The wind is in from Africa

I am the sales manager for a solar light distributor and it's part of my job to answer questions about our products. However, I'm fairly certain that the most common question I am asked these days is something to the effect of "How much longer do you think you'll stay in Africa/Uganda?" I get this question from family, friends, fellow RPCVs even people who themselves have been living here for a long time. My mom is certain that she will never reclaim her daughter from Africa, though every time I'm home she does her best to get me to commit to moving back.

The truth is that I'm not sure when and where I'll go next, but I am happy where I am, loving my job and comfortable in my skin. I miss my family and friends back in the US but I believe that each person has their own path to take and that this is mine.

I remember my urge to travel the world starting at some point during my college days at Iowa. I can remember walking along the Iowa River under an overcast sky, listening, through my headphones, to Joni Mitchell singing about far-off places and all the interesting people there are to meet out there, all the wonderful adventures there are to be had.

At that time I was limited by school and my swimming career, otherwise I might have participated in a study-abroad program. I had to settle for vacations being more or less centered on competitions or training but Joni's poetry never left me.

There is a bit of irony in the fact that my mom is the one who introduced me to Joni Mitchell's music, one of the things that inspired me to travel and live abroad. Her songs mentioning stamps of many countries and passport smiles, Paris, Rome and Grecian Isles and that "Urge for Going."

With this as well as a fascination I found in talking to people I met previously who had lived in other countries, spoke more languages than English pushed me on my way to where I am now. Now I have lived in three countries, speak three languages (ok, not fluently but I get by) and have visited 15% of the world's countries and when I think about returning to the states another of Joni's lines comes to mind: "Will you take me as I am?... Strung out on another man?" from her song "California." To me the line questions whether a readjustment to the US is ever fully possible.

Maybe I'll find out one day.

Final Goodbyes

Any time you say goodbye to someone, there’s really no telling if it’s that last time you will see them. Living so far away from family, I am a bit more cognizant of that fact and this is definitely one of the drawbacks to living abroad. If I simply lived in Philadelphia, a last-minute trip to the mid-west would be much more feasible for many reasons.

Ever since I started Peace Corps, goodbyes, especially with my grandparents began to hold a lot more meaning than they used to. The price of a ticket home along with the time it takes (12-15hr for Senegal, 24-30hr for Uganda) would likely prove prohibitive for me.

In the past few months, I have gone through this last goodbye twice with my grandpa. With the help of family, I was able make the last minute trip home to attend my grandma’s funeral in September and at the end of that trip, not knowing when I’d next be home, I anticipated the likelihood that I would not see my grandpa again and I know that he was thinking the same thing.
It was an emotionally stressful time with my grandma’s passing; all the family together, making decisions, etc (Side note: I’m pretty sure the phrase “too many cooks in the kitchen” was coined at a function where many Jews were in attendance. My Jewish family, with plenty of big personalities is no exception – everyone has their opinion and it’s their way or the highway).

I was able to make the trip home because of some generous relatives and I felt like I needed to be there for my grandpa more than anyone else. Being home for the funeral also turned out to be nice in that I got to see family and friends that I hadn’t seen in years, I would say that one of the high points about living abroad is that when you come home, people are more happy and excited to see me but sometimes I’m also starting to think that it’s wearing off. Since my grandma was 85 years old with 3 sons, 6 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren, she had lived a very full life and her funeral was much more a celebration of her life than mourning for a life left unlived.

Coincidentally, during my short stay, I celebrated my 30th birthday. Another drawback to living so far away is that I am rarely with family on birthdays or holidays. This was my first birthday home since 2005.

At the end of my visit, I said a tearful goodbye to my grandpa. I should say that the last few times we’ve gone through this, he has also cried – something I can’t ever remember seeing before and something that gets me choked up every time I think about it.

After this experience I decided to make a trip home for the holidays because contrary to what my lifestyle might say about me, family is very important to me and I miss passing the holidays with my family. Again, hadn’t done this since 2004. The trip was great and relaxing and just what I needed but at the end I found myself saying a potentially last goodbye to my grandpa.

The difference is that this time, I don’t know when I’ll be back.

Flash Back

I've been living here for going on 2 years now and although I have an admittedly horrible memory, I cannot remember it being this hot in Kampala since I've arrived. Everyone seems to be complaining about the heat. I'm currently laying in bed, not doing anything, sweating. Today was a two-shower day, reminding me of my days in Kaolack, though there are a good couple months per year with three-shower days in Kaolack.

Oh, another thing, I'm actually writing another blog these days. Not that I'm proud of it but just wanted to let you know that I have actually been writing regularly, it's just drivel. I've found myself as the Hash Scribe for the Kampala Hash House Harriers. Be warned that it won't be funny or even interesting for those of you who don't know the hash and it may not be funny or interesting for some of you who are even members of the hash but here it is: http://www.kampalahashhouseharriers.blogspot.com/

Smiles

Acting a fool

It's an obscene hour for a week night and I'm awake. I have several posts in the works that are much heavier and therefore a bit intimidating to sit down and finish but I will eventually do it. I've been reading friends' blogs and have been reminded of how neglected mine has been. Work and extracurriculars have been keeping me busy in 2010 and I'm looking forward to a great year; a visit from my sister (the last member of my family to make the trip to Africa) and a cousin and a trip to Zanzibar (inch'allah) are slated for the first part of the year.

Looking at the date has left me baffled several times already. 2010 means that it has been 5 years since I graduated from graduate school, 9 since undergrad and since my retirement from competitive swimming, 13 (ugh!) since I graduated high school and 18 since I was called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah. Time definitely moves differently as I get older but I have this sneaking suspicion that it somehow moves faster in Uganda, well, for me at least. Weeks seemingly gone in the blink of an eye.

