There’s no place like home

June 12, 2009

Having lived outside the US, moving to a different corner is not a new experience. Assimilating to a new culture in the company of a family member makes those few frustrating times a lot bearable.  When the matatu driver slyly assured us that the taxi was directly going to our destination, I was glad Fractal was beside me while  it took several detours to get more passengers before actually leaving for our destination.

Although not particularly homesick, I miss aromatic odors of my mother’s Palak Paneer; at the same time, I enjoy the time inventing the new culinary creations while experimenting with spices available in F-town.  I was glad to discover sooner that the Tropical Island spice specialists put the same mixture of spices while packaging their Italian spices even though they marketed them as Rubbed Basil, Oregano, and Mixed Spices.  If I weren’t in Uganda, then I probably would never have tried making chapatis again after almost resigning from making jaw breaking chapatis a year ago.  After that futile attempt, I wasn’t sure I could make palatable chapatis.  Necessity is indeed the teacher of many things.

When Dr. SuperProfessor from our university visited us in F-town, he came bearing gifts,  wishes and hugs from home.  Spending a day with a friend from home and others he brought was like drinking a good cup of coffee while relaxing in a hammock.  The kind-hearted professor brought us the sort of things that make life easier, so living in the village is more enjoyable.  The things that remind us of home–the conveniences  we left behind that we took for granted.  Like children during holiday time, we were crouched on the floor browsing through goodies that our families send.  The stuff reminded us of the kinda families we have.  The type of family that drops everything, goes on scavenger hunts and gets the stuff on a short notice.

Not too long ago leaving home was once an important goal in my life.  I just couldn’t wait to leave familiar things and learn new things.  Spending hours dreaming about exploring the many corners of the world now seem quixotic, but encountering novel ways just seem more appealing.  Now that our four-month anniversary of leaving the USA is in couple of days, I’m discovering something: there’s no place like home.

Peter’s nightmare

June 5, 2009

No one would faintly consider from Peter’s innocent smile that he’s in his terrible two.  The smile that instantly melts even a person who isn’t fond of toddlers.  The kind of smile that makes one forget that Peter can be a rambunctious and mischievous little person.  The morning alarm who would easily get on Santa’s naughty list.  The potty-trained child who would  urinate on his uncle’s Picfare exercise book and defecate in the yard because it’s his domain.  An obvious hub for virulent microorganisms.

A seemingly brave child who’s unafraid of living organisms, Peter ran crying for his life when he saw my camera.  The unfamiliar black monster was going to eat him.   Even after watching me photograph his infant sister, it took a while before he became completely comfortable with the THING.

Several days ago I noticed a change that was characterized by persistent crying, limping, and decreased exuberance in his demeanor.  When I inquired about them, his mother informed me that the boy’s father took the sick boy to the local clinic, where the nurse who assumed the illness was malaria gave him a shot on his gluteus. When the mother went to the dispensary to ask for the name of the medication, the nurse refused to reveal the name of the drug.  Later when her husband and she went to confront the nurse, she finally told them that she gave Peter a shot of quinine.

The poorly administered intramuscular injection could  lead to gluteal fibrosis; an injury that damages the sciatic nerve and leaves the child unable to bend the knee, so that normal activities such as walking, running, squatting and climbing become extremely strenuous.  Many cases were reported around the country where untrained health professionals in small clinics gave children quick intramuscular gluteus injections of quinine for malarial infections leaving them disabled.  These children would need physical therapy and orthopedic surgery to rectify their fates.  The lives completely altered by malpractices that could be avoided at little cost.

Since that initial conversation about Peter’s unfortunate clinic visit, his parents took him to the local hospital to test for malaria.  Diagnosed with severe malaria, Peter was given IV quinine on numerous visits to the hospital.  His mother massages his leg to reduce the effects of quinine.  He’s slowly recovering from malaria.

