ego gets a little high when it thinks of itself as a rebel, so maybe it got the best of me when I finally grabbed the clippers that day after years of debating.  Although I’m also aware that in doing so I engaged in another norm within a subculture… Hmmm, I guess it’s hard to get away from.)

Anyway after some interesting reactions here in the States, I was unsure as to the reaction, if any, my balded head would receive upon my arrival in Uganda – especially since I’d been associating it with a completely different culture than the place I was about to enter.  What I’ve found is that, while I got a couple of passing compliments from Ugandan males, the majority of Ugandan women here really want me to grow it out. 

**Disclaimer:  I remain ignorant to the full range of meaning, value, and history of hairstyles within Africa and specifically the Acholi of Uganda, and am basing all following thoughts on the limited impressions I have gathered as a foreigner through observations and interactions with people here.  I gladly welcome comments from any and everyone who can better inform, challenge, or expand upon these perceptions.** 

Hair in many ways seems to be a symbol of pride and status here, as it also is in the United States.  Acholi women who can afford it will plait their hair, usually adding extensions and twisting, braiding, or plaiting these extensions, or alternately making them into a straight or more westernized hairstyle.  Students, women who can’t afford to plait, and others for various reasons will keep their hair cropped short.  I have seen few Acholi women with their natural hair grown out and left as-is.  I wonder how much of this is cultural, how much is related to ease of maintenance and comfort, and how much is the influence of colonialism and the devaluation of anything non-western or non-European.  For instance during the slave trade and subsequent years of slavery in the U.S., lighter-skinned slaves with less kinky hair were more valued and deemed “well-adjusted” to western culture.  This started a trend of differentiating “good hair” from the kinkier natural African hair, which has had an impacted that has lasted centuries in the U.S. and internationally.  While intricate and elaborate plaiting styles date back long before European settlers entered Africa, it seems hard to argue that the straight and more Caucasian hairstyles adopted over the years aren’t a direct influence of colonialism and the devaluation of African culture – especially when you look at the influence of dominant media throughout the world today.

Perhaps I digress… but interestingly, most Acholi women here want me to grow my hair out and either leave it in its naturally (Caucasian) curly state, or plait my hair the way they do.  Those that encourage me to plait my hair seem to take pride in watching me become more like an Acholi woman, and this manifests in other ways as well.  One friend wants to buy me a traditional goma dress, many others have tried to teach me traditional dance, and the family always takes pride when I mingle good posho for dinner.  They are also eager to have me share my new Acholi-ness with my family and community back home in the U.S.  I'm curious if this cultural pride mirrors something similar in the U.S, and where it is inherently different.  For instance, the dominant culture in the U.S. tends to want immigrants and foreigners to assimilate and take on western characteristics.  It makes us more comfortable, it’s less threatening, and it validates our sense of self.  What does it mean however for Acholi women here, who are well aware that they are never portrayed in the media in the U.S. for people to emulate?  Does it similarly make them more comfortable to see me adapting and taking on their customs and styles?  Imitation is thought to be the sincerest form of flattery, so perhaps it's simply human nature to feel pride when someone from a different culture takes on traits from your own culture.  In this context, however, there’s the added dimension of reverse-westernization: by me plaiting my hair, I would be a Caucasian copying a Ugandan custom, amidst a culture of Ugandans who have for years been told that they should be copying Caucasian styles.  So perhaps their satisfaction in my emulating their culture stems from years of having the reverse shoved down their throat. 

Others, like I mentioned, want me to let it grow naturally in its Caucasian state.  I remember specifically a time back in October when one woman made a comment, in a conversation regarding my hair, about how African women are always copying western styles, so if I as a westerner am wearing my hair short “like an African,” what will they be able to copy?  I was unable to gain clarity about what she meant during our brief conversation so I won’t make assumptions, but I remember feeling uncomfortable.  Similarly I’ve had 2 different people – a girl of 17 and a young woman of 30 – tell me specifically that they’ve styled their hair to mirror my short Caucasian curls, which have grown out over the months, and both of these instances have disturbed me greatly.  Maybe it’s not that big of a deal and it’s simply a form of flattery – but I can’t help but get in my head about it and think, African women copying western hairstyles instead of embracing their own and telling westerners to F-off is just another symptom of neocolonialism!  Who decided natural European hair was 'better' than natural African hair?

There’s also the gender component, illustrated in comments I’ve heard (from women) like “Women are supposed to have long hair” and the like.  I’ve heard this both in the U.S. and in Uganda.  American and Ugandan men, in general, have simply failed to comment on my hair as much.  Maybe they don’t have thoughts about it, or maybe they just don’t communicate these thoughts.

