tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37044638442447238842024-03-13T18:12:53.821-07:00Bazungu BrothersAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16531752691329329318noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-15673119103524880672013-03-25T06:50:00.000-07:002013-03-27T06:14:40.078-07:00Ugandan Kids Write the Darndest Things<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The
other day, I gave the 99 kids in my Senior 1 class—which equates
more or less to our 7</span><sup style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> grade, but features kids anywhere
from 11 to 16 years old, with one claiming to be nearly my age—a 20-minute
in-class assignment. Prompt: Write
about someone you admire</span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">.</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br />I will probably give
them a similar assignment every single day, because I have never
understood so much about everything as I did when I was grading the
essays. My students recounted moving stories about pop stars
risen from poverty, doctors who had saved them, parents that
sacrificed everything, and love doomed to be forever
unrequited.<br /><br />They also penned some completely preposterous and
hilariously quotable lines Here, for your enjoyment, are excerpts
from the top 22.<br /><br />All quotes are [sic], and all students' names
have been changed.<br /><br /><b>22)
</b><i>“I also admire Michael
Jackson because he is a South African, and South Africans are good at
singing.”</i><br /><br />Have
you considered the possibility that Michael Jackson is an atypical
South African?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /><b>21)
</b><i>“I admire Kendrick Lamar
because some people call him the black Shakspear.”</i><br /><br />I
sort of want to enclose a Tupac album when I give this guy back his
notebook...<br /><br /><b>20) </b><i>“She
said she comes from America. 'And that is very cool of you,' I
said.”</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">I
guess that makes me cool, too!<br /><br /><b>19)
</b><i>“[the girl I have a
crush on is] tall and beautiful, but she has a hairly body like a
monkey.”</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Come
again?<br /><br /><b>18)
</b><i>“</i><i>I admire
Oprah Williams.”</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Who?<br /><br /><i>“Oprah
Williams.”</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i>Tell
me more about this Ms. Williams.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /><i>“She
is a very famus and inspiring television person...”</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Um...<br /><br /><i>“who
makes me and other woman very proud and says that no matter who we
were born as even as nothing we are something.”</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">I,
uh...yeah, go, Oprah Williams!<br /><br /><b>17)
</b>One Bruno Mars fan explains how
he was disappointed when his hero joined a group called only
“Uruminant,” a move which has left no traces anywhere on the
internet. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /><i>“But
I want to leave a message it goes like this. Uruminant have taken
over the world but don't let them take over you.”</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i>If
they can hide from Google, my friend, they probably <i>have</i>
taken over the world...<br /><br /><b>16)
</b><i>“their is one person that
is doing to me something greet in the way I speak and write and that
person is none other than Alex Black my English teacher.”</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">This
greet person Alex Black has apparently completely failed to teach you
English.<br /><br /><b>15)
</b><i>“and when he speaks
English I can just say wow!”</i><br /><br />Yeah,
this is about me too.<br /><br /><b>14) </b><i>“and
he is cool yes!”</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">...and
this one...<br /><br /><b>13)
</b><i>“a good and best
America teacher in Bishop Cipriano Kihangire Secondary School.”</i></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span lang="en-US">Yet
more proof that I am miserable as an English teacher, compounded by: </span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span lang="en-US"><br /></span><span lang="en-US"><b>12)
</b></span><span lang="en-US"><i>“he
does not have lumourmonger...He does not just laugh like
holigans.”</i></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span lang="en-US"><i><br /></i></span><span lang="en-US">I
just don't think that's a word, Darius.<br /><br />I wrote a note on each
of these assignments that they should look up the word “flattery”
in their dictionaries. I wanted to do “brown-nosing,” but
realized just in time that sending my students to look up a word
whose nearest synonym is “ass-kissing,” is probably not the best
application of a teacherly code of ethics.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span lang="en-US"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span lang="en-US"><b>11)
</b></span>A student who
periodically claims that his real name is Eminem picked an
unsurprising choice for his hero:<i>“he
does not rest to take a breath, oh ma God his like wow from the
whisky tastes of water. Despite all of this he is cute with his
aquamarine hair.”</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i>Emmanuel,
they're pretty anti-alcohol in this school, but I suppose one
reference is fine, as long as you don't...</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i>He
has no interferences with other musicians though he had to finish up
some shit with Maria Carrie his exgf. he had to be aggressive on her
through abusing her in his songs.” </i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i>Oh.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>10)</b>
</span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">“She has nice
clothes and shoes and she is really cute oh my God that girl is
really an angel.”</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">If
your sister is an angel, doesn't that make you an angel as well?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /><b>9)
</b><i>“...but I mostly admire
her because she is my mum and the most woman and figure in my life
that is after God of couse.”</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i>I
had never wondered about God's figure before this post. First for
everything, I suppose...</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><b>8)
</b>Speaking of mothers: <i>“she
has American height and she is portable.”</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i>I
understand every word of this sentence, and I understand nothing.
</span><b style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>7)</b> </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">“I
admire my country because we don't receive foreign seasons eg
winter.”</i><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">You,
sir, are on top of what deserves admiration.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><b>6)
</b>A
fan of both Nicki Minaj and, apparently, Spock, chimes in:</span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">“I
conclude by saying may she and her songs prosper for long.”</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></i><b style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>5)</b>
</span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">“Because she has a
good finger. Like she has hips and big bams.”</i><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">I think you meant to say “figure” and “bum,” but honestly, I prefer this version.</span><br />
<b style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>4)</b> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">An entry from Mr. Nyeko James:</span><br />
<i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>“I like Nyeko because he is smart.”</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Really, man?</span><br />
<i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>“I like Nyeko because he has teeth like for a rat.”</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Hold up.</span><br />
<i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>“I like Nyeko because he is humble.”</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">I think I just got trolled.</span><br />
<b style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>3</b>) </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">“</span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">I admire Justin Bieber because he is kind hearted</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">...”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">I suppose so...</span><br />
<span lang="en-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span lang="en-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>“...but a devil worshiper.”</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span lang="en-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span lang="en-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Uh...</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span lang="en-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span lang="en-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>“I also admire Nicki Minaj because she is kind hearted...”</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Have we been here before?</span><br />
<i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">“...but a devil worshiper.”</i><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">I think you need better role models.</span><br />
<b style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">2) </b><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">“I admire mermaids because they have powers of making things become ice or anything.”</i><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_qsrKMJRApUnfirAYpTidhBebDtKoOydNhBesNxAYcrFPqgeTf93PvkSHYpOWAeb4rLOPq4Mv89G8eAerYioYnJmzIUTHIR_3AbclrpAolNanubQde9YgoUFnWUN7RzwKXyW4z0T2UvAK/s1600/Little_Mermaid--The_metaphor_is_obvious.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_qsrKMJRApUnfirAYpTidhBebDtKoOydNhBesNxAYcrFPqgeTf93PvkSHYpOWAeb4rLOPq4Mv89G8eAerYioYnJmzIUTHIR_3AbclrpAolNanubQde9YgoUFnWUN7RzwKXyW4z0T2UvAK/s320/Little_Mermaid--The_metaphor_is_obvious.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Wild Mermaid used Ice Beam! It's super effective!</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">1) </b><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">“I admire him because though Obama is not an American he is rulling them.”</i><br />
<i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The birthers have reached Africa. </span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGY8kRCQLhspPZ0H4rraoGLZanXKrPn3Ac1WJpv1xpAxJZ-mulvIL3WR5a6RUtSvC1r28PNJFU6bGZZ7VaSKK1y4iz94Xss2QXewq05qAUvxwOH59hoNMnPHXoAEZko4Nc9-iMcRafFqZE/s1600/dtrump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGY8kRCQLhspPZ0H4rraoGLZanXKrPn3Ac1WJpv1xpAxJZ-mulvIL3WR5a6RUtSvC1r28PNJFU6bGZZ7VaSKK1y4iz94Xss2QXewq05qAUvxwOH59hoNMnPHXoAEZko4Nc9-iMcRafFqZE/s320/dtrump.jpg" width="232" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The only voice that truly speaks to young Ugandans.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Run.</span></div>
</div>
Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13462803514087342452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-16418776196179443402013-03-22T23:55:00.003-07:002013-03-22T23:58:49.966-07:00It's not that they CAN'T read...Despite what Alex said in his previous post, I have been holding onto to this one ("editing") for a while now, so I might as well throw it out there before I have to go haggle for black slacks to go with my short-sleeve-buttondown-zebra-collar-tipped shirt:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Everything here is completely different from everything back
home. It all makes sense in its own way,
of course, but that can’t keep things from being pretty overwhelming sometimes. You realize pretty quick on arrival that your
cultural references are invalid, your sense of humor is off, your speech is a
little too fast, and your voice is entirely too loud. It’s okay; you start to pick things up, if
you pay attention. Interactions get
smoother. Still, you can’t really be the
person you were back home, and that takes a lot of energy. I do love the drain, I think, and I am
learning so much from putting in all this effort, but every once in a while I feel
the intense need to turn off all my overworked sensors and forget where I am
for a long second. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hellooo,
Mr. Tolstoy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Since I
first touched toe to African soil I have tumbled through <i>Infinite Jest</i>, <i>The Four Loves</i>,
<i>Winter of Our Discontent</i>, <i>The Road</i>, <i>War and Peace</i>, <i>Striving
for the Wind</i> (a famous Kenyan novel), <i>Atonement</i>, and <i>The Great Gatsby</i>. I don’t think I’ve read so many pages in so
short a time since those endless middle-school summers when life revolved
entirely around the pool, the blacktop, and the sunny armchairs in the living
room—and it feels great. I won’t lie, it
<i>was</i> difficult to pick the habit back
up at first, and I honestly don’t know if I could have done it without the help
of the late<i> </i>Foster Wallace’s impossibly
engaging prose, but as soon as the groove was got-back-in I’ve had to fight to
put down books and actually get my rear end in bed at night. Right now I’m 150 pages from finishing
<i>Sometimes a Great Notion</i>, and Ken Kesey is threatening the education of my students at every
turn. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
“So, uh, today is silent reading
day, kids! Teacher Samuel has…business…to
attend to.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As it turns
out, my students are safe from this threat, because silent reading would
actually be impossible in my English classes; the children don’t own any
books. Most of them don’t even have the
one book required for class, a two-dollar abridged copy of Oliver Twist. Alex and I have been making 100 copies of
each chapter at a time, because otherwise there would be 8 or 9 kids sharing a
book. Ugh.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I
understand I might look insensitive here, but almost every single one of these
kids (and certainly everyone in the Boarding School) could scrape up the money
to buy a copy of Oliver Twist, and they also have a library to raid. The problem isn’t funds (they are all paying
to constantly text on their cell phones), it’s a complete lack of desire, and a
relative lack of consequences. Past
Senior 2, literature becomes an elective.
All you have to do is learn enough of the character’s names to score
above a 40 on your final exam, and you never have to read a novel again. Oh goodie.
At the same time, few of the teachers read (I haven’t caught one at it
yet), and parents don’t really either, laying a foundation of exactly two
positive literary role models: Alex and Sam, the Bazungu Brothers!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To make
myself feel better about this trash-seeming-talk, every Ugandan I’ve spoken to
agrees that there is a serious problem with the reading culture here, the heart
of which is that there isn’t a reading culture here. Reading isn’t seen as a societal imperative
or mark of intelligence as it is in (parts of) the States; our friend Ronald,
one of the most intelligent and worldly Ugandans I’ve met, who oversees all of
Father John’s projects, called us ladies when he caught us nose-deep in novels
before rosary. Because, you know, books
are for girls.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Which would
be great, because then at least books would be for someone.<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I learned
after my last bout of righteous indignation that it does not pay to get upset
about these cultural differences, so instead I chose to investigate the matter
with Alex. What we have gathered about
Ugandan anti-literacy stands as thus: <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
First of
all, none of the myriad local tribal languages of Uganda had a written system
before colonization. Thus, no history of
writing/reading, and when writing/reading is introduced,<i> </i>it is done so by foreign invaders with moustaches, monocles, and
safari hats.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Second, most Ugandans, urban and
rural, have a distinct lack of decent lighting in their homes. This means that during the dark hours—about
the only time family members young and old aren’t desperately trying to make
ends meet—reading is close to impossible; at the very least it is wrecking your
oh-so-necessary (because glasses are hella expensive) vision. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Third, community engagement is
paramount in Ugandan culture, and reading is a necessarily solitary
endeavor. As mentioned in a previous <u>post</u>,
alone time is not a recognized concept in these parts. Solidarity was vital on the savannah, important
in villages, and still highly valued in the city. Kids who don’t want to spend the appropriate
time with others are considered a little off-kilter, and the nerdy kid who goes
off to read constantly can become a downright pariah. Would you read if it meant everyone thought
you were broken? Honestly, I don’t think
I would have.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
So it turns out that there are
really legitimate reasons for the state of Ugandan booklessness. The problem is, the more and more I read, the
more and more I realize how important novels are<i> </i>to me<i> </i>becoming the kind
of person I want to be.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Lev Tolstoy wrote over 500
characters into the pages of <i>War and
Peace</i>, and many of the characters go through serious change at some point
(a million points) in the novel. As I read
the book, without really thinking about it, I was constantly finding those
pieces of characters that I wanted to emulate and those that I wanted to avoid,<i> </i>those that I already exhibited and
wanted to magnify, and those I exhibit that I would rather went away. Tolstoy gave me a million facets of
personality to play with, and it immediately changed how I’ve interacted with
people here. And that was just one book!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The best part is, a great author
won’t just do that with characters, he/she’ll do it with places and truths and
dreams and goals. The more you read the
more evidence you have to base your choices around. I know most of you probably understand this
already, but it never really hit me deeply until now <i>just</i> how important this evidence is.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
To be fair, it is entirely possible
to get all of these things from the people around you. Parents and leaders can teach you morals and
positive traits and the proper ways to live; the problem is, they only have so
much experience themselves. And without
different concepts to test against, ideas very quickly become dogmatic and
stifling. If I have the desire and time I
can read books from all over the world, from every age, and in this way receive
the choices of the whole world. What if
the tenets of a Zen Buddhist best fit my existence? Or the actions of an Ivanhoe? How about the deep thoughts of the Brothers
K? These are things you cannot get from
a grandma who also did not read. They
are also things that you can’t get from all the politicians on T.V. who hoard
power and money and prestige. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Ugandans are reaching out and
connecting with others at an unprecedented rate these days. Through T.V., radio, and the internet they
are starting to absorb the culture and ideas of places around the country and
world. There is incredible potential
here. The problem is, I don’t think
there is enough substance in these visual-and-auditory level ideas to allow
their responsible, proper, informed use.
To use something responsibly, properly, and informedly you have to think
about it. And to think, truly think, and
to have the symbols and ideas and substance with which to think, you need to
read. In any case, reading is pretty
darn helpful.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I’m doing my best to help my
students enjoy the books and poems we’re reading in class, but I understand
from my own time as a snotty kid how difficult that task can be. I am left hoping hope that the path Uganda’s
careening “development” takes will open up a lane for reading culture (hurray
for electric lights!), and that the internet and T.V. won’t step in to
completely block the path. Thankfully,
as a warrior in this battle, it isn’t too hard to find good resources; I’ll
just go read a book about it!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16531752691329329318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-53338725510006639322013-03-22T14:02:00.000-07:002013-03-22T14:05:38.517-07:00Ceci N'est Pas Une Post<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This post serves as notice that further writings on this blog may not be forthcoming for several days, owing to the authors of the suppositious posts have a <a href="http://bazungubrothers.blogspot.com/2013/02/sanging.html" target="_blank">choir </a>concert on Sunday, for which they have been rehearsing a couple hours every night of the past two weeks.<br />
<br />
This concert will include:<br />
<br />
1) About 20 African pieces, some of which have only a passing resemblance to what I have been taught for 23 years constitutes acceptable rhythm.<br />
<br />
2) Two hired soloists.<br />
<br />
3) A 6-movement Mozart mass so that the soloists can have some solos to sing.<br />
<br />
4) A uniform consisting of black slacks and a red short-sleeve shirt with black and white zebra trim. Don't worry, I'll take pictures.<br />
<br />
5) A conductor, the only non-Muzungu in the choir who can read music, who has a strange relationship with rests that causes him to pretend they don't exist half of the time.<br />
<br />
6) An accompanist who can sit down and compose a 150-measure 4-part baroque-style piece (which we will sing at the concert) in a single day.<br />
<br />
7) Handel's <i>Messiah,</i> because no one's told them it's a Christmas and not an Easter piece.<br />
<br />
8) Songs in about 7 different languages, only one of which is European.<br />
<br />
9) Two goofy white dudes pretending to know how Africans clap.<br />
<br />
10) The absence of abject failure*<br />
<br />
So if any of our faithful readers (hi, Moms!) happen to be at or around Bbiina Parish, Kampala, Uganda at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 24, we'd sure love to see you there!**<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">* I can make no guarantees about to the presence of this absence.<br />** I appreciate the gesture, Mom, but no, you don't have to buy a plane ticket just to come see my concert</span>.</div>
Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13462803514087342452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-22460394453558807672013-03-18T03:02:00.000-07:002013-03-18T03:02:22.274-07:00Concerning the Previous PostEvery word Alex wrote is 100% accurate, and it was perhaps the funniest night of my life. I repeat, this is in no way fictional. I love old Italian dudes.<br />
<br />
SamAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16531752691329329318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-66813160345063769342013-03-17T06:21:00.002-07:002013-03-18T23:27:58.188-07:00Te Capi' and Italian Absurdism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>The curtain opens on a long
rectangular table covered with a floral-print tablecloth and the
detritus of a recently consumed meal. Two old men, </i>Marianni
<i>and </i>Ettore
<i>are seated opposite one another at one end of the table,
and two younger men, </i>Alex
<i>and </i>Sam
the Flamingly Annoying<i> sit next to them, also on opposite
sides. </i><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i><br />The two older men are native speakers of the Milanese
language, an Italian “dialect” that is actually a distinct
language, more similar to French than modern Italian. They normally
speak standard Italian<span lang="ru-RU">, </span><span lang="en-US">but
occasionally slip into Milanese when talking to each other. <br /><br />The
conversation is conducted entirely in Italian, with English where
noted. Milanese phrases are in italics.</span></i><br />
<span lang="ru-RU"><i><br /></i></span><b>Alex</b>:
Hey Marianni.<br />
<br />
<b>Marianni</b>:
Yes?<br />
<br />
<b>Alex</b>:
So I know that “<i>te capì?” </i>means
“do you understand” in Milanese, but how do you say “I
understand” or “I don't understand”?<br />
<br />
<b>Marianni</b>:
I don't understand.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Alex</b>:
Ok, so when you say <i>te capì</i>...<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Marianni</b>:
Yes, <i>te capì</i>! <i>Te
capì</i>?<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Alex</b>:
Right, so when you say that...<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Ettore</b>:
It means “do you understand.”<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Alex</b>:
Yes, I understand that...<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Marianni</b>:
Oh, <i>te capì</i>?<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Alex</b>:
Uh, yes, I understand. But <span lang="en-US">when
someone asks you, </span><i><span lang="en-US">“te capì?”</span></i><span lang="en-US">
how do you respond?</span><br />
<span lang="en-US"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span lang="en-US"><b>Ettore:
</b></span><span lang="en-US">Well,
you either say “I understand,” or...</span><span lang="en-US"><b><br /></b></span><br />
<span lang="en-US"><b>Marianni</b></span><span lang="en-US">:
Or if you don't, you say “I don't understand.”</span><span lang="en-US"><b><br /></b></span><br />
<span lang="en-US"><b>Alex</b></span><span lang="en-US">:
(</span><i><span lang="en-US">pauses
to take in a deep breath) </span></i><span lang="en-US">But
what about in Milanese? What would you say in Milanese?</span><span lang="en-US"><b><br /></b></span><br />
<span lang="en-US"><b>Marianni</b></span><span lang="en-US">:
</span><i><span lang="en-US">Te
capì</span></i><span lang="en-US">?</span><span lang="en-US"><b><br /></b></span><br />
<span lang="en-US"><b>Alex</b></span><span lang="en-US">:
No, in response. Like answering the question.</span><br />
<span lang="en-US"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Ettore</b>: Eh! (<i>makes a hand gesture that signifies “what is so hard about this?”</i>) The question is <i>te capì</i>? Then the response is “I understand,” or “I don't understand!” Eh! Sorry! (<i>this last is added in heavily accented English, it being one of the few words that both Marianni and Ettore know; it can mean “my condolences,” “apologies,” “you should apologize,” or “why are you being such a humongous moron?” Here the final definition applies.</i>)<br />
<br />
<b>Alex</b>: No, but...<br />
<br />
<b>Marianni</b>: <i>Te capì</i>?<br />
<br />
<b>Alex</b>: No, I don--<br />
<br />
<b>Sam the Flamingly Annoying</b>: (to Marianni) <i>Te capì</i>?<br />
<br />
<b>Marianni</b>: (makes approving noise) You see?<br />
<br />
<b>Sam</b>: (in English) Yeah, it's <span lang="en-US">pretty simple, Alex (</span><i><span lang="en-US">shakes
hands with Marianni).</span></i><br />
<br />
<b>Alex</b>:
Ok, but what if I'm speaking Milanese with someone, and they ask me
if I understand...<br />
<br />
<b>Marianni</b>:
<i>Te capì?</i><b><br /></b><br />
<b>Alex</b>:
Well, no, I don't understand, actually....<br />
<br />
<b>Ettore</b>:
(<i>leaning in closer, as if this a point that can only be
understood at full volume from ten inches distance) </i>They
say <i>te capì</i> because
they want to know if you understand.<br />
<br />
<b>Alex</b>:
Good, so we've established that they've said “do you
understand?”<br />
<br />
<b>Ettore</b>:
Right, but if they're speaking Milanese, they'll say “<i>te
capì?”</i><b><br /></b><br />
<b>Sam</b>:
<i>(with a huge grin plastered across his face, in English)
</i>You're pretty thick tonight,
aren't you,
Alex?<br />
<br />
<b>Alex</b>:
(<i>glares at Sam</i>
<i>but after being incapable of thinking up any
sufficiently offensive words turns back to the Italians)</i>
Yes, if they're speaking Milanese, they'll say “<i>te capì”
</i>and--<br />
<br />
<b>Marianni</b>:
Eh, <i>te capì?</i> It means
“do you understand?”<br />
<br />
<b>Alex</b>:
(<i>begins absentmindedly
but vigorously strangling his fork) </i>No,
I don't <i>capi.</i>
That's what I want to learn to say. “I don't understand” in
Milanese.<br />
<br />
<b>Ettore</b>:
Eh! Sorry! Someone asks you “<i>te
capì”--</i><b><br /></b><br />
<b>Sam</b>:
<span lang="en-US">(</span><i><span lang="en-US">English</span></i><span lang="en-US">,
</span><i><span lang="en-US">in</span>
a helpful tone)</i>
Which means “do you understand,” Alex,
just in case you hadn't caught that--<br />
<br />
<b>Ettore</b>:
--and you say <i>“sì”</i>
if you understand, and “<i>no</i>”
if you don't! Eh! Sorry! <i>(leans
back in his chair, clearly proud of a pedagogical task well
accomplished)</i><b><br /></b><br />
<b>Marianni</b>:
So if I come to visit you in I-take-a-dump (<i>in
an unfortunate turn of circumstances, the word “Chicago” is
pronounced in Italian exactly like a phrase that means “I poop
there,” a reference that serves as the base for a single but
oft-repeated fecal joke) </i>I
come to visit and I say “<i>te
capì?”--</i><b><br /></b><br />
<b>Alex</b>:
But what am I understanding?<br />
<br />
<b>Ettore</b>:
(<i>dolefully
shaking his head) </i>You
don't understand.<br />
<br />
(<i>Alex
snaps his fingers and points at Ettore)</i><b><br /></b><br />
<b>Alex</b>:
Ok. That right there. How would I agree with you? Agree and say, you
know, “I don't understand.”<br />
<br />
<b>Marianni</b>:
(<i>in a sorrowful
tone of voice) </i>Yes,
it's true, you don't understand...<br />
<br />
<b>Ettore</b>:
To agree, you say “<i>sì</i>.”