The free ride

May 30, 2009

When the director of Fractal’s NGO asked us to go along to an introduction in a village 30 km east of M-town located in southwestern Uganda, we hesitantly said “yes.”  Unable to refuse the free ride to the foothills of Mount Elgon, we told ourselves that it would be a polite gesture to attend–to show support to the director’s wife Agnetia, the maid of honor–even though we were still burned out from the last time and needed time to recuperate from all the sitting.

Clad in the kansu adorned with the $35 sport jacket and dress pants and in the gomesi that my neighbor helped me wear, Fractal and I accompanied the director and his friend in Agnetia’s air conditioned white Toyota Corona.  Half an hour into the voyage, the director decided that he wasn’t adept in driving his wife’s car and asked his friend to drive.  After we swapped drivers, we passed our first sight of professional East African cyclists racing on their Ugandanized bikes–a blend of parts from other mountain and road bikes.

As we proceeded at the speed of 121.7km/hr in a zone where the speed limit was 80 km/hr ( so we don’t collide with the roosters, pedestrians, and goats that speckled the landscape), we were stopped by the friendly Ugandan patrol.  On seeing the two buzungu on the passenger seats, the female traffic patrol officer commenced on a tirade on the dangers of speedy driving and the importance of following Ugandan laws.

When the officer asked for the drivers’ license of the friend, the friend subserviently replied that he didn’t have his license since he wasn’t planning to drive, but proposed to drive since the director wasn’t feeling well.   After much coaxing, she relented and decided not to give the 50,000 ush ($25) ticket for driving without the license.  When the officer threatened to give a speeding ticket of 100,000 ush($50 est), the director and  the friend told her they learned their lesson and tucked a folded 10,000 ush ($5) between her fingers.  Soon afterwards we resumed our journey at speeds of 120 km/hr.

The topography dotted with velvet green foothills of Mt. Elgon, the matooke plantations and  the few remaining mahogany (that weren’t chopped down for timber possibly to design furniture for European and American markets, or for the increasing domestic need for firewood and charcoal) resembled the continental divide of Costa Rica’s San Luis.  The cooler climate made the gomesi more bearable.  After we passed the bustling municipality (one step short of registering as a city) of M-town, we turned off onto a dirt road with hardened mud tire tracks and crept into a remote village where having electricity would be a distant dream.  After about forty-five minutes of the bumpy ride, the dirt road gave way to a narrower mud road that led us to one of the homes of the district judge, Agnetia’s father.

As we walked towards the concrete house that sat behind a mostly manicured lawn, I asked the director how one greets in Lugisu, the local language spoken in the slopes of Mount Elgon.  The director, a musoga–a Lusoga speaker, said he was a muzungu like us in these parts.  After a satisfactory snack of a chappati, a sliver of fatty meat–I placed on Fractal’s aluminum tray–and Fanta we hiked a hill to Katherine’s (Agnetia’s friend) introduction ceremony.

After we arrived at our destination three hours late, we waited patiently in a line with the groom’s side awaiting permission from the bride’s folks, who were waiting for couple of hours, to enter through the ribboned arch gate.  During the ten-minute wait, I took pictures of the uninvited spectators, mostly children, who gathered around the tents to watch the betrothal.

After we were seated right up front next to the groom, we watched tweens and teens wrapped in six-yard striped kanga, East African counterpart of the pareo, sway and dance their way to the middle of the yard. Escorted by her bridesmaids, the bride pranced to the audience’s view in her glittering gomesi to greet her beloved and his family.  After the greetings, the elders took a forty-five minute break to discuss the dowry, the bride price that the groom gives to the bride’s family.  Following the lengthy deliberation, the groom’s folks presented the bride with numerous gifts.  The kneeling bride and the standing groom exchanged rings after she accepted the cargo of goods.  The bride and the groom cut a cake with cemented white icing cake and hugged each other, the only physical display of affection during the entire ceremony.

After the short two-hour ceremony, we were soon ushered into a kerosene lantern-lit room reserved for close family members and friends to eat dinner.  Like many other Ugandans who show disbelief when they hear that I don’t eat meat,  and ask whether I eat chicken, Agnetia apologetically handed me a bowl of steamed matooke and an oily bean soup.  Outfitted with a headlamp to help maneuver the beans through the oil in dim lighting, I scooped small spoonfuls of matooke and beans with REI’s Light my Fire spoons we brought along.  With our stomachs full of matooke, we finally met the newly betrothed a few minutes before we departed from the modest home.