Anyway, to make a long story not really that short, I’ve gone back and forth about the matter.  I personally love African plaiting styles for their sheer art form and creativity, and I think they look even more striking when using someone’s natural hair rather than extensions.  If I were blessed with dark skin and African hair I would be wearing my hair in dreadlocks for my own personal reasons.  As a munu, I have yet to land on a clear side of the debate about whether white people should plait, dread, cornrow, or braid their hair.  Sometimes I think that I should just relax and let my Acholi family here plait my hair in a traditional African style, that it would be a sincere gesture of admiration and gratitude and a “gift” that I could then bring home for my U.S. family to see.  In Kenya I did this, and my hair was braided (sans extensions) by a good friend of the family I was staying with.  It looked beautiful and it’s one of my favorite hairstyles I’ve had.  Other times I’m convinced that I was – and would be again – appropriating culture by copying, as a white person, a hairstyle that’s a marker of pride of a people marginalized by whites.  Still other times I’m missing my buzz and desperate to get my hands on a pair of clippers.  It’s interesting how a bunch of dead cells evolved to take on so much meaning.

Again, however, I tend to get in my head about things like this, so I welcome opportunities to leave this limited landscape and engage in dialogue with anyone interested :-)

shells and sin.

Question of the month: How do I stay true to myself, maintaining boundaries so that I don’t crack under the pressure of hiding myself behind a shell?  How do I do this while also holding the responsibilities that I have here, that inevitably come with some loss of freedom?  I don’t expect absolute freedom here – it’s a culture that values community more than I’m used to, and if I want to experience and be a part of this, I must also put some of my individualism aside and be responsible to my community.  When we arrived here Neil and I consciously chose to become as involved as possible, to connect in every way we were welcomed to.  We could have rented our own apartment instead of living with a family; we could have made a habit of cooking for ourselves each night instead of having meals together with Florence and cooking together with Rose; we could have maintained our American independence and not made a habit of calling Florence to let her know when we’re out.  We might have decided not to affectionately call her “Mama,” and we could have maintained a cordial (American) distance from our neighbors around us.  We could spend most of our time in our house or in town, minimizing our interactions and not checking in to see if our movements and programs are ok with Florence.

However, we are very deliberately engaging because that is why we’re here.  We did this almost automatically, without questioning.  We chose to come to Uganda, and like all of our previous travels, we do this because we love immersing ourselves into new cultures.  We dive in, head first at times, allowing ourselves to be integrated and feeling lucky when this is met with welcoming and inclusion from the community around us.  We haven’t come to Gulu, to Uganda, to our internship and life here to stay on the outskirts, to maintain our independence and be the “other” watching life around us.  We want to integrate.  There is a word in Luo for people who remain separate from community – lwake are seen as selfish, thinking only of themselves and not considering the needs of others.  Western foreigners are often perceived this way, because of our differing cultural values.  One of the best compliments I have gotten was when Florence was discussing this term, and she affirmed that Neil and I were most definitely not lwake – in fact many people in Gulu had told her how much they appreciate our involvement and eagerness to connect.

I value this connection.  It feels good to be adopted by a family in this way, and being so far from home it feels good to have earned a sense of belonging. 

The problem arises, then, when I realize that this person I am being – this person that is so connected to her community, so engaged and involved, perceived as part of the family – this person that I am acting, is not me.

Of course it is me to a great extent.  I tend to be a kind and friendly person, I laugh a lot and listen and ask questions and get tired after long days and anxious when plans change suddenly and I haven’t slept.  I am authentic here a great deal of the time.  With those that I’ve established strong relationships with I even let my feisty side out more; I joke around, give people shit, get into debates and play devil’s advocate to mutually challenge each other.  These are the relationships I appreciate most. 

And, there is a substantial part of me missing.  I knew coming to Uganda that I would not be able to share much (if any) of this self with people here, and it’s hitting me over time just how much this can wear on a person.  My comrades who have had to hide aspects of themselves throughout their lives know this far truer than I do.  My liberal values and beliefs about gender, sexuality, relationships, etc. have little air to breathe here in Gulu, and while I maintain strong roots with family and friends at home and regularly use my brother Neil as an oxygen mask to keep these values alive, I go through phases when I feel so stifled I might suffocate.

Nothing drastic or horrible is happening, merely a lot of little, subtle dings that add up over time.  I’ll give one example recently of a situation that’s left me wondering how exactly to navigate perhaps my most important relationship here: my host mother, Florence. 

There is a girl who I have befriended here in Gulu town, named Prossy.  She is from Soroti – not ethnically Luo – and has been living in Gulu for some few months working at a restaurant/bar in town.  She is friendly and kind, and perhaps I’ve embraced her friendship because she seems authentic in not wanting anything other than friendship from me.  Never once has she asked me for money or alluded to anything of the sort.  Understandably, many people want to befriend me here for more monetary reasons, and I can’t say I blame them – I might do the same thing if the situation were reversed.  Unfortunately I get a bit disillusioned by this dynamic and unsure of people’s intentions, so I warmly welcome the authentic connections that I’m able to form.  I often visit Prossy at her workplace, and we go dancing together in order to fend off the guys that otherwise (and sometimes still) physically attach themselves to us like moths to a flame.

