7/28/2011 - Shooting Stars and Decapitated Chickens
(originally for Natalie)
Out here you can look into the sky for five minutes almost any night and see several shooting stars – even more when there’s a blackout, which is nearly every night. Tonight we recorded the St. Charles Primary School Choir. Before the recording, some of the girls offered us kernels of roasted maize, their dinner, and late this afternoon it rained more than a drizzle – an early sign to the end of dry season.
Our closest friend here, Gonzaga, has the greatest laugh. It’s a nervous giggle with an ear-to-ear grin. When we took school pictures for St. Charles’ first yearbook the teachers explained that some of the children just don’t know how to smile. Gonzaga (who I have nicknamed Ray, Ray-Ray or sometimes Razor) does not have that problem. He said smiling/laughing was hard about eight months ago after his father died from AIDs (he’s negative), but today we saw him walking up the dirt drive as the rain started to fall, his hands in the air and smile out in full effect.
Briefly, After 1 Week in Uganda
(originally for Natalie)
Out here you can look into the sky for five minutes almost any night and see several shooting stars – even more when there’s a blackout, which is nearly every night. Tonight we recorded the St. Charles Primary School Choir. Before the recording, some of the girls offered us kernels of roasted maize, their dinner, and late this afternoon it rained more than a drizzle – an early sign to the end of dry season.
The King came through, traveling down the main road which connects Kampala to Luwero, which means people waited along the street selling produce, setting up camp, playing music and generally celebrating like it was a holiday since after dark the previous night.
I frequently find myself laying on this cement pad behind the parish house after dinner looking up. Tonight we ate fresh chicken (I recorded the “processing” this afternoon). I lay on the cement pad and stare at the sky. It’s cool, like Cleveland in late September. I watch the stars shoot and my mind inevitably returns to Uganda’s inequity.
Africa is a headless, kicking, chicken that’s only half plucked.
Even while the hen’s legs are still spasming, the teenagers who do the work pour boiling water over the carcass to loosen the feathers from the skin.
Even while the hen’s legs are still spasming, the teenagers who do the work pour boiling water over the carcass to loosen the feathers from the skin.
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| Before they were dinner. |
Our first contact here, Father Gerald, is a big man. He’s big in stature, understanding, and he’s big with the community. His realm is the HIV/AIDs outreach for St. Charles. But today he went all day without food and last night without sleep. He didn’t sleep because he was finishing a proposal for an outreach education grant (~$40K US) and stressing about it. He found out this morning, the day the proposal was due, that even though it was a good proposal (last year he was a finalist) he will have to wait until 2012 to resubmit because the guidelines changed and his organization does not qualify for the grant.
He usually eats hunched over his plate, greasy-fingered and unashamed about how much he enjoys finishing every bit of drumstick, neck or breast. Tonight, he ate with a fork, slowly. His eyes were red and he hardly spoke but to take a teaspoon of honey with this juice and say, “This is the only honey I have. I’ll take a little more.” He laughed hard.
The cow we donated to the school also walked in today. I threw down $50. Most of the students only have beef once or twice a year. They ran from class to see the “ente” and get in a couple pictures.
There is a different sense of personal space here. Kids make no qualms about scrambling over each other, pushing and pulling to get to the front of a crowd. When I’m holding the camera they will sit in my lap to get a glimpse of the viewfinder.
The kids and I witnessed the cow slaughter too (don’t worry, I won’t be graphic) but it was apparent in their faces that even though they walk passed cows practically everyday on the road, this was the first time many of them saw one killed and butchered. I can’t help but wonder if the disassociation between “cow” and “beef” is greater for a person who rarely eats meat but grows up in this country or for a person at home who only wizzes passed farms by the interstate but probably hasn’t gone a month without a burger.