Swinging the headlamp to provide lighting for people behind me, we traversed our way down the trecherous muddy hill and gradually trekked our way down to the front yard of Agnetia’s ancestral home.  The director and his wife jokingly told us that it was too early to return home and they were taking us dancing before they dropped us off at our home at one in the morning.  We sincerely thanked them for the ride.  Craving for more mountain air, we waved them goodbye and were glad the free ride was worthwhile.

Meet Mr. Heat Exhaustion

May 26, 2009

When the folks back home inquire about the climate here in Fractaville, Uganda, I’m quick to point out that the temperatures soar far less than in the summers in Georgia.  The climate is moderate despite our location on the equator.  Warm.  Not HOT.  A good bargain with the Sun.  The lush elevation.  The credit also goes to the influences of the (Schistosomes-full) Great lakes.

Although in the sun the rays seem to concentrate their energies like a magnifying glass, in the shade it feels like spring in Ga.  I proudly wear Z-shaped Chaco tan lines on my feet.  My counterpart joked that I will truly be an Ugandan in two years and he could even pass for my biological brother.

Spending several hours riding around on my newly repaired conglomerated Shimano soaking the Ugandan sun visiting the 35 schools in the area will be a quadriceps and gluteus strengthening experience.  My counterpart suggested we visit the closer schools first, so I gradually get accustomed to the heat and exercise.  I decided to go on a 8-km test ride from Fractalville to Bunytown, the quiet town we’re moving to in a few weeks.

1:15p.m. I hopped on the bike while Fractal, who didn’t own a bike yet, took a taxi.  Many heads turned at the helmeted muzungu wearing a black skirt.

When I walk on the streets, the children’s voices calling out “muzungu” climb in decibels.  muzungu. Muzungu. MUZUngu. MUZUNGU. MUZUNGUMUZUNGUMUZUNGU!!!  Instead of the usual yelling, the children whispered “muzungu.”  I noticed that none of them increased in their frequencies during my ride.  I wondered whether they were cautious in their muzungu singing to ensure that I don’t fall off my bike.

Even though I can tolerate the muzungu mania, I get fairly annoyed when I hear men make sucking noises at me.  I wanted to tell them what trainers suggested to say when confronted with inappropriate comments, or behavior. Oline mpisa embi. You’ve bad manners. Except I didn’t remember my survival Lusoga.  Instead I rode my bike without stopping and changing the gears through the three hills and valleys.

1:45p.m. Breathless and dehydrated, I arrived at the destination where Fractal and my counterparts were awaiting.  I got off the bike and walked towards them.  I could hardly speak when I informed Fractal that I felt a bit strange.  The water I drank gave me little relief, and I craved for a cold Fanta.  I asked Fractal for some of his water.

Then I heard my husband’s voice grow faint, and everything went white.  BLANK.  I gained consciousness after several seconds and I felt the ground underneath me.  Fractal who elevated my legs poured some water on my head and gave me water to sip on from his Klean Kanteen.  He called the Peace Corps Medical Officer and narrated what happened.  While I was recovering, I looked up to see the Peace Corps Education Program Director.  Shocked and confused to see me laying down on the ground, she looked at Fractal and my counterparts for an explanation.  After they fill her in on what happened, she turned to me.  Smiling I say, “Welcome to Bunytown!”

The African way

April 12, 2009

I sit patiently in the front office of Fractal’s NGO in the heart of Fractalville.   We dropped in for a few minutes to ask some wholesome advice into turning the depressing dump into a habitable home.  We’ve a grand vision for our 3-room iron sheet-roofed concrete home: energy-saving solar panels that power 2 small lamps and charge our cell-phones, our ENO hammocks that provide solace, hanging tables that are convenient and simple, and bookshelves that are mounted on the wall.  Things, we discovered, aren’t as simple as going to Home Depot, purchasing a power tool, drilling a hole, and inserting screws into the sheet rock.