I’ve recently gotten into the habit of going to Prossy’s humble abode to cook dinners on Tuesday evenings, as this is her one day off from work.  (Note: employees at her place of work must work 7 days per week for 6 months before getting a single day off.  She makes the equivalent of $90-100 per month.)  This past Tuesday it rained heavily while I was there; by the time we’d finished eating she offered for me to stay for the night rather than (A) trying to navigate the mud back home, and (B) taking a boda (motorcycle taxi) by myself, which can be a bit sketchy late at night.  I felt good with this program, but wanted to call Florence just to make sure she knew and was okay with it.  Did I need to ask permission?  Perhaps not, but I wanted to respect our relationship.

What I didn’t expect was Florence’s reaction.  Apparently she had her suspicions already about Prossy’s strength of character, based on the little she knew of her.  During our short phone conversation she shared her concern about me staying there.  “Those girls who work in those places, they’re no good!  They come from out of town, they get jobs in bars and live in that neighborhood, they stay alone and they cause trouble, they’re no good.”  She wanted me home. 

“Florence, I’m confused, I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I don’t like this.  Let me call you back.”

I look at Prossy, unsure how to navigate the situation, and I share that Florence wants me home.  Prossy then responds quietly, “Maybe she thinks I’m a bad influence.”

“How could you be a bad influence?” (Prossy is one of the sweetest people I’ve met, so this is a strange concept for me to embrace.)

Prossy just smiles gently and says she’ll walk with me to get a boda.

While Florence’s reaction surprised me, I had a feeling I knew where she was going, and it pissed me off.  Many girls and women here, just as in the U.S., are sex workers, and this is of course considered very taboo.  In a patriarchal society that economically disempowers women while emphasizing the male sex drive and his right to satisfaction, it is one avenue to survival that can be highly effective, albeit with its fair share of consequences when it’s simultaneously condemned and unsupported by the same society that promotes it.  Now, I have no idea if Prossy engages in sex work or not, and I certainly don’t consider it a deciding factor (or any factor) in our friendship.  There are things she’s said that over time have made me wonder, but she hasn’t offered to tell me and I don’t pry.

Unfortunately it’s a deciding factor and a reason for exclusion and segregation for many, who tend to view sex work as sinful, dirty, and blame the woman for her “lack of character.”  (The same “lack of character” does not apply to men who frequent sex workers, however.)  It’s apparently very important to Florence, who calls me back within 5 minutes to say she’s on her way – driving over muddy slippery roads – to pick me up.  What??  Prossy walks me to the road and waits in the cold with me, and when Florence pulls up she is angry and upset.  She subjects the poor girl to an interrogation of angry questioning – “Where do you work?  What is it that you do?  I don’t like you, I’m always straight with people and answer their questions.  I don’t like this at all.”  Prossy handles the situation gracefully while I attempt (failingly) to calm Florence down, mouthing a horrified apology to Prossy and finally getting into the car so Florence can drive us away.

Sorry, Mom says I can’t spend the night because you’re a prostitute.

Trying to stay diplomatic, I ask Florence, who is on a bit of a rant, to elaborate her thoughts and fears.  She seems worried about something happening to me, but for the most part just expresses her anger at prostitutes coming from other areas and moving into Gulu.  She comes back several times to the idea that “Europeans are not like Africans, you don’t know how things are here.”  (I wonder if she knows we also have patriarchy and sex work in the U.S.?)  For whatever it’s worth I share my perceptions about Prossy and defend her character.  I managed in general to smooth things over and it hasn’t come up since; I simply don’t tell her when I’m going to visit Prossy now and instead make up another story.  (Hmm, I am now 27 and feel like a teenager sneaking out of the house again.  Something is wrong with this picture.)

I can respect that Florence is responsible for me here, and would have to answer to Smith College, the U.S. Embassy and my family if anything were to happen to me.  I don’t blame her for being protective, even what I would consider “overprotective.”  I think I really am like a child to her here – she’s said as much many times while calling me her daughter, and I don’t think it’s mere lip-service.  And I do appreciate her looking out for me.  What’s challenging is her judgmental outlook, her “sizing up” of others with tests of character that are all too easy to fail.  Interestingly and I guess not surprisingly, these tests and expectations of “acceptable” behavior are much stricter for females than they are for males. 

The truth is (which I have to laugh at while imagining how the introductions would go), most of my dearest friends from around the world would fail her character tests immediately, simply on appearance alone.  Those that passed initially – that appeared on the outside to be “good girls” or “respectable men,” would then fail once she knew their values and morals to be different from hers.  If she really knew me, I would absolutely fail.

