Subject: Not junkmail; from a member and friend of Peace Corps
To:
Cc: awilliams@peacecorps.gov
Date: Tuesday, September 22, 2009, 6:17 AM

Dear Director Williams:

You might have received my letter, or my e-mail. I hope you take a moment to read my e-mail.

Greetings from Uganda! I am a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uganda. Uganda has been my home for the last seven and half months. I love my new home and am really grateful to all Americans for sending me here.

The purpose of this e-mail is to bring to your attention the unprecedented removal of Larry Brown from duty, our country director, who came to Uganda a month before we did. I am writing this e-mail on behalf of the volunteers from my group who came in February of 2009 (including my husband, Erik Jarrett, who is serving with me) and all other staff members and friends of Peace Corps who learned about this serious issue through volunteers’ efforts to get Peace Corps DC to give PC Uganda another chance to grow under Larry Brown’s diverse experience, knowledge, and leadership.

We were shocked by Peace Corps DC’s decision to remove Larry Brown from duty. We cannot understand why someone who is really motivated in bringing positive measures to strengthen PC Uganda was fired without warning. Larry Brown embodies all qualities that personifies an exemplary citizen and an extraordinary country director.

Larry cared about all Peace Corps Volunteers and staff members dearly. I felt I had a paternal figure who watched out for both my husband and me in Uganda. When my husband and I voiced concerns over the security of our house that was in sub-standard conditions before we came, Larry supported us in our choice to make our current residence fit Peace Corps standards of safety.

I believe that Larry’s termination from duty was motivated by unfair reasons, especially since no staff member in Peace Corps Uganda, or Peace Corps DC can give us a reason for his termination. His termination has brought much chaos in PC Uganda.

Many of us were affected drastically that we chose to write to you. We are all concerned by such an undemocratic action taken by an organization that we care for so much.

All I am asking is for you to investigate this serious issue that happened before you came to office. Even though this incident happened before you came, you have the power to change the decision that has disrupted so many lives. Please feel free to come to Uganda and ask us about our feelings (or give us an explanation behind this unfair decision) which no one in PC DC has bothered to do. I’m more than happy (and would be grateful) to have a conference call with you, or meet you in person in Uganda (or DC) to discuss this matter. I also hope you invite other PCV’s in Uganda who have been sending you e-mails.

From listening to your address to PC community on PC connected, I get the impression that you care about PC and the developing world. Please make the right choice by giving back Larry Brown to Ugandans and Americans.

As a naturalized citizen of the United States, I’m an American by choice. One reason I became a US citizen was to serve in the Peace Corps. Another reason I became a US citizen was because I felt the United States does a better job (than my former country of citizenship, India) in implementing the democratic ideals that I hold so dear to my heart. As a proponent of democracy and someone who loves the US and Peace Corps, I hope you give us another chance to grow under Larry’s leadership and give back to our country and the world.

Thank you for your efforts in making Peace Corps a stronger organization.

Sincerely,
Anjali P Jarrett
PC Uganda
2009-2011

PS: I plan to post this e-mail on my blog with the letter I send to President Obama concerning this matter. If you’re interested in seeing that letter, please let me know.
Anjali Jarrett

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. (Mohandas Gandhi)

He asked them

to get along

they killed him

He asked them

to love another

they killed him

She asked them

for another chance

they killed her

He wanted change

they called him names

He made change

they fired him

They   kill the Prophets

kill the Just

kill the Truth

But what the Prophets say

Live

what the Just say

Live

Love never ceases to live

transforms

endures

many forms

In the beginning, there was love

In the end, amor vincit omnia

love conquers all.

Dear President Obama:

Greetings from Uganda! I hope this note finds you well.

I am a Peace Corps Volunteer.  I am writing this letter to bring an action taken by Peace Corps Washington to your attention. You might be under enormous stress to make some positive reform in our nation’s health care, but I hope you take a few moments to see the gravity of what is happening in Peace Corps Uganda.

Larry Brown, our outstanding country director, was removed from duty.  Citing the Privacy Act, the current (acting) country director cannot disclose why he was terminated from duty.  Last week when I contacted his wife, she told me that he did not know the reason behind his removal from duty.  When I visited them, I got the same answer from him.

