concerning women

So i thought yall might like a glimpse of the cast of characters. This is my language group and my closest muzungu neighbors at site and pretty much the only PCVs i talk to. Out of sight out of mind, unfortunately. Training seems like a lifetime ago and I forget that i know 40 other Americans in this country. I was pretty disappointed that my guy friends are at the other end of the country, but if i had to be with a bunch of girls, I lucked out and ended up with some of the better humored and laid back ladies in the group. Its hard being a women in a Uganda. As a Ugandan women, it seems your destiny is to work, and work hard from the time you can lift a hoe while men drink local brew. And as a volunteer there are so many things that i take for granted, so many things that i can get away with just because i have a penis, that these three continually deal with.

On the left is Caroline, from new Hampshire, worked in radio before coming here and is one of the only volunteers in our group that is not a math or science nerd. she is a little bewildered as to how the PC found her qualified to be here as she is also teaching secondary level math and physics, or at least she was. she rearranged her schedule so that she is now teaching one low level math class and four classes of PE. I did a little rearranging myself, dropped my physics class and added more math, at least i thought i added more math, they keep telling me we'll take care of it tomorrow. so for now i only have one class. like so much of what we were told in training, the idea that we will be working 24/7 is blatantly false. Caroline is currently in Kampala after the medical team came and picked her up last night because she has been sick on and off all week and because of sharp pain in her right side. they thought maybe her appendix was about to burst. Now PC almost never goes to your site to pick you up, you have to get your own sick ass to medical. turns out her parents were worried about her and so called DC and bitched them out. So take note, if i get really sick harass the PC office to save me from taking crowded public transport. When she arrived at the hospital, the Ugandan surgeon had her on a bed and was preparing to remove her appendix when he was told to wait for PC medical staff to get there. good thing he did because her appendix is fine, she has kidney stones. minus one for the Ugandan school of medicine.

Caroline is consistently proposed to when she is out in the community. like myself, she made the mistake of giving out her phone number and on a bad day can get 20 calls from various Ugandans who think they are going to marry her. I only get calls when i show up in town with the girls, from Ugandans who are sure Ive brought them a present. Her host brother still calls her and pretty much thinks they're engaged. When she arrived at her site she met a guy who she thought worked at her school. He showed her around her town, but then wanted to take her to dinner, emphasizing, you drink alcohol right? She finds out he doesn't work for the school but is instead a local politician, people here know me, I'm kind of a big deal. she got a creepy vibe from him so politely at first and then not so politely turned down his offers of dinners and joyrides. So he started showing up at her house, and asking where shes been and why she hasn't called. Caroline finally told him off enough to keep him away, but was fighting tears throughout the encounter and was relieved when she could finally go into the comfort of her house to let it all out. The last time she rode her bike into town to meet up with Aubrey and I, she was followed by two guys on a boda, who stayed just behind her taking pictures of her while she rode. She has a good sense of humor and can mostly laugh it off  but I know its really getting to her and she is still trying to find a way to deal with it.

I've been offered a Ugandan wife a few times but  more often I'm offered someone's child to take back to the states. I think its a indicator that maybe Ive become a little too comfortable here, that last time this happened, I was buying produce when the women says, take my baby. Before I even had a chance to think, I said plainly, no thanks, I'm a vegetarian. Thank god she didn't understand English very well, and that it got a laugh and not a horrified look from my friend Maksim. I think maybe baby-eating humor is not so universal.

Next to Caroline is Aubrey. Aubrey reminds me of Dana, if Dana was from LA and had a princess complex. This is an amazing coincidence and I cant wait to tell her its going in my blog, but she just now called me: why are you taking so long at the Internet cafe? I want my chicken tiki masala! Type faster! She is very LA and and can prove it on the dance floor. Ugandans think we're related, not that that means much because they think we all look alike, but it has worked to her advantage. The boda boda (motor cycle) drivers in our trading center don't hit on her quite as much now that they think she's my sister. Or maybe its because she had her counter part talk to them, but i like to think its because I'm so manly and intimidating. The one thing she found that works as a deterent to ugandan guys it tell them she cant cook. She was smart enough to not give her phone number freely and so doesn't have the same problem as Caroline, but back during training her host cousin did try to sell her to his friend. 