Before this becomes another year of neglecting the blog I wanted to share a humiliating but funny story. Last weekend I went to see Avatar with my friend Dan. After seeing it here and loving it I'm really kicking myself for not seeing it in 3-D in the US. But I digress. After the movie Dan and I were discussing what we had just seen while walking down the ramp that takes you from floor to floor in the Garden City shopping mall. As we got to the end of one part of the ramp I look up and notice a man with his camera phone pointed at me. I stare at him for a moment before saying in an obviously irritated way "WHAT are you doing?" The man responds by shifting the aim of camera phone to a location behind be. Dan and I both turn to look and find a group of kids smiling, posing for a photo. Foot inserted in mouth, (let's be honest, this isn't an uncommon position for me) I apologize and scurry down the rest of the ramp.

All the best in 2010.

Accidents (cont.)

As I was in the middle of writing the previous post on the accident, just about a week later, I was on the porch of our office/house, meeting with a colleague when I heard a terrible screeching followed by a crash from the road. We ran over to get a clear vantage point and we saw a car in the middle of the T intersection and a crowd starting to gather. We went out to investigate and found a screaming woman (driver of the car), a young man bleeding profusely (driver of the motorcycle), a young boy laying on the ground (motorcycle passenger #1) and a young girl standing near the boy, crying (motorcycle passenger #2). The woman had been driving too fast while talking on her cell phone. She went to make a right turn (crossing the lane of traffic since we drive on the left here), didn't see the motorcycle coming from straight ahead and pulled right in front of the motorcycle with it's two young passengers. The motorcycle was also going too fast, especially considering the kids on the back and that no one was wearing helmets. The motorcycle driver hit the side of the car then smashed into the windshield, earning him a deep gash in his forehead causing him to bleed all over. The boy must have been thrown by the accident because he was laying several meters from the car and his sister was standing over him.

As soon as I came out of our gate I saw members of the crowd trying to move the boy. I screamed to the group to stop but it was no use, they continued to pick up the boy and move him to the side of the road. Soon after that, it became evident that the motorcycle driver was intending to take the boy and the girl on another motorcycle to the hospital, that means 3 passengers plus the driver on one small motorcycle. I stood in front of that motorcycle and ordered him not to move. Upon checking out the boy and girl, the boy had a large goose egg on his head and was bleeding a little from scratches on his face but didn't have any other visible injuries. The girl, while frightened, didn't seem to be hurt. The man was the scariest for me with my fear of blood, he was bleeding all over; bright, red blood. He also must have been in shock because he was walking around, talking on his phone (presumably to the kids' parents), checking on the kids and bleeding all over everything. While my colleague was on the phone, trying to get an ambulance, we got the driver a clean cloth to put pressure on his head and managed to get him to sit down.

Eventually the kids and driver were loaded into the car of a good Samaritan and we assume that they met up with the ambulance before they reached the end of our road but the scene had still been so chaotic, as I guess any accident scene is. The driver of the car was still screaming - praying to Jesus that she would be taken instead of the children. Dozens of people were milling around just to watch. The police showed up surprisingly quickly but didn't do anything aside from arresting the driver of the car. After the car had left, a man I could only assume to be the father of the two children arrived. He was, understandably, a wreck and after he got an explanation, he boarded a motorcycle taxi to go find his kids.

It was a frustrating and emotionally-charged week but I learned a couple days later that all three of the accident victims had been released from the hospital. I also learned that the boda driver is back to driving bodas. I've been told that he "sometimes" wears a helmet.

There is something just wrong about this

I'd like you to take a look at this photo. What is your first reaction?



Mine is to kind of shudder and grimace, as one does when one sees something creepy. It conjures images from the movies "Deliverance" or "The Village." Those poor, hillbilly children, the little one is so ill, probably the result of generations of inbreeding, that she doesn't have the strength to go on a walk with her big sis/mother, with the ultra-creepy long, long hair and weird hat combo.

So I first saw this image in Kisumu, Kenya. It was a horrible trip for me but I saw the image on a billboard before things went bad - maybe it was an omen.

Making this billboard even more strange is the geographical location of the company; this insurance company is in operation in East Africa (Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania), in fact they say they're the "#1 Insurer in East Africa." If you're in East Africa, why on earth are you using weird and so-pale-they're-nearly-translucent hillbillies in your ads? Maybe you should take all that money you're making as the #1 insurer and hire a better designer next time. Ick!

Accidents

In my time in Senegal and Uganda, I have now witnessed the aftermath of two accidents, one in each country. Thankfully the most recent one in Uganda was not as bad as the one in Senegal that resulted in the death of a young boy, but it did bring up some similar feelings of frustration and disbelief.

To set the scene; I was jogging in Kololo (an affluent part of town that is home to embassies and diplomats) with my friend Dan. As we came up one of the many hills that make Kampala such a joy to jog in, it was clear that there had just been an accident. A crowd of about 20 people had already gathered including one other American who had witnessed the accident. A man was laying in the middle of the road, unconscious, wearing the uniform of a security guard. It was quickly recounted that the guard had been riding on the back of a motorcycle taxi (boda-boda) when a car nearly hit them and the boda-boda swerved to avoid the car, knocking the passenger off.

Cars had stopped, thankfully stopping traffic. This is rare in other parts of town because once any car stops they are often blamed for the accident, fined and sometimes subject to an angry mob. The man woke up and started to move. Dan and I were both yelling to him to stop moving but he didn't listen, he sat up and spat out some blood. At this point we had no idea how bad his injuries were but he insisted on trying to stand up at which point it became evident that he had, at least, an obviously broken leg.