I find PC Washington’s decision to remove Larry Brown from duty disturbing.  Larry Brown, a former professor from Harvard and Assistant Peace Corps Director under President Carter, is an exceptional individual.  His love for PC Uganda, PCV’s, and Uganda is clearly visible when one pays attention to how quickly he gained the trust of PCV’s and Ugandans.

In the last seven months, Larry turned PC Uganda into a strong post as he increased the number of volunteers in Uganda.  PC Uganda had not only grown in number but had also transformed into a great family.

Larry Brown and his wife were an incredible support system for us.  A few weeks before he was removed from duty, his wife and he hosted a pride dinner, where all volunteers were invited, at their residence.  His wife and he supported gay and lesbian volunteers in a country where homosexuality is openly condemned in the media.  I feel honored to have known a country director who supported my fellow volunteers.  When my husband and I decided to repair the house before we moved to site to make it more safe and secure, Larry was very supportive of our choice.

Many volunteers and I are confused why PC Washington chose to remove a person from duty when he is really good at what he does.

All I am asking is for you to take a few moments to urge Mr. Aaron Williams to evaluate what happened.  Even though Mr. Williams might be overwhelmed by his responsibilities as the new PC Director, I believe he should give Larry a fair chance because I believe he was removed from duty for the wrong reasons.  If Aaron Williams does not at least hold an investigation, we would never know what happened in Washington.

A man who dedicated his life to leveling the playing field would never know why he was let go by the American government.  As a young American voter I feel my faith in our system is tested through this unjust action by PC DC.  I hope you choose to renew my hope in our system by urging Mr. Williams to give PC Uganda another chance to grow under Larry Brown’s diverse experience, knowledge and leadership.

Thank you for your efforts in making America a better place.

Sincerely,

Anjali Jarrett

PCV Uganda

2009-2011

The spirit of democracy cannot be imposed from without. It has to come from within. (Mahatma Gandhi)

A few days ago I was at a supermarket.  Waiting at the counter for my turn to pay for the 500 mL Dairy Fresh strawberry yogurt.  As soon as the South Asian supermarket lady saw me, she acknowledged my presence and focused her attention from her musoga customer to me.  Not knowing how to effectively divert her attention, I told her we would be back at the counter with the tray of eggs we forgot to get.  After wandering the three aisles and looking at things we didn’t need to get, we picked up a tray of eggs and an additional tray to enclose the eggs in.

We were back at the counter, right next to the same musoga man, with the tray of eggs.  Next to the same musoga man, a South Asian man stood eying me and spitting out the monstrous amounts of shillings the supermarket lady owed him for the FIDO chocolate bars and FIDO strawberry & vanilla 250 mL and 500 mL of ice cream he just delivered.

I turned to Fractal and told him my increasing discomfort of the brown man’s indiscreet staring.  With the same intensity as the FOB brown people in America stare.  The kind of stare that non-verbally demands attention for a fellow brown being.  His pumping testosterone.  And his switching attention from Fractal to me.  Back to Fractal.  Me.  Curious prodding why the white man was standing so close to a brown woman.

At the counter as we were paying for the eggs we asked the supermarket lady if she could recommend a way to transport 24 eggs in Fractal’s backpack.  She suggested placing the 24 eggs, sandwiched between the yellow and purple egg trays, in a plastic bag before Fractal packs them in his backpack.  The brown man eyes were still changing focus from Fractal to me.  Back to Fractal.  Me.

The musoga man suggested tying the four corners of the sandwiched egg cartons before placing it in the white plastic bag.  As soon as the musoga man offered his suggestion, the brown man retorted that it would never work.  He said Fractal should hold the tray of eggs in his hands and carry it home. Maybe, in a box.  The sandwiched tray of eggs sits on Fractal’s hands while his legs pedal his Apollo all the eight kilometers to the village.

We asked the supermarket lady if she had ties to secure the sandwiched ova package.  She grabbed another white plastic bag and ripped it open.  The musoga man helped tear the ripped bag into long strips of white plastic while the brown man shook his head.  We threaded the strips into the corners of the sandwiched yellow and purple ova package while the brown man said “it would never work” again.