So, this can make life a bit challenging here.  It’s hard when the types of people you choose for friends are considered “bad characters” by others that you live and work with, and thereby you’re left balancing and negotiating friendships that matter to you with other relationships that are essential to your current existence.  All the while you’re reminded that if you let down your shell you’ll be judged as a bad person as well, and so you maintain this shell for diplomacy’s sake, because after all, you’re there as a ambassador to your school.  I am here as a student, to learn and maybe be helpful in some small way – not to make waves, even when my inner wave-maker craves to.  So this brings me back to my current grapplings: how to stay true to myself while keeping parts of myself hidden by necessity, and how to maintain things that are important to me personally (and keeping some level of independence), while also maintaining my responsibility to my family and community here – which I also value – and not being lwake.  This dialectic may take me a while to learn to embrace.

Turning twentyseven

Twentyseven years ago today I was born in a horrible sleet and rain storm, in a hospital in Albany NY.  Today, I complete year 26 of my life in sunny Kampala, but there is still a brief rainstorm.  It has rained on probably 24 of my 27 birthdays, regardless of where I’ve been in the world.  (Ironically it didn’t rain in Seattle last year.)  I kind of like this rain-soaked tradition.  It also helps me to just assume that all important occasions in my life will be marked by rain, so I can plan ahead accordingly.

It’s both easy and challenging to reflect back on the past year of my life and all that has happened, because so much has happened.  Location, relationships, friendships, home, community, ways of being, confidence and knowledge base – all of these things have changed and grown and been challenged and deepened many times over in just 12 short months.  It’s been challenging, intriguing, intense with periods of wonderful stillness, and filled with so much love and authenticity that I feel so blessed to have in my life.  Smith has been a mind-warp (expletive deleted) and at times a bit exasperating in its constant critiquing analysis, but I still hold it to be one of the best decisions I’ve made.  Uganda as well has been challenging and bewildering, but also a beautiful decision that I would never change.  Seattle was just flat out awesome.

Today I moved around Kampala visiting local women’s and domestic violence organizations, and met with 2 underground queer organizations fighting for LGBTQ rights in a country where it’s illegal to love anyone but the opposite sex.  Needless to say my morning was pretty inspiring.  In the afternoon I shifted gears and made my way back to Speke Resort to meet with my coworkers from Comboni, who were finishing up their meeting with PEPFAR.  We passed time until I took them out to dinner at a local beach restaurant, where Florence (the sneak) surprised me with the information that it was also her birthday.  What!!!  With good company and plenty of reasons to celebrate it was a great ending to a great day, and by the time I made it back to my bed at the Comboni mission I was happily exhausted.

Perhaps the highlight of my day was the brief phone conversation I had with my family back home.  I guess things like birthdays and holidays get me a bit more nostalgic than usual and bring added awareness to everything I’m grateful for, and as the months go by I’ve been thinking more and more of the meaning of family in my life.  Compounding this are two added dimensions: (1) having spent the past year traveling and living far from home the majority of the time, and (2) living now in such a family-oriented, community-based culture.  All of these factors have made me increasingly aware of the importance of family in my own life – and how easy this is to take for granted in our autonomy-focused culture.  It’s perhaps easy for me to feel appreciation because I have a truly fantastic family, and many people aren’t so lucky.  But I’m learning how simply beautiful it is to need and be able to depend on other people – to give, take, and share unquestioningly and unconditionally with a community – and how much my life is enriched through doing this.  For most of my life I’ve embraced the western ideal of “private property,” even among family members, as is typical in the U.S – to the point where I feel bad any time my parents now give me money (“I’m an adult, I shouldn’t be relying on my parents anymore!”).  Now I’m realizing what I’ve been missing, and how much this value of self-sufficiency and independence can actually perpetuate greed and stinginess.  In admitting to myself that I can and do rely on others, I find myself becoming freer with my own possessions, even when I have little.  I am so grateful to have the love, support, and presence of my family back home, and it feels beautiful to be able to depend on them.  Gives a somewhat new perspective on – and a bit less appreciation for – the concept of independence.  We all need each other: this is beautiful.  Maybe it’s just homesickness talking, but I’m anticipating hugging them all for a hella-long time at the airport come December.

Posh Life

Nov. 9^th, 2010

Posh life

I gaze around the room of the conference center from my plush swivel chair.  I feel vaguely as if this chair should spontaneously turn me into the CEO of a large company, by the sheer nature of its plushness.  Bottled waters line the finished surface of the conference tables around the room, resting on fancy coasters in front of each participant.  Behind the speaker’s voice I can hear the tap-tap of typing on laptops, as participants take notes or distract themselves with wireless internet surfing.  I wonder how many are on facebook at the moment.

I’m attending the annual AIDS Relief conference at the generosity of Florence, who was able to get me permission to sit in as a student observer while she, Richard, and Leonard from our office join representatives from about 15 other Ugandan organizations receiving funds in the fight against HIV.  I am the only student, the only non-Ugandan, and the least well dressed (I unknowingly forgot my CEO outfit and realized upon my arrival that my jeans sorely stand out from the suits around me.  Perhaps I’ve gotten a little too used to Seattle’s professional attire.) 