Several guards from other companies were among the group that had gathered, when I asked them to radio for help, they refused. Eventually a man from the victim's company came by but he was totally worthless. After some shouting (on our part) we finally figured out that if anything was going to happen, we were going to be the ones to instigate and pay. We needed to get him to the hospital, his guard company wasn't going to do anything for him. Neither Dan nor I had a phone or money with us so we couldn't call for a car, though nearly every other person in the group had a phone in their pocket. One man was finally convinced by my yelling and got the phone out of his pocket just in time for us to decide to send a motorcycle to bring a car.

Since the victim didn't have any money, Dan and I rode to the hospital with him, waited for quite a while for them to bring out a stretcher, as the man was moaning in agony. We told the doctors what we knew while they were interrogating him about whether he was drunk. We had the taxi drop us where our things were, where he ended up charging us double what he should have.

The truly frustrating part is what always seems like a lack of value for human life to the outsider, though I know that's not the case. The crowd of 20 standing around staring at the accident victim, not doing anything to help; the bus full of people that just ran over a boy and won't tell me what number to call when I'm screaming at them in their own language and offering to make the call. A Ugandan friend told me, when I recounted the story, that it's not uncommon for these crowds to rob accident victims if they are unconscious or dead. It is so difficult for me to fathom this behavior but I also come from a culture that learns first aid and "steps in case of emergency" from a very young age, I also, incidentally, come from a family of lifeguards and EMTs. The communal "it takes a village" mentality rules over much of Ugandan and Senegalese society but is oddly absent at other times. I'm still trying to figure out which is which.

As we left the man in the hands of the doctors at Mulago Hospital, I wrote down my phone number for him, trying to be a good samaritan. In two days I was called and told to come to a specific market to pay for the crutches he was having made and a few weeks after that I was sent messages and called to deposit money in a bank account because he was "in crisis." I didn't buy him crutches nor did I deposit money in the strange bank account.

Expatriate Life

Expatriate (in abbreviated form, expat): a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing or legal residence. The word comes from the Latin ex (out of) and patria (country, fatherland).

When I was in the Peace Corps we had mixed emotions about expats. We envied them because they often live in very nice houses with AC, have salaries that far more than cover living expenses in a developing country and have access to all the luxuries that the capital city and the diplomatic pouch have to offer. We also often thought them out of touch with the real needs of host-country communities and sometimes, when they were in touch with those needs, big bureaucratic NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and other aid organizations often have big, expensive projects that don't help in a sustainable way. This gets into the whole debate on aid which I'll avoid this time around. Anyway, I find myself now living as an expat.

While my salary is modest and in my opinion AC isn't necessary here, I rarely leave Kampala. I've only visited a couple villages and I find myself partaking of the Kampala luxuries (restaurants, bars, salons) quite often. Each time I encounter a Peace Corps Volunteer here I wonder if I have become one of those out-of-touch expats.

I believe in the company I am working for and I think that it already has and will continue to create sustainable development but I still do wonder if there's something out there, a cultural glitch in the plan, just waiting to pop up and make things impossible. I am often the one in our office who brings up the place of culture and cross-cultural communication in what we're doing but I am no expert in Ugandan culture of styles of communication. I usually turn to one of our Ugandan colleagues and ask them, hoping I know the right questions to ask, but when I think about it, my Ugandan colleagues really belong to almost a separate culture from that of our target market; as in any society, an urban, middle-class citizen doesn't have a lot in common with the poor, rural citizen. Do any of us know the right questions to ask while developing a project to make that project as successful as possible?

Another part of expat life in a developing country is living in great comfort and relative luxury while many of those around me are impoverished live in squalor. Kampala is not as segregated as some other cities in the region, many neighborhoods, including mine, have large colonial era houses in close proximity to slums. This poverty is why I am here but I feel so ambivalent about it. I see people living below the poverty line so often that most of the time it doesn't even phase me, but then, occasionally it'll push its way through my desensitization and hits me in the gut.

Some of the things that get to me: The small children, as young as toddlers, who beg amongst the traffic-laden streets at the insistence of their mothers; The children who live down the hill from me who fetch water all day, instead of going to school, from a small stream that happens to be right across the street from a nice private school; The hawkers around town who carry loads of merchandise around, trying to sell it and razor-thin margins, maybe end up making about $2 per day; The man who is wearing his Sunday best suit that is 5 sizes too big.

Interwebs in Africa

A friend recently wrote to me asking about internet access here in Uganda, specifically in more rural areas. I thought that it might be something that others are interested in so here is my response to him:

Our business is running on the fact that the national electricity provider only has 300,000 customers in a country of 30+ million people. At least 90% of the population is living off the grid so this pretty much makes internet impossible for now since something has to power the computers. So far there isn't a great option for running them on solar but we're working on it.

In the towns that are connected to the grid there are usually internet cafes that I imagine use dial-up so slow you wouldn't even recognize it as the internet ;) Also some of my friends in Kampala have little modems for their laptops, put out by cell phone service providers, about the size of business cards, that are supposed to connect them to the internet where ever there is cell coverage for that particular company. There is a satellite company here but I'm not sure exactly how it works. In any case, internet is quite expensive, that little modem is about $150 for the modem itself then about $65/month.

The big news for geeks here is that the "cable" is going to "hit the continent" any day now. Meaning that fiber-optic cables are being extended from somewhere in the middle-east to the Kenyan coast. This is supposed to speed things up a lot and decrease the price maybe but no one seems to know exactly what will happen when it lands - the feeling is akin to that leading up to Y2K, except that it can really only get better.