<br />
<br />
<b>Alex</b>:
What if I want to say something other than “<i>sì”</i>?<br />
<br />
<b>Ettore</b>:
Then you say “<i>no.”</i><b><br /></b><br />
<b>Alex</b>:
Is there anything, any word or phrase, that means the same
thing
as “<i>sì” </i>in
this case?<br />
<br />
<b>Ettore</b>:
Of course—you can say “I don't understand.”<br />
<br />
<b>Sam</b>:
(<i>In English,
while shaking his head in a passable imitation of Ettore)
</i>That's
the one you'll have to use a lot, Alex.
Memorize the phrase “I don't understand.”<br />
<br />
(<i>Alex
looks around for something breakable to punch, but finds that the
table has by now been completely cleared. Sam
hurriedly scoots
his chair back in anticipation that he may be deemed breakable in the
near future.)</i><b><br /></b><br />
<b>Marianni</b>:
Well then, <i>te
capì?</i><br />
<br />
<b>Alex</b>:
No. I--<br />
<br />
<b>Ettore</b>:
<i>No te
capì?</i><b><br /></b><br />
<b>Alex</b>:
Look. (<i>directs
his gaze wildly across the room, as if hoping that a new plan of
attack will saunter out perhaps from behind the cupboard.)</i>What
if I asked you to translate the phrase “I understand” into
Milanese. What would you translate it as?<br />
<br />
(<i>Both
men look puzzled; they glance at each other, shrug, and shake their
heads at Alex.)</i><b><br /></b><br />
<b>Alex</b>:
But what...fine. Can you translate “I don't understand?”<br />
<br />
<b>Marianni</b>:
(<i>in English) </i>Ey,
“Ay don tandeirstend.”<br />
<br />
<b>Alex</b>:
In Milanese.<br />
<br />
<b>Ettore</b>:
<i>Te capì?</i><b><br /></b><br />
<b>Alex</b>:
(<i>stares directly
ahead for three full seconds before responding) </i>Yes.
I understand.<br />
<br />
<b>Ettore</b>:
Ah. Good. (<i>in
English) </i><u><a href="http://bazungubrothers.blogspot.com/2013/01/hi-and-other-things-that-are-ok-no.html" target="_blank">No problem</a></u>.
(<i>turns away from
Alex.)</i><br />
<br />
<b>Marianni</b>:
Eh. Sorry.<br />
<br />
<b>Sam:
</b><i>(in
English) </i>Believe
me, Marianni, he's very sorry.<br />
<br />
<b>Marianni:
</b><i>(pushes
his chair back) </i>Well,
then, I'm going to Chicago.<i><br /></i></div>
</div>
Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13462803514087342452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-30024315932319733872013-03-09T11:43:00.004-08:002013-03-09T11:43:31.589-08:00Ejukashun in the University of Ganda<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Hey there, long-neglected family
and friends! My tail is, indeed, between
my legs; it seems I have done exactly what I said I wouldn’t and totally
slacked off the ol’ writing game once things got busy. Sowwy.
Though we have been hustling hard on the grind, I should’ve tried harder
to keep up with our promise. This is my
first step towards reconciliation. Take
it as you will.<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
After all of the build-up, I’m sure
you’ve been sitting at the edge of your ergonomic office chairs gripping
keyboards with white knuckles and wondering what on earth teaching is like in
Uganda. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Too bad. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
This article will discuss the highs
and lows of amateur birdwatching in Uganda.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Psych! You got me, it’s about
teaching. Though I <i>have</i> been toying with the idea of writing more about the birds
here; there are a whole ton of them…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Anyways, in order for any posts
about teacher-student interactions to make any sense there are a few structural
basics I have to share. First of all,
Bishop Cipriano has two sections; Day School and Boarding School. They are in separate facilities on either
side of a main thoroughfare, and the walk between takes about 4 minutes. Students in the Boarding School pay very high
school fees, and as such are typically <i>much</i>
better-off than their Day School counterparts.
They are also, on the whole, more literate, more insolent, and more
apathetic. The Day School kids come from
our local area (which is not one of the nicer neighborhoods in Kampala), and
tend towards a more enthusiastic, if slightly less educated and hygienic, mode
of existence. Contact is discouraged
between students in the two schools; the only time they really meet is on the
one or two School Days and Dances that happen in a year. If a student leaves the gates of the Boarding
School without express permission they’re expelled. Opportunities for hooliganery are limited.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Most teachers will teach on both Day
and Boarding side during a term, but it seems a general practice to trade
classes with other teachers until you are primarily on one side or the
other. Instructors that make the
quarter-kilometer walk more than twice a week are considered athletes. This is in part due to the general fitness
levels of teachers here; I think there may be blue-collar/white-collar body
image issues at play, but I digress.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
There is a single four-story
building for classes on each campus. The
doors from the classrooms open out onto balconies that line the front of the
school. There isn’t any need for hallways
or enclosed spaces because, hey, the equator! The overall effect of this open-air one-sided
building-ness is something like a matching pair of Motel 6es in Oklahoma,
except red brick and a lot less depressing.
One of the reasons they’re less depressing is that they both have the
words “I Care” printed in size one million type on the uppermost balcony. It looks like the buildings really love one
another. It also looks like a student
could have a really fun time getting expelled with a bucket of white paint. “ThI Caress.” Just saying.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Anyways, besides the constant
temperature, the need for hallspace is limited<i> </i>thanks to the immobility of students while school is in session. This was one of the ideas that really blew my
mind on arrival: kids stay in one room for the entire day, while the teachers
move about and come to them. It is an
important tactic in that it minimizes studential hustle, bustle, discipline issues,
and space shufflage.; minimizing space sufflage is very important, because there
is very little space in which to shuffle.
Seriously, these children are crammed closer together than the Black
Keys crowd at Bonnaroo. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
As a teacher, this system would be
helpful if it weren’t for the fact that we are afforded about as much shuffling
space as the students. The single staff
room on either side is often packed with teachers and exercise books and
laptops and purses, because it is the only place you can sit down between
classes. Lesson planning, marking,
pedagogical theory discussions, and refueling all occur herein. Marginally legal transactions also occur
herein; one of our fellow English teachers approached Alex the other day, sidling
up slowly to ask if Black would perhaps be interested in purchasing a bunch of
fine bananas. A different female teacher,
who was sitting two meters away, stared at Alex intensely. The madame in question had brought the
bananas in from her village, and asked Brother Paul to ask Alex if he wanted to
buy any because, you know, that’s how the black market should work. (<i>Editor’s note: I did buy the bananas and
they were delicious.)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I always stop in the staff room
before my lesson to check for good deals and stake out a claim, then take my
computer over to whichever class I’m teaching that day. Every age group is divided into 6 color-coded
“streams” (3 per school), each of which gets its own classroom for the
year. My two streams are Senior 1
(general equivalent of 7<sup>th</sup> grade) White in the Day School and Senior
2 (8<sup>th</sup> grade) Blue on the Boarding side. Alex has Senior 1 Pink on the day side and
Senior 2 Green on the day side. We both
teach English Language to the Senior 1 classes and Literature to the Senior 2s.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Monday mornings I enter my S1 White
class and face down 85 students in a classroom the size of an inner-city
backyard. They average around 12 or 13
years old; some are as old as 16 or 17, as they couldn’t raise school fees when
they were younger (or had to repeat a level (or three)). There are three columns of three desks each
stretching from front to back, hugging so close that a student on the inside of
a row couldn’t leave their desk without doing at least a couple of
backflips. I plug my computer into the
SmartBoard at the front of the class (a kind of touch-screen computerized white
board) and about 60% of the time it works; when it doesn’t I shrug and start
teaching “American Style” (without a touch-screen computerized white board). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The first time I entered a class
the students went a little crazy—let’s just say they haven’t encountered many white
teachers before. I quieted them down,
introduced myself, and then asked everyone to make a name card for the front of
their desk. Mr. Musanje, the department
head, told us that we should try to take attendance every day. Then he laughed. I have worked hard to get to know names and
faces, but it has been exceedingly difficult: first of all I am not great with
names, second there are a trillion of them and they sit in different places
every day, and third they are all (male and female) required to buzz their hair
to a standard length. Seriously, I dare
you to tell these kids apart. The only
ones that stand out are the 16 year olds, because they are 6 inches taller and
an octave deeper than they children surrounding them. B.C.K. Jump Street.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
It might be easier to place names
with personalities if the students spoke at an audible level, but there exists
some unwritten rule wherein a student must answer any question under their
breath in a monotone even when they VOLUNTEERED TO ANSWER THE QUESTION. I have to ask the kids to repeat things at
least three times no matter what, and it is often wholly confounded by the fact
that a bunch of other students who I didn’t call on will shout out what the kid
has been trying to say, all at different times, so that the effect is generally
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Teacher Samuel: “Alright, just to
figure out what we know before class starts, can anyone tell me what kind of
word describes a noun or pronoun?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Student (raising hand): “mumbleshgrumble mumble.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Teacher Samuel: “What was that?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Student: “mumbleshgrumble
mumblemumble.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Teacher Samuel: “I’m sorry, you’ll
have to say that again.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Student: “mumbleshgrumblemumgrum—“<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Other Students:
“MUMBLESHOUTGRUMSHOUTATUMBLE!!!!!”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Teacher Samuel: “Uh, okay, yeah,
adjective is the right answer, moving on.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
When they are not answering
questions the students can be loud and boisterous enough. Indeed, as soon as I have walked somewhere in
a class to “hear” an answer, the part of class I cannot see starts up an
animated conversation about what I assume must be the finer points of English
grammar. I have managed to curb a lot of
this extraneous philosophizing by instituting a “two warnings and I’ll give the
entire class an extra assignment” clause; if there’s one thing students fear
it’s an extra assignment. Or any
assignment at all, for that matter.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Near the end of the lesson I always
make sure to give an assignment. At the
completion of the dreaded exercise students will stack their notebooks in a
couple of massive piles that their class monitors will bring to the staff room
with me. The students usually confront
this great fear with stoicism, if not skill; most of the answers are completely
B.S.ed for lack of consequences. We
can’t mark assignments for credit, because<i>
</i>only exams are counted towards the students’ grades. Thus, marking is pretty much entirely a test
of willpower and care on our parts. A
teacher came up to Alex and looked at the spreadsheet he’d created with all of
his students’ scores and abilities, exclaiming, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
“Wow, the ideal teaching method!” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Alex replied, “Yeah it’s pretty helpful
to know how the students are faring, do you guys use it too?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
“HHAAHAHAHAHAAhahahaaaaaha, ha, ha,
aaaah.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Guess not.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Lest you think I’m being too down
on the system, let me say that I am having a good time and feel I am doing
important work. Some of the kids are
brilliant, some are hilarious personalities, and the other teachers really are
a wonderful and caring bunch. I am just
trying to set the scene a bit. Later
posts (coming soon!) will go into more detail about the kids and lessons
learned (by both sides).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I hope everyone is doing
wonderfully, can’t wait to see you all again.
Drop me a line if you’ve got time,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Sam<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16531752691329329318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-44671661279862248402013-02-19T08:22:00.001-08:002013-02-19T08:39:35.284-08:00In Which Alex Attempts To Instill In Readers (Hi, Moms!) His Irrational Fear Of Fast-Moving Vehicles<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Remember that time you went to Six
Flags or Disney World or Cedar Point or wherever when you were a kid,
and there was that roller coaster, the one where the track at the top
dropped off into a stomach-grabbing nothingness and finally
reappeared two hundred feet below, the one with loop-de-loops
spiraling around inside other loop-de-loops, the one from which you
heard agonized terrified shrieks whenever a car went over the edge?
If you were like me, you stayed the ever-loving hell away from that
place so evidently peopled by the tortured souls of Children Who Had
Been Bad, now forced to ride a deathcart surrounded by the sounds of
sheared metal and the smell of raw fear.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>{1}</b></span> You probably got hysterical whenever someone even mentioned the
possibility of you making the slow ascent up the Staircase into the
Boarding Area <span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>{2}</b></span>—which
might have been the Executioner's Chamber for all your nerves were
concerned.<br />
<br />
<div id="sdfootnote1">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>{1} Cause really, what else could induce people to put themselves in a little box and hurtle over cliff edges at what must be supersonic* velocity?</b></span></div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote2">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>{2} No one? Just me got hysterical? Well, at least now you have a face to pin to “that kid who was terrified of his own shadow.”</b></span></div>
</div>
<br />
If instead you got seated in the front row,
nonchalantly glanced around as the attendant lowered the safety bar
and did a couple of brief look overs to make sure you wouldn't die,
and then had the time of your life feeling your guts spend two
minutes wholly not inside your torso: you likely will not understand
the tone of this article. But hey, that's ok, because you can treat
it as a rare psycho-pathological portrait of those of us with chronic
mild vertiginous tendencies.<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
_____________________________________________________________</div>
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Here in Kampala, they don't have roller
coasters. This is probably because your average working-class poor
resident can get all the thrills he or she needs for a year or so in
one 30 minute burst, for about $2. The vector for all this infectious
fun is the <i>boda-boda</i>.<br />
<br />
<i>Boda-boda </i>can
be translated into American English only as “motorcycle”;
however, based on behavior in the wild, I'd put them taxonomically in
the same order as motorcycles, maybe even the same genus on a good
day—but I'd never <span lang="en-US">ever claim that they're the
same thing. The word itself originally referred to bicycle taxis that
would carry weary bus passengers across the sometimes interminable
distance between customs checkpoints at international frontiers,
yelling “border-border!” to attract customers. Boda-boda have
since hit a rebellious and angsty thrill-seeking adolescence,
graduated to motorbikes, and moved in everywhere, being generally
loud, obnoxious, polluting, and totally the best.<br /><br />My first
indication that </span><span lang="en-US">boda-boda
riding might be only slightly less hazardous than crash-testing Ford
Pintos for a living came before I even arrived in Uganda. A helpful
travel website cheerfully informed me and all other visitors that
boda-boda drivers don't all wear helmets, but even if they do they
won't have one for you as a passenger, so really you're better off
choosing a driver without one since he'll<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b> {3}</b></span></span><span lang="en-US"> have more incentive to drive carefully.<br /><br />Any situation where
you're supposed to trust the men who for a living dart through
third-world traffic without anything between their brains and the
pavement besides a thin layer of bone and skin<span style="font-size: 11px;"> </span></span><span lang="en-US">is not a good one to be in.</span><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{4}</span></b><br />
<span lang="en-US"><br /></span></div>
<div id="sdfootnote4">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{3} And it is absolutely 100% invariably a he.</span></b></div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote5">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{4} But I mean my muzungu hair would totally protect <i>me</i> in a crash, so I'm ok.</span></b></div>
</div>
<br />
As you may have gathered, I do not
fit the profile of your average adrenaline-junkie, and was not
clamoring to go a-boda-boda-ing from the outset. However, in a city
that has the traffic Chicago would have if every driver were your
grandmother on methamphetamines, sometimes you have no choice but to
cough up a buck or two,<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>{5}</b></span><span lang="en-US"> hop on the back of something that can split lanes <b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{6}</span></b></span><span lang="en-US"> and dart in front of large trucks and buses.<br /><br />That is to say,
the first time Sam and I rode a boda-boda, it was super totally
urgent and necessary and not just because we thought it'd be serious
fun to try. Really.</span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{5} Literally.</span></b><br />
<div id="sdfootnote6">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{6} “Lanes” being a concept with not even like lip-service paid to it here.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div>
</div>
<span lang="en-US">Boda-boda are easy enough to find—their
drivers hang around in packs of between 2 and 10 on the sides of busy
roads, waiting for someone to pass and ask for a ride. Alternately,
if you need to go in a hurry, you can just start walking and
guaranteed an unoccupied boda will pass you within the minute and say
“we go?” to which grammatically ambiguous utterance the proper
response is either “yes,” “no,” or “you ran over my foot,
you fartmonster, come back here so I can knock you off that miserable
excuse for a mode of transportation.”<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>{7}</b></span></span><span lang="en-US"> There are always boda-boda around if you want one. <br /><br />We hired
two boda-boda drivers near the top of our hill to go into the city,
haggling to a price of about $2 per.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>{8}</b></span></span><span lang="en-US"> And then we went. I learned an important thing early on, which is
that my vertigo mostly kicks in when I'm in vehicles with little
evident protection against falling out that start from a dead stop on
rough terrain. Thankfully, in stop-and-go rush hour traffic in a
country where saying that a road is paved only kinda means the same
thing as it does in the States, and on a 1980s vintage motorcycle,
that was not a problem at all.</span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{7} For those interested in the linguistic peculiarities of the vulgate of English spoken in Uganda (...Buehler? Buehler?), they probably say “we go” instead of something longer because in Luganda, the mother tongue of this region and therefore most of the boda drivers, the difference between the statement “we go/we are going” and the question “shall we go?/let's go?” is one barely-audible vowel, which feature goes a long way to explaining the somewhat convoluted question-structure of many Ugandans when speaking English.**</span></b><br />
<div id="sdfootnote9">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<span lang="en-US"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{8} More or less standard, I've been told, although I'm sure a small non-negotiable “muzungu tax” was included in the total.</span></b></span></div>
</div>
<span lang="en-US">
</span>
<div id="sdfootnote10">
</div>
<span lang="en-US">
<br />A boda ride works like this.