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| Gonzaga after Laura talked to his mom on the phone |
“Water is life” he repeats from time to time. He gardens and I’m sure, literally, prays for rain. In a few years he will be a priest. Tomorrow we plan to wake at 5:45a to see the sunrise. He’s going to take my camera and me on a motorcycle to the highest east-facing point within five kilometers. We’ll have to hike to the summit. He said yes to my request for this expedition without pause. I hope the motorcycle is as accommodating.
“Water is life” is also the slogan on the Riham water bottles that we see in the random corners and ditches thought Uganda. Most people just burn their trash.
Life here is dirty but fresh. The rain washes the ente’s blood into the same water table that the village drinks from and uses to wash. It is not uncommon for one Christian man to have dozens of kids with multiple wives. It represents maturity, hands in the field and an uncertain future. Cultural shifts are slow coming. Will it wait until the country is completely depleted of resources and its people will have no choice other than change?
The students sing with a continental sense of pride. Uganda’s sandy, rust-colored ground aches for the cleansing drizzle to persist. These days, climate change makes the seasons hard to predict.
“Problems,” the village chairman says with “education, poverty and sickness” are hindering the people’s ability to move forward – the reason why we Mzungas are here, leaving the gift of sanitized water any way Erin’s imagination will allow.
They insist on giving us gifts, anything, a matt, sip of banana/coffee moonshine, whatever they have because they know we have come a long way to be here with them. It’s pride, through and through. To hear the girls sing, the urgency of the choir huddled around a tiny mic, accompanied by a generator-powered keyboard (another blackout), there is a sense of purpose. This is their first, and for many, only chance to make a CD.
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St. Charles Primary School girls doing a traditional dance
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They insist on giving us gifts, anything, a matt, sip of banana/coffee moonshine, whatever they have because they know we have come a long way to be here with them. It’s pride, through and through. To hear the girls sing, the urgency of the choir huddled around a tiny mic, accompanied by a generator-powered keyboard (another blackout), there is a sense of purpose. This is their first, and for many, only chance to make a CD.
There are stars shinning and shooting through the chaos. They are bright and clear. It can seem like bits of magic, burning up in the atmosphere.
Briefly, After 1 Week in Uganda
I am well. The Ugandans have given me the name Mzunga Mwanda (white prince), which is very flattering. They call Erin Naruquagu (of the "chima" or monkey clan) and Laura Nmanda (of the
"ente" or cow clan). The people are very nice and welcoming - the ones that don't use it as a guise to screw you out of money. As it turns out $1 USD is ~2500 UG schillings, so the math can get confusing.
The accommodations, though modest, suit our needs. We have seen a type of poverty that I seldom see in Cleveland (not to say the states are without it), but here in certain areas it definitely seems to be the norm.
"ente" or cow clan). The people are very nice and welcoming - the ones that don't use it as a guise to screw you out of money. As it turns out $1 USD is ~2500 UG schillings, so the math can get confusing.
The accommodations, though modest, suit our needs. We have seen a type of poverty that I seldom see in Cleveland (not to say the states are without it), but here in certain areas it definitely seems to be the norm.
I feel like I have subconsciously created a psychological buffer (and a physical one - the camera) that is keeping me from experiencing this like a missionary or Peace Corps person would. I am working. And I am working in much the same way as I do at home, the obstacles and sites are different, but problem solving TK gets into action and dilutes my sense of sympathy. It's easy to lay in bed at night; write in my journal and freak the fuck out.
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| Ugandan Children pumping water from a shallow well. |
I laugh, smile and wave when I see kids pass on their bikes screaming, "We love you Mzungas!" when they are just passing by, but to write it, and feel what it means wrecks me. The cultural backwardsness, need for anything new, and lack of options for the future make me fear that generations of people will continue to suffer from curable diseases, poor family planning and general suckerdom for my lifetime no matter what. Education is the only cure I know, and like I said, it is going to take generations before it takes hold. I am deeply afraid that the effects of globalism will deform Africa's development instead of allowing it to leap frog up to the present.