My friend Jon has a very popular blog about technology in Africa that you might be interested in, he's recently been recognized for his efforts by some pretty big players like Google. http://appfrica.net/blog/

Keeping Time

I just had a meeting canceled on me because I was running 10-15 minutes late, this is actually early for African meeting standards, at least from my experience, but the meeting was with an American who apparently hasn't adjusted to life here. With meeting times, if we muzungus don't adapt to the idea that meetings will always start between 15 min and 1.5 hrs late, we won't last very long here without some sort of break down.

For those of you who may be visiting for work, or are new to this idea, here are some tips:

1. Bring something to work on - this way you won't get too enraged/worried about the work that you're not doing back at the office.

2. Bring something to read - I caught on to this one in the Peace Corps when I didn't have a laptop to haul around with me, incidentally it was the two most literary years of my entire life.

3. Show up late - I haven't really adjusted to this one, as it seems to perpetuate the whole problem. But then again, as per the story above, I guess I have kind of adjusted... I've heard stories about government officials purposely showing up an hour late to big meetings because they know it won't start until then. Then again, the Prime Minister here just shows up on time and berates the diplomats and government officials who show up even 5 minutes late.

4. Schedule the meeting for an hour earlier than you need it to start - This one works well if the meeting is at your place of work or where you'll be anyway

You are lost...

This is what Ugandans say when they haven't seen you in a while. This may be what some people think of someone who hasn't updated their blog in nearly 5 months...

So I've been lost, I freely admit that. In the time between posts a lot has happened; the world has fallen into some pretty major economic troubles, the United States has elected and inaugurated a new president (hurray!) and 2009 is well underway.

My sister Sara came to visit over the New Year and we had a great time catching up, rafting the Nile (picture), visiting the Abayudaya and relaxing a bit. I'm looking forward to visiting her in Zambia sometime in the next year.





Here in Kampala, Uganda, things are moving forward. We've received shipments of product, are setting up some exciting partnerships and moving forward in the formation of BASE Technologies. This is mostly what has been keeping me busy for the past 5 months. Though I'm still hashing and playing frisbee - I ran my second half marathon in November, and recently I participated in the 7 Hills Run that took us up and down 7 of the hills that Kampala is famous for.
(Soo, Teeny and myself at the Red Dress Hash)




I've been asked and have accepted to stay with BASE on for an additional year. I figure with all the stuff going on in the US, keeping a stable job with a company that I love is the best option for me at the moment (sorry mom and dad!). The good news is that this gives you all an additional 12 months to plan your visits to Uganda!

Also, I'm going to do my best to be more inspired to write and keep this updated... late new year's resolution, but feel free to send badgering emails to remind me too.

Bananas!

Uganda has, as far as I can tell, about 18 different kinds of bananas. Ok, I’m exaggerating but they really do have at least 4 or 5. One is matoke, which I really haven’t figured out exactly what it is… unripe banana, plantain? Either way, not really that delicious to me. What is delicious though is the mini-banana, as I’ve started calling them. These bananas are sweet and about a third of the size of the giant, tasteless bananas we have in the states. Some friends and I are considering a venture to import them into the US. We think they will be a real hit but we can’t decide whether to market them as “snack-size bananas – perfect for that small craving!” or “diet bananas – 1/3 the calories of regular bananas!” What do you think?

Debate Parties

My friend Sarah recently moved to Kampala with her boyfriend Jon and soon after that she became the organizer of Overseas Voters for Obama – Uganda chapter. When the debates started she started organizing gatherings at their house to watch and she took steps to help us figure out the complicated venture of voting overseas – no matter where our allegiances lie. It turns out that there are two options for us; absentee ballot and federal write-in ballot. We were told that we could do both and they “would not count more than one.” Really, we just assume that this means that our votes won’t be counted at all since the overseas votes are only counted if the quantity would make a difference in the outcome after all the regular votes are counted.

Since the debates were live at about 4am Kampala time, we have a friend, Simon, who has the fastest internet in town apparently, and was able to download clips for viewing at the next available weekend. To no one’s surprise the crowd is nearly 100% liberal, democrat, NGO-working, ex-pat, Obama-supporters. And if this isn’t so, no one has been brave enough to be the voice of opposition. An effort was made for the VP debate to invite some Marines and attempt to diversify the crowd, but none of them could make it.

There is so much preaching to the choir that has gone on at these parties that I feel that I may be getting lulled into the false sense of confidence that I experienced for the past two presidential elections. Next time we’ll try harder to get some McCain supporters but the truth is that they’re relatively hard to find. Conventional wisdom says that most McCain supporters in Uganda and in Africa in general will either be military or missionaries, both of which are pretty big groups here, but not really in Kampala per se.

Ugandans on the other hand, as you can imagine, LOVE Barak Obama. The debate parties have even had several non-Americans turn up who obviously can’t even vote but were sporting Obama t-shirts and wanted to do everything they could to support him. Kenya is a neighboring country and many Africans feel that because of his roots, he will do more to help African than his predecessors. I’m not so sure about this but after some of the current administration’s policies toward Africa and HIV/AIDS specifically, anything would be an improvement*.

We’re planning to have one more debate gathering to watch the most recent debate as well as a post-election day breakfast to watch the results, 8am here is 10pm on the West coast so maps of red states and blue states over scrambled eggs is the plan.


*If you’re curious about this, and you should be, check out PEPFAR – the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief – and the controversy surrounding it. I’ll be posting something more about this soon.