You sit down, wedge your feet up against the little </span><span lang="en-US">steel
struts that pass for passenger footrests. And before you have
accomplished this, the boda will have accelerated to a speed just
above the level you personally are comfortable with, which speed it
will maintain until you reach your destination. On the way, if you
aren't terrified, you can have a conversation with the driver. Useful
phrases include: “would you please slow down,” “drive more
carefully, please,” “try not to hit that taxi, dear sir,” and
“I promise I'll pay you extra if I don't die.”<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{9}</span></b></span><br />
<div>
<span lang="en-US"><span style="font-size: 11px;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{9} But actually, some of them are fascinating and will have lots of interesting stuff to talk about.</span></b></span></div>
<div>
<span lang="en-US"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span>It
was sometime before discovering that four-phrase dictionary that I
made another finding of life-giving importance: all boda-boda have a
little curved metal bar sticking up right behind the seat. It's not
high enough to rest your back against, but you can hold it as a
safeguard against feeling like you're about to fall off the back
(which you aren't).<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{10}</span></b></span><span lang="en-US"> And hold it I did, until my knuckles were white. The primary reason
for this is that “traffic splitting” is far too euphemistic and
neutral to describe what a boda-boda does. I mean, I'm not
complaining—it's far less verbose and terrifying than “cuts at 60
kph in front of that taxi that doesn't look pleased one bit and then
slides in a gap you didn't think existed between two trucks and oh
Jesus that's the sidewalk that he's going up on please don't hit any
small children”; I'd just have liked a little more specificity
before my first ride.<br /><br />My boda driver, however, did try his
best. That much is clear with potholes, which dot the few paved roads
here like polka dots dot a polka-dotted dress.<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{11}</span></b></span><span lang="en-US"> He attempted to swerve around them in order to avoid jostling my
delicate foreign posterior, and often succeeded. The fact that he
only “often” succeeded has convinced me that, in fact, sometimes
someone's best just isn't good enough.</span><br />
<div id="sdfootnote11">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<span lang="en-US"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></span>
<span lang="en-US"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{10} I have since figured out how to stay on without holding it.</span></b></span><br />
<span lang="en-US"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{</span></b></span><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">11} We're not going to talk about unpaved roads, which are red dirt unencumbered by flatness, consistency, <span lang="en-US">or navigability. </span></span></b></div>
</div>
<span lang="en-US">
<br />Nonetheless, I stepped
off that ride a converted boda fiend. And learned immediately
afterward that the travel website had been right to warn me about
boda drivers with helmets, like the man who took me for my second
ever ride. I spent the entire ride using one or another of the above
4-sentence phrasebook on communicating with your boda driver. And
stepped off and had the shakes for half an hour. Never again. <br /><br />Never
again.</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">* I
had just learned about the speed of sound and airplanes that could
exceed it and was quite fascinated by this idea<br />** An analysis
of the more-than-somewhat convoluted sentence-structure of my writing
will have to await a more qualified expert.</span></b></div>
<div id="sdfootnote12">
</div>
</div>
</div>
Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13462803514087342452noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-19329380559338594392013-02-17T07:26:00.001-08:002013-02-18T22:55:45.802-08:00Sanging, or, How to Be Forrest Gump in a Foreign Land<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Contemporary church music in America is in a sorry state. My
experiences have largely involved the Catholic variety of such music, but
nothing in my fleeting encounters with other traditions has altered this conviction one iota. Given that American music also boasts talents like
Soulja Boy and Pitbull,<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSx8HYQ2zEgRbHgMoBhI-s-8_h1s1E2szbior5nM2rO93VlFuxQk5OAl1kN89UpesDS235kgMoHjyEYfXHvygDBhMqvHtK4OH6q4-S5inhD4uf2VGSFysz-Lzi0KepOc54ZZkHrbxoAam8/s1600/justin-bieber-Believe-photoshoot-2012-justin-bieber-31177743-1348-1600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="display: inline !important; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSx8HYQ2zEgRbHgMoBhI-s-8_h1s1E2szbior5nM2rO93VlFuxQk5OAl1kN89UpesDS235kgMoHjyEYfXHvygDBhMqvHtK4OH6q4-S5inhD4uf2VGSFysz-Lzi0KepOc54ZZkHrbxoAam8/s200/justin-bieber-Believe-photoshoot-2012-justin-bieber-31177743-1348-1600.jpg" width="168" /></a></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIndeIhAaWRL78x3IeOKlak505oAFa7w6cpYApGoB2KYvTruz4weSheDIAb5AxNCmuN8RsTkq_wLtpR3neZFicWBIdZ3Lq0FiGaKHj_3rwg073Lav-7V-6xshrR9kdOQ5HyWtB2usF5V6q/s1600/nickelback-7016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIndeIhAaWRL78x3IeOKlak505oAFa7w6cpYApGoB2KYvTruz4weSheDIAb5AxNCmuN8RsTkq_wLtpR3neZFicWBIdZ3Lq0FiGaKHj_3rwg073Lav-7V-6xshrR9kdOQ5HyWtB2usF5V6q/s200/nickelback-7016.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At least we beat Canada.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
perhaps this does not surprise you; however, most of the church music performed in Italy that I saw was even worse.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGkcOazph5fplp7csSRGrJfAJlysMlWl9IPXZ5co1d3XcIT0JvRn5LG6p7Vdh40CioMgC5RJU-iHJ3jrXWeHULp37fbvsczN03jfyLAltKmXLzoax-A8yZjq5OcAlKw1pTCv9c5VG4kn1u/s1600/Palestrina-12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGkcOazph5fplp7csSRGrJfAJlysMlWl9IPXZ5co1d3XcIT0JvRn5LG6p7Vdh40CioMgC5RJU-iHJ3jrXWeHULp37fbvsczN03jfyLAltKmXLzoax-A8yZjq5OcAlKw1pTCv9c5VG4kn1u/s320/Palestrina-12.jpg" width="271" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Every time you butcher a cantata, Palestrina kills a kitten.</td></tr>
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I'm not going to go in depth into what exactly makes this music so bad: (a) that isn't the point of this article,<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{1}</span></b> (b) what makes something bad is of course somewhat subjective,<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{2}</span></b> and (c) I myself have participated in and even led some of the most pungent examples of said music. Suffice it to say for now that I believe it has given up both the search for beauty (exemplified in the West by much of the tradition of classical music, as well as other genres) and the search for a rockin' good time (exemplified in the West by all the stuff you listen to when you're not at church),<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{3}</span></b> offering instead either lyrical and musical platitudes that fit some conception of what sacred music is “supposed to sound like,” or bouncy but ultimately uninteresting tunes that fit some conception of what a holy “good time” is supposed to feel like. <br />
<br />
Ugandan church music subscribes to neither of these viewpoints.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz6fnpzIx-Hlkx0bSNVAPRjc3RZc0ekunX3euP_dsUVixGnizUsGsl0AEtrdsFrkqSiniec2bw4ypxlelsYzaZflKMXTlJAySuVFmcjoLkE3dFYVaz0YdkB_Qo97h0QQefvLXIEOdIxB-T/s1600/hallelujah+praise+the+lawd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz6fnpzIx-Hlkx0bSNVAPRjc3RZc0ekunX3euP_dsUVixGnizUsGsl0AEtrdsFrkqSiniec2bw4ypxlelsYzaZflKMXTlJAySuVFmcjoLkE3dFYVaz0YdkB_Qo97h0QQefvLXIEOdIxB-T/s320/hallelujah+praise+the+lawd.jpg" width="320" /></a><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">{4}</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">{1}</span></span></span> Believe it or not, if you stick with it, this article will eventually get to Uganda.<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">{2}</span></span></span> However, the general badness of something can be recognized by anyone who is not themselves bad, or so states the corollary to the Emperor's New Clothes Theorem.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">{3}</span></span></span> Or 100% of the time.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">{4}</span></span></span> Sorry.</span></b></div>
</div>
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mr. Linder and I walked into 8:30 am mass at St. James Parish Biina,<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">5}</span></span></span></span></b> and spent the next hour and a half hearing some of the most spirited,
enjoyable, beautiful, and just plain good music I've heard most anyplace. It
was all led by a 30-some person choir and accompanied by an organ played with a
jaunty as opposed to funereal air, several African drums <span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>{</b><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>6}</b></span></span></span></span> of different sizes, and various smaller pieces of percussion (including the
first washboard I have ever actually seen played live); we realized pretty quickly
that the people of this parish knew how to make music.<br />
<br />
So when the announcements at the end of mass included a solicitation for new
choir members, it took Sam and I about one excited look at one another to
decide to audition.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">{5}</span></span></span> Spellings vary from Biina to Bbina to Bbiina to Bbinaa; this is a result of the fact that Uganda in general and the central (Buganda) area in particular have a much weaker written culture than anywhere in the western world. For example, my (quite educated) teacher of Luganda, the language here in the center, isn't really sure on the spellings of a lot of the words, even simple ones.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div id="ftn6">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">{6}</span></span></span> I'm sure there's a technical name for them hiding somewhere in the recesses of the internet or the recesses of the brains of any of you who managed to pay attention in ethnomusicology classes.</span></b></div>
</div>
<br />
Except it turns out audition wasn't the right word—the best church choir I've
heard anywhere just gave us a friendly but perfunctory greeting, and ushered us
out to a shaded grassy lawn in a nook of the sprawling parish complex to start
rehearsing.<br />
<br />
My first inkling that perhaps the group we were joining wasn't some utopian
mixture of spirit and musical know-how appeared when one of the men who had
been directing the choir during mass asked Sam and I if we were tenors or
basses. Sam replied bass immediately, and I identified myself as a baritone,
which declaration was met with an inquisitive stare until I explained that it
was in between a bass and a tenor. And then our choirmaster decided I should be
a tenor without hearing my voice, so I am now for the first time on the wrong side
of the a-choir's-two-lowest-sections-are-men-and-tenors species of jokes that
thankfully do not seem to be popular here.<span lang="RU"><br />
<br />
</span>The rehearsal that followed was tedious. We spent two hours slogging
through a Mozart piece (<i>Missa Brevis </i>in C major) replete with quick
runs, accidentals, difficult-to-parse jumps, accidentals made so by accident,
dissonance, and a large amount of what some people of my acquaintance know as
“crunchy chords.”<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWXwCSZye-62gukvTWniyl1kCGt1uC8WcdV1m0Ez8ZumQTJjWdCF-CHA0bZj-jFBKPcU5JBFCrmlPa9lcSGbTxzsrDeOyxyjnFgpkteBXAMv_rqNlYtv0kKMo03bjoFe8V8DSnGd4XFzo0/s1600/l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWXwCSZye-62gukvTWniyl1kCGt1uC8WcdV1m0Ez8ZumQTJjWdCF-CHA0bZj-jFBKPcU5JBFCrmlPa9lcSGbTxzsrDeOyxyjnFgpkteBXAMv_rqNlYtv0kKMo03bjoFe8V8DSnGd4XFzo0/s320/l.jpg" width="292" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You're, uh, doing it wrong.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
After that and one subsequent weekday practice, also consisting entirely of
squelching through the puddles from
Wolfgang's quill, I had a sort of sinking feeling about the whole choir thing
caused by the fact that no one knew how to sight-read at all except the
admittedly well-trained director; by the fact that the bass section (with the
exception of Sam) could produce low notes about as well as a piccolo; by the
fact that the tenor section (without the exception of yrs truly) had no way to
produce notes as high as we were being asked to sing without shouting;<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">7}</span></span></span></span></b> by the fact that the altos showed all the vocal confidence and aplomb of a
toddler taking its first steps; and by the fact that several sopranos were
apparently unfamiliar with the idea of singing the same note as the rest of their
section. <br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">{7}</span></span></span> I'd like to point out, however, that unlike some of my compatriots, I believe I was shouting on-key.</span></b><br />
<br />
I walked into mass the following Sunday apprehensively, having almost forgotten
why I have always loved singing and why I joined the choir. We sat in the pews
reserved for the choir, directly to the right of the circular church's altar, which church already contained 800 people inside and many more crowding at
the three perpetually open doors.<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">8}</span></span></span></span></b> Sam claims that, the open-air nature of the space notwithstanding, it generally
approaches Venus-level temperature and humidity where we sit. I am not inclined
to argue. <br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">{8}</span></span></span> A comparison between church attendance here and in America—this is one of 6 Sunday masses at Bbiina parish, all similarly full—will have to wait for another post.</b></span><br />
<br />
And then the singing started, and all thoughts of possible heat stroke faded
from my sweat-soaked head. <br />
<br />
We hadn't been mistaken about the quality of music last week: the choir we had
sung with the last two rehearsals had been haphazardly raking bear claws across
a sleek chalkboard, compared to the way they sang now. We didn't know any of
the songs—they sing standards that they all know the arrangements to at mass
and then rehearse things, like the Mozart, for special occasions like weddings
and stand-alone concerts—but it didn't matter. You listen to the person
standing next to you and sing what they sing. Or sing some other harmony. Every
song was composed of exceptionally simple chord progressions. The arrangements
were 4-part but never anything migraine-inducing. But there was always a good
and simple melody; there was always some rhythm that made you feel something
more than a medical-grade case of existential apathy.<br />
<br />
Those things are all good, and all often lacking in the contemporary Western
church music of my experience. I'd propose, though, that the real reason
singing in a church choir here didn't feel like a slow march to the casket has to do with self-consciousness. Most of us in the west spend a positively
staggering amount of time and mental energy worrying about what others will
think about us. We worry that our actions will not be understood as they are
intended. We especially worry that we will be embarrassed, shown to be
insensitive, clueless, or, worst of all, ridiculous. And so we control and
censor ourselves, not even so much in words as in the way we carry ourselves
and the range of actions we permit ourselves. It's not even a conscious thought
process, usually—just a faint sense of terror at really allowing oneself to act
exactly how one feels. Of course, this doesn't apply to all situations, but the
relief we experience when allowed to exist for a time without that fear of
embarrassment—with close friends, or, ironically, when we're
intoxicated—illustrates how powerful the feeling is the rest of the time.<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">9}</span></span></span></span></b><o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div id="ftn10">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">{9}</span></span></span> The relief is so palpable that when we have the choice we nearly always choose to escape our fear: in your free time, you probably want to be alone, with close friends or family (if your family is indeed an embarrassment-free zone for you), or drinking (or perhaps two of the three).</span></b></div>
</div>
<br />
And while it's clear that Ugandans are not exempt from the general tendency to
care what people think of them and act to minimize embarrassment, none of that
shows up while singing in church. Masses or services or whatever make us
beholden to decorum, compel us to not embarrass ourselves and do something that
will prevent us from showing a fingernail around any of those present lest we
die of shame. That is both fine and true of mass in Uganda—all the ritual and formality
of the universal Catholic mass is performed. But when it comes time for us to
do something like singing, which is not an explicitly defined part of that
ritual, but more a collective expression of the musician and everyone else
present, we falter and can't shed that attention to propriety and not making an
ass of ourselves that for us goes part and parcel with being in church.<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">10}</span></span></span></span></b><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
That's why Americans trying to groove and/or look joyful
while singing upbeat songs in a house of worship too often look uptight, stiff
and formal, with what is clearly an artificial smile stamped across their
face—because that's the problem, they're self-consciously trying to act like they're happy, not actually forming their actions and expressions
more-or-less organically from a real sense of joy.<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{11<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">}</span></span></span></span></b> Our choir here, on the other
hand, just lets go of their fear of embarrassment and goes.<br />
<br />
But you know what's really wonderful? After a couple Sundays of somewhat
nervously clapping along <b><span style="font-size: x-small;">{<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">12}</span></span></span></span></b> and trying to sing pretty, even I managed to get rid of that nervousness, and
now the choir has a pair of Forrest Gumps singing along with them.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqlBemqMEvNJL_b3V-RSSBXSzonD_ZtJvPZ7jkX8_ywax_fR1VGobm8HdK8uVbf6TfMZILgF96ed4JWCs86c09k8hSnZhN7-qTBo8x5A6doLVeVYtUaF6tlMnzB-rzKoorJDaQr2TT282X/s1600/Forrest-Goes-To-Church.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqlBemqMEvNJL_b3V-RSSBXSzonD_ZtJvPZ7jkX8_ywax_fR1VGobm8HdK8uVbf6TfMZILgF96ed4JWCs86c09k8hSnZhN7-qTBo8x5A6doLVeVYtUaF6tlMnzB-rzKoorJDaQr2TT282X/s320/Forrest-Goes-To-Church.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">{10}</span></span></span> Which is why for most religious musicians I
know, technical perfection takes precedence over emotive power: it's the only
way to make music better while maintaining the type of conduct we associate
with church.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">{11}</span></span></span> If you think I am being too harsh to the sacred music of America/Italy/wherever, please know that I am not trying to offend you or anyone else. I make no claims to have the authority to define the purpose of church music, or even to determine how well it accomplishes that purpose. I'm merely saying that the subjective experience of listening to and performing church music here is qualitatively different, and is for me a whole lot more enjoyable and beautiful.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div>
<div id="ftn11">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn12">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">{12}</span></span></span> The choir, like most African musicians, claps
on beats one and three, not the two and four we associate with “soulful” music.
