unexpected reminders

Last week was Spring Break. Isaac and I, along with another young Canadian couple, took a five day trip around southern Uganda -- Lake Bunyonyi and hiking Mt. Sabinyo in Mgahinga Gorilla National Park.

Among other money-saving strategies, we took public transit the whole way. We got to the crowded Kampala bus terminal and we were immediately approached by a man with a slight limp who wanted to know where we were going.

"Kabale," we told him.

As happens so many times here, he took our situation upon himself and led us through the winding, confusing bus park to find the bus to Kabale.

"Sabo -- a soda?" he said before we got on the bus. Isaac gave him two 500 shilling coins (about 40 cents total) for a tip.

We paid our 25,000 shilling fee ($10) each  to the conductor and climbed onto the dark, crowded bus. It was already almost filled, which meant that on the bright side we didn't get stuck waiting for the bus to fill (that can take up to two hours) but on the downside most seats were taken. Our friends sat near the front and we made our way to the back.

Although we couldn't find two seats that were together, we did find two seats on the aisle. I found myself sitting beside an older Ugandan woman, with short fuzzy gray hair and poor English. A jaja, a grandmother, as they refer to older women here in Uganda.

At first we thought the TV screen at the front of the bus was a promising sign. We soon realized that, as the bus lurched out of Kampala, we were in for over 6 solid hours of irritating music videos: everything from Dolly Parton to Westlife to Celine Dion to Britney Spears to cheesy locally-made videos with Lugandan lyrics.

As we rode along, I found myself getting lost in the landscape and thinking. Graceful cows' horns seemed to pierce low-slung clouds. The rolling green hills were a relaxing change from Kampala. After feeling so discouraged, so fed-up with aspects of living here the past few weeks, I was happy to feel stirrings of affection for Uganda again.

Strangely, I found myself thinking about my maternal grandmother. Baba, we called her. When my brother-in-law visited Uganda in January, he was reminded of his own children when he saw the children here. While I have thought, "Wow! That boy is the same age as my niece and look at him carrying that water!" I haven't actually seen my niece in the children here. I haven't even seen myself in the young women here, who carry on completely different lives than I do. But for some reason, I saw my Baba here.

I saw my Baba in the way that the woman beside me was travelling alone. I saw my Baba in the way the woman groaned every time the bus bounced us -- sometimes clear into the air -- and held her hip in pain. I saw my Baba in the way she had food carefully wrapped in plastic, the gentle smell of an older person's body odor mingled with the smell of it. I saw my Baba in the way she slightly spilled over into my seat, the way she was embarrassed to have to ask the conductor when the next stop was, she had to use the bathroom.

Strangely, more than anyone else I can see my Baba as a Ugandan. Maybe because she's the most "ethnic" person out of all my close relatives, who knows. But something about the jajas draped in their wraps, squeezing down the aisles of a crowded bus, clucking their tongues at the younger generation, simmering pots of matooke over coal stoves for hours ... It was a strange thing, to be reminded of her here, to be suddenly yearning for her heavy breathing and quirky habits and banana boxes of perogies while bouncing along a road to Kabale.

african rain

I'm pretty sure when I was in Ghana in 2009 I had a blog post with the exact same title. There is something wonderful about rain here, a magic that is new to me.

The rain here is different from the rain in Ghana, at least during the season I was there. Every day the sun rose and the heat swelled until rain broke in the afternoon. People were forced to stop, take shelter, rest, and a rain would softly fall for about half an hour, relieving the heat, and the sky would clear again.

This is the first time I have ever experienced the end of a dry season. For two months the sun crawled across the sky every day, the dust rose off the dirt roads, and there was no cloud cover to soften the sun's searing power. For two months Isaac and I cleaned our outer ears, surprised at the blackened Q-tips. For two months Ugandan men drew sewer water in buckets and tossed it across the streets, trying to keep the insufferable dust in check. The grass got browner and the lawn developed bald patches. It wasn't terrible -- I don't think the weather here is something I can complain about! -- but after two months you realize with a start that it has not rained at all and the world feels quite parched.

Ugandans who have lived here their whole lives can't understand the thrill of that first snowfall in November, or the way Canadians take that first warm spring day as an excuse to wear shorts and sandals. After a long winter, the first time you can emerge from the house without a jacket on is a milestone.

Until now, I have not understood the joy of rain. One night Isaac and I were sitting in the living room and we heard a light pitter patter. We both froze.

"Is that rain?" Isaac said.

"Let's go watch it!" We ran out to the porch to watch the rain.

This past week we had our first rainfall during school hours since before Christmas holidays. My class was totally disrupted. The wind whipped through the windows, shaking the palm leaves outside; the clouds gathered and swirled, thunder rolled. And then the downpour began. Vicious pounding on the tin roof. The leaking tin roof, I was reminded as I watched a puddle form in the middle of the classroom. Students high-fived each other. A grade 6 boy shouted, "Thank God for the rain!" and one senior even slid down the muddy hill on his stomach.

 A friend of ours who works with Samaritan's Purse was telling me about his work in refugee camps in Sudan.

"You're much more excited for the rain when you're hungry or when you're worried about your crop," he said. "I was in a camp one time and it had not rained in 6 months."

I can't even imagine.

Today it drizzled all day. I was comfortable in jeans, a long sleeved shirt, and a light scarf; when I got home, I even wished that I had a pair of slippers! The air smells clean, everything seems washed in brighter green and the grass has already grown. Maybe after a few weeks of the rainy season we'll be done with it, but for now we're all enjoying the rain.

cultural fatigue

Maybe it's because we're nearing the end of third quarter. Maybe it's because Spring Break is just out of reach. Maybe it's because the hot, dry season seems to be dragging on forever. Maybe it's because I'm sick and grumpy.