Rosh Hashanah with the Abayudaya

Before I came to Uganda, I heard about a group of Ugandan Jews, the Abayudaya, Luganda for “people of Judah,” the Abayudaya came into being in 1919, when military leader Semei Kakunglulu took the information he received from British missionaries and found that the old testament appealed to him far more than the rest. When he was told that those traditions were of Jews he announced that he, then, would be a Jew. The population has fluctuated over the years and also took a hit during the Idi Amin years when they had to go into hiding or convert (some never converted back), but they are now free to live as Jews in Uganda and have a thriving population of about 1,000 people.

There are a surprising number of Jewish ex-pats in Kampala and Uganda in general. Before I had been here a month, I had already met several, who had all been to visit the Abayudaya. Most of them seemed quite skeptical about the community, but also encouraged me to visit and make my own decisions. Most of the skepticism comes from the fact that the Jewish villages, while they are still poor African villages, compared to the neighboring Muslim and Christian villages, are quite wealthy owing to the aid focused on them by Jewish charities and the attention they receive from Jewish tourists. Even with this, I hear that it wasn’t uncommon to hear the interim Rabbi talk about how poor they were and how much help they needed during a sermon or to see kids run up to the tourists begging for money or small tokens. Then, not long ago I met another Jewish ex-pat, Sarah, who had been here two years and visited the Abayudaya a number of times and really enjoyed herself, not left with a bad taste in her mouth like the others.

Determined to make up my own mind and have my own experience, I traveled with Sarah to Mbale – a 3 hour drive from Kampala – in the shadow of beautiful Mt. Elgon, for a Rosh Hashanah unlike any I had experienced before.

Sarah gave me a little history and who’s who in the community on the way up; the Rabbi – Rabbi Gershom had been away in the US and Israel going to rabbinical school for the past four years. He had gotten back not long ago and this was going to be his first major holiday back in his home community. As we arrived in the village and walked up to the one-room synagogue, there were kids playing in the yard. They ran up to us with stickers of Hebrew letters on their faces and yelled, “Shabat Shalom!” We walked through the open doors at the back of the overflowing sanctuary, and found women on one side, dressed in their best traditional clothes, some with their hair covered, and the men on the other side, all wearing tallit, the Jewish prayer shawl and hand-made, bright-colored kippot, Jewish skull caps. The sight, like the rest of the experience, was familiar yet so different all at once. We were handed prayer books, found two seats on the women’s side of the room and sat down, we brought the total Muzungu attendance of the service to 11. In this particular synagogue, the men and women are separated but there is no mechitzah(divider) between them and there is as much interaction and participation by the women as there is by the men; seemed to be a conservative congregation more than anything else.

Everything from the Torahs to the prayer books to the tallit was second hand, donated from other congregations in the Diaspora. Most of the prayer shawls worn by the men of the congregation had holes but the Torahs (three of them) seemed to be in decent shape.

As the service progressed and I heard my first song, tears welled up in my eyes. The familiar words were put to rich, beautiful African harmonies that filled the small room and overflowed out across the hillside. Time and again, the congregation would amaze me with the songs.

Then came time for the Torah service, the Aliyahs were performed by a mix of Ugandans, Israelis and Americans, men and women. For one particular American, a friend of mine now, being raised Orthodox, it was her first time to be called to the torah in front of a congregation. She shared with us later that it had been a very meaningful experience for her.

The Haftorah portion was read by a young woman who, I was told, had gone to University in Kampala and had returned to the village to be a teacher at the village school. She had translated the reading from Hebrew to Luganda, so most of the congregation would be able to understand. Following the Torah and Haftorah portions of the service, Rabbi Gershom gave a sermon, but unlike other sermons I’ve witnessed, it was interactive. The Rabbi spoke for a bit and then asked a question, I anticipated it to be rhetorical but then he called on someone to answer, and then someone else, as a man stood near the rabbi translating between Luganda and English. People sharing their views on what they thought the Torah and Haftorah portions meant seemed so natural, I wondered why I hadn’t seen it before.

Following the service, everyone greeted their neighbors with, “Shana Tova!” and we were all invited to sit under the large tree in the yard and eat lunch. The apples and honey were replaced with bread and honey – apples are extremely expensive since they need to be imported.

Blowing the shofar (a type of instrument made from the horn of a ram) is something I always thought I would be able to do since I played the trumpet for 7 years and the way of playing is similar. Sarah encouraged me to ask the Rabbi if I could blow the shofar the following day at services. I approached him after the service and he enthusiastically agreed.

Following lunch, some of the muzungus decided to go for a walk in the beautiful hills that surrounded the villages. Once we returned to the synagogue, I found some men practicing blowing the shofar so I joined them. It turns out that they actually came to this village for Rosh Hashanah from quite far; the village that is the furthest from the original. At sometime during my time there, a story was shared with me about these men and the lengths they had to go to for Judaism. As they were going through the steps of becoming Jewish, it became clear that they would need to be circumcised. They approached the main Rabbi and he refused, told them to find a Muslim to do it, something they weren’t comfortable with. After some back and forth, the story goes, they eventually settled on using a man from a particular Ugandan ethnic group to do the job, that regularly perform circumcision on older boys and men.

So here I was, in an absolutely stunning setting, practicing shofar with three African villagers; quite surreal for someone whose identity has always been molded by her Judaism and is increasingly shaped by her time and experiences in Africa. The first day, the shofar had been greeted by all of the children running inside to witness it and cheers that erupted into high-pitched noises from the ladies side – in case I had forgotten I was still in Africa, that sound reminded me. I was definitely looking forward to performing at the second service.