This is particularly amusing to me because on one piece of music I own—an a
cappella arrangement of “Bring It On Home”--the arranger (who, if you're
reading this, Billy, sorry) wrote a note that's been imprinted in my mind
saying “[finger] snaps happen on two and four. There will be no wacky white-boy
snapping on one,” which led to me being the wacky white boy my first Sunday
clapping on two and four...</span></b><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13462803514087342452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-20846885176896860102013-02-12T23:05:00.000-08:002013-02-19T05:11:42.933-08:00Gettin' Ready to Teach...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bishop Cipriano Kihangire S.S.S. (Senior Secondary School)
is currently ranked 43<sup>rd</sup> among all secondary schools in Uganda,
according to national newspapers. These
publications included over 1000 schools, public and private, in their list;
they left out quite a few more. 43<sup>rd</sup>
out of 1000. 95<sup>th</sup> percentile. Not too shabby. Not too shabby <i>especially</i> when you consider that the school was built fairly
recently by a foreign religious leader with no formal educational training, constructed
by said Father predominantly out of will-power and European donor generosity.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I felt
pretty intimidated going into the first big all-teacher meeting.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Now, it is openly admitted by
adults here that the educational system will not be run to the standards of a
place like the U.S., and no one seems to expect it to come close. Whether this is pure pragmatism or something
more detrimental I don’t know; I’m hoping right now it’s at least predominantly
the first. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Regardless, the massive volumes of
students (4000 kids at B.C.K., which has significantly less classroom space
than my elementary school) and relatively new development of curricula means
that teaching must necessarily be a large-scale trial-and-error type activity,
an activity being undertaken by teachers who were trained in a system with even
more recently developed curricula and even larger class sizes. I won’t be expected to deftly lead a small
class towards theoretical understandings and perfect standardized test scores; rather,
I will be expected to throw the fundamentals of practical reading and writing
at whomever in the horde has enough discipline to pick them up. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Still, I felt pretty intimidated
going into the first big all-teacher meeting.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I mean, every single one of my
fellow teachers studied education in university for three years, studies based
on the instruction of Ugandan youth in Ugandan systems. I studied Geography in university, which
taught me that Uganda was a country in central-eastern Africa, bordering Kenya,
Sudan (don’t think it was South yet),
the Democratic Republic of the Congo, maybe, some other little ones, and a big
lake named after some wrinkly dead English lady. Many of these teachers have led 130-kid
classrooms successfully at less well-endowed schools previously. I've lead well-off white kids on canoe trips
previously. How could I possibly have
the guts and knowledge to get these kids where they want to be? And from everything I’d heard these kids are
hungry—this is their one real chance to avoid the surrounding poverty. A whole lot of life is at stake, and I’ll be
the one balancing everyone on the point.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
So, I was worried before the first
big staff meeting.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Only, thing is, no one hear seemed
particularly worried <i>for</i> me before
the first big all-staff meeting…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The English division head, Mr.
Musanje, gave Alex and me a basic rundown of the situation a week before the
first meeting, and it went something like “There are lots of kids, sometimes
they are stubborn, keep good discipline… yep, here are the books! I’ll find you some syllabi eventually.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Alex and I could barely think of a
question we had so many questions.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Uh, how much do these kids
know? How does grading work? Do assignments count towards final
grade? What are punishable
offenses? What do you mean by
“Discipline” (turns out offenses include going to the bathroom and writing
notes; punishments include forcing students to kneel on bricks for as long as you
deem necessary and forcing students to kneel on bricks in front of the entire
school at assembly for as long as you deem necessary) When are there tests? Who writes tests? What parts of the books are we teaching? How long are classes? How many classes will we get?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Slowly but surely throughout week,
we received approximately zero precise answers to those questions. We had an English department meeting wherein
we learned that we would be reading Oliver Twist for possibly the entire term
with our literature classes, and that we would have two or maybe four or five
classes starting the next Monday. We
learned that marking is obnoxious and needs to happen on time, but not what to
mark or how or for that matter why, because marking seemed to be too dreadful
to discuss at length. We learned that I
shouldn’t have suggested Harry Potter as a book to get kids excited about
reading because it could lead them into witchcraft, which besides B.C.K. being
a Catholic school witchcraft is still a pretty prevalent idea in Uganda. Just a week earlier our friend Samuel had ftold us
a long story about the DjuDju practitioner he saw in his village as a boy, who
made a tiny spirit creature appear out of the air, fed the creature goats’
blood, and then made the creature explode because it had been plaguing a
neighboring family. Real bright,
Linder. Real bright.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The most important things we
learned were a few names and faces, and the date of the big all-staff meeting. Which I was still nervous for.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The day before the meeting we
received an email from Mr. Musanje, telling us that the official start time was
10:00 a.m. but that 10:30 would probably be a better bet. Wait wait wait, we should turn up half an
hour late to the only staff meeting before school? Okay…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
We showed up in the courtyard of
the dayschool around 10:15, in case things actually got moving early. There were 6 people there. We were informed that maybe the
administration was still meeting currently to prepare for the meeting that
should have started a quarter-hour ago, and that they might be done within the
hour. We had a long talk with Father
Kizito, the chaplain here; he went to seminary in Los Angeles and had a very
intelligent and grounded view of the world, which he helped deliver unto the
children through his morality classes.
He smiled a lot, and wore small, round-framed glasses that were somewhere
between normal corrective lenses and shades.
He didn’t seem too warm in his enormous black priest’s robes. I was impressed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
11:00 came and went, then 11:30,
and finally at about noon we were called into the meeting by an administration
that explained the importance of the meeting they had just had to plan this
meeting. The headmaster of the school,
Mr. Okelo, is a solidly set older man with the most beautiful, deep voice I
have ever heard. He spoke very slowly,
and made jokes every two or three sentence; by the time it was 12:30 we had
successfully found someone to say the opening prayer. We made a quick (18-minute) grammar check of
the <i>last</i> meeting’s minutes, then
introduced the new Class Teachers (kind of like Snape for Slytherin, or that
little Herbology guy for Hufflepuff), to much applause and laughter and what
miiiight have been derision. This
process lasted another half-hour or so.
Then we discussed a few important topics (the exact dates of midterm
tests and making sure to mark on time) and then we broke for tea and then we
discussed another couple important points (would the all-school celebration be
this term or next, and would everyone please show up to the retreat next
Saturday), and then we were done. It was
nearly 3 hours of lullaby voice and public debate, and I learned approximately
three concrete things. Of course, I
learned many fascinating abstract things like how meetings work here, what kind
of humor is valued most, how people acted in public settings—it just wasn’t
quite what I expected as a new teacher.
I still had absolutely no clue what any of this was going to be like at
all. Thankfully, it turned out my first
lesson wouldn’t be for over a week due to a public holiday the next Wednesday,
so I still had all SORTS of time to wonder exactly what on earth I was supposed
to be doing here…<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16531752691329329318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-70782546150339648382013-02-10T04:02:00.003-08:002013-02-10T04:02:44.079-08:00Arterial Walls 4: the final, I swear.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The lawn of the hostel looked sharp and brittle when I woke
up, and it felt like I counted every individual shard of grass while waiting
for Free Morning Coffee. Alex was still
in the room “trying” to get out of bed; every once in a while I would go poke
him in the ear to make sure he didn’t fall back asleep. Lady Slumber must have been more enticing
than my summons; I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone invent so many new ways
of saying “Please leave my presence, you scoundrel.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After what
seemed like a full term of Reagan’s presidency, some workers finally brought
out big vats of hot water, stacks of cups, and a wicker basket of beverage
supplies, which mostly consisted of Instant Coffee tins and sugar. I’d never had Instant before, and was excited
for a new experience, so I mixed up a fat cup of grounds and raised the mug to
my eager lips. One large gulp later I
was back at the table, drowning the foul concoction in sugar and feeling for
the first time a great gratitude towards even Camp’s translucent java. I thought I could maybe force myself to enjoy
the process, going so far as to take my time sipping through the jittery
alchemical funk. I think it was better
by the end of the cup. Or my taste buds just
melted off…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
---<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Alex and I started
back towards the main bridge over the Nile, the one we’d driven across on our
way into town, backpacks now filled with water, snacks, sunscreen, and my
trusty 175-gram flying disc. Just before
the highway shot out into thin air we saw a little gazebo on the bank to our
right, sitting next to a road that led onto a jut of land between two channels
of the river; that road crossed the other side of the highway to enter, on our
left, the peninsula that was, unfortunately, guarded by three heavily armed
men.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Choosing
the path less ammo-d we hiked up to the gazebo for breakfast, spreading bread with
peanut butter and honey above the warped little bench seats. Flower bushes surrounded the wooden
structure, a swirling carousel of pastels.
The P.B. and H. were all-natural and made in Uganda (standard here, country
full of hippies apparently), and they tasted rich and earthy where we sat in the
middle of the floral panorama; the bouquet in the air made us feel like we
could taste the very blooms the bees had visited before delivering us their
profit, and we savored every bite until the bread was gone and the road begged
us on.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The ground as we walked formed a
kind of flat-topped ridge, a long, thin peninsula with steep sides and a
leveled head. The morning sky looked
distant but deep above us like an endless blue dome hung somewhere far out in
space, held steady by the molten brass tack of the sun. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
As we topped a little rise we came
upon a golden-grained meadow, spattered with moss-cracked concrete patches, themselves
covered in Honda-sized chunks of rubble.
Set a little further back to the right were two cylindrical storage
tanks, bombed out and big enough to hold a high school dance inside. With deference to the armed men nearby we
didn’t enter the structures, but we certainly did stick our heads through the portholes
in the sides to harmonize into their echoing and surprisingly dry innards. We might have sang The Star Spangled Banner,
but don’t tell anyone I told you that; to be honest the amber-waves-of-grain/old-farm-elevator
feel of the ridge top was utterly transporting. I felt like I was in Iowa—even more so when we
cut a little path through the two-meter grass, enveloped suddenly in dry summer
cricket noises and the smell of toasted plants—for the first time in a month I
felt the edgeless ease of total familiarity.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Comfortable as it was, part of me didn’t
want to leave the prairie, but great lessons are rarely learned in comfort
(Bilbo certainly didn’t want to leave Bag End)—so we hitched up our trousers
and kept hiking. Only, we couldn’t keep
hiking long, because suddenly we hit the rather uncomfortable barbed-wire
fencing and hired guns that demarcated more forbidden territory, in this
instance the dam maintenance equipment at the tip of the jut. Fortifications stretched from bank to bank, glittering
and impassable. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Foiled.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
We turned back through the grain,
headed down the road past the gazebo, and crossed the bridge over the Nile to
see if we’d have any better luck on the other shore.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: .5in;">
---<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Across the river a road led off
upstream, away from the city and Lake Victoria.
It cut first through the closest thing to a “village” that Alex and I
had seen yet, a tight yet crazy-angled growth of concrete and timber and mud
and thatch, with footpaths snaking off in every direction and firepits
sprouting throughout. The rush of the
dam just downstream filled the whole settlement with surreal white noise, as
though everyone here lived under a giant Bose headphone. The roar grew as we turned down a dirt road
running between the edge of a field and the tall fencing of the dam’s power
transformers, and we could barely hear a thing as we approached the River’s
edge.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
A mist hung in the air over the
water at the town’s bottom, a complement to the noise of the dam, slurring the
atmosphere around us. A tangle of rapids
rushed down out of the concrete outlets, eddying into little susurring pools
along the banks. Five or six young
people were washing their bodies and clothes in one of these still spots. Their naked torsos were tinted windows in the
bright surface of the water. They smiled
up at as and waved, teeth flashing the same color as the freshly washed
t-shirts drying on shore. We waved back;
they laughed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
We kept moving along a foot-trod
path on the banks, back up towards the town.
Weaving between homes, and wondering exactly what the penalty was for
trespassing (and for that matter, what exactly constituted trespassing), we
tried our best to keep in the middle of the path; sometimes this was about a
foot from houses on either side. People
were sitting out front of their homes cooking or listening to radio pluralize. Most gave us unreadable looks, neither smiles
nor frowns; maybe curious, maybe accusatory.
Some children waved, but not with the laughing joy of Kampala. We walked quickly.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Just as stress started to manifest
acute we found the main road leading further upstream, and followed it,
breathing slowly again, until we found another boulevard forking off towards the
River. Tire tracks were sunk deep in the
new street’s gravel bed, and no houses rambled along its edge. A forest sprang up thick and fast around as
we picked our way downhill, draining the light and deadening the river’s rush. “no Trespassing no Photo” signs materialized to
the right and left of the road. We
fervently hoped they referred to the forest and not the road itself. A man appeared at the far edge of our vision
then disappeared abruptly; we couldn’t see if there was a path he’d turned off
on.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
To our right now, within the
forest, patches of more solid green started to flash, then sometimes a garden’s
otherworldly color. Something was back
there, behind the wall of trunks, some place with lawns and fountains and
stands of flowers—some other world down here, in the woods below a village and
past a dam, an unknown and unmarked garden, the sanctuary of some local nymph
or deity (or rich person). Sunlight now
only occasionally fluttered down onto our section of road, but the frames of glade
hiding behind trees to our right were illuminated in a waterfall of rich
light. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Leaves shook and twisted; once
every strange while a bird would whistle some not-quite-major-key arpeggio, and
then fall silent again.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Our path curved toward the right, and
suddenly we caught glimpse of a faint brush of water at the end of the tunnel . The garden still lay next to us, mostly
hidden; on our other side the brush was impenetrable. In front of us, standing width-wise across
the path, blocking the entire path and bits of forest on either side, stood a
full-grown bull.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
His face was wrinkled and slightly
lowered, cocked lazily in our direction as he watched us with both eyes. One huge horn looped slowly upward to a point
somewhere between the sky and our foreheads, the other spiraled until it
reached nearly directly into the bulls’ left ear, a few years away from
seriously affecting his cognitive function.
He stood there, tail brushing lazily back and forth, canvas flank pulled
tight across our path to the Nile.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Now, most people know that cows are
typically docile and loveable animals, much like big milkable puppies, but Alex
and I found it hard to remember things most people know while facing the huge
and thoroughly deranged-looking horns of the beast. We stood there, timid, until I decided to try
moving slowly around his back side; just as I pulled level he shook his massive
skull and I jumped back like bee-stung kid.
Alex made fun of me nervously.
The bull just stared at us, skin over his rear leg occasionally
twitching, a titanic doe-eyed guardian set across the path by whatever creature
haunted the garden through the trees.
Would he charge? Would he kick? Was the demented horn some sign of violent
mental instability? I looked at Alex,
shrugged entirely chalantly, and moved slowly along the path, pushing aside
brush behind him. His head twitched; I
shuddered, but kept moving. Right leg,
left leg, just past the swishing tail and—free!
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
We laughed a laugh of self-aware
faux-bravado, and looked back at the guardian.
He didn’t seem to care one way or another, but he did keep watching us.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
My fear was resolving into the
pleasant adrenaline rush of dangers overcome, each step bringing my attention
out of my safety and into the brightening trees around us. I was looking up around the arch of limbs
above us when suddenly I spotted a little simian shape leaping against the
sky. We stopped, then sprinted quietly
toward the landing point—right above our heads appeared the little opaque mask
of a vervet monkey<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Its eyes were shiny little slicks
in the oily darkness of its face, surface-deep but expressive. It climbed toward us along a branch, watching
intently; if we moved at all it would dart quickly back, but couldn’t seem to
help moving closer in our stillness. It
looked hungry, and stuck around as though waiting for some handout—it was caught
somewhere on the triangular axis between curiosity, fear, and desire.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
We stood there with the monkey for
a long time, until it was clear that he would not be moving soon; the Nile begged
us away to finally sit on a grassy bank sloping down into her gilded waters.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The knoll was in the shade of a
tree, and as we sat a few locals came down to sit as well, enjoying a siesta or
eating a little. Downstream a few
hundred meters was a line of rocks and rapids; the trees of the garden to our
right blocked the view upstream. Birds
were everywhere, birds in a variety and concentration I have never seen before:
snake-necked cormorants paddling on the surface, diving below for two or three
minutes to fish, exploding all at once above the surface with the joy of a
successful hunt; pelicans, gulls, and ducks perching on the rocks, lazy in the
sun; kingfishers hovering 4 meters above
the water, facing the wind with only their wings in motion; suddenly a little
loop, then a theme park drop, falling a hundred times their body’s length into
the water. They would rise mostly
empty-mouthed, but when their furious assault found its target a fish half the
bird’s length would surface, stunned, speared neatly on a surgical beak.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
We sat and watched for an hour,
maybe two; finally we felt we should abandon the (<i>our)</i> personal National Geographic Special to hike just a little
further downstream before we had to leave to make dinner.<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The road led us away from the river
and up onto the surrounding hills. We
passed by huge, beautiful homes; we passed by very few actual people. Just as we crested one rise for a view of the
water we saw smoke pouring from somewhere on the oppostie bank. A fire was raging—even as we watched a whole
tree erupted in dirty orange flames, blasting a dark halo out into the
sky. The fire grew while we stood there,
moving up and over the hillside from a little valley on the cliffs opposite. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The afternoon was moving on, and
more people began walking here and there along the road; no one seemed to pay
much attention to the inferno on the opposite bank. Indeed, they mostly just looked at us,
looking. We stood there for a long
moment, rooted in awe, watching a wild heat have its way with the hillside. It
wasn’t until we were on the taxi heading home that I realized the strangest
part to everyone around was not a forest fire burning down acres of hillside;
it was us. <o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16531752691329329318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-8026251019081415902013-02-06T10:57:00.001-08:002013-02-06T10:57:36.883-08:00Sorry for the DelayAlex and I have been embroigled in all types of new teachers' first coupla weeks' insanity. I will have the last Jinja bit up tomorrow, and then stuff about actually teaching thence. <br />
<br />
We are, in fact, still alive.<br />
<br />
That is all.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16531752691329329318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-5354798588204984842013-01-31T23:13:00.001-08:002013-02-06T22:12:34.198-08:00Arterial Walls: part 3<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is something unsettling about your first time drinking
large quantities of local tap water in one of the world’s less
mechanically-obsessed nations. Uganda is
better than most, as we’ve heard from longtime residents; there isn’t even giardia
here (take that, Russia!), much less cholera.
However, our sources DID mention that, as our bodies haven’t been
acquainted with some of the friendly neighborhood bacteria yet, we should
probably take it slow to avoid getting the P.O.o.P.S. (Pressurized Output of
Putrescence Syndrome). One of my
greatest fears in life is the P.O.o.P.S.
Especially when I have to spend four hours cramped in a taxi the next
day to get home for an important meeting.
Brrrrrrrr…unsettling.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
---<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The sun was burning at a sharp
angle on our way back into downtown Jinja, and I had to stop every twenty
minutes to sip on some nervous tap water.
We had left the “<a href="http://bazungubrothers.blogspot.com/2013/01/arterial-walls-part-2.html">park</a>” along a road that skirted the western side of the city,<i> </i>turned to wrap around its southern
border with Lake Victoria and eventually came up along the eastern edge. Besides keeping a wary eye out for potential
P.O.o.P-ing sights, we figured we’d scan the downtown from a few angles and
then decide the best plan of attack, eventually hunting down some food and a throne
from which to enjoy the sunset. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Our walk took us first through a
wealthy part of town that seemed primarily South Asian in demographics; you
could hear the dawn-bird cacophony of an Indian daycare from a full block
away. Soon thereafter we passed by the
Jinja Town Hall and a series of large, once-ornate old public buildings,
decaying reminders of Uganda’s hectic reinvention<i> </i>since the British left. The
road curved around into an industrial district, strewn about with massive
containers and all the swooping and grasping apparati of a bustling port. Then the pavement stopped, petering out into
a dirt road that squeaked through rows of concrete barracks. Our necks were developing a rosy heat, so we
decided to make our way inwards.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
As we moved towards the city center
we encountered an exponential growth of sidewalking Ugandans. More and more people surrounded us until, in
the heart of the bustle, we noticed a classy little South Indian restaurant set
in from the street a bit, aloof from the overwhelming turbulence streetside. The outdoor
seating and curried smells were absolutely delectable, but the sun was still
too high to eat on the patio and not go blind, so we marked the spot on our map
and keep moving to find a cool drink before dinner. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Two blocks away our quest was fulfilled:
a sunless little hole-in-the-wall bar with three stools, four chairs, and a pool
table; walls splatter-painted pink and orange and yellow on a deep black
background. We stepped in and ordered a
Nile Special, then found two spots in the corner. A television above the pool table was playing
music videos—we recognized our friend Jose Chameleone on screen. Alex’s face was glowing, whether from
exertion or emotion I could not say. Always
hard to tell with that kid…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The woman tending bar started
playing pool with a man many times her size.