An hour later, I was still sitting in the office.  Seated across from me, the NGO accountant extended her hand to give us an invitation to her niece’s introduction ceremony.  We graciously thanked her.  A bit unsure of attending a ceremony where a stranger would introduce her fiance to her parents, I tried to cover my surprise when Sara told me that I should wear a busuti and Fractal should wear a kansu with a sports jacket.   The gomesi, or a busuti, elegantly conceals  any semblance of curves and makes the beautiful voluptuous figure of an Ugandan woman into a mass of shiny fabric that disapprovingly hides any skin.  A busuti with its silk folds, high peaked sleeves, and huge bowed sash would swallow a petite person (like me!).  Hannah, NGO board member, assured me that I would look smart.

A few days later, I got a call from the NGO secretary, who informed me to come into the office for the measurements for the gomesi.  What! MEASUREMENTS FOR THE GOMESI!   When I arrived at the office,  2 NGO colleagues greet me with the maroon fabric.  They informed me that the chairman of the NGO decided  to purchase the fabric for the gomesi and kansu. This, they say, is the African way.

Soon after that they ushered me into a seamstress’ shop.  The tailor wasn’t there, but her assistant looked me over and retorted that the gomesi would be ready the next morning (just a few hours before the event).  When I inquired whether she should take my measurements, she assured me that she eyeballed the measurements correctly when she looked me over.  As I leave the Africa’s Best Tailoring Shop, I’ve images of the GOMESI engulfing me.

The next day we waited eagerly to be picked up at nine in the morning.  The chairman, the treasurer, the program director, and the secretary arrived at one in the afternoon, and Frank the treasurer excitedly handed me the gomesi.  I thankfully accepted the kind-hearted gift and I proceeded back into the house to be helped by the secretary into the six meter river of cloth.  I decided that the gomesi was a cross between a sari and a Victorian-era dress.  Anna first wrapped  me around the thick shawl–the kind that aunties of my parents’ Orthodox church adorn in winter.  Then I stepped into the gomesi with its PUFFED sleeves.  Since Anna wasn’t well versed in wearing a gomesi, the gargantuan sash took twenty minutes to be fastened around my waist.

We arrived only three hours late, and the ceremony hadn’t started.  A crowd of smartly dressed women and men clad in both traditional and western attires waited uncomplainingly  under a white tent embellished with pink ribbons in the roasting sun.  Not even an hour in the gomesi, I felt I stepped into a sauna.  We were escorted right to the front.  Since there was no room inside the tent, we sat bathing in the warm sun.  After singing the Ugandan and the Busoga anthems, we tolerated (for the next seven hours) the conversations between two professional gabblers, who represented the two families and who were employed by them, for the event.  The first–couple of hours–was the greeting.  The children, the adolescent girls, the teenaged boys, middle-aged women, the senior-women danced their way into the aisle between the two tents.  They welcomed the groom’s family.  The families shared their Busoga kingdom membership donation certificates to verify that they were from different clans.  The last hour the groom’s family, who came bearing gifts, covered every inch of space with gifts: baskets of tomatoes, pumpkins, pineapples, rice, sugar, onions,the leg of a cow in a burlap sack, matooke, soaps, sofa, goats, and chickens.  The  chairman informed us that the material goods have replaced the traditional monetary bride price.

Right after sunset, the buffet lunch was ready.  As I stood up to walk to the line, the sari part of my gomesi came undone.  Frank motioned to me that my dress was dragging on the floor, and  I gathered it together without showing my embarassment.  I was too tired to care about it after a few minutes, but was glad to see the food.

As I used the chapatti to scoop up the sauce, I watched Fractal furtively try to avoid the video camera as he attempted to  sneak the rice into his mouth with his fingers.  The last three years Fractal has been finessing the art of eating with his fingers.  Even though he impressed relatives in India, he was still self conscious of his fine motor skills.

We got back a little after nine.  With a new perspective.  I decided that our hour and half long wedding wasn’t that bad.