While Fractal placed the package in his backpack, I proceeded to the other side of the store to grab 2 FIDO chocolate bars for Fractal and me.  As he searched his backpack for the shillings, I ate my ice cream bar.  As he paid for the purple tray of eggs, the yellow tray, and the two FIDO chocolate bars, I opened his FIDO, went outside and ate his chocolate bar. More brown people in a white Toyoto Corono saw me.  Honk.  HONK.  HONNNNK.

Seeing that Fractal seemed slightly annoyed that I would gorge on his bar, I explained that his FIDO chocolate bar was melting.  I went back to the other side of the store to grab another one.  A jeans-clad and stripped buttoned down shirt musoga man and his black trouser counterpart stood between the FIDO chocolate bar and me.  Excuse me.  No response.  Excuse me, I mean move out of the way please.  Oh, said the jeans man.  He moved five inches away.  I grabbed a FIDO chocolate bar.  Excuse me.  No response.  Excuse me.  Oh, said the jeans man.  He moved four inches away.

Back at the counter, the brown man explained that his ice cream should be eaten quickly.  As Fractal took the bar away from me before I tried rescuing another FIDO chocolate bar, I thanked the musoga man.  Webale nyo. For his creative thinking.  The brown man shook his head.  We waved goodbye to the supermarket lady.  Sukriyah for her service.  Fractal ate his FIDO chocolate bar.  Said he had only one.  I had two.  I responded that I was saving that bar from dropping on the floor and wasting away.

We biked home to the village.  Under the same sky.  That protects the brown man and his black brother while his other brown brethren celebrates their 63rd Independence from the white man’s world an ocean away.

“Speak when you are angry–and you will make the best speech you’ll ever regret.” (Laurence J. Peter)

Many people are guilty of speech under the influence of ANGER.  On numerous occasions I’ve opened my mandible and allowed words to come out my mouth while my inhibitions were lowered under the influence of ANGER.  After  some time has passed, I would analyze the situation and the response till I feel I should be diagnosed with OCD.  In the end I would tell myself that I could have saved a few brain cells if I could just remember to slow my tongue before my cerebrum processed the consequences of the words.  Speaking under the influence of anger is like trying to walk while one’s drunk.

On the other hand, choosing one’s words carefully requires tact and forethought.   While a person is infuriated, if there’s something that could remind him/her of the dire consequences of words or actions, so the impulsiveness to respond is delayed, then perhaps we can avoid burning bridges.

Using fewer sharp words aid in the building bridges among various people around the planet.  Back home in the USA, people take special pride in making direct comments.  Comments that tell another exactly how they feel.  Well, maybe, too direct.  The directness in sharing one’s opinions, beliefs, or feelings is not appreciated in every culture in the world.  People in these parts use caution to avoid breaking bridges.  Perhaps that’s something one needs in every relationship: professional or personal.  Relationships are not forever, so perhaps we need to take care of them like we should maintain a nation’s bridges.

Last Tuesday we moved to the village.  Canceling was almost unavoidable, but the chairman of Fractal’s NGO saved the day.  We’re home after more than three months of swearing in as Peace Corps Volunteers.  We’re glad to be home.  We discovered along the way that it takes a village, a town, and folks across the Atlantic to make a home.  Under the safety blanket ceiling, solar-powered lighting, hungry geckos, and armies of diligent ants, we’re home at last.

As we hike and bike our village, we meet faces and smiles that remind us why we’re here.  To live a different way, learn a new perspective, and make a change.  Small changes in oneself.  Small steps towards meeting people in the middle.  I’m really glad that summer day in ‘07 I sat at my desk to fill out the on line application.  No, this is not a pitch for increasing the number of applicants who apply to the Peace Corps.

After living in Uganda for close to six months, I believe travel should be part of everyone’s life.  Living in places outside a person’s birthplace in the first ten years of one’s life is essential.  Traveling abroad is not the only way to gain novel perspectives.  Seeking opportunities to diversify experiences add colorful dimensions to a person’s life.  Perhaps the first step to thwart wars, or fights from precipitating is to put yourself on a chair in a conversation with a person who has another view.

The people help me see new ways.  The people help me hear different beliefs.  The people make me a better person.  I’m glad to be in their home.  A kind of home where I see more stars at night, hear fewer vehicles when I go to sleep, breathe fresh clean air when I wake up, and experience a connection with another group of people on the planet.  Perhaps we’re connected because our ancestors were brothers.  Or maybe because we see the similarities in each other.  No matter what the reason is I’m content to be home in the Pearl of Africa.