He seemed impossibly sloppy, she was slightly better; Alex and I watched
intermittently and let the bottles’ condensation roll down our
knuckles. A few people walked up to the
door or lingered outside, but not many stepped all the way in, except for one
woman who started to enter with a big friendly smile and then saw us—at which
point the smile straight Houdini-d—and spat a rapid-fire round of hellos before
turning back out the door. She stood
with the sidewalk crowd for a while before moving north again.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The music from the T.V. was loud,
punctuated arrhythmicly by the neanderthal <i>clack</i>
of pool balls knocking together. The
three workers not playing pool had stopped speaking when we walked in, and
hadn’t started back up yet. Alex and I
were trying to talk without disturbing the not-our-environment, but we couldn’t
hear any type of low decibels over the racket; the resulting exchange was
conducted entirely in a kind of apologetic stage whisper.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
‘I feel like we’re breaking
something here.’ ‘Yeah yeah, right? Like we stepped into the middle of a Medieval
dance or something, started doing the Shopping Cart.’ ‘I don’t even feel like we could ask in on a
game of pool; is that a line for next game?
Do you ask to play winner? Who
pays? I don’t think anyone here plays
doubles.’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Look, it’s
silly to worry like this, how can we know? And if we aren’t doing anything
outright disruptive—we’re not being hella “Americans” anyway, yelling and
grabbing the table and changing the music and whatever—if we aren’t doing anything
stupid then what’s the issue? I mean, we’re
trying to figure out the local customs, trying to be a part of things as much
as we can—’ ‘But look, Sam, this isn’t exactly a place where tourists go,
right? I mean, this isn’t Kampala, they
don’t really see whites here outside of the resorts and raft places. This is the kind of little local place that
has patterns and customs, the kindof place locals go to unwind, not to think
about acting the right way.’ ‘Right, so we break that, we stick our pale selves
in the corner and create a self-consciousness.
Ain’t no one want a couple of white self-consciousnesses in their corner…’
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
‘…’ <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
‘Alright, but maybe it could be
something like engaging with nature, right?
Like, when you hike down a trail all the local life disappears because
what the hell is this loud gangly ape thing doing here? Then you sit for even half an hour and things
start moving again, become, like, acclimated to the palest of presences,’ ‘I dunno
man—’ ‘Nah but look, it certainly won’t ever be the way it normally is, on a
normal night, with us being here now. But
I feel like if we prove ourselves to be unassuming and generally harmless
characters things will start to slip back towards the regular. Anyways, people here don’t seem mad or
hostile, right?’ ‘Yeah, okay, maybe. Anyways
I’m enjoying the music and the cold drinks and the bad pool. Another beer?’ <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
‘Alright, cheers my friend. To the banks of the Nile, to learning a new
place—to strangers.’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
‘Cheers.’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
We sat there for the rest of a
Guinness (the Foreign Extra Special, brewed in Port Bell right next to Luzira,
waaaaaay sharper and hoppier than American Guinness, a truly surprising and
beautiful thing), listening and watching and occasionally speaking. We didn’t get to the root of why some people are
happier to have you in their local spaces than others, but we concluded it was
a beautiful thing that even here, which wasn’t ‘our’ here, there wasn’t a
single person who looked like they were too pissed at our presence. The last drops warming in the bottom of the
bottle we got up to leave, receiving a chorus of “goodbye!” in response to our
own. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The patio of the Indian place was
in full shade by the time we found it again.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Mushroom masala on perfectly steamed
rice, with hot golden naan and a little plate of fresh carrot, cucumber, and
lime on the side. The coriander and
cardamom and cumin and butter coated the inside of my mouth like midsummer air,
hot and thick and endless. Alex made
little noises as though reading a great poem for the first time. We felt good, out there alone on a dark patio
above the street. Once the bill was
settled we stopped at another little roadside place to sit off the meal, then
we walked back the hostel to play a game of pool before bed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The air was a sponge bath as
we traced our steps back through the fortified mansions to the hostel; damp but
light, and slightly invasive. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The hostel’s bar had two walls and
open space leading out into a tight lawn.
Four or five European-sounding individuals sat around in the couches or on the computers,
mostly silent. A loud British woman
spoke with an African man, sitting too close to him on a barstool. We slipped 500 shillings into the pool table
and out popped the balls, conveniently bifurcated into red and yellow, rather
than the Stateside-standard numbered Technicolor. Hitting around a bit for warmups we realized
that suddenly we, too, were awful at this game, this game we played a whole lot
of this summer. The Guinness wasn’t that
strong, was it? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Turned out, at close inspection,
that the balls here are smaller than in Wisconsin. The simplest of combinations sent a sphere
ricocheting in some untoward direction—even the trusty ol’ cue ball would slip
away from your stick like a wet bar of soap.
We felt self-conscious what with all the people around us we didn’t
know; kept noticing little smirks when we shanked a simple shot, or the British
woman’s eyes turning quickly away when we looked over.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
After a long tick of failure and
some soul-searching I finally realized the trick: keep your mind focused real
intent on the exact middle of the pocket, brush off everything that isn’t right
there in front of you. Pretend that you’re
the only one in the room—no others, unknowns, no strangers anywhere—and somehow
things take care of themselves. <br />
We played another game that went a heulluvalot better than the first, and then fell asleep as soon as heads hit pillows.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
To be Continued, for the last time, I promise!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16531752691329329318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-33736208079449252712013-01-30T09:22:00.002-08:002013-01-30T09:22:34.168-08:00Ugandan Rainstorms<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Tin roofs really make rain a more fun experience. The joy of sitting inside during a thunderstorm is essentially an emotionally voyeuristic experience: the image that your (conveniently dry) subconscious conjures up when you glance* out the window is of a person--happily, not yourself, but you have to have been this person at at least one point to get the image--outside and getting frog-numbingly drenched. Your mind with or without your consent finds all this quite titillating. And manages to get off guilt free on top of it all, since who ever got the empathetic pang-attacks over a hypothetical projection of their subconscious?<br /><br />The tin roof in this whole equation compounds the "reality" factor. By its intercession your ears, being I hope not grossly impaired, become quickly quite thoroughly convinced, thank you, that some unhappy fictitious sap is getting feline- and canine-d all over his person; meanwhile your unirrigated skin cells are reporting back through the proper tactile-relay channels about how the enemy hasn't yet made contact, all concluding in a good old-fashioned get-together up in the cerebellum, leading to a healthy amount of dopamine going up like firecrackers, a vague sense of satisfaction every time the oculars report via a brief scan* that Wet Fool is still getting it, and ultimately one of those briefly nostalgic hangovers once all the liquid for the party has dried up.<br /><br />In short, the reason you don't usually want it to stop raining if you're indoors is because as soon as it does, all the guests at your private, VIP-only subconscious party will have to make hurried excuses, flip the deuces, and skip out, probably appropriating some of your head-cavity's last reserves of actually-consumable-type intoxicants.<br /><br />And if there's anything I've learned in Uganda, it's that tin roof parties are the best parties.<br /><br />*And it is always a brief glance out the window, probably because your brain can't maintain the fiction about Mr. Unknown getting soaked if you actually pay attention to the fact that there's (usually) no sensory evidence of any such person, and plus if he really exists, well then you have to feel bad for him because he's wetter than the Pacific.</div>
Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13462803514087342452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-68304471788704657802013-01-30T03:03:00.004-08:002013-01-31T23:14:30.019-08:00Arterial Walls part 2<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am hungry about 89 percent of the time.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Alex, on the other hand, rarely
admits to being hungry at all, unless his mom is currently cooking kung-pao
chicken. Halfway across the world from
any type of Black specialty, you can perhaps imagine my surprise when it was
Alex, and not me, who suggested that the first two items on our pre-wander
itinerary should be “find food” and “find a place to sleep.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The first of those tasks was easy
enough, since there was a little restaurant with shaded outdoor tables just
across the street from the taxi stop. We
found it almost empty, but the tall, pretty proprietress was willing to serve
us after deliberation with her staff.
Only, there weren’t any actual options, just ‘lunch.’ Fine by us!
But, uh, any chance there are perhaps <i>beer </i>options…?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
After enjoying
this first encounter with both traditional Ugandan lunch (rice, mushy green bananas,
and fish/beef in a thin broth) and English-dubbed Korean sitcoms (rice, mushy fake
sentiments, and domestic violence/sexism in a thin plot) we set out to find
accommodation free of lice, mushy floor residue and doors/windows with thin
locks. Our search led us first through
the northern corridor of Jinja’s downtown, which is a scale replica of Kampala’s
commercial districts: rambling rows of little cell-phone shops and tiny bars
and printer places, interspersed with packs of idling <a href="http://bazungubrothers.blogspot.com/2013/01/straight-outta-kamp-ton.html">boda-boda</a> drivers, and smelling
of half-garden landfill. Then the quest
turned us out of the center towards the river and into Jinja’s tourist
district, one of the mainstays of the city’s relative commercial success.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Billing itself as the “Adventure
Capital of Uganda,” Jinja attracts foreign travelers in large numbers every
year. These thrill-seekers come for adrenaline-pumping activities such as rafting, bungee jumping,
and competitive tanning, not to mention the heart-stopping action of tropical-cocktail-with-a-little-umbrella
sipping. Most of the resorts we passed were
well outfitted for this latter contest of livers, replete with
authentic thatched-roof huts (air-conditioning included, of course) and well-stocked
tiki-bars. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Alex and I did not go into these
places.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Instead we went into the cheapest
spot the internet could conjure up: a European-style
backpacker hostel with dorm beds for 7 bucks a night. It certainly wouldn’t be the most Ugandan of
experiences, but we haven’t met a Ugandan who does much travelling or
hotel-staying, so we felt justified in going for rock-bottom prices—the hunt
for best value constituting a totally authentic native practice. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .75pt; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .75pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
The place
was well-hidden, tucked back into a neighborhood full of swank resorts and huge
gated houses, and it took us a full couple of hours to finally sweat up to the
front desk. We were immediately shown
the dorm (an entire bunkroom to ourselves) and just as immediately slapped down
our cash, eager to start out towards our real destination: The Mother of All
Rivers. Filling our Nalgenes with rich,
full-flavored Lake Victoria tap water (topnotes of rotting seaweed give way to lush tannins, with a distinctly arsenical finish...) we consulted the map we’d sketched off
Google Earth and left in what seemed a likely direction. We weren’t too worried, y’know—figure the
Nile stands out a bit.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The first public space we found in
all Africa looked like an accident. The
Jinja golf course rests on a plateau above the Nile, which river glides past to
its east; to its west lies a big chunk of undeveloped land, strewn about with
trees as though through the greenthumb of an 8<sup>th</sup>-grade gardener with
pretty severe unmedicated ADHD. The armed-guard-free
space was a pleasant surprise, and we marked it for a little future
Frisbee-throwing (some parts of our culture we’re not willing to give up just
yet). Eyes on the prize, however, we followed
the greater temptation through this de-facto park, carefully stepping over
turds of varying sizes (some grass-seed tiny, others about the volume of a
soccer ball), and then skirting the northern edge of hole 9 to stand finally on
a cliffside, towering over 6,650 kilometers of uninterrupted atomic motion.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I wish I could describe to you the
feeling of looking out across that glittering expanse, framed by hills and sky
that looked downright drab compared to its nuclear starscape surface, but the
sentences (like that last clause) would come out all preachy and full of
adjectives so I won’t try. Suffice it to
say that the most coherent sound in my head was a sort of slack-jawed garbling. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Without a word between us Alex and
I agreed to get closer to this juggernaut, to shake hands with a titanness. The route downhill was steep and loose,
constantly threatening to drop us down into the current and wash us through
Sudan, so we picked our way carefully along the scorched-red dirt and the rows
of crops. I was amazed at the tenacity
of farmers here, who will extend their fields down a 55-degree cliff if need be. I tried very hard not to disturb any of their
plants.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
We had finally made it close to the
bottom when I spotted a tree that leaned out across the shoreline a bit,
promising a great view down into the water.
I knelt to tighten my laces and then started scaling, making it up to
the first thick branch before I noticed the blood starting to drip down my
wrist. We wondered, after I got back to
earth, exactly why this plant was so angry; is it really necessary to have enormous
thorns that start at 7 feet up and can’t be seen from ground level, dude? As we looked for a cool place to watch the
flow of water, and as I wrapped a clean bandana around my shredded palm, we
realized that every plant in the area was similarly adorned with festively
sharpened ornamentation. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Weaving our way through the barbed-wire
vines we found a little shaded grotto to sit in. By the time I cleared away the thorns, settled in, and took a real breath, I was realizing that I felt very much like an intruder. It overwhelmed me how strange it was to be
here, with my skin useless in this sun and my sweat too dehydrating for this
heat and my knowledge too small to name these birds and my presence so
unwelcome in this forest that shrieks of millennia of intruders with its
million outraged thorns—I felt out of place; I felt, for perhaps the first time
in Uganda, the weight of distance from my home.<o:p></o:p><br />
Then again, all that might have just been the blood loss.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Alex and I sat there quietly for
some time, just breathing. I cannot tell
you how long because I didn’t remember that I had a watch on. Then, without speaking much, we hiked back up
the hill, tossed my Frisbee among the public trees and turds, and started
towards town to find another meal.<br />
<br />
To be continued...<br />
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16531752691329329318noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-52500452764043077382013-01-28T23:26:00.000-08:002013-01-30T02:57:12.377-08:00Arterial Walls part 1<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Every time
the taxivan hit a pothole my head rebounded off the ceiling with a dull <i>thumpt</i>, and the four fellow passengers
on my three-seat rear bench tried to smile without me noticing. I didn’t hold it against them, especially
once I saw myself reflected in a store’s window while we sat in traffic; I
looked like half of Andre the Giant stuffed into a World-War I submarine, sardined tight around with properly-proportioned stygian sailors.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
For a few minutes early in the ride
I had attempted to brace my head against the felted roof for stability, but it
turned out I could only see about three feet of “curb” that way, and something
about the smeary tanned babypoop<i> </i>flow
of road below made me nauseous. Rather than risk filling our stifling vessel
with Italian “<a href="http://bazungubrothers.blogspot.com/2013/01/this-is-why-we-cant-have-nice-things.html">breakfast</a>” I decided to
keep my eyes towards the horizon, and prepare in advance for the roadchasms…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
‘Tighten all my muscles… NOW!
Hmmm, didn’t work that ti---THUMPT----Owwwww, coddlewhop! Surely I’ll predict it right nex-THUMPT-Gah,
sonuvabrachiophyte!’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
As well as a string of minor
concussions, this head position also afforded me an excellent view of the landscapes
passing by my window. Their color palette
shifted gradually from the dusty browns of Kampala’s suburbs to the insane billboard-advertisement
greens of the countryside as we followed the<i>
</i>Kampala-Jinja Highway (yeah, that’s its official name) through valleys
along the shores of Lake Victoria: most highways here follow valleys since most
of Uganda is covered in either jagged hills, rolling hills, or jagged mountains—if
the ground’s not jagging or rolling it’s probably a swamp, and then you
probably aren’t driving there. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Where we drove now, the hills were all
well-rounded, dabbling in factories and schools and little towns, though clearly
most invested in the agricultural arts.
Stands of timber pine (slightly out-of-place: Alex swore he’d seen one
of these exact coniferous slopes just outside of Boulder Junction this summer)
gave way to meadows of tea, fields of grain, and something that looked like
coffee, all interspersed with the small plots of fruit trees that distinguish this
region. Regardless of temperament these
fields rarely reached further than ¾ of the way up any given hill, as though gravity
sided with the native jungle on top.
Sometimes there were little huts or lean-tos of thatch and timber and
corrugated metal among the fruit trees or on the edge of a field. Once there was a boy in a faded yellow jersey
and orange shorts walking away from the road through the parrot-green tea, but
at no point were there streetlights or traffic signals. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
We stopped a number of times at rambling
single-ply strips of stores and dwellings to exchange passengers. One man who got on halfway through the drive
brought a whole bunch of cute chicks with him.
I couldn’t figure out why the cashman seemed so reluctant to let the group
on, especially as the he had practically begged the last few customers to join
our ranks, but then I heard the noise of a hundred or so baby roosters packed
into a cardboard box, which, if you are sensitive to that kind of thing, could
be pretty irritating. I for one am a
huge fan of undifferentiated and constant noise—it’s like the ocean—and plus
you could just see little beaks poking out of holes in the box to nibble hilariously
at the plants printed on his Hawaiian shirt, so I silently cheered on our automotive
agriculturalist.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The gentleman and his feathery
entourage exited sometime later at a stand of stores that swam with men and
women in matching blue vests, each carrying a basket of different goodies and
each trying really, really hard to get our attention. Handfuls of Pepsi bottles and nuts and candy
and fried-critter-on-a-stick were shoved through the open windows. The arms blocked vendors’ faces so that all I
experienced was a wriggling wall of oddly delicious-smelling octopus tentacles,
accompanied by an overwhelming aural tide of pleas and imperatives. I kept catching tiny glimpses of an eyewhite
or toothflash or rapidly quivering uvula, but everything shifted too fast for complete
identities to come into focus. The
commotion was growing towards an impossible level when suddenly the van began
to <i>sluuurch</i> forward; faced with mass
amputation the less hearty salespeople pulled back quickly, while the truly committed
(desperate?) ran along with arms still inside the windows until their Vendor
Roulette game got too dicey.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I felt uncomfortable for not being
hungrier, or wealthier.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: .5in;">
---<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Soon after the way station more and
more buildings began to pop up on the roadside, and it was clear we were
approaching the outer edge of Jinja proper.
We’d read that this city on the source of the Nile is Uganda’s second
largest commercial center, and had decided to find out which industries allowed
it to financially surpass the higher-populated Gulu to the North (besides a
lack of recent civil war, of course); the surrounding village/suburbs revealed
only goats and papaya trees.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
With billies on the brain I wasn’t
fully aware of our direction until we turned a corner and saw a rush of steel
girders, then the shattered glass of sun off water, and finally the endless
lateral sky of a bridge over the longest river on earth. She’s wide there at the source, wider than I would
have thought—in part due to the massive dam just north of the bridge—yet still
we passed over too fast, and I kept wishing the engine would stall in the
middle of the span. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Thankfully it was only a few more
minute’s driving to the center of town, where we paid the cashman and creaked
out of the taxi stiff, sore, and hungry to hike straight back to the siren
source.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To be continued…<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16531752691329329318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-34405119212026004712013-01-25T08:31:00.000-08:002013-01-25T08:31:01.702-08:00(Mostly) Back from JinjaAlex only has three limbs now, but otherwise we are back to the Father's! Crocs weren't nearly as bad as we thought, figured at least two limbs apiece.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16531752691329329318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-16905553349198987452013-01-23T22:03:00.001-08:002013-01-23T22:03:35.735-08:00Off to JinjaHey! <br />
<br />
We're gonna go to the source of the Nile River in Jinja, back Friday night. If I don't post something by Saturday morning (our time) then we probly got crocodiled.<br />
<br />
Bye!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16531752691329329318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-39483428136653455112013-01-23T21:18:00.002-08:002013-01-23T21:18:38.197-08:00Alone Time? You Mean You’re Sick or Something? Take an Advil, It’ll Go Away.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Alex told me the other day that English is the only language
he’s heard of with a word for “privacy.”
