19-Sept-2010
So last weekend, a spritely young woman just beyond her mid-twenties, born and raised in the hectic and fast-paced east coast of the United States, had her judgments and values of productivity and fun tested in a rather confrontational way.
On Thursday evening her lovely host (who she now lovingly refers to as her surrogate Acholi mother) invited both her and her comrade, Neil, to travel with her and her friend Christ (no, not Jesus, Christ is his first name) to the western town of Hoima for the weekend. Neil decided not to go as he felt the need for a lay-low weekend to settle in (they had only been in Gulu a week now), and while Sarah had been planning this as well, she felt a burst of inspiration to go. Why not take the opportunity to get out and travel and see more of the country?
In hindsight, much of her decision could actually be traced back to her east-coast upbringing. In case you don’t know her well, Sarah does not do well with extra amounts of stillness and unplanned activity. (Mom, don’t laugh.) In fact, she has historically been inexplicably and irrationally fearful of such amounts of downtime, and can fill her schedule to the brim with vast amounts of fun and interesting activities in an effort to “embrace life” and avoid any type of nothing-ness. So while a quiet and low-key weekend at her new home (to unpack, get internet set up, organize her schoolwork and perhaps spend some time with her new neighbors) originally sounded like just what she needed, a small voice in the back of her head said “GAH! 3 days to do only that?? You’ll go nuts by the end of it!”
So, she decided to go traveling. They would leave mid-day Friday and return by early afternoon Sunday. Sarah would get to spend a fun weekend out and still return with enough time to get organized and get a grasp on schoolwork, as well as hopefully talk with her family, at the end of the weekend.
Well if she was expecting a fun adventure to a new place that would keep her stimulated and entertained in the American sense of the word, was she in for a surprise. Firstly, the trip which Florence had estimated at taking 3-4 hours (also in hindsight, you should typically feel free to add another 50% on to the time people estimate here) took about 7.5 hours, complete with a speeding ticket and 2 flat tires. This was actually quite fun in its own way, as Florence and Christ (in what seems to be common Acholi fashion) remained completely laid-back and good-humored about the whole situation. There was no cursing at the flat, no stressing about being late, no kicking the rim of the car or fretting about what would be done. The trio simply changed the flat tire (while Florence and Christ laughed at the young white woman for helping – a munu changing a flat, we should document this! Little did they know Sarah was well-versed in having to change a flat tire, but she didn’t argue with their humor). And when the spare popped, Florence and Sarah simply waited while Christ boarded a boda-boda (a motorcycle-taxi, the main means of transport here) and took the poor dilapidated 1st tire to the nearest shop a few kilometers away. The whole process took much more than an hour, but eventually they were on their way again, laughing about it and not the slightest bit miffed that they would arrive long past dark. (Well, perhaps Christ was a bit miffed as he was going to see his wife and was coming down with a small case of malaria at the time, but even he merely teased Florence for “torturing” him with a long trip.)
Anyway, the first night was rather nice – when they got there around 10:30pm, Christ’s wife Beatrice made tea and snacks for them before they all had dinner together. Beatrice was a gracious host (which Sarah’s liberal feminist self also thought of attributing to gender-role imbalance and the responsibilities of a “good housewife”… yes, after two weeks in Uganda she was starting to get a bit cynical of gender-related issues…). Although she had not had much of any physical activity or movement in the last 8 hours or so, having only sat in a car and now on the couch, she was exhausted, and shortly went to bed.
Now if this young woman were home in the U.S. traveling with new American friends to a new place, no doubt the next day would be full of activities: sight-seeing, moving and walking around, good conversations, and other busy-ness. However, this is Africa, and those of you that are from here or have been here know that things move at a very different pace. And while perhaps she should have anticipated this before coming, this is when Sarah realized that her decision to spend a weekend travelling in order to avoid that frightening down-time she so avoided may not have been the most logical decision.
First there was breakfast, relaxing in the living room and showering and dressing, which intermingled with relaxing took several hours. Then the group drove the kilometer or so to town (a short walk, but why walk when you have a car?) to run 2 errands and then sit for another couple of hours at an outdoor veranda, reading the paper and sipping soda. From time to time there would be dialogue in Luo and Sarah would smile and feel confused and out of place. Even more sporadically Christ or Florence would say something to her in English, and while starved for conversation she would feel simultaneously guilty that they had to speak English to her.
It didn’t take much of this “relaxing” and lack of agenda for the poor east-coast Americanite to begin feeling a confused jumble of frustration, guilt, loneliness, restlessness, and boredom. At times a wave of boredom would wash over her so strongly that she wanted to crawl out of her skin, jump up and start literally running back home (some physical movement for her naturally energetic soul would have felt good), but she managed to maintain her composure and in the Buddhist sense, ride out these waves of emotion. This won’t kill me, this won’t kill me she kept thinking. And all the while her hosts were very friendly, so how could she complain?