The next day the crowd had thinned a bit, some of the Ugandans who had come from their distant villages the day before had decided to stay home and muzungu crowd was also diminished, but the service and songs were just as beautiful as the day before. Eventually I was called up to do my part in the service along with 4 or 5 other Ugandan men. “Takiyah, Shevarim, Teruah,” called Rabbi Gershom, denoting the type of notes to be played. Then the big one, that everyone loves; “Takiyah Galodah.” Using parts of my competitive nature and lung capacity that I don’t often use anymore, my Takiyah Gadolah outlasted everyone else’s and the synagogue cheered and laughed as I returned to my seat.

Following the service we hiked down to the community mikvah, a small cement pool used for ritual cleansing, to symbolically toss our sins, wrongdoings and broken promises(represented by stones and bread crumbs) away to start the new year fresh. When we got back to the synagogue, we had another lunch under the big tree with Rabbi Gershom and his family. It was very interesting to ask him about his time in the US and in Israel, his youngest daughter was actually born in Jerusalem. I asked them how it was to return to the village after living in Bel Aire(!). Both the rabbi and his wife responded that they missed the conveniences and steak(their favorite food).

I left the village vowing to myself to come back especially if any of my family come to visit. My mom would especially love seeing the Jewish school and children playing and singing the songs that she has been teaching kids in Madison for so many years. I feel so lucky that I was able to visit the Abayudaya and have such a special experience and I know that my next trips there for Shabbat or Pesach will be just as good.

For another perspective, here is a link to an article my friend Glenna wrote for the Jerusalem Post last year: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1192380651705&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Rwanda

A few weeks ago there was a hash run in a small town in Rwanda on Lake Kivu (the 6^th largest lake in Africa). Having not left Uganda since I arrived and wanting to visit Rwanda, I took advantage and joined my fellow Kampala hashers for the trip. Well, actually I took the non-hash bus as to avoid the drinking, rowdiness and the frequent pit-stops that become necessity because of the drinking. I took the regional bus line and it took us through varied terrain, from hills to plains to mountains, all before we reached the border, usually at high speeds. We left Kampala at 9am and reached the border around 3 or 4 pm. Once we were in Rwanda the traffic changed back to driving on the right, something I was slightly uncomfortable with so I guess that means I’ve become used to driving on the left, or maybe it was because even though the driver was driving on the right side of the road, his steering wheel was located on the right side of the bus.

As we made our way down the winding roads through the beautiful African mountain villages I couldn’t keep my mind from the genocide that occurred in Rwanda so recently – the 1994 mass killing of hundreds of thousands of Rwanda's minority Tutsis and the moderates of its Hutu majority. Over the course of approximately 100 days, from April 6 through to mid July, at least 500,000 people were killed. Most estimates are of a death toll between 800,000 and 1,000,000. A concise review of the happenings can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide but there have been many books written and films made on the subject; Books – "We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families” and “Shake Hands with the Devil” Films – “Shake Hands with the Devil,” ”Sometimes in April,” and “Shooting Dogs”

Please read the wikipedia article before continuing if you are unfamiliar with the events of the time, of particular interest might be the role of the West, the UN and the US – you may remember US officials quibbling about the “definition” of genocide while hundreds of thousands of people were being brutally murdered based on their ethnic group or support of that ethnic group.

During the ride into Rwanda, I would see an older man walking along the road, wonder where he was during that time, what atrocities he must have seen, what might have happened to him, what he may have done to others. And then I saw many children who have been born since the genocide, how are their lives different from other African children? Do their parents and older siblings talk about the genocide much? Rwanda is one of the most densely populated places on the planet so there was never really a lack of people to see out the bus window and wonder about.

Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, is even hillier than Kampala – well, I guess the difference would be large hills in Kampala versus mountains in Kigali. Rwanda was initially a German colony, then a Belgian colony and the French were also very active there and thus, French was the official language of government. But since the genocide, and the role of Europeans in the genocide, Rwanda has become less and less friendly toward the French and the Belgians. In fact, a report was recently published by Rwandan authorities implicating the French as somehow enabling the genocide (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7542418.stm) Because of the touchy Franco-Rwandan relations, many Rwandans prefer to speak English instead of French so in the capital you find older signs in French but newer signs in both French and English and most educated people actually speak both languages well.

We spent one night in Kigali and left, with a lot of hurry-up-and-wait, for the lake the next morning. The drive took three hours and included some more beautiful views. We drove through many small towns that contained large signs referring to the genocide. There were also many statues of gorillas, not only because this part of Rwanda (Parc National des Volcans) is where some of the few remaining groups of mountain gorillas are located, but also because the presence of gorillas indicates peace. During the genocide, the gorillas fled the areas of fighting for places where gunshots weren’t audible. So it was a big deal when they returned to their former homes, they are the messengers of a time of healing for the country.

The town that played host to the hash, Gisenyi, is right on the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the DRC – if you have read “America, the Textbook” you’ll remember the DRC from the section that showed the number of inherent lies the name of the country as the names changed – the country was formerly known as Zaire), a beautiful, mountain town perched over the lake. (Since the hash, it has been in African news because the President of the DRC is accusing Rwandan troops of crossing the border.) From the beach you can see some sort of platform on the horizon. When I inquired, I was told that there are major methane deposits under the lake, and that occasionally that methane bubbles up from the bottom of the lake. With somewhat less certainty, I was told that if someone was caught in the water by one of these lava-heated methane bubbles, they would almost certainly die.