Close to the Rift Valley.  In the emerald of Africa.  Among the Bantu.  Under the same sky.  Home At Last.

This is my dream that one day I’ll have a passport that says just “Earth.” People of all colors join hands and live in peace and harmony.  Humans pledge allegiance to protect all other species and the planet.  No, I’m not high on any substance.  Of course, this is my personal opinion and not the opinion or belief of the Peace Corps.

I wonder if we teach our children the multifaceted human identity, then whether they could respectfully regard the similarities and the differences.

We are first and foremost, a human being.  Our gender, ethnicity, religion, and beliefs enrich our personality and being. We’re similar and dissimilar.  We don’t hide our differences but celebrate them.  Yet recognize that we’re one species.  We don’t all have to like each other.  We should be able to sit, listen, and talk.  Share ideas.  Hear out and absorb the new perspectives without feeling threatened by them.  We don’t have to put people in categories to understand them.  We listen to hear what they’re saying about their identity.

We can travel and live in regions outside our birthplace and come home with a mind free of prejudice.  With new understanding and a fresh look on life.  Or stay and become part of the new home/homes.  With more interactions with different people we realize our assumptions about people and strive to strip them away.  We work together, so one day all people can sit together at a table.   The world citizen.

My in-laws first caught a glimpse of the fruit of their endeavor twenty seven years ago. July 13.  Fractal’s birthday. Back in the USA, we would have brunch in suburban Atlanta, or stay at a North Georgia cabin. His family and my family would get together.  His mom would bake Syrian nutmeg cake.  I would bake marzipan cake. My mom would prepare appams, sweet Saturn-shaped pancakes made from fermented rice flour, that he craves for whenever he smells the aroma of her cooking.

Wanting to do something special, I decided to make something sweet, gulab jamuns, one of Fractal’s favorite desserts. Fried dough balls immersed in sugar syrup. Even though it could take a few years of life off his arteries, he might experience some culinary nirvana if I make them right.  Since it was my first try I bought a packet of Instant Gulab Jamun mix to make the job easier.

Pour the contents in a bowl, add half a cup milk, and knead the dough.  Roll it into small golf balls.  Before frying the dough balls, you make the sugar syrup.  300 gms of sugar dissolved in 200 ml of water, the sucrose quota prescribed for a happy birthday.

I cut calories by adding less oil and sugar, and more water.  The result.  Mushy gulab jamuns in watery syrup.  I tried two and couldn’t eat anymore of those turgid dough-balls.  To my surprise, Fractal ate six gulab jamuns.  He wanted more.  Glad that Fractal’s focus was on the thought behind the creation, rather than the quality of the dessert provided me some relief.  When a man insists that the jamuns are good even when they actually taste like uncooked dough (immersed in water) is when you know that the man loves you more than gulab jamuns.   Lesson Learned: no cut in sugar and oil next time.

I wanted to share some of the fat and calories, so I gave the rest of jamuns to our neighbor, but without explaining what they were.  I thought it was self-explanatory.  Some dough-balls in a syrup.  The next day Diana asked me why I put mendezzi (locally made fried doughnuts) in water.  When she tried to scoop one from the bowl, it crumbled into pieces.  Like a cell in a hypotonic solution.  Yum! Without knowing what exactly they were, Diana told me that she was confused on the method of eating them and ended up throwing them away.

June 20, 2009

Seated under the luminous afternoon sky on the woven pink palm mat, my neighbor Diana sat across her friend Sandra rocking little Pam on her lap near the thatched gazebo.  I stood on the grass near the intricately handcrafted mat looking through the Minolta binoculars eyeing the Broad-billed Roller perched high on the pine tree.  Wak, wak, wak!  The deep raspy call caused Diana to look up from her conversation and study what I was watching.  Amused that I would spend time observing an ordinary bird, she asked me whether there were any birds in America.  I informed her that there were numerous birds in North America, but the Broad-billed Roller is a native of East Africa and the only one I had ever seen in the US was at the African aviary of ZooAtlanta.