Most of you have probably heard of AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR – the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.  It originates from the U.S., receiving funding from USAID, the Center for Disease Control, and Catholic Relief Services and then distributing these funds to organizations implementing HIV services throughout the world.  Uganda has been the leading African country in the fight against HIV for many years, seeing continual decrease in rates of infection, until the past few years when this trend has slowed and even reversed in some areas. 

The purpose of the meeting is to review the annual plan and talk about the upcoming “transition,” in which management that is currently in the hands of AIDS Relief will gradually be handed over to local partners in Uganda.  It’s a process initiated by the U.S. President in an attempt to create a system where outside funding is directly managed and dispersed by Uganda itself, rather than by the U.S.  In theory it sounds like a great idea by putting power and authority in the hands of local Ugandan organizations, rather than dictated from a foreign body.  However it also causes a great deal of anxiety among those present at the meeting who are unsure how this transition might change or even interrupt their flow of funds. 

There is also a great deal of fear because now local partners must compete for continued funding through the proposal of their work plans.  While the representatives from AIDS Relief give the impression that all of the current organizations are almost guaranteed to continue receiving funds, and the competition was more of a formality, it still causes a stir within the room.  Competition, to me, speaks of capitalism, and I thoroughly disagree with the way capitalism turns people against each other to compete over (supposedly) limited resources, in the end perpetuating oppression.  On the other hand, competition can encourage organizations to create the best work plans possible and can increase the caliber of service delivery.  There are both pros and cons to competition like this, and I am curious to know how more people perceive this locally.  When I speak later to my supervisor Richard about it (a Ugandan born and raised in Gulu) he adamantly supports competition, saying without it people wouldn’t work hard or create good work plans.

But back to the plushness of my swivel chair… The conference is being held in Speke Resort in Munyonyo, a swanky area by the beaches of Kampala.  Speke Resort contains more wealth than any resort or hotel I’ve ever set foot in, in the U.S. or Europe or anywhere else.  Granted it’s not really in my nature to seek out excess glamour (which explains my arrival in faded jeans and tank top), so I don’t come across places like this often, but I’ve also attended my fair share of conferences hosted at such places, and this one tops the charts.  Rooms range up to $500 (over 10 million Ugandan shillings) per night, and a cup of coffee set me back about 5 times what it would have in Gulu.  There is a riding range, elaborate landscaped gardens, and a marina where you can boat onto Lake Victoria for the cost of your firstborn. 

I visited a similarly fancy resort in Nairobi last year with my host, and realized with no small amount of discomfort that people can easily travel through the city, stay removed and isolated in wealth and comfort, and never know, for instance, that Nairobi holds the 2^nd largest slum in Africa.  Same could be said for Kampala.  Interestingly, this resort is named for John Hanning Speke, a horribly racist British fellow who had nothing positive or pleasant to say about Africans, but is nonetheless revered in many areas of Uganda for stopping the Arab slave trade in the 19^th century.  The fact that his namesake resort probably contains more wealth than all of the families in Gulu combined seems to shout this irony fairly loudly

The Comboni driver and I, not being official invitees to the AIDS Relief conference, are not covered to stay in Speke Resort and instead sleep at the local Comboni Mission in the city ($10 per night, which is more average for your typical abode in Kampala).  However everyone else – Florence, Richard, Leonard, and close to 90 others from other organizations – is sponsored to stay for the length of the 3-day conference.  Buffet meals are also included, but I was too scared to look at the prices on the menu so I can’t report how much this might have been.  All of this is paid for by AIDS Relief – out \of their annual budget for HIV prevention and treatment. 

For most of the few days I am here, I move around attempting not to let my gape become too apparent.  A few times I have to literally push my jaw back into place and consciously return my facial features to a calm expression.  I bite my tongue around the AIDS Relief representatives so as not to interrogate them about who is in charge of allocating budget funds to, say, a meeting, rather than the beneficiaries themselves.  I don’t know the whole picture, I only know what I see, and granted what I see is pretty disturbing – but it does no good to make assumptions.  (Even if these assumptions are probably right.)

The most personally distressing parts for me are the times when Florence or Richard make comments about how much I must like this place, how it must be similar to what I enjoy in the U.S..  Richard even says I should tell my parents there is a good place for them to stay here, so they’d be more comfortable coming to Uganda.  These comments make me cry a little on the inside, because I would never of my own free will choose to stay in a place like this, even if I could afford it, simply out of principle.  I even explain how my parents, having humbly raised us kids on one teacher’s salary, would never be able to afford a place like this either.  If any of us were ever lucky enough to afford it, we wouldn’t put our money back into a place that clearly didn’t need it.  I notice my immediate need to defend my values to them, to separate myself from the other munus at the resort and clarify any misperceptions they might have of me – but in reality their comments probably have little to do with me.  Again, I wonder how the whole experience is for them.  At least Richard and I are able to share our views that it didn’t seem right for an HIV funding organization to spend so much money on a conference, but Florence remains mostly quiet, so it’s hard to read her thoughts. 