The hash was, not surprisingly, a very hilly one, and started with a nice, steep climb up to a level with a great view over the lake. Taking in the view and running are not two things I can multitask, especially when the running path is as narrow as this one was so I slowed down to a walk and still tripped, nearly hurling myself over the edge of a mountain. Luckily I’m still here to type the tail. We ran through villages and large groves of banana trees. Children ran along with us, something that happens at most hashes, because of the novelty of a large group of people running through their community – probably something they’ll talk about for weeks.

Later on in the weekend I was talking with another hasher, an American woman who had been working there for a couple months. As we gathered at the beach, a mother dog and her puppy were playing near by. In Uganda this would not be an uncommon sight as stray dogs of all kinds are everywhere – in fact, as I’m typing this I can hear two or three barking in my neighborhood at 8:45 on a Sunday evening. The woman commented that she had previously only seen one other dog in Rwanda during he entire stay. When I reacted with surprise she explained that during and after the genocide, dogs (and cats) were found eating the corpses – the bodies of people who were killed, so ever since, dogs and cats were rarely allowed to live.

Because the Kigali hash group is so small, I really only got to meet a few Rwandan hashers (most of them are ex-pats), but those that I did meet were extremely friendly and welcoming as I’ve come to expect anywhere on the continent. I am still curious about which ethnic groups the people I met fall in to, I didn’t feel it appropriate to ask. My stay in Rwanda showed me that they are recovering but having only spent a very short time there, it is still very difficult to understand exactly what is going on. Unlike the genocide in Europe during WWII, very many Rwandans are still living amongst their neighbors who may have turned on them in 1994; just one more unimaginable point in this horrific history.

These are some Crested (crowned) Cranes that I saw in Rwanda - they are the national symbol of Uganda - even on the Ugandan flag, but to this day I haven't seen them here.

Dancing

A new Cuban Restaurant and Bar recently opened in Kampala and already I’ve been there several times, but the opening night was by far the most interesting night. The Ugandan DJs took a while to get warmed up and actually playing Latin music but once they did, many of us converged on the dance floor. Along with my friends whom I had come with there were many people hailing from Spanish-speaking countries, and a host of characters including a sleazy older British man who owns a popular bar in town, a Ugandan break dancer/break dance instructor and a marine.

I had previously met the break dance instructor and he had invited me to his class but we hadn’t actually talked shop – not that I make a living from dancing but we had some things to share. He saw some of my swalsa moves (ok, I just made up that word for the combination of swing and salsa that a person like myself does when she’s actually trying to do salsa but her muscle memory requires swivels) on the dance floor and asked about them. We exchanged some moves and learned that the basic step – top dropping, I think - for break dance actually looks a lot like Charleston. We talked a little more and he asked if I could teach a class here. I thought about it and told him that if he’d teach with me I’d be fine with it. Plans are in the works.

Next, onto the sleaze. He walked up to me and started talking to me, I obliged in the typical conversation of “where do you come from?” “how long have you been here?” and “what do you do?” until in mid-sentence he walked away from me to light the cigarette of a pretty, young girl who happened to be part of the group I arrived with. More in awe of the sheer comedy of the situation than insulted, I shrugged it off.

Next, I met the marine. We started chatting and I have to admit, I went into the conversation kind of closed-minded and thinking I really wouldn’t have much in common with this guy and sure enough as the conversation turned to the war in Iraq and politics and we walked away shortly after, agreeing to disagree may have been too friendly a statement. It wasn’t a surprise; I was Peace Corps, he is Marine Corps, and that seemed to be only the beginning of the differences.

Later on in the evening, he asked me to dance. He’s pretty good at salsa and I love to dance so of course I accepted. All of our differences and the heated discussion we had earlier floated away on the dance floor and we had a great time. Still a klutz even after a few years of dance classes, I managed to stumble over my own feet when the music got a little fast. I was in a free-fall toward the floor in the middle of a crowded bar when my strong and able dance partner saved me from certain embarrassment and injury and caught me. I make sure to save him at least a couple dances now.

Ambassador Becca

A couple weeks ago I noticed a little yellow flag on the couchsurfing.com profile of my friend Allison, meaning that she had been chosen as a couchsurfing ambassador. I also recently met another couchsurfing ambassador who has moved to Kampala so I figured maybe I’d apply. After all, if you’ve talked to me in the past 9 months you’ve probably heard me raving about couchsurfing.com and how it’s really great (and maybe I’ve convinced you to join or partake somehow) so by my estimates, I’ve been acting as a couchsurfing ambassador for a while anyway, without the title.

So now I have the title – I’m an official Couchsurfing.com Nomadic Ambassador! Woohoo! I actually remember how excited I felt to meet the CS ambassador for Tunisia when we were there (there are three kinds of Ambassador – country, city and nomadic). Now it seems a little silly but I was new to couchsurfing and I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, and actually I still do. It has such a great philosophy – open your home to someone, show them your town or city, show them your culture, show them hospitality and friendship – not the inherent distrust that so many people *cough*Americans*cough* have for their fellow man – and little by little, the world will become a friendlier, nicer place to be and travel. That plus the idea of paying it forward – you host and show someone a good time and then you go travel and are hosted and have a great time. Really, it’s quite simple.

Who knows, maybe this is just the first step in my career as a diplomat… or in my career as a mooching bum ;) … maybe both. If you haven’t already, you should check out the website – www.couchsurfing.com – my profile can be found under the name Mounass. Just be aware, once you travel using couchsurfing you may never want to stay in a hotel again.