The day wore on with a trip to get lunch, then going home to rest since, apparently, they had had a busy day so far. While Sarah’s inner being screamed “REST?!?? You want me to take a nap right now??? I need to MOVE, climb a mountain, write the next best-selling novel, do SOMETHING!!”, she again outwardly maintained her composure, went to her room, called Neil and cried a bit, and indeed did rest. (She surprisingly did feel tired… could she have actually needed to rest? No way, she hadn’t done anything. But then her mother was always saying she should take more time to rest, she was always too busy… hmmm…)
To complicate matters was her growing frustration at the amount of work Beatrice did in the house while Christ did next to nothing. A nurse at a local hospital, Beatrice had worked a half-day already and was spending most of her time at home washing, cleaning, and preparing food. She served Christ his meals and tea (“Ugandan women typically serve the men,” explained Florence), and even went as far as cleaning up the porridge he spilled all over the chair and floor after he’d let it sit there for 30 minutes while he finished eating. While Sarah couldn’t understand most of the conversations they had, simply watching the gender roles play out made her liberal feminist self want to scream. She also felt extremely uncomfortable in her own female skin: she did not know how to behave, or what was appropriate. Could she be her American female self and simply chat with Christ and serve herself before him without the deference women were supposed to subtly show? Would this be insulting? During the afternoon she spent hours helping Beatrice wash dishes and prepare dinner, and while she felt grateful to have something to do and to be able to help (read: feel “useful,” in the American sense), she simultaneously thought “Hmm, I’m playing into gender roles right now too, here Christ sits in the living room while the women slave away in the kitchen, grrr…” What a predicament!
Anyway, these mounting frustrations and the confusion of how to behave continued throughout the day (the evening was, once again, full of relaxing) and into Sunday morning. They peaked in a moment of panic when Christ and Florence suggested they stay another night and go home early Monday morning instead:
(Sarah’s East-Coast Brain: But-but-AAHHHH!!!!! I can’t take any more of this!!! I need to be back in Gulu, I need to talk to Neil about feminism and American stuff and speak in English with someone who gets me!!! And, and, I have work on Monday and I haven’t done anything this weekend and I need to check email and organize my schoolwork and I miss my family and I want to skype with them and the plan was to leave Sunday at 10am and we’re supposed to stick to plans right and you can’t possibly expect me to stay another night that wasn’t in the plan!!!!)
Sarah: Um, well, wow that sounds great but I’m supposed to be at Comboni Monday morning…
Christ: Ahh, well Florence has to work too, we can be back by 9.
(Sarah’s East-Coast Brain: Yeah RIGHT! I don’t believe you.)
Sarah: (joking with Christ) Haha, Christ it took us 7 hours to get here! There’s no way we’ll be back by 9am!
Christ: (laughs). Well maybe if we left by 6, and it takes 3 hours…
Sarah: (in growing desperation) Well I also have schoolwork I have to do before Monday that I should get done this weekend… It’s my own fault, I didn’t bring anything with me, otherwise I could do it here, but I planned to be back Sunday afternoon… (at this point probably looking like a lost puppy dog) I’m sorry, maybe we can work around it, I feel bad…
(Sarah’s Smithified White Privilege Critic: Dude, am I being way too rigid? Is this my American white privilege to be making these demands to go home on time? Maybe I should just go with the flow. But I’m supposed to work tomorrow and what if we don’t get back in time, it’s only my second week! What will they think? Ohmygod am I being horribly culturally incompetent???)
Luckily, the trio took pity on the poor befuddled east-coaster and agreed to return later Sunday afternoon. The remainder of the trip Sarah struggled with conflicting relief, guilt about asking to leave Sunday as planned, guilt about not knowing the language and being socially awkward, self-criticism for “wasting time” and not being productive like she could have been at home (wow with all this guilt you’d think she really was Catholic after all…), defeat at having been struck by culture-shock that she hoped she could somehow have avoided, and utter joy at her arrival back home in Gulu with the chance to splurge her thoughts onto her like-minded comrade.
And thus concludes this young east-coast American’s experience of a travel get-away weekend in Uganda. Nice to see you again, culture-shock.
***
Post-script: My family and close friends know I have been craving stillness over this past year, and was looking forward to integrating into a slower culture that values simply being rather than doing. I was pretty surprised at how difficult this weekend was for me and the intensity of the emotional challenges it presented me with. Enjoying the stillness of daily meditation is a far cry from a weekend of stillness at the whim of your hosts. Now quite the opposite of what I experienced, Florence and Christ were laid-back and enjoying themselves all weekend. Granted they were speaking far more often than I and having good conversations with each other, but even when not conversing, they were not jittery or anxious or worried with the same lack of activity that I was suffering from. (This is not to say either that I was non-communicative the whole time: I had some incredibly rewarding conversations with both of them at different times, which were my highlights of the weekend). Florence said earlier that she always comes back from Hoima rested and rejuvenated. As a guest she did not worry when her hosts had no program or agenda for her, whereas I the American choked back the question “What are we doing next?” so many times I began to lose count. Interestingly enough, they seemed to simply enjoy the unadorned existence of being. This, to them, is living, and they don’t need an adventure or activity to make it enjoyable.
I am starting to wonder if my very effort to always “embrace life” to the fullest is actually a distraction from simply living in the process. (Now having been blessed with this minor epiphany, I do still have an American agenda for today. I guess even the learning process will be slow =P).