In many ways my reaction is an attempt to separate myself from wealth, when (although I genuinely can’t afford Speke Resort) the truth is I have an enormous amount of wealth, comparatively.  While I technically have negative financial capital at the moment, I have the wealth of opportunity to attend a prestigious college for my master’s degree, with pretty much a guarantee of earning financial capital in the future. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about my reaction to privilege and wealth while I’m here and how uncomfortable I can be acknowledging how wealthy I truly am.  This is especially difficult when strangers and friends alike here solicit me for money.  It’s also so easy for me to fall into that trap of comparing myself to the upper class of America and focusing on my relative lack, instead of appreciating my relative abundance.  I think my greatest fear is that if I truly acknowledge to people here how relatively wealthy I am (and not fall back on the “I’m a student” excuse), then I will have no excuse for why I am not giving money away left and right, and I will appear selfish and unwilling to share.  This is probably an irrational fear, but one that I’m grappling with.

So in the end, I sit in my plush chair and swivel gently, listening to the presenters and wondering what the participant on my left just posted on facebook.  At the moment this is all I can do.  Later when we’re leaving and Florence has me pack her things, I make it a point to pack the extra soap and shampoo from the room, feeling momentarily Robin-Hoodish in my effort at wealth redistribution, temporarily empowered in my fight against the man – until I remember that hotels budget for such things and raise their prices accordingly.  Oh well, at least we’ll have free soap for a while.   

Reception area of Speke Resort, Munyonyo, Kampala

Florence's room, complete with outside patio. 
Paid for completely by PEPFAR HIV/AIDS funding.

The swimming pool and one of the many bar/restaurants.

We had a great time walking around taking snaps.
Florence wanted hers taken by the waterfall.

In Luo: "Ummm, yeah.  This place is loaded."
(Leonard and Richard)

Gardens of Speke Resort.

Just in case you want to go boating....

Elections are in full-swing in Kampala.

Thought this was a fitting sign.

Random pictures

So it's been a while since I've updated this blog, and while I'm in process of writing more (slowly slowly...), in the meantime I'll post a few more pictures for your entertainment.

Streets of Gulu.  Much, much less crowded than Kampala -
although Gulu town is fast reaching city-status.

My first attempt (since Kenya) at mingling posho!  Mama
says it turned out ok, which is a huge compliment.

Have to show it off, duh.

Florence doesn't trust her eyesight, so Neil drives us
home during a crazy intense rainstorm.  The roads are
so muddy the car gets stuck halfway there and we have to
get out and push, but we make it home in one piece, and
Neil is hailed the hero of the day.  I think I'll stick to learning
to drive a motorbike for now.

ELEPHANTS!!!!  On our way home from a field visit in
Purongo.  Highlight of my week.

Attacking a jackfruit.  Smells horrible, tastes delicious, and
big enough to feed a family.

 

Thanks for watching.  Stay tuned!

On Gender and Community

12 Oct. 2010

It takes about 2 hours to drive the 73km over rough roads to Purongo sub-county. I am riding in a truck with my five colleagues from the Youth Department, four squeezed in the backseat and three of us, driver included, in the front, regularly falling on top of each other as the truck navigates and crawls over craters resembling the surface of the moon.  Only a few kilometers at the very end of the journey are paved. It will take another 2 hours for us to drive back to Gulu, meaning that half of our workday is taken up with simply getting to and from our clients. Additionally a good 1-2 hours of our time once we arrive in Purongo will be spent waiting for members of the community to arrive from their work in the fields or other life obligations, in order for us to start our meeting.  During these times – driving, riding, waiting – we laugh and joke with each other, sometimes contemplating our own thoughts gazing at the passing scenery, sometimes discussing work, sometimes discussing politics or music or families (or, my comrades discuss these things while I wish my Lwo classes would just hurry up and make me a miracle instantaneous learner of language already).

I compare this pace and flow of work to one of my former jobs in America, where simply taking a lunch break – rather than eating lunch at your desk while writing reports – was considered an unproductive use of time.  Time is money is the slogan in mainstream America. In Uganda there is plenty of time (pole pole as they say in Kiswahili, literally meaning “slowly slowly”) and not a lot of money, so I wonder how this phrase might translate here.

The Youth Department at Comboni Samaritans consists of Collins, the Program Officer; Paska, the Assistant Program Officer; Walter and Anthony, the Field Officers; and Roberta, the Italian liaison to our donors, Fondazoni 4Africa.  I love our “team”: the endless analyses and fun debates about culture with Anthony while we ride by motorbike to our field visits; the discussions on reconciliation and gender with Paska, from whom I eagerly absorb the perspective of a strong young Ugandan woman; the music that Collins plays in the office while singing along horribly out of key; Walter’s habit of stealing my camera whenever I bring it to field events, and innocently returning it hours later.  It’s true that who you work with can be more important than the work you do – and so far this month I’ve had the best of both worlds.