Other languages have adopted the concept since (in Russia they pronounce
the new word “privacy”), but no culture has used the idea frequently enough
before American influence to merit its addition to the lexicon. This would suggest
to me that it had been assumed throughout history that you relied pretty
heavily on family and friends to avoid famine, cold, and giant cave bears, until
a bunch of existentially-prone folks emptied out a huge continent by means of
infected blankets, steely muskets, and shady contracts, and decided that
surviving on one’s own was way cooler and harder core than “relying” on “other
people” (whatever pansy crap THAT phrase means), and in that process the lonely
new term was born.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Judging by
the ridiculous quantities of barbed-wire fencing and wrought-iron spear tips
that ornaments hilltop homes here, I would imagine that some Kampalitans<i>© </i>have become acquainted with the word;
however, based on the complete lack of spatial boundaries I’ve encountered
otherwise, I’d say those numbers are pretty low. Indeed, I rarely see people here walking alone,
and never sitting or working or playing or doing much of anything else alone,
unless they are talking alone and then they are probably crazy and thus outside
the purview of mainstream Ugandan society.
Children run in packs along the street, women always have a friend or
smaller offshoot-pack of children around when they’re at home during the day,
storekeepers work in pods of at least 3 or 12.
People hold your hand for sometimes like three-and-a-half minutes after
a handshake ends, and sometimes just grab your hand to lead you somewhere like
it’s a date. It is assumed that you
greet everyone in a room when you walk in, and if you act like you’re moving
too fast to stop and say “hi” because you’re American and don’t know these
rules and anyways really do need to go talk to Samuel because he said it was
important, people will act all indignant and <i>totally</i> make fun of you until you get it right. Not that I’ve experienced that firsthand or
anything. Just, like, hypothetically or
whatever. It was probably Alex. He would totally do that type of thing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Anyways, after I got scolded for
not saying hi to everyone (shoot, I mean, after Alex got scolded), I made the
mistake of telling Walter, one of the Father’s doormen, that I was going to go
on a walk alone to clear my head. He
gave me a quizzical look, and I wondered if perhaps he thought this was
dangerous? No no, he said, not dangerous
during the day, not at all. Okay then, good
doorman, did you not understand something?
No, I understood, Walter says—which I believe because Walter spends his
whole day reading English<i> </i>newspapers
from front to back—I did, he says, but I just don’t understand what you mean by
needing to go walk alone. Isn’t Alex
your friend? No no, I say, Alex is my
best friend, but he would impede my thought process—sometimes I need to walk
alone, you know, independence and freedom and ‘MURICA and all that. Walter just shook his head and gave me That
look, the look that Angela gave me when I shouted hello to her just outside the
door to morning mass, the look that says “Lord, Americans really ARE as weird
as they look on Jersey Shore...” <i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
---
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I have found in my life that time alone
fulfills a function that nothing else will.
The clarity of thought I get in a place without any other human input,
the ability to let my mind flit and twist and suckle on sweet flowery neural
nectars; I have tried at times but never been able to replicate this
comfortably with other folks around (perhaps because they’re unnerved by the
whole neural-nectar suckling bit…). Now,
obviously, there are incredibly wonderful and important things to do around
others, and the most <i>fulfilling </i>parts
of my life have almost exclusively been with fellow humans—not to mention the
fact that it is very hard to make the world significantly better alone—but I
really do think it’s important to take some small private time most days to settle
all of the input a social city life provides.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I seem to be alone in these
sentiments here (sorry); especially at the Father’s home we are constantly
swarmed—though kids everywhere are staunch opponents of strange grown-up
concepts like “stop bothering me”—to the point where I’ve been scheming how to
scale the barbed wire and come in a less obvious way. I won’t, because the festering tears in my
flesh would be in themselves pretty obvious and anyways I kinda like the
rock-starrish entrance the crowd accords<i> </i>me,
but it can still be difficult to deal with sometimes, especially after the
maddening rush of the city outside.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
To paraphrase Douglass Wood, I
think this shall be a good experience, if I survive it. I would like to build the ability to trust
more of one’s thoughts and feelings to others, and the ability to free your
mind even in a crowd; I think these things are important if I want to be a good
man moving into adulthood. It would also
be a shame to live in this beautiful country without attempting to honor its
culture through such simple participation.
Again, it will be hard for me; I’ve never really lived this way
before. Maybe, if you have a little
extra energy, you could keep your fingers crossed for me, please? Even as I type this post stray soccer balls
threaten to knock out even my barest socializing abilities, those being
primarily manifested through laptop and noggin.
Though it would be easier to always be around other people in a
head-trauma coma, I guess… <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I hope everyone reading this is
doing well, and I hope for vicariousness’ sake you’re doing it in a calm,
quiet, otherwise uninhabited nook of the Private World.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16531752691329329318noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-87900370474629347522013-01-22T02:06:00.003-08:002013-01-28T12:03:58.644-08:00This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things:An Exploration of Popular Political Theory in Uganda<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was eating breakfast<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Uganda%20Business.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
before Mass on Sunday, extra early because Alex and I joined the church choir, when
our accountant friend Samuel handed me a newspaper. As I unfolded the journal I saw in a smallish
textbox on the front page that the Prime Minister of Uganda, a man by the name
of Amama Mbabazi, had just been arrested for embezzling over 5 billion Ugandan shillings—equivalent
to about 2 million U.S. dollars—from f:unds sent by the British and Irish
governments to aid the people of his country.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In equal parts
due to my long-honed hatred of political pissbisonry and my newfound Ugandan
Patriotism, I was outraged. Not only did this man steal from an aid fund, he
stole from an aid fund designated to help <i>research
and treat infectious diseases</i> in a country that still marks the ebola virus
as a health concern. The Ebola “I have a
90% fatality rate and don’t even replicate well because I kill my victims too
quickly and efficiently” Virus. He was
literally helping more people bleed internally unto death! Worthy of outrage? I think so!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The people of
Uganda, on the other hand, do not seem to think so. Samuel was calm. He explained patiently through
my sputtering protestations that all politicians in Uganda do this type of
thing, so best not to get too worked up just because one got caught.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But surely
Samuel, surely you are appalled that money designated to help people like your war-ravaged
tribesmen in the North was greedily hoarded by this barbaric ogre of a
man? No?
Not even a little bit? Okay, I
guess I’ll go find someone else to be indignant with then. Harrumph.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Only, no
dice there. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
From Michele, the Italian
businessman who’s very job it is to attract investors to a country that he
claims “will always have these types of people,” to our new friend Jose Chameleone
(he’s a Ugandan musician, more on that later), not a single person showed
serious concern over this seriously concerning (to me) event. I was angry at the indifference I felt was
rearing its dull head all around me, and beginning to subconsciously write off
Ugandans as nihilistic apathetistes—so I buried my worries for a moment by
singing really hard during Mass. Calmed
slightly by this obnoxious exertion, and after a lunch spent replacing all the
nutrients I sweated out in the fission reactor they call Bbiina Church,
Alex and I hopped a couple of boda-bodas<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Uganda%20Business.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
into Kampala to clear our heads with a little downtown wanderin’.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> <a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Uganda%20Business.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">[1]</span></span></span></a> Italian people must not have mothers, because I was taught that cookies, candy, and coffee were not, in fact, acceptable breakfast fare.</span></div>
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Uganda%20Business.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">[2]</span></span></span></a> Turns out they’re not dangerous at all (hi Moms!) mostly just waaaaaaay fun! </span> <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Walking
through Kampala you witness the results of this political “finagling” first-hand. Public parks are surrounded by barbed-wire
and blocked off by armed guards; the largest of these (Independence Park) was
originally public until the army closed it off and made activity there
illegal for no discernible reason(according to Chameleone on a late-night tour of the city). You see massive gorgeous homes on the
hilltops that are apparently owned by a few hyper-rich politicians and tycoons—Chameleone
and Samuel and Michele have all told us that the politicians are the ones with
the real money here, using government funds as their personal coffers—and a
hundred meters down the hillside you run into the tiny storefronts manned by
three or four individuals apiece, each hoping to bring enough money home to
survive that day (over thirty percent of the population here lives on less than
a buck twenty five per diem). It feels like a way
more colorful and friendly version of the Paris in Les Mis, and yet no
revolutionary fervor grips these people who are shown evidence of their own capital
subjugation on the front page of newspapers constantly.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Really though, outside of two or three honest-to-goodness pavement beggars the people act the exact opposite of Hugo's peasantry. Many live meager material
existences yet smile and joke and party more often than any other populace I’ve
ever seen (University of Minnesota students might party more, but they smile
and joke a whole lot less). The Ugandans
I know speak with complete resignation on the topic of greedy boss-hogs, yet do
not fall into existential crises or apathetic despair. In the course of just four sentences
Chameleone informed us that both “Yes, Ugandans are the friendliest people,
they really do care!” and “No, at their hearts they are greedy though, and will
take everything they can.” A similar
paradox infested a talk we had with Michele about ‘development’ here—“This
corruption is so entrenched in the tribal system here post-colonization” but “yes,
I think that people are growing to understand and help each other more.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How can all
of these things coexist? Because they do, for all I’ve seen. Men and women will barter like rabid storks,
fighting to make the most personal profit from any given situation, and then
smile and wave at each other as they part, for all the world like no feathers
just flew. People still go to vote
(though in decreasing percentages since the start of President Museveni’s reign
in the 80s), even though they claim that their politicians are helplessly corrupt. Men and women pay large parts of their small
paychecks for fancy new clothes so they can stick out and live up to the
image-consciousness that is so important here, to the point where it becomes
not a luxury but a necessity to feel fresh and fly and forward-moving. They are either the most resilient sonuvaguns
on earth or completely and utterly insane.
And really, how thick is the line between those options?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
---</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I was singing my guts out in the
church choir<i> </i>when a sun broke through
the clouds of my paradoxilated<i>
</i>mind. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Religion. The enormous population of believers here (over
84% of the population is Christian, some 12% Muslim, and I haven’t even heard
the word Atheist or Agnostic yet); this is the closest thing I could find to an
explanation, the closest parallel to this mad paradox.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The
Catholic Church would say that people are sinners; people are marked from the
start with original sin and cannot be complete as imperfect as they are, yet—yet
a believer must always hope and pray to God and trust that things will become
better despite this inevitability. An acknowledgement of the weakness of the present; a soaring faith in
the future, no matter how inconceivable reaching that future may be. This is a nation of realists and believers, a
nation of down-to-earth hope. A nation
of dreams. Sorry America, but I have to
give it to Uganda on this one. The
people here can move despite the crippling realities that confront them on all
sides because they are <i>homo sapien</i>,
in all of its<i> </i>post-rational glory,
and because they have found the tools to cope with the paradox of their
existence. The reason that our #whitepeopleproblems
is so funny is that these people smile through things that transcend even the <i>concept</i> of problem for us. How foolish and petty I felt, yet how
uplifted. I could learn to live like this
too, right<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Uganda%20Business.docx#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Before I left
the aforementioned United States I had a lot of worries about my potential role
in Uganda. Would I simply be a
new kind of colonizer, a cultural and linguistic colonizer removing a people
from their uniqueness and bringing them into the great glinting American
apparatus? Would my teaching trap
these people into an intellectual subservience?
Was I just Kurtz in a less hand-chopping way? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
In the small time that I’ve been
here, however, my conscience has cleared markedly. My spirit lightened with
the same revelation that brought me out of my sadness for Ugandan
apathy. I cannot know that my teaching here
will help anyone, cannot know that it won’t add towards some larger and more
sinister design. People may use this knowledge
to do horrible things; or perhaps others with greedy plans will use these new
English speakers towards socially devastating ends. I have figured out that I cannot change what
these others will do; I can only seek to understand best what results my helping creates, and have faith; faith
like my new neighbors’ faith that if I work hard and further the skills
that they're asking for they will bring about something more beautiful in the
future--even if that future lies long
past anything I can see.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
Some of my students might go to jail for squandering billions of dollars, it's true. But that in itself takes a heckuva lot of cunning, right? Maybe if I'm lucky even one of these stubborn, bubbly kids will be in the papers for an entirely different reason.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div>
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
</div>
<div id="ftn3">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Uganda%20Business.docx#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Even
if maybe, you know, I don't believe in any of the existing religious groups I've seen…</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16531752691329329318noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-187877462839309902013-01-20T11:48:00.002-08:002013-01-20T11:51:24.696-08:00On Storks and Why, God?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-align: left;">I feel a special affinity towards
pigeons.</span><sup style="text-align: left;">1</sup><span style="text-align: left;">
Ours was not a bond formed of one chance encounter, or a fleeting
glimpse across a subway platform. Rather, pigeons are beautiful for
their constancy. In my home city of Chicago, they can be found
anywhere there is trash nearby.</span><sup style="text-align: left;">2</sup><span style="text-align: left;">
When I moved to Brooklyn sophomore year of high school, they were
among the first living things that greeted my entrance into the
world's capital. When I went to college, pigeons were there, solidly
dependable. Even in the course of my travels in Europe, pigeons were
never far from my side. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In short, I have always been sure of
one thing upon arrival in an unfamiliar airport or train station:
sometime in the next few hours, I will see a pigeon, and it will
probably try to shit on my shoe.<sup>3</sup>
Such was my certainty that upon arrival in Kampala, I was so
convinced that pigeons abounded here that I did not even spare them a
conscious thought. I took our relationship for granted, and only
after a gnawing feeling somewhere around my kidney<sup>4</sup>
realized that there weren't any.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Anywhere.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Pigeons had
abandoned me.<sup>5</sup></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div id="sdfootnote1">
<div class="sdfootnote" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>1 Also towards <a href="http://bazungubrothers.blogspot.com/2013/01/hi-and-other-things-that-are-ok-no.html" target="_blank">pidgins</a><i>,</i> but that is neither here nor there.</b></span></div>
<div class="sdfootnote" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>2 Except, curiously, rarely in the trash itself. Foreshadowing alert: not all urban pests are like this.</b></span></div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote2">
<div class="sdfootnote" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>3 Punk.</b></span></div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote3">
<div class="sdfootnote" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>4 Also notable as probably the part of you a pigeon would most like to gnaw on.</b></span></div>
<div class="sdfootnote" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>5 My aforementioned shoe wasn't too broken up about this.</b></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Thankfully,
I've moved on. The reason is that Uganda has their own indigenous
pigeons, which could probably eat American pigeons.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
They're
called storks.</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgndIFg9zruEqfPWjCP9nAPPRqS0DxPvdc0L1IAb79fMlFVb1cyDrxkoOHiub_nQT4CHIpxtMSre60rFiTvF4pwf2Oa3iPgzwM-z5IgeV1d784ocsUsi0CbGRyrU3-w1iMQMK69BWp9-xbs/s1600/DSCF4170.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgndIFg9zruEqfPWjCP9nAPPRqS0DxPvdc0L1IAb79fMlFVb1cyDrxkoOHiub_nQT4CHIpxtMSre60rFiTvF4pwf2Oa3iPgzwM-z5IgeV1d784ocsUsi0CbGRyrU3-w1iMQMK69BWp9-xbs/s320/DSCF4170.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aren't they cute?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Storks are like pigeons in every
important way. They are throughout the city nearly as numerous as
human beings. They hang out on top of streetlights, in the middle of
roads, and clustered in trees.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrrWI2trYFy8YTDWSZmSILknOWJGpxt98sgQPDk3sDZOJdmhHcq20GRZPX8qcpPUrhEIaHXg4ZEYEqh8ozg7r98IATs8df9pqp1VXDOg3Nzllw3VKbBXv5ukJZfYSIHPMKiNbImwLskTHN/s1600/DSCF4173.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrrWI2trYFy8YTDWSZmSILknOWJGpxt98sgQPDk3sDZOJdmhHcq20GRZPX8qcpPUrhEIaHXg4ZEYEqh8ozg7r98IATs8df9pqp1VXDOg3Nzllw3VKbBXv5ukJZfYSIHPMKiNbImwLskTHN/s320/DSCF4173.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoTFtGThTZVYcloqyyY0JUzRWb5ALFPfuKXTxh82J701SKKWbNRwwSvGo4LWjLKkiM2eXdT2nqc37zgv2CYCywwmeRmD_OA8yrOSb7NWpBYYq7Q9p1AZ8MnEqIecMDqEBLwnQPXO4Zuoh2/s1600/DSCF4172.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoTFtGThTZVYcloqyyY0JUzRWb5ALFPfuKXTxh82J701SKKWbNRwwSvGo4LWjLKkiM2eXdT2nqc37zgv2CYCywwmeRmD_OA8yrOSb7NWpBYYq7Q9p1AZ8MnEqIecMDqEBLwnQPXO4Zuoh2/s320/DSCF4172.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
They actually eat
garbage.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And they are denser than a truckload of
cement.<sup>6</sup></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The
phrase bird-brain expresses a questionable claim that birds are
really stupider than most animals, an idea which <a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/nsae-bit021605.php" target="_blank">crows and falcons</a>, for example, give the lie to. But I submit that this
claim is in fact true, solely because storks are so head-spinningly
obtuse as to negate the relative advantage gained by their
brethren.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>6 Their abysmal intelligence has probably led more than a few to become trapped in cement at some point, so perhaps their density is more or less equivalent to that of average Ugandan cement.</b></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbQpT1qo1lRtBiAGVtxbE2yXYQ16RomIqQCzJSe6jANXsbjJQ7owfxW4cQ7aW41I1O7VTWK1w_EtFhGTKfQJyVHd8VhwKWZf6H49Y5msi-QKf_Kt0x0kxBBrSMLM3PUfGgl0Rhy3M2iVhq/s1600/DSCF4168.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbQpT1qo1lRtBiAGVtxbE2yXYQ16RomIqQCzJSe6jANXsbjJQ7owfxW4cQ7aW41I1O7VTWK1w_EtFhGTKfQJyVHd8VhwKWZf6H49Y5msi-QKf_Kt0x0kxBBrSMLM3PUfGgl0Rhy3M2iVhq/s320/DSCF4168.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Why did the stork cross the road?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Probably to play in traffic.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marabou_Stork" target="_blank">Marabou Stork</a>, the particular variety that
infests Uganda's capital, is without a doubt the ugliest bird I have
ever seen. It doesn't look capable of enough independent brain
activity to keep its head upright, and you'd better well bet I judged
the book by its cover, because it turns out the book's contents are
really just the word “dur” repeated a few million times. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Storks' terminal stupidity is illustrated quite well by the
specimen appearing above in the middle of the road, which was
captured exactly two seconds before a car whizzed by, missing it by
inches. The bird in question made a little clucking sound, flapped
its wings as if in indignation—<i>and stayed in the same goddamn
spot.</i> And then another car
passed by, coming just as close, and elicited the exact same
reaction.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
More than once while walking around Kampala, Sam and
I have come across storks picking up sticks in their beaks and
standing there as if waiting for something wonderful to happen.
Perhaps it needed the stick to keep its oversized jaws from
absent-mindedly knocking together. More likely they haven't had a
thought in their lives and instead picked up the stick because who
the hell knows why they do anything.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
They <a href="http://kabiza.com/kabiza-wilderness-safaris/blog/marabou-stork-the-unofficial-national-bird-of-uganda/" target="_blank">poop on their own legs</a>. Really.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In conclusion, storks are
worthless wastes of oxygen and I want my pigeons back.</div>
<br /></div>
</div>
Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13462803514087342452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-46824848551468956562013-01-19T03:49:00.002-08:002013-01-22T03:45:13.452-08:00Islands in the Sun<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am sure
it’s obvious to all of you that Canada and Africa are not particularly similar,<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Islands.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span></a>
but I was overwhelmed with a feeling of deja-vu yesterday as we crossed from
Port Bell to a small island in Lake Victoria.