Diana invited me to sit and talk to her about America.  Thinking that I’m not used to bending my knees to sit on the ground, Diana nudged her stepdaughter Paulina to bring a wicker stool for me.  Sitting on the small stool with my legs stretched out, I waited for Diana’s questions.

Do you have trees? Mango trees? Jackfruit trees? How about geckos? Are there mosquitoes? Do women breastfeed? Do you cook on a sigiri (compact charcoal stove)? Do you eat fish? Do  you have the kind of fish we have–the one with breasts?

Keeping a straight face with the last question was a mammoth task.  Unsure whether I heard her correctly, I reiterated her question.  She nodded.  I asked her whether she was mistaking the “fish with breasts” with a mammal.  “No,” she insisted.  Then she added, “women don’t eat those fish, but men eat them and become stronger.”  Wondering whether scientists discovered a new species of animal with fish and mammalian characteristics, I googled “fish with breasts” in the search engine and discovered that there is indeed a fish with legs and breasts in America–in Sekiu, WA–but it just happened to be a wooden statue that welcomed tourists to the small fishing village.

A couple of weeks ago we took our first trip to the intoxicating capital city since our arrival at site, the first real break since trying to move to the village for the last two months.  Determined to make the most out of the trip to the All Volunteer Conference in Seeta, about 10 miles in the outskirts of the capital city, we embarked on the two hour journey a day early to the bustling city center.  Kampala.  The world of noxious smoke, the white & blue taxis, the marabou storks, the trouser-clad women, the cell phones, the high-heeled shoes, the men in denim shorts, Game (Uganda’s Target), the cappuccino, the crisp dosas, the Chloride Exide solar outfitters, the African horn bills.  Kampala, the city on seven hills, really sits on at least hundred hills when you’re a pedestrian visitor exploring the concrete jungle.

If you happened to find a hotel on Kampala Road, the one that showed us the naked guy running away from mob justice, then you are also that unlucky one to find out that the city never sleeps.  Getting advice from an elderly Indian hotel employee on the evils of cohabitation and watching his relief when he learned we are married reminded me of my concerned parents worrying that we might land into trouble with the police when we check into a shoestring hotel traveling as the white & brown team in India last year.  Those cops on raids, the safe guarders of the moral compass, might mistake us for a white dude on LSD visiting the sandy beaches of Goa and picking up a local girl to attain enlightenment.

The next day when Fractal attended a meeting at the Peace Corps office, I spent an hour nervously holding my arm out for the Peace Corps Medical staff who wanted a blood sample.  Hesitant in pricking me more than once, the three nurses, on my insistence, took turns drawing my viscous blood.  “Are you drinking enough water?” they asked.  The next several hours Fractal–also quite a paramedic–reminded me to hydrate myself.

Over the falafel sandwich and the cheese burger (Fractal’s first in years) and a mango & passion fruit smoothie, we caught up with our host sister Michelle and her husband in the food court of Garden City Shopping mall.  “We miss your mother,” we tell Michelle. We talked about our desire to visit her mother after we move to our new place.  She told us about her work at the state-sponsored television network, his video production takes, their daughter’s birthday party.

After the three and a half hour visit, we boarded a taxi for the hour odyssey to the Hotel Kabeka in Seeta.  Welcome to the alien planet of hot showers, tiled floors, running water, porcelain bathtubs, indoor toilets, and complimentary conditioners; despite the shine & shimmer, the varying heights of the stairs with its unaligned rails was somewhat precarious.  Someone used different tape measures that were several centimeters off from one another and just didn’t think anyone would notice the poor calculations.

The next few days the veteran volunteers taught us about organic gardening, healthy nutrition, creating newspapers in their schools, traveling in Africa, planting trees, and sanitizing water.  During meals volunteers talked about their trials, tribulations, likes, and dislikes of working and living in the pearl.  A few new volunteers shared frustrations about settling into their sites, and others from our group shared how thrilled they were when their sites turned out to be better than they thought.  Some discussed what more they would bring if they were coming to Uganda as a new volunteer.  Camp towel, skirts with lining, stainless steel knife, and flip-flop Rainbow sandals.  A talent show and a cultural show entertained the nights.

Rejuvenated and enriched after the three-day conference we got back before sundown on Sunday.  Ready to find a welding generator to finish the rest of the work in the house.  Ready to move to the village.  Ready to start the work we came here to do.