Whatever the case, the past few days I have not been a very big fan of Uganda.

They -- whoever "they" are -- say that this is part of the process of culture shock. I don't remember the exact steps of culture shock, but I do know what we have experienced. Isaac and I landed in Uganda in August and were hit with immediate shock, feeling completely disoriented. I had never experienced that level of discomfort on a short-term missions trip, or even during my 3 month internship in Ghana. Knowing we were here to live for a year -- knowing we had to reach some state of normalcy here -- made those first few days totally different than someone simply visiting another country for a few weeks.

After the initial shock, I would say that there was the "honeymoon" phase. Everything was interesting. We were determined to learn the local language. I took pictures of every new thing; even the irritations were only funny quirks in our new life here.

Around December, I'd say that I hit a period where my energy started to sag. What was the point of learning Luganda, beyond the greetings I already knew? I felt homesick. My brain was tired of translating things, processing things.

And now I feel that I'm experiencing cultural fatigue. I'm sick and tired of Ugandan culture; everything seems to be wrong. Even as I type that, I correct myself in two ways: 1) I remind myself of the many beautiful things about the culture here, things I would miss if/when we do move back to Canada 2) I remind myself that, unlike Isaac, I for the most part live in a Westernized world that merely brushes Ugandan culture, compared to my full cultural immersion in Ghana.

Even so, here are some things that have irritated me lately:

• Various cases of theft that have happened, major and minor. Someone's house being broken into while they're gone. Someone's backpack -- with a month's salary -- disappearing. Ugandans robbing poor Ugandans, rich Ugandans, rich mzugus. 
• Being told what I want to hear instead of the reality. Me: "When can you be here?" Boda driver: "I'm coming, I'm coming. You will get there on time." Reality: "I'm really far away and you'll be waiting awhile. Oh, and you'll be late." 
• The mini-skirt bill. Apparently this is being looked at again, but it certainly had people talking. The jist of it: wearing a skirt above the knee (even with tights) could result in arrest. Oh, and any Ugandan man above 18 had the right to arrest you -- "civilian arrest", it's called.
• The fact that, as our neighbour quips, "nothing works here except reproductive organs." I never realized that China churns out not just Dollarama-level crap, but a whole other level of crap that gets sent to Africa. Kettles blow up, fans break, lids don't fit on containers, etc. 
• While some people do work very hard, very long hours, seven days a week, many others seem to have a poor work ethic, particularly when they have a steady job with any kind of guarantee. Guards who fall asleep, cashiers who lean on the counter texting on their cell phones, employees that think rain is a valid reason to show up late or leave early, etc. I want to shake people and force them to sit through a customer service training session. This country has a youth unemployment rate of 60 - 80 % depending on who you ask, and yet so many seem to take their jobs for granted. 
• Disgusting stray dogs. Specifically the one that bit me two weeks ago for no apparent reason. 
• Lying in bed and hearing random children crying and screaming as they are being beaten. Tin shacks don't provide a lot of family privacy, I suppose, and now I have a better understanding of why these kids can sit still for so long, help run shops, cook and take care of younger siblings. 
• A friend of mine volunteers regularly at  local orphanage. When an HIV+ baby was almost dying, she and her husband took him in temporarily as foster parents, respecting the legal process of the social workers from the orphanage. His parents -- who, by the way, tried to kill him by throwing him into a latrine -- heard about it and were upset that he was in a mzungu house. They demanded he be returned to the orphanage, because they still have rights. So he was. With his repressed immune system, his health is already suffering. In this country, the idea of temporary foster parenting is foreign; people foster to reach the goal of adoption, otherwise kids languish in understaffed, underfunded and often corrupt orphanages. 
• I spoke to a friend of mine about cultural fatigue today and she told me that she and her husband made a list of things they're tired of running out of here as compared to Canada: Internet, cooking fuel, electricity, air time for cell phones, hot water, drinking water, etc. I ditto that. 
• Rainwater running off into the gutter, where it simmers in the heat and forms a thick soup of garbage, human and animal waste, etc. And then when the road gets too dusty people in this dry season, people get buckets and toss that sewer water onto the road to keep the dust down. Gross. 
• Isaac is also feeling cultural fatigue, understandably as he is the one who is actually enrolled at a Ugandan university full-time -- taking classes, doing assignments, making friends, eating Ugandan food regularly. This week he feels down and generally irritated. Professors coming late, professors not showing up at all, school schedules changing constantly, and chaotic classes sometimes make him feel like he is wasting his time. 
• Ants. In my peanut butter jar, inside my Tupperware container. 
• People burning grass in the field next to us, burning grass in the swamp a short distance away, burning garbage in the field I walk to on my way to work. Why? And can you at least do it when the wind is blowing away from my house?

So there. My rant is done. I'm not trying to paint a negative picture of Uganda (which I realize I just did). I'm trying to be honest about the process of culture shock, about what it feels like to be thinking thoughts you'd never thought you'd think, about being convinced that "my way is better!"

This is not a racial thing -- it's a culture thing. I'm told the next step of culture shock is acceptance and adjustment. I've also been reading some books by a Nigerian author who writes about culture shock going the other way, moving from Africa to the West, which has been beneficial. 

Needless to say, I'm craving Tim Horton's right now.