This host cousin told her that his friend wanted to meet her, and although it was a little weird she agreed. at this point we were all naive and thought that we had to be nice and culturally sensitive to every single Ugandan. When they met at the bar, don't worry there were over PCVs there, the friend hands her host cousin 20,000 USH as the host brother walks off laughing. The guy proceeds to tell her how badly he wants to be her friend and says things like, i see you places when you leave Lweza, and, i know you're going to live in budaka and i want to come visit you. Aubrey basically says, aww fuck no, and leaves him sitting there. She had an extremely awkward dinner at home stay that night with the cousin and family. Rightfully so she was pretty shaken up and so got Fred, the Ugandan security officer for the PC involved. Now Fred is basically a bad ass. He was chatting with some volunteers from our group out by his truck and decided to open up his trunk to reveal a false floor with a compartment filled with automatic weapons. I'm not sure where PC found him but he is the man for the job. They told us a story during training of a PCV who called Fred because she was being harassed by taxi drivers at the taxi park near her site. Fred made a few calls and the next day when she went to catch a taxi, all of the drivers lined up to give her a formal apology. Needless to say Fred had the matter with Aubrey's host cousin cleared up right quick and nothing else ever happened, but i do like to remind her that she is worth roughly eight dollars.  

One of the people I foolishly gave my phone number to was a boda driver in my trading center, budaka. He waited until after I gave him my number to tell me that he had seen muzungu women around and he wanted me to get him one. I tried to tell him that it doesnt quite work that way, but he didnt get the message and wouldnt leave me alone until i told him, i would at least try. So the next time I go into the trading center with Aubrey, he starts to call me. I realize what he thinks is happening but try to ignore him. After 3 missed calls, he comes running up to me while Aubrey is at a Duka (shop/stall) and hints at that thing we'd talked about. I try again to explain that I did not and will not bring him a muzungu women but try to be nice about it and I introduce him to Aubrey when she comes back. At this point he has taken hold of my hand and is visibly nervous with his hand slightly trembling. We do the usual Lugwere greeting and then the conversation dies. He looks at me and says, so now what? What do you mean so now what? Obviously now you take her and have your way with her, duh, is what I wanted to say but instead something like now we're going home came out and that was that. I've only talked to him once since and I think now he finally gets it.

As is the case for most of us, the kids around Aubrey are very curious about her and like to peek in the windows just to see what the muzungu is up to. So Aubrey usually had a pack of kids watching her through her window while she prepared dinner, and was getting a little annoyed. One day, she forgot to completely close the valve on her gas stove, so when she went to start it a huge fireball erupted from the stove with a bang. The kids screamed and ran away and haven't been back since. So it seems to have worked out nicely for her, that is as long as they don't start to think shes a witch, because they have real ones here. One of the topics at my staff meeting this week was about teacher conduct outside of school. We just covered the basics like avoiding alcoholism and witchcraft. My school is very progressive by Ugandan standards, no corporal punishment, female teachers, etc so the only brush Ive had with witchcraft is when i was playing with my green LED frisbee at night with some kids and the next day a teacher told me he saw it and thought, what juju is this? People that I've met don't seem to put too much stock into witchcraft but they also don't seem quite ready to let it go.

Aubrey never learned how to ride a bike, and for her assignment she 

has to ride 7-8 km a day, so we had to teach her.