It might have been that I spent two very important weeks
of my summer living on islands in Quetico Provincial Park,<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Islands.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span></span></a>
and that this was my first time heading towards a patch of green-on-blue since;
or perhaps that any little chunk of trees rising from a lake will look similar
from a long distance, I don’t know. I
just couldn’t shake the blatantly misplaced (Canafrican?) familiarity that was Guineau-worming
its way through my head.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thankfully
this pleasantish but bothersome feeling was soon shaken out from me,
like a ripe popo<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Islands.docx#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>,
by the violently resolving shoreline; no Canadian banks ever looked so tangled
and Impressionist. Captain Dixon, our
chauffeur d’eau, pulled his vessel up to the low point in the island’s
middle<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Islands.docx#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
and allowed us to disembark. The next
twenty minutes were very much not like Canada, except inasmuch as they were my
first time alone in a wilderness environment since my trips this summer. <br />
I will not say that I pretended I was Henry
Morton Stanley the whole time I trekked through the brush, because I hope not to act as precursor to a
number of years of Ugandan colonization; however, I DID keep twirling an
invisible mustache and speaking to myself in a British accent—and in the end I
could not but think back to the stories you hear as a kid about machete-wielding
men hacking their way through the stifling African foliage. From the second you put a foot anywhere near shore these plants are thicker than Oprah holding a copy of Infinite
Jest.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anyways, in
case you, like my friend David, are confused about the geographic relationship
between islands in Ontario and Kampala, here is—<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p> </o:p><a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Islands.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt;">[1]</span></span></span></a> <span style="font-size: x-small;">Unless perhaps you are our construction friend David, who thought that all of North America was owned by the U.S.A.</span></div>
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Islands.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">[2]</span></span></span></a> By which I mean I spent two weeks canoing about the Quetico, as it’s known.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Islands.docx#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">[3]</span></span></span></a> Papaya, as they call the watery little orange squash-fruits here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Islands.docx#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">[4]</span></span></span></a> The island is long and thin, with a hill on each end and a small flat spot in the middle, like a half-submerged number 8.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><br /></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>An Elucidation of the Differences Between an Island in Lake
Victoria and an Island in the Quetico <i><o:p></o:p></i></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1) Birds<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, the
Quetico has birds, but in this city (and even more so on this island) birds serve
a dual function as both native animals and landed aristocracy<i>. </i>Much
of the terrain surrounding Lake Victoria at the Kampala hillbottoms comprises
something that the locals call Nunaviku, which we assume translates as
“terrible snake-infested Smeagol-guide-necessary swamp<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Islands.docx#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>.” Thing about swamps is, flying critters love
‘em. Thus, waterfowl of all types are
endemic to every inch of this city (even the particularly dry parts), and the
cream of the avian crop seems to have chosen this prime ape-free real estate as
their summer<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Islands.docx#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
abode. Cream-white egrets, circling
hawks, a dark cormorant-looking bird, and a squadron of swinging, diving
kingfishers—silver and black feathers resplendent in the midday sun—perch on
every available rock and root over the water.
Inside the tangled forest this diversity suddenly ceases—methinks ‘tis
too dense for maneuvering—but the borders all around thrum with a net of
crossing flight-paths. You are hemmed in
by birds, and where the birds cannot reach the spiders reign.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2) Spiders, good
Jesus spiders.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Again,
Canada has spiders. But nowhere on earth
could possibly have as many spiders<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Islands.docx#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
as the underbrush of this island. And
not just spiders, no no no, that would be too pleasant—these guys are about the
size of your slack-jawed mouth, and dressed in the colors of what must be the
Hell’s Angels of spider gangs. Which
would make this particular island Sturgis, North Dakota<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Islands.docx#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
, except not for just the weekend (I assume?).
Hiking up one of the hills I must have disturbed 30 or 40 webs a meter,
and as I couldn’t avoid this density no matter where I stepped I spent most of
this time praying to Anansi to keep my tender white meat safe from prying
mandibles. A spider check after the ascent
revealed only a few passengers; that didn’t stop the boat trip back from being a
particularly itchy-feeling one…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
3) Density<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The forests of the Quetico are
exactly what Walt Disney pictured when he imagined how the average school child
would want to imagine a North American wilderness. Plenty of bare rock and empty space between
pines for a surprisingly Caucasian-featured American Indian woman to frolic
through, talking pets in tow; large and majestic thick-furred mammals to
stumble across (they can talk too?!?), thick beds of fallen pine needles to lay
your weary head upon when all that frolicking and interracial-tension-reducing
tuckers you out—the whole scene rather moving-ly picture-sque, if you will.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Islands.docx#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Ugandan forests won’t take any of
that crap. They are too dang busy. The sheer numeric quantity of plants and animals that
directly contacted my person at all times was unbelievable, and that is just
the organisms I could see. The weight of
all that life was incredible; the air was heavy and oxygen rich, a Wall of Smell
Phil Spektor-style that hit your face like the first chords of Born to Run. In the Quetico each individual smell presents
itself neatly for examination like daintily-perfumed soldiers at inspection— here
they gang up on you in more of an anarchist black blox kinda way . I am sure that
some of this amalgamationing was due to my ignorance and lack of local knowledge,
but it would take a helluva sergeant’s eye (nose?) to pick apart this
particular bouquet.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
4) Snakes<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Okay, fine,
so I didn’t see any, but the whole place just had this sorta…snake-y…feeling. You know, like there are just probably snakes
everywhere, watching, waiting, eating bird’s eggs and giant spiders and
plotting your demise. I’m not crazy, the
place felt like snakes!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I realized that
I might be going crazy as I stood alone for a moment on top of the hill.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Islands.docx#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
The sense of being completely
unimportant in an environment so busy and moving (and probably full of snakes)
was at once too much and perfect; this is nature when it has all the resources
it needs in abundance, nature that can divide and multiply nearly without
limit; this is the mothersunning<i> </i>equator. I love the ruggedness of Canada, the
creatures who can take so little and survive—even turn off for six months if
necessary—but this is a whole new type of life altogether. Now all I want is to see what would happen if
you could put the two islands next to each other for a little bit to talk about
their respective life experiences.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Wait, you
die every year and then come back to life?
But that makes you… ZOMBIES!!!!”<o:p></o:p></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Undead
Canadian Pineapple Trees. Perhaps even
scarier than invisible snakes.</span><br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br />
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<br /></div>
</div>
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4">
</div>
<div id="ftn5">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Islands.docx#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Really though, don’t follow the lights, precious.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn6">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Islands.docx#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Which
is, may I remind you, every season here for the last 10,000 years<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn7">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Islands.docx#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Cross your fingers, knock on wood, say a rosary—do whatever you need to do
short of research to insure that this fact is true.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn8">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Islands.docx#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Which,
come to think of it, isn’t really that far from The Quetico!<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn9">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Islands.docx#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Alex won’t.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn10">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Islands.docx#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Alex
didn’t come that far because he’s scared of widdle spidy-widies*<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
*Okay, terrifyingwy huge spidy-wides.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16531752691329329318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-14952738123260184462013-01-19T01:03:00.001-08:002013-01-20T12:14:03.931-08:00Doctor Robert, I Presume?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
We Bazungu are map-obsessed. Samuel has
<a href="http://bazungubrothers.blogspot.com/2013/01/koming-to-kampala-part-1.html">already documented</a> our
nearly-fruitless eight hour search for a map of Kampala; in addition,
we thought it would be swell to create a map of our own, detailing
our surroundings and associated points of interest.<sup><sup>1</sup></sup>
We haven't really done so well at this task, partly because every
time we go out to walk around and do some low-tech surveying,<sup><sup>2</sup></sup>
something more interesting happens.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgybG0M6lHw3NgP9mWfxdPM9pfNaOEEVGsoEs0TyyiztvvgW3WflIgYHSZrr30M524h-bMFKp5R59woa3m2he7d_rGndpCbdVbnk52_R3jKFdVuvyXNPSwdcSpa4eWm_ZlNwKlmxAZSTI98/s1600/world_600w.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgybG0M6lHw3NgP9mWfxdPM9pfNaOEEVGsoEs0TyyiztvvgW3WflIgYHSZrr30M524h-bMFKp5R59woa3m2he7d_rGndpCbdVbnk52_R3jKFdVuvyXNPSwdcSpa4eWm_ZlNwKlmxAZSTI98/s400/world_600w.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">“But Alex, what could be more interesting than maps?” asked no one ever</span></span><br />
<span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div id="sdfootnote1">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">1 I still haven't told Sam that I got lost in the neighborhood when I was here in November. I don't think he suspects that my motive for mapmaking includes not only the beauty of man naming his environs, etc., but also a desire to not die in a dark alleyway.<br />2 Low-tech in this context having the meaning of “involving our eyes.”</span></h4>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
</div>
On one
recent occasion, we got out the door, and headed down the bumpy dirt
path-road to find out where it went. The answer was goats.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0xjglHWj73lSLg8P0o6MrRbess6N4_Pu_h21PVN2dJhwEFEpEAVrYoMXpCELQBt267dV_jQJ_uN3B781Dh9bWa4HvGyM8aZ-2a6DLn8BhTpmYN6GSBT1U_fgI3HjKZARUvkx_gJ3a71dO/s1600/DSCF4024.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0xjglHWj73lSLg8P0o6MrRbess6N4_Pu_h21PVN2dJhwEFEpEAVrYoMXpCELQBt267dV_jQJ_uN3B781Dh9bWa4HvGyM8aZ-2a6DLn8BhTpmYN6GSBT1U_fgI3HjKZARUvkx_gJ3a71dO/s320/DSCF4024.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm going to pause a moment to allow anyone from Monroe Hall reading this time to stop laughing.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The goats marked a dead-end, so we
turned back and went down another side path-road, one that we had
traveled before. After making a turn onto an almost-road, we heard a
man calling our names.<br />
<br />
The first time you run into someone you
know in a strange city is a near transcendental moment. You
experience a feeling of such comforting familiarity that mom's
meatloaf for once wouldn't even make your mouth water<sup><sup>3</sup></sup>,
and a sense of wild, carefree excitement that leads you to conclude
that all time and space has conspired to bring you to this moment,
and that you are invincible.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1bdg0KcwNTrnnD9rJth3_0XL8XPjyRPBpsGhjcuiIIcaOQiP9UbBTlaeQvyte05N8-9xID63bOLaHEjYSdV65gRfK7Lda1rrJqzOKIDF-z8v_6Dhowsuw9cpTN2hkKUK64ul6NJLagljR/s1600/borisld2+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1bdg0KcwNTrnnD9rJth3_0XL8XPjyRPBpsGhjcuiIIcaOQiP9UbBTlaeQvyte05N8-9xID63bOLaHEjYSdV65gRfK7Lda1rrJqzOKIDF-z8v_6Dhowsuw9cpTN2hkKUK64ul6NJLagljR/s320/borisld2+%25282%2529.jpg" width="249" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This feeling may be misleading. Do not attempt to experience if under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or other mood-altering substances. Side effects may include feelings of invincibility.</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">3 Nothing on your meatloaf, mom.</span></h3>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
In short, this alien place, no
matter how much fun and stimulation it has heretofore provided you,
this place in one instant becomes home.<br />
<br />
The man calling us was
named Ignatius, and the backstory he's going to get here is none,
because we knew very little about him at the time—he's an
interesting enough character to get a post or two of his own later
on. Ignatius is a wiry young man who hunches forward slightly when he
talks, which he does often, quickly and excitedly. He has narrow
features, which as we learned later he attributes to his suppositious
Ethiopian ancestors,<sup><sup>4</sup></sup>
and a confident air that manages to be both energetic and disarmingly
friendly. Nevertheless, any interaction with him causes a very slight
sense of unease, as if some neurons meeting in congress in the
long-forgotten regions of one's brain have checked and double-checked the calculations, and come up with a number just a bit different from
normal.<sup><sup>5</sup></sup><br />
<br />
After
a bit of small talk, mostly centering around the subject of “what
the hell are you muzungus doing down this backalley?”<sup><sup>6</sup></sup>
Igantius invited us to come to an orphanage where he claimed to
volunteer.<br />
<br />
<div id="sdfootnote4">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">4 Ok, so I lied about the no-backstory thing. You don't have to get all bent out of shape about it.</span></b></div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote5">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">5 As will become clear from the following, neither Sam nor I read the report those neurons handed in to Central Command.</span></b></div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote6">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">6 I'm not sure we provided a satisfactory answer; there's a distinct possibility that every single African we've met in our wanderings thus far thinks that we have a mild case of never knowing where we're supposed to be.</span></b></div>
</div>
<br />
As some of our readers (hi, Moms!) may know,
evaluation of locals' claims is always a dubious art during your
first time in a foreign country. You never know, for instance, if the
chap you just met sporting the huge skull tattoo<sup><sup>7</sup></sup>
can be trusted when he claims to be third in line for the
presidential succession: perhaps the tattoo is some sort of regional
custom denoting political power and not a penitentiary custom
denoting terrifyingness.<sup><sup>8</sup></sup>
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span>
<br />
<div id="sdfootnote7">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>7 No, Ignatius did not have a huge skull tattoo. Thank you for your concern.</b></span></div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote8">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>8 The above is an excellent example of the little-known danger of the word “perhaps.”</b></span></div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote9">
<div class="sdfootnote">
</div>
</div>
<br />
In any case, we went with our gut<sup><sup>9</sup></sup>
and allowed him to lead us away. As the almost-road receded, we found
ourselves weaving in between dwellings that gradually reduced our way
to a path-road, then a not-at-all-road, then a
careful-don't-run-into-that-wall-what-is-this-not-road, and finally
an I-didn't-know-people-could-fit-through-spaces-that-tight-road.
With each reduction in peripheral manuverability, Sam and I looked at
each other with just a bit more misgiving on our faces, wondering if
after being beaten and robbed and chucked unceremoniously in the
sewer they would at least give us a map so we could get back
home.<br />
<br />
None of that came to pass.<sup><sup>10</sup></sup>
Just as we had resigned ourselves to our impending doom, Ignatius,
motioning for us to follow, ducked through a small doorway of the
type that commonly open into courtyards here—a child-sized pop-out
set into a massive 10-foot painted iron gate. When we emerged from
under the gate, we found a crowd of teenage boys who seemed to know
Ignatius smiling at us.<br />
<br />
<div id="sdfootnote7">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">9 Which was in conflict with the aforementioned Neurological Council, the latter having finally unequivocally decided that something here was the matter.</span></b></div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote10">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">10 Although I can state with near-certainty that the “they” who never materialized would not have given us a map.</span></b></div>
</div>
<br />
After being shy-smilingly greeted, we
were told that the courtyard, which was ringed by dilapidated-looking
one-story concrete structures, was in fact a secondary school,
although from the look of things it was the one-room thatch-roofed
country schoolhouse to Fr. John's Swanky Ivy-Covered Red-Brick East
Coast Prep School. Our welcoming committee, naturally, was made up of
the boys, mostly orphans, who lived and studied in this sorry-looking
compound.<br />
<br />
Having obtained the name “Brother Robert” and a
guarded assertion that the aforementioned was both an American and
the local head honcho, Ignatius volunteered to bring us to the
Brother's house. <br />
<br />
When you have to get up the cojones to trust
that someone who could be leading you to a messy death<sup><sup>11</sup></sup>
is in fact bringing you exactly where he promised, and he goes and
does bring you exactly where he promised, it builds a certain kind of
intrapersonal bond, albeit somewhat one-sidedly (Ignatius probably
had no inkling of our unease throughout our previous journey). So we
meekly tagged along on more
I-guess-you-could-call-this-a-trail-but-it-certainly-isn't-a-road-roads
until we reached a house the size of your average suburban bungalow
in an upscale neighborhood nearby. <br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />11 Dear family, I promise that I have not been in any real danger at any point here.</span></b><br />
<br />
Brother Robert is what you
picture when you picture a westerner running a school in a place like
Uganda. He is medium height, ruddy and with a paunch and white hair
no doubt donated him by increasing age that hasn't yet managed to get
at his vitality. His heavy and unplaceable accent led us to believe
at first that we had been unwittingly tricked into entering the lair
of a Canadian (believe me, we were 'bout ready to turn and bolt), but
it turned out to be from New Hampshire.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTaIMgYxqfSZliA6s49In9R0ZSZ69W-aExk-nzdW_k8y3M3Kepe9bpYIN9HaYApPYs12sDK5QU9vjeOfzMC67KCrF9jTHLG0SQOKuvPHT-6NH1u9oZENWw3LpKxOBDKBq7J_K5cWG_jCjY/s1600/uncle+sam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTaIMgYxqfSZliA6s49In9R0ZSZ69W-aExk-nzdW_k8y3M3Kepe9bpYIN9HaYApPYs12sDK5QU9vjeOfzMC67KCrF9jTHLG0SQOKuvPHT-6NH1u9oZENWw3LpKxOBDKBq7J_K5cWG_jCjY/s1600/uncle+sam.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crisis averted.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
We
let him take us back to his school in a Land Rover that I would
classify as one step up from “bombed out,” where he gave us the
grand tour, which largely consisted of him pointing out how little
the school had of everything: space, supplies, desks, concrete that
wasn't in the process of quickly eroding, etc.<sup><sup>12</sup></sup>
He managed to accomplish this without once complaining or pleading,
but rather smiling and laughing, stating things matter-of-factly and
not expecting any reaction, sympathetic or otherwise, from us his
guests. In this, the Brother is much like the Ugandans we have come
to know in our time here, and spending an afternoon with him was a
genuine pleasure. <br />
<br />
The upshot of our adventure was that <span lang="en-US">we
may become doubly employed: at a meeting that very morning we had
learned to our dissatisfaction that we would likely only be teaching
a few classes at Bishop Cipriano, the school run by Fr. John's
organization. Since Brother Robert's school is short on teachers,</span><sup><span lang="en-US"><sup>13</sup></span></sup><span lang="en-US">
and experiencing his school would provide a wildly different
perspective from that afforded us by our current position, we will
hopefully be able to teach a class or two there as well. <br /><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></span><br />
<div id="sdfootnote12">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<span lang="en-US"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">12 According to him, the only criteria for admission to one the school's limited posts is poverty: “the poorer the better.” This is, he notes, in marked contrast to Bishop Cipriano, which explains the incongruity between the two.</span></b></span></div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote13">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<span lang="en-US"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">13 Other things in short supply, aside from those listed above, include everything.</span></b></span></div>
</div>
<span lang="en-US"><br />I
note with some remorse that I have not significantly reduced the
number of footnotes from my first post as promised. Therefore, I will
finish this up posthaste in order to not run afoul of the
internet.</span><span lang="en-US"></span></div>
<div id="sdfootnote1">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgenFoC3tXiSEpve_zyoj7Rywl7KSQjXpm0VF9BI5W-2nak1fKsS8z7KvVdhhx5R4JY-Hg-6YUeC9K4fiHG8YQCLmxw5Vxi76VrUCv4dC5IYtHU4qCcKfIS_uuhiIK_5RHsllbUvKlcNdfo/s1600/simpsons-mob-torches.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgenFoC3tXiSEpve_zyoj7Rywl7KSQjXpm0VF9BI5W-2nak1fKsS8z7KvVdhhx5R4JY-Hg-6YUeC9K4fiHG8YQCLmxw5Vxi76VrUCv4dC5IYtHU4qCcKfIS_uuhiIK_5RHsllbUvKlcNdfo/s320/simpsons-mob-torches.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Burn the footnoter!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Happy Saturday to you all.</div>
</div>
</div>
Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13462803514087342452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-59124919174345570042013-01-18T08:15:00.000-08:002013-01-18T08:15:04.720-08:00An Ode to Piri Piri<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
O,
African wonderdeath pepper, your size in no way foreshadowing the
destructive capacity you harbor within, why do you haunt my
dreams?<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
O, diminuitive red teardrop, capable of releasing the
fires of a thousand suns, wherefore your hatred for the innocents you
have this day harmed?<br />
<br />
Do you possess some emnity, as yet
unguessed, towards your fair-skinned owners, far from home and
susceptible to your trickery and corruption?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
Has the power of love and mercy
remained unknown in your distant land and given all over to cruelty
and death?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
O, scourge of tastebuds and ravager
of digestive systems, how can you even now lie so meekly upon the
table, luring passers-by into your inescapable jaws?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
O, crimson tide of spice, sorrow,
and pain, when we and the captain of a local skiff chanced upon you
on the shore not four hours gone, how were we to know the events that
would follow?<br />
<br />
O, you of intensity that burns beyond all
imagination, when we greedily filled our pockets with the fruit of
your tree, was the seed of hatred then planted that would bring about
our demise?<br />
<br />
Was the scorn we laid upon the mild sauce stewed
from your brethren a thorn in your mottled gleaming side?<br />
<br />
Should
we have evinced more respect towards the potency we knew of not
before this fateful hour?<br />
<br />
O, unhappy merger of brutality and
artlessness, did you grin in evil anticipation as we lifted you high
and began to drop your willing form towards our mouths?<br />
<br />
O,
forsaken offspring of Satan, as you were crushed between eager jaws
were you aware of the potency escaping through your broken skin?<br />
<br />
O,
unquenchable all-consuming flame, as your heat grew and peaked, did
you feel some grim satisfaction in the accomplishment of your
nefarious task?<br />
<br />
Were the cries of “oh God make the burning
stop” as music to soothe your wounded soul?<br />
<br />
Are you even now
plotting some new revenge against which we poor outsiders will be
unable to defend?<br />
<br />
Should I eat another one?<sup>1</sup><br />
<sup><br /></sup>
<sup><br /></sup>
<sup><br /></sup>
<sup><br /></sup>
<sup><br /></sup>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTTA_77zwjzXn7BjecvhkiurJ_lWKsOsaiMuvf0DF_WvBgNkS43egUYWVmKXm1H2THm4DZX5NRh4dRfrLmLNuCSJFvM_Nuf8EMzU8xhiQfcLbbtsjpHL4OHRLir5nizZKMqTxSCF3je_s_/s1600/DSCF4078.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTTA_77zwjzXn7BjecvhkiurJ_lWKsOsaiMuvf0DF_WvBgNkS43egUYWVmKXm1H2THm4DZX5NRh4dRfrLmLNuCSJFvM_Nuf8EMzU8xhiQfcLbbtsjpHL4OHRLir5nizZKMqTxSCF3je_s_/s320/DSCF4078.JPG" title="Penny for scale" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Why dost thou glisten in feigned harmlessness like ain't nothing the matter?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div id="sdfootnote1">
<div class="sdfootnote">
1 Sam's
contribution to this post: “Captain Dixon picked a peck of piri
piri. They weren't pickled. That's, uh, all I got."</div>
</div>
</div>
Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13462803514087342452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-1062246120529260152013-01-17T11:24:00.000-08:002013-01-18T02:28:35.710-08:00Straight outta Kamp-ton<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Straight outta Kamp-ton<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have alluded previously to a day spent <a href="http://bazungubrothers.blogspot.com/2013/01/koming-to-kampala-part-1.html">map-searching</a><a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/Straight%20into%20Kamp-ton.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
in downtown Kampala; however, no mere couple of sentences could hope to sum up
the overwhelming amount of sensory input we received that urban<i> </i>diem.