Today we will facilitate a community dialogue in Patira parish of Purongo sub-county.  The event is part of the Youth for Peace (Bulu pi Kuc) 3-year project that our donors are funding. We serve rural youth in 4 different sub-counties, offering them trainings, events, and support with a focus on fostering peace and reconciliation in their communities post-war. The youth include mostly those that can’t afford to go to school and are considered most at-risk for poverty, HIV/AIDS, violence, and other problems.  Selected Peace Activists are trained in peaceful conflict resolution and then hired on a small budget by Comboni Samaritans to promote these values in their communities and mobilize their fellow youths.

“Youth” here is defined quite differently than in the U.S.: a youth can be anyone up to age 30, and there are even 35-40 year old members in these youth groups that, while technically not even youth in Ugandan standards, want to be involved in peace work. Imagine the irony of telling someone, “No, I’m sorry you can’t help us in promoting peace in the community, you’re too old. Thanks anyway though.” So, naturally, we let them participate. [A note that many of my Smith colleagues may sympathize with: At the tender age of 26 I am most definitely considered a youth here, which doesn’t help counter my existing apprehension about being a new social-worker-in-training in a foreign culture – trained specifically to not know. Large gulps of humility have become part of my daily diet here.  Ha.]

The purpose of today’s dialogue is to bring together members of the community to discuss issues that interfere with peaceful living in Patira parish. Peace Activists will be joined by teachers, school headmasters, community elders, mothers, local elected council leaders (kind of like U.S. town mayors and officials), students, and others who have been invited by the youth. Besides discussing problems, we hope to come up with concrete solutions and an action plan to move forward.

It is raining lightly when we arrive in the small village, so instead of holding the dialogue under the shade of a nearby mango tree as planned, we move the event to a classroom of a local school.  In a magic communication style that I’ve only ever seen in Africa, everyone seems to know just where to find it, despite the change of plans. As we wait for invitees to show up, we set up the schoolroom benches in a circle around the room and make sure the volunteer cooks have what they need to start preparing lunch, which will be served after the dialogue.

The event starts at 1:00 with 23 participants present, and by the end of the dialogue a total of 40 have arrived. This is almost everyone who has been invited – higher than a 95% attendance rate. I am impressed and astounded by the mobilization that Comboni Samaritans is able to accomplish. Not only have they organized a community dialogue with important members of the community and done it all last-minute (preparation began only a week ago), but they did so without our modern Western modes of technology.  Letters of invitation were distributed to our Peace Activists, who then hand-delivered them to invitees. There was no email and very little telephone. Despite short notice, rain, lack of transport, far distances of travel, and outside responsibilities, people have shown up.  Perhaps this speaks to the generally higher commitment I’ve noticed people having toward their community here in Uganda.  I mean, can you imagine town citizens and employees in the U.S. going out of their way during their hectic day to have a facilitated dialogue with their neighbors about problems in their community? 

Although the meeting, like most, is entirely in Lwo, today I’m lucky enough to have one of my colleagues as an interpreter.  Before I notice what’s being said, I observe the dynamics in the room.

Out of the 40 participants present, only 5 are women, and one is a young schoolboy. The rest are adult or elder men. The women look to be mostly middle-aged and elderly, except for one who looks like she might be around 30 years old. The men sit on the benches and chairs around the periphery of the classroom; the women sit on mats on the floor in the middle. I ask Paska later if this is common for women to sit on the floor. She first says that the women (especially the elderly) are more comfortable on the floor because they are able to stretch their legs, but then she says it is also the culture – it is another way of literally keeping women “down.”  The Youth Department makes an attempt to balance gender throughout all of their events and projects, but this is hard to actualize given the cultural dynamics.  As the wife of my supervisor said the other day, women do the work of three: they provide for the family, raise the children, and take care of the home and fields. For the typical woman, the dawn-to-night schedule includes cooking (taking hours for each meal), cleaning (again, hours), digging, planting, harvesting, bathing and nursing and otherwise looking after children, and possibly working outside of the home to bring in some sort of income with which to cloth and educate their children. This is not a schedule that necessarily allows for flexibility to attend a community event like this. Men, on the other hand, are much freer to attend such events.

The first part of the dialogue invites community members to share issues they think are interfering with peaceful living in their communities. Naturally the men in the room do most of the talking because of their sheer number, sharing issues like tribal divisions, land disputes, poverty and oppression of the poor, lack of clean water, poor roads, disunity between the government and the community, cultural shifts resulting from years spent living in Internally Displaced Persons camps, generation gaps, and alcohol abuse.  Many say that women no longer respect their husbands, that they have been introduced to money and now care more for money than for their husbands. They also say that the trend of young girls eloping and getting married without the permission of their families are causing problems, because when a man doesn’t pay a dowry for his wife, he then has much less power over her during the marriage.