Bethany is on my right, another fellow math major with a sarcastic sense of humor. She talks to the rats and bats living in her house and scolds them for not going to sleep at a reasonable hour. She looks a bit different now after shaving her head. She decided washing your hair in a bucket is just too much damn work and she's right, which is why Friday is my designated hair washing day! At first i felt dirty all the time here but now I'm used to it, although its pretty gross when you can rub your arm and see the dead skin and dirt ball up. I'm also continually surprised to find that I'm not really as tan as i thought i was after a good shower. I think i'll be investing in a lufa in my near future. Bethany has avoided most of the harassment that Aubrey and Caroline and Aubrey have dealt with, frankly because she isn't as nice and will give guys a piece of her mind. But she has different issues. Her site is the most remote of the four of us, she has no electricity and has to travel 45 minutes to reach a main road or get food and supplies. For comparison, i have power when its there and can see the main highway in Uganda from my window. Other PCVs have running water, refrigerators, and homes that would be nice by american standards. As her community is not nearly as progressive, she has to be very conscious of what she wears, long skirts all the time, and the men at her school don't take her seriously. 

Everything changes here at night. Ugandans come out after dark and hold markets and eat tasty street food and everything is lit by fires and lanterns, a really cool atmosphere. Unfortunately, folks who wouldn't dare in the light now are much more likely to rape you. After a storm had her stranded at a school with her driver at dusk, halfway to meet up with us, Bethany was shitting bricks, and with her phone out of service so were we. I feel pretty free to walk around at night as long as there are enough people around, and have never felt unsafe in my house. I was scared once, not because of any real danger but because the rain was soooo loud on my tin roof, my sympathetic nervous system was telling me, be scared you idiot! nothing that loud can be good for your health!

I was talking to my neighbor a few weeks back about the peace corps and he told me that he had recently read that a volunteer had been raped in kampala. We talked about this reality for a while and I thought we were pretty much on the same page. Then he says something like, rape is incorrect, if you want her and she says no you don't rape her, you just keep trying until she says yes. And what if she never says yes? Oh, that doesn't happen. This is the mentality the girls in our group are dealing with. All in all, I feel exceedingly lucky to be a white American male with a college degree. I really feel like I cant fuck up here.

A snap-shot of my life

My room

My bathroom. This is what happens if I leave my front door open.

After being gone for a weekend, this is how much dust I swept up in my house.

This is horrible. It should not exist.

This my sandal for scale next to Jackfruit, the pinnacle of nature's line of fruit design. Its a pain in the ass to open up and prepare, but the insides are delicious little fleshy pouches that look weird but remind me of pink starburst only way better. Between these and mangoes, I am eating more fresh fruit then ever before.

The rainy season has begun, and you know what that means, all you can eat white ants!

Looks good doesnt it? Actually this was the tastiest meal my neighbors have prepared for me yet. This particular meal consisted of freshly caught white ants, fried and salted, and fried Matoke, which is basically a less sweet banana. I'd heard about the white ants and wanted to give them a try but i was pretty surprised when they gave me a whole bowl full, i just wanted to taste one. I was even more surprised at how delicious they were, although i really shouldnt be, you can't go wrong with oil and salt. They taste kind of nutty and have the texture of a really crispy french fry with the skin on it. I finished off the plate and wanted more. I've had more since but a different species that is smaller and gritty, ill pass on those from now on, i've become a white an snob! 

The rain forces the termites/white ants up from under ground and out of their mounds, they fly towards the lights and into the nets and buckets of hungry Ugandans. There are 4 species here and the gathering tactic is different for each. My favorite is when they use clay to form tubes from the openings in the mound down to a bucket. They pound the ground with sticks to scare them up and the termites walk right into the buckets.