To be honest, anything less than an infinity of sentences wouldn't come
close, but we didn’t want to look too touristy what with the<i> </i>whipping out a camera every few
seconds, so you’ll just have to accept the thousand words I’m posting in lieu
of a picture.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/Straight%20into%20Kamp-ton.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The fastest way to get anywhere from Port Bell Road (the
main thoroughfare at the bottom of our hill) is on the back of a boda-boda<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/Straight%20into%20Kamp-ton.docx#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>,
the independent moto-scooter taxi service which entrepreneurs run from really
whatever spot they choose to run their services from. Thus, any convenient street corner, sidewalk,
streetmiddle, front yard, or wholestreet in the city can serve as a staging
ground for these crafty businessmen.
Though self-employed, they are always found in gaggles of 2-6, seemingly
so that some can sleep on their handlebars while others keep an eye out for
customers and then steal said customers from the drivers sleeping on their
handlebars; as in any good capital-based culture a boda-boda man receives from
the game whatever he’s willing to give to the game. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Now you might be wondering how
these sleeping drivers (who perhaps aren’t even aware that there’s a game going
on) are able to survive in such a rough economic landscape as Kampala, but that
is actually the <i>secret</i> to their
continued success: as far as I can tell it is so dangerous to work as a boda
driver here (the concept of “right-of-way” is about as foreign in Uganda as
Herman Cain<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/Straight%20into%20Kamp-ton.docx#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>)
that the only way to run a sustainable business is to <i>never actually drive your motorcycle anywhere</i>. The implicit paradox here has not escaped me,
lest ye worry; I will do my best to investigate this issue and come back with a
topical and precise economic model.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/Straight%20into%20Kamp-ton.docx#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/Straight%20into%20Kamp-ton.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title="">[1]</a></span></span></span> That’ll teach all you haters out there, a Geography major really IS good for something!</span></div>
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/Straight%20into%20Kamp-ton.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">[2]</span></span></span></a> Or not accept it and go read Alex’s insufferably visual and populist posts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/Straight%20into%20Kamp-ton.docx#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">[3]</span></span></span></a> Boda-boda translates roughly into English as “suicide death machine of suicidedeath from hell”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/Straight%20into%20Kamp-ton.docx#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">[4]</span></span></span></a> the lack of either hurts a general populace’s ability to truly enjoy life to its fullest, I feel.</span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/Straight%20into%20Kamp-ton.docx#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="text-indent: 0.5in;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">[5]</span></span></span></a><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> Haahahaahaaha, precise economic model, I slay myself.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> Having been warned by Father and
Samuel not to trust the boda-boda due to its aforementioned “unreliability” we
decided to try a different option, the independent cargo-van taxi services
which entrepreneurs run from really whatever spot they choose to run their
services from.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">These rickety white vans,
printed all around with religious statements and various motivational bits,
filled with anywhere from 2-20 people in a space meant for 1-10, will pull over
at streetcorners, sidewalks, streetmiddles, front yards, or wholestreets;
really anywhere they see you</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">waving
from.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">They generally have destination
points, but are willing to completely break route if you are willing to pay a
ridiculous sum of money, regardless of the complaints or time table of the
other riders.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I have not yet seen a
bidding war break out between clients; I don’t rule it an impossibility.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Sans map we caught the van whose
cashman<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/Straight%20into%20Kamp-ton.docx#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
was shouting “Kampala Road” in hopes that said road was actually in/near
Kampala; after an uneventful half-hour ride with my head bouncing against the
top of the van this turned out to be a correct statement (see footnote 1).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
We got out where we could see the
skyscrapers, paying the cashman 1,500 shillings each (about $1.20 for the two
of us) before looking around to see exactly what we had stepped into the middle
of. I don’t think I am a good enough
writer to construct a narrative of the next 8 hours, so instead I will attempt
a series snapshots—which is actually, given the heat and overwhelmity of it
all, exactly how I experienced the day.
While reading everything imagine a background of grey buildings and red
dust, intensely black people, and an overbearing sun…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p> </o:p><a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/Straight%20into%20Kamp-ton.docx#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="font-size: x-small;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">[6]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> Kind of like the taxi’s hypeman, his job is to get people pumped and into his vehicle by any means short of abduction.*</span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">*hopefully short of abduction</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
An entire city block (but not a block like you’re thinking
would be a block, twice as long [or half the size] that is, a Kampala block) of
printer shops; concrete buildings all two stories but not a single one the same
height as another; printers and stationary and other goods for making signs and
advertisements and CVs literally as far as the eye can see until the road
wiggles off left juuuust too much for unbroken ocular capability. Sidewalks raised above the street maybe, or a
little lower. Like the street (or parts of the street) they are formed in
hard-packed ochre clay whose edges are wavy and distempered things eroded by
the chaotic variability of water and feet and stray boda-tires. Pits between the sidewalk and street filled
with oil, paper, plastic, fruit rinds, excrement, and things fouler than
excrement; sometimes this mixture runs downhill and sometimes it sits trapped
like a little crater lake, waiting for just a touch more filthic downpour
before it can begin its own journey into Victoria. People pass in every direction, staring at us
for at least a moment.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Walking down a block with four banks on it, separated each
by a storefront or two; the first bank has a guard sitting out front in police
uniform holding an AK-47 with no shoulder stock, the second bank has a guard
sitting out front in police uniform holding a World-War II era bolt-action
rifle, the third bank’s police guard swings a sawed-off shotgun from his
shoulder sling, and the final guard has sacrificed originality for another
AK. People pass in every direction, and
the guards’ eyes never seem to move.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sitting in wicker chairs out front of a store, drinking a
Bell’s (Uganda’s Heritage, the beer’s label claims!) from its half-liter bottle
and watching the world pass. A woman
comes out with two china bowls of what I assume is food, places one on top of a
public phone booth. A truck drives past
full of beer crates, a man rides on top.
I raise my bottle to him; he salutes back. Beautiful women pass in every direction; they
never to look at us for too long.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We enter a little opening between buildings into a food
market, suddenly everything is for us.
“Yes, come, please, look!”
“Chicken, you no like chicken?”
“Spices, yes spices” “Yes, yes!”
I try my hardest to keep up with Alex but the press of people in this
narrow space is intense and the uneven floor is littered in obstacles. The smells are so heavy that I find it hard
to breathe; piles of tripe and sweetbread on platters buzzing with flies,
neatly ordered rows of whole chickens beheaded and plucked, burlap bags of
beans and rice and millet that must weigh hundreds of pounds—and no way to get
a vehicle into this labyrinthine space—fruit and fruit and fruit and squash and
more fruit; we exit the market onto street again and face the largest pile of
rinds I have ever seen, tumbling from dumptruck onto a raised plaza, ignored by
even the poorest because who cannot find fruit here in the Pearl of
Africa? People surround us, people
engulf us, and though most look for a bit life presses them on.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not quite a thousand words, but I imagine you get the
picture<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/Straight%20into%20Kamp-ton.docx#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>. By the time we found our map the sky had
sucked all our water out, leaving our mouths parched and skin baked despite the
Nalgenes and sunscreen. We found Kampala
Road, found a taxi, and returned to the Father’s in time for a shower and
dinner. As I washed the burnt clay and
fried skin from my hands I looked in the mirror and realized that my shoulders
were about halfway to my ears; I hadn’t let down my awareness once, not even
with that beer in hand, and my body was still trying to shake off that day’s incredible
and indescribable newness.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Sam%20Linder/Documents/Ugandablag/Straight%20into%20Kamp-ton.docx#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span></span></a>
sorry</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16531752691329329318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3704463844244723884.post-31185597504945399022013-01-16T11:57:00.000-08:002013-01-19T00:34:48.009-08:00Hi and Other Things That Are Ok No Problem<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Greetings to friends, family (hi, Sam's mom!), and denizens of the recesses of the internet<sup>1</sup>. As you may be able to surmise (and honestly, I don't really care about your abilities; I just wanted a chance to use the word “surmise”), I am Alex, the other<sup>2</sup> half of the creative team of this blog.<sup>3</sup><br />
<sup><br /></sup>
<br />
<div id="sdfootnote1" style="text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">1 If the last applies to you, stay on this site! We're some deep dudes thinking some deep thoughts!*</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">2 And more attractive</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">3 The non-creative team is our staff of editors, which currently consists of four small Ugandan children who occasionally look over our shoulder as we are writing, and smile. I'm glad for this, because a real editorial team would never have let me get away with stuff like writing four footnotes full of roosterpoop in my first two sentences.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">* Sam, look! I made sure that no one we don't know will ever look at our blog!</span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Sam seems to have already covered much of our living situation and other minutiae including some of the characters that have made themselves known to us, so I'll just go ahead and jump right into the important parts: linguistic difficulties.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSzAer2wFOq_voErPLSaGpq2vO2kf7myVpiKlXtichqEXoPB4WYUgRc2nlHNaz9lwIOuL1iTc9KHsDyrr6ucfJmx30-YWmY_OJVnEH0E42Ied1m7F6CbUYls_uHoVrfIGXWu_dC9_adTkd/s1600/smiling-lady.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="102" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSzAer2wFOq_voErPLSaGpq2vO2kf7myVpiKlXtichqEXoPB4WYUgRc2nlHNaz9lwIOuL1iTc9KHsDyrr6ucfJmx30-YWmY_OJVnEH0E42Ied1m7F6CbUYls_uHoVrfIGXWu_dC9_adTkd/s320/smiling-lady.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That sounds fascinating, but I really have to go water my pet rock right now.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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As <a href="http://bazungubrothers.blogspot.com/2013/01/hail-mary.html">detailed</a> by the estimable Mr. Linder, one of the semi-permanent residents of
our hillside dwelling is a septuagenarian Italian known as Ettore. He
is charged with overseeing the various Kampalan construction and
maintenance projects undertaken by the NGO we work for, which at the
present time includes building a two-story dormitory at the
elementary school, a free-standing kitchen at the secondary boarding
school, and a compound to house a printing press and library; <span lang="en-US">various
other small projects are undertaken from time to time. <br /><br />Being
as classes at the school we'll be teaching in don't start until
February,<sup>4</sup>
when I arrived I was sent to help the team working on the foundations
of the dormitory. Perhaps that previous sentence would be made
clearer by omission of the word “help,” because I was basically
dropped off at the construction site and neither told anything nor
introduced to anyone. Although SPOILER ALERT</span><br />
<span lang="en-US"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>4 As part of a concerted effort to make sure that nothing in this country can be accomplished in a simple or efficient manner, the Ugandan Ministry of Education divided the school year into trimesters: early February-late April; late May-mid August; mid September-mid November.</b></span></div>
… <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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…</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span lang="en-US"><br />I (and Sam, when
he arrived) eventually actually ended up both doing a decent amount
of work of my own volition and getting on very friendly terms<sup>5</sup>
with the 10-man crew, their foreman Justin, and the building engineer
James, my initial idleness gave me a unique perspective to perform a
study in linguistic anthropology on the dialectical oddities used in
communication on a construction site peopled by native speakers of
Italian, English, Luganda, and other Ugandan tribal
languages.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>5 Which are the only kind of terms in Uganda: “speaking terms,” “contract terms,” and “terms of service” have all been supplanted by “friendly terms.”</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
My study yielded the conclusion that pretty much
everyone does fine: the majority who speak Lugandan either as a first
or acquired language just use that, while with the foreman and
various <span lang="en-US"><i>muzungu </i></span><span lang="en-US">who
speak limited Luganda, English serves just fine.<br /><br />“Pretty
much everyone,” however, leaves out our dear friend Ettore<sup>6</sup>.
He has never had the distinct misfortune of studying the English
language, and having no knowledge of Luganda<sup>7</sup>
has created a </span><span lang="en-US"><i>pidgin, </i></span><span lang="en-US">which
I, in my role as scientist, hereby dub “Ugandan Italish Pidgin not
Pigeon Because There Aren't Any of Those Here; Pigeons, That Is,
Not Pidgins: There's a Pidgin Right Here At This Construction
Site.”<sup>8</sup></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>6 Who is really a good friend and besides a genuinely kind human being, so any jokes at his expense are made out of a brotherly sense of joshing. Made easier perhaps by the fact that even if he reads this he won't have the foggiest what it's about.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>7 He claims to have once spoken a mean Acholi, which is the language of a northern tribe,** but since every Acholi phrase he has taught me contains a liberal smattering of Italian words, I am not inclined to believe him.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>8 Sorry.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>** Which claims as native son one Joseph Kony 2012.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span lang="en-US">
Salient
features of this pidgin include:</span><br />
<ol>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span lang="en-US">Influences
from Italian, English, and Some Strange Language That I Have Not Yet
Identified But Which Appears to Consist Mostly of the Word
“Problem.”</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span lang="en-US">Sentences
of exactly one word each (invariable).</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span lang="en-US">Extremely
limited vocabulary (see </span><span lang="en-US"><i>list of
words identified).</i></span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span lang="en-US">No
discernible grammar.<sup>9</sup></span></div>
</li>
</ol>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span lang="en-US">Words
heretofore identified include:<sup>10</sup> Ok, big, small, mizur^, problem^^, no, Ettore, good^^^, remove,
bring, and timber^^^^.</span><br />
<span lang="en-US"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">9 This is the one feature of the pidgin in question that recommends it as a viable alternative to any other language, most of which possess a grammar that is, to quote a classmate in my high school Italian course, “too damn complicated, you know what I'm saying?”</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">10 And are limited to</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span lang="en-US">^
Appears to derive from the Italian word “misura,” meaning
measure. Although every word in the pidgin serves many functions (except for “Ettore,” which generally serves the function of
“Ettore”), “mizur” is perhaps the most ambiguous. Possible
meanings include: measure, long, short, good, tape measure, tall,
short, bad, just, unjust, offensive, Brobdingnagian, and three.<br />^^
The words ok, problem, no, and some combination thereof, e.g.
“problem no ok,” account for nearly 75% of the spoken utterances
recorded.<br />^^^ Curiously, the word “bad” does not appear,
making this pidgin the most universally optimistic language
discovered since baby-talk.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span lang="en-US">^^^^
As much as I wish “timber” were used as an exclamation to warn
against large falling objects, it appears to represent simply
“lumber.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In an intriguing development, this
language is the first ever analyzed by this scholar that displays the
curious property of being unintelligible to all but one person on
earth. All other members of the construction crew reacted to use of
this speech in much the same way as you or I would react to a
pigeon<sup>11</sup>
landing in front of us while clearly trying to impart some extremely
important information via a series of clucks and squawks. Their
befuddled bemusement was so complete that if they <i>did </i>understand,
they deserve employment as actors instead of as construction
workers.<br />
<br />
After a time, however, I was given an opportunity
rarely accorded anthropological linguists<sup>12</sup>
when I voluntarily became a part of the community experiencing this
never-before-documented language by deciding that lack of direction
be damned, I was going to help out.<sup>13</sup>
While my first moment on the receiving end of the pidgin in question
resulted in limited success—in response to a command to “bring
big,” I brought Ettore in turn a large piece of lumber, a
wheelbarrow, and a large shovel before it was revealed to me that he in fact wanted a hammer.<sup>14</sup><br />
<sup><br /></sup>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>11 Not a pidgin, just to be clear</b></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">12 And more remarkable still considering I am not, in fact, an anthropological linguist, however much the preceding research may have demonstrated an impeccable grasp of that science's finer points.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">13 Naturally, I inadvertently broke several things before they cottoned on that the only way to be safe from my “help” was to tell me what to do.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">14 Which in my defense was much not bigger than all of the items I brought him.</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div>
And
then a funny thing happened. Ettore turned to me and said “remove
timber—problem,” and it was as if I had turned a corner in my
mind that gave onto a vista of indescribable vastness and beauty—I
heard his words trumpeted by angels, but now they sounded more like
“please help to take out the nails from that board, as you can
clearly see it is crooked and will obstruct the flow of cement into
this area.” Sometimes all you need is to hear something in your
language.<br />
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<i>Note: Thanks for muddling through this (which, by the way, is about 95% factually accurate). I promise more pictures and less footnotes next time. If you want to see anything else I've written about being abroad and don't want to wait until the next time I post here, check out my <a href="http://ohtheplacesalexhasntgoneyet.wordpress.com/">blog</a> over at Wordpress, which will not be updated while I'm in Uganda.</i>
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Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13462803514087342452noreply@blogger.com1