The few women that speak share issues such as hatred among people and groups, the widening gap between elders and youth, and men drinking away their money and not taking time to help raise and educate younger children.

Over the two hours I watch Paska facilitate the discussion with ease and confidence. She commands respect in a calm and gentle way, which participants show to her and to each other by raising their hands and speaking in turn. They do not interrupt each other or become heated, even when talking about sensitive issues. They laugh easily and keep the atmosphere light. If people feel frustrated over points of disagreement, they do not show it.

Various solutions are explored, such as creating legislation on drinking, managing money as a family (rather than an individual), constructing a training center for youth to build practical skills, encouraging transparency between partners, and increasing religion in the communities. A few men suggest that culturally, men should maintain authority, and gender roles should be clearly demarcated. The school-aged boy says there should be regulation against the mistreatment of children.

It’s decided that what has been discussed here should be spread out to the community, and there should be further dialogues in the future. I find myself wondering, How can these people ever come to a consensus? Have we made any progress at all?  While many agree on various issues, others hold very different opinions on the same issues.  There has been no agreement reached, especially in terms of gender issues – so when participants leave this meeting to “sensitize” their neighbors, will they all say different things?  And throughout the dialogue these disparities were never directly addressed or named – it’s as if there is an eerie silence left floating around even the existence of the disagreements.

Over the next few days we travel near the border of Sudan to Atiak, and then Palaro and Odek in the east to hold similar dialogues. In each case, the issue of family conflict and gender is primary.  This trend appears to replicate the general cultural shift occurring in Uganda today.  Generations move further apart as war, globalization, education and westernization leave their mark on the people, and it is only a matter of time before information and media make their way from urban to rural areas as well, affecting traditional life even more than they already have.  IDP Camp life in Northern Uganda has increased the spread of information and forced a shift in cultural values as people were forced to uproot their lives and live in uncomfortably close proximity with each other; families were torn apart and gender roles shifted due to necessity for survival.

Needless to say, I have had gender issues on the brain since arriving in East Africa almost 6 weeks ago.  I left Seattle and Northampton with beliefs about gender that were pretty solidly grounded in my personal values, but open to expansion and challenge.  Since landing in Kampala the synapses in my brain have been firing confusedly at each other attempting to reconstruct the mental damage that comes along with immersing oneself rapidly into a different way of thinking and being.  I am attempting to integrate the dialectics that I am living.  While my views and values remain mostly solid, they are certainly being challenged.  For example, how do I hold the disparity that many of the male colleagues I work with and respect would not hesitate to cheat on their wives – while maintaining strict adherence to every other Christian value?  What right do I have to think that my value of fluid gender roles is more effective for a culture of which I am not a part?  If I believe that liberal is inherently “better” than conservative, am I any different from my conservative neighbor that believes liberals are full of crazy ideas?  Right and wrong is relative to perspective and context; and yet if I believe that there is no absolute right or wrong in the world and that it’s all on a fluid continuum of perspective, what about the case of gender-based violence?  What about when the greater culture condones men’s refusal to wear condoms, so that even HIV-negative women cannot keep from becoming infected?  As a white female-bodied person acutely aware of western post-colonial influence, where do I draw the line between joining the fight for the rights of the Ugandan women I have befriended, without imposing change on a culture that is not mine?

How do I integrate the flooding of feelings in my gut when a woman very seriously says that if her husband didn’t beat her, she would think he didn’t care?  And the mirroring feeling when I think of the women in the U.S. that think this very thing, only they typically remain hidden under our surface image of “gender equality” and women’s empowerment? What can I learn from and integrate into my own feminism from these strong Ugandan women that, while believing in their rights, also firmly believe in their responsibilities as women and the importance of giving to their families and communities?

As the dialogue comes to a close, I am appreciative of the chance to divert my attention onto a lighter topic: the delicious lunch consisting of mingled millet flour, rice, chicken, beans, and sautéed greens.  Gender roles threaten to disturb me again as I help the women serve food to the men, but I brush off the thought and merely enjoy the camaraderie instead.  Sometimes analysis and deconstructionism need to be put on the shelf. 

An hour or so later we start the drive back to Gulu town, where I anticipate sleeping very well tonight.  I am thoroughly being rubbed against my edges.  I guess I’m pretty blessed that, for the most part, I enjoy the experience.

S.C.

Paska introduces the dialogue

Community members of Purongo sub-county

Anthony speaking about the importance of focusing on solutions.

Paska, Anthony, and Collins

The following pictures aren't related to the dialogue, but they're from a field visit I took with Anthony some time back.  The road to Attiak was closed because a bridge had collapsed, but that didn't stop us from getting by on motorbike...

View of the (former) bridge

Anthony and motorbike and I being escorted across the river

Reaching the other side