The staple food here is Bwitta or Posho when there inst money and rice and beans when there is, so mostly the former. Bwitta and Posho are just millet and maize flour respectively that has been mixed with boiling water until it has a play-dough-like consistency. It goes without saying that it's really bland, but with a little sauce to dip in and a lot of hunger it does satisfy. I feel a little guilty eating nicer food, especially the packaged rice i recently bought at an Indian supermarket in the nearest big town, Mbale. It costs three times as much as the unprocessed rice, but it has no husks or stones in it. I have a bit of a pile of packaging building up in my house because im self conscious about throwing it all out and revealing what Ive been buying with my fat American dollars. They know to go through Muzungu's trash here, and not without good reason, we're used to tossing things that are perfectly usable or fixable, more on that later. So it can take a long time to sort through the raw rice and pick out all the crap, and since everything seems to take forever here, efficiency at home is the name of the game right now. I got a pressure cooker that cuts the cooking time of dry beans down from an hour and a half to twenty five minutes. Throw in some rice when the bean are almost done, and I have a complete protein meal in twenty five minutes. Add some avocado and MSG and its not bad, and there's only one pot to clean! Hurray for bachelor chow! So, that's pretty much the biggest news in my life right now.

I would say put me out of my misery but im pretty sure hell is an introduction ceremony

The day after I arrived at my site, my headmaster took me to an introduction ceremony. A teacher at my school was the groom to be and seeing as I had talked to him for a total of 2 minutes, naturally I was invited. The most important thing for me to do was to get the required attire. The white dress thing is a konzo, which is not Ugandan but adopted from Arabs for historical reasons, and the jacket was adopted from the British because why not, its not like its hot here. The resulting combination had me chuckling.

I left my house around 6am to go to Mbale and get the konzo before the ceremony. I met up with with my headmasters nephew and he babysat me while I did a bit of shopping for my house, he was an effective deterrent of the muzungu tax that I usualy encounter. After a full morning of shopping and carrying stuff around I was really hungry and tired and ready for lunch. I changed into my costume and got on a crowded bus that would take us to the party. I was struggling to hold it together, hungry and hot as I was. The bus driver started up the bus and then we just sat there for another 20 minutes, breathing in the exhaust and sweating profusely while absorbing the heat of the bodies squished next to me and hating the British for being so fashionable. Finally we started off and the fresh breeze was enough to lighten my mood and get me chatting with my seat mates. It was not to last though, because when we did get there and walked single file into the ceremony we were not allowed to sit down. There were little white boxes on each chair that I was pretty sure contained food but I couldn’t think of a culturally sensitive way to get at it, so at this point I texted the title of this entry to my friends in the area.

The whole idea of the ceremony is to introduce the families to each other and to make sure the groom knows who his bride is. There are a series of what I can best describe as skits where a series of girls are brought out and the groom must pick his bride out of the bunch or call for a new batch. This takes hours, and the only reason I know the story is because another volunteer filled me in. whenever I asked a Ugandan what the heck was going on they would say “oh, just a bit of drama”. they mostly seemed bored, some read newspapers but all were obligated to spend their entire day sitting through a bit of drama. Finally we were allowed to sit and so i devoured my roasted goat and seasoned potatoes, suddenly the world was a whole light brighter and I no longer hated the bride and groom.

They had me participate in the gift giving, never mind that I didn’t bring anything, just grab something from the pile and wait your turn to place it at the couples feet, I hope they enjoy their new lamp. I was the last in line to give my gift, awkward, the women in front of me was holding a chicken no big deal, its just the ceremonial marriage chicken. The stupidity of chickens never ceases to amaze me, they can be on the way to their doom but as long as you bind their feet they seem completely indifferent. You can tie 20 of them together and throw them in the back of a taxi but as long as those legs are tied they don’t even try to struggle. This particular chicken played an integral part in the ceremony and as he got closer to the couple I got closer to supper. This was the first time it really hit me that I'm white. Until the ceremony, I had never been the only white person at an event. Also, recently I realized that when I'm reading, im now visualizing characters as black, the main characters are still white though, does that make me racist? So the chicken is given to the groom and he hands the dangling bastion of stupidity over to the brides dad and the bit of drama part was over and it was time to eat.

Basically a  hobo pie wrapped in banana leaves instead of aluminum foil.