Here are some photos from a get-together we had this weekend:

Trainings

The first two days of training were a couple weeks ago. One was in Masaka and the other was in Kampala and they were pretty different but both went well. There were actually no major problems with either training, just a case of not having electricity at the training venue in Masaka, we needed to do some printing so we improvised and did it at the restaurant we went to for lunch. In Kampala we had to call in backups for lunch as the arrangements fell through, but, like I said, nothing major.

The trainees, 14 in total, were a promising bunch of 11 men and 3 women from various backgrounds from working in community development to having their own businesses. They all converged on Kampala for a continuation of their training last week. This is where things started happening like I had expected them to before. I ended up being short-staffed and had to call in some favors from friends (who I am extremely grateful to), then the night before the training was to start – before we had printed most of the handouts and materials necessary for the training, the printer, that has actually been giving us problems since its purchase, stopped functioning again. This magnified the issue of being short staffed and meant someone was going to have to spend some quality time in a printing/copy shop – the Ugandan Kinko’s.

Aside from the preparations, the training again went pretty well. Many of the trainees surprised me with the number of orders they were able to get – many more than we were able fill immediately. Also the group was able to raise a total of 2,240,000 USh - nearly $1400, pretty impressive since group members' monthly income averages less $125 (even though that is much higher than the average Ugandan’s income).

There were several highlights to the training. On the first day of training in Kampala, the trainees went out onto the street to practice their promotional speeches to people walking by. I expected them to come back somewhat discouraged, like the folks in Masaka did, because the first reaction to the product for many is that it is too expensive (this is usually before they realize all the benefits of the Firefly). However when the whole group returned and we started talking about how it went, I soon found that they had actually pitched it so well that three people were prepared to come back and buy the next day. That exercise convinced any doubting trainees that this would indeed lead to increased income generation for them.

Then there was the bookkeeping section of the training. I didn’t expect it to be easy to teach but after I had explained the simple system we had to offer them and gone through several examples, I was still getting blank stares from more than half of the class. That’s when a couple of the trainees who did understand (they both happened to be business owners) and took turns explaining in Luganda (the Ugandan language used in Kampala and Masaka) to the rest of the group. After about 10 minutes most of the group was caught up and understanding the importance and the method for what they would need to do.

Finally, as is common here, the power at our training venue went out a couple times. It happened to be during a rain storm so it got quite dark in the training room. When the lights went out, without hesitation, each of the trainees reached for their sample Firefly lamp and turned it on so we could continue with the training. It seemed to be a very proud moment for Harry who had joined us for the final day of training.

So Barefoot/BASE Technologies now has our first batch of mobile entrepreneurs circulating communities and selling our principal product – the Firefly Solar Lamp.

Ready or not...

Pretty much ever since I got to Uganda about 2.5 months ago, I have been working on a training to teach people business skills they’ll need to start a micro-franchise selling the solar lamps we’re here to distribute. Well, we’re finally about to start training our first batch of entrepreneurs! This was planned to coincide with the first large-scale shipment of product that we’re expecting to be able to put into our newly built… ok, newly refurbished, warehouse – a shed behind Harry’s house – any day now. After lots of hard work we will soon see our plans in action. Will the training have the desired effect? Will people be as interested in and as capable of buying the product as they’ve shown us? What kinds of unforeseen issues will pop up? Because you know there will be unforeseen issues that pop up, TIA – This is Africa.

We go to the site of our first training, Masaka, in a couple days, then we’ll repeat it in Kampala, then after a week break, we’ll bring the two groups together for 3 more days of training. The purpose of the week off is to allow the trainees to have time to raise some funds that they will be able to invest in their “business in a bag” that’ll contain all the material they need to get started with their franchise. They’ll also use this time to market and raise awareness so they can hit the ground running when they return from the second part of training.

Posts to come on how the trainings go.

Vocabulary

I have a few American friends here but I spend most of my time with Ugandans and British and Australian ex-pats so I am finding that my vocabulary is shifting, if only for clarity’s sake. I’ve found myself saying “chips” instead of “fries” and “crisps” instead of “chips.” Beyond junk food there’s also “car park” = “parking lot,” “flat” = “apartment,” “coffee plunger” or “cafetierre” instead of “French press,” “you fancy…?” instead of “would you like…?” Yeah, it’s getting pretty bad.

I have been conscious of my tendency to adopt the language of the people around me since the New Year of the millennium that I spent in Vancouver. Spending a couple hours every day in the pool with a bunch of Canadian swimmers left me speaking like a Canadian. Lame, I know, but I couldn’t help it. I was ending each sentence with a question-like ascent in tone and my vowels were flattened, thankfully I didn’t pick up the famous Canadian “ey,” and my speech pretty much went back to normal after a few days back in the states.

In Senegal, one of my favorite parts of the language were the exclamations (you can read about that in an earlier blog entry) I picked up and if a French person ever heard my French, complete with West African rolled r’s and j’s converted to s’s, they would likely be confused about my origins or at least the origins of my French. Uganda being a former British colony, they speak English and I’ve been picking up on the way they speak English. My flat mate who grew up in Africa has the African English down to a T and it’s actually quite funny to hear her speak like that. She mostly uses it so people can understand her, like moto drivers. She’s been told numerous times, by these guys, how well she speaks English, so much better than the other muzungus. So I too find myself speaking slower, enunciated some sounds more some sounds less, changing the pronunciation of my vowels.

At one point, after having lived in Wisconsin and Iowa, finding myself in Philly and saying things like “wudder,” I became paranoid that my accent was becoming the worst possible mix of mid-western twang and mid-Atlantic speak. Now I add in what I’ve picked up in Africa, who knows if anyone will understand what I’m saying. J