A moment of gratitude =)

I think it is about time to talk about some of the things I love about Uganda and the things I am most grateful for having in my life while I am here. After all, you get out of life what you give so I have been focusing on putting myself out there, making mistakes, learning, and staying as positive as I can—much harder to do here where I am constantly feeling vulnerable.

In another post I will talk about how Uganda is a country filled with extremes, but for now I just want to focus on why I love it here. The landscape and environment is gorgeous. Green, green, green everywhere and such a variety of trees and foliage. My favorite thing to do is look out the window from a taxi or bus while traveling across the country. Mango trees and acacia trees jut out of no where, dense forests with ferns, rows of pine, acres of tea leaves, sugarcane, and maize. There are also plenty of mountains and lakes sprawled across the land. It really feels so natural and real. And people live in this nature, alongside it, plotting their grass-thatched mud huts and family compounds right in the bush, making sure to plant some banana, orange, and guava trees for both fruit and protection from the ever-beating sun. The fact that moving around the country is so easy (although not without intense frustration in its own right) makes the experience more enriching. Travel is cheap and Uganda is small, so going from one place to another is possible. The roads are pretty terrible and break downs always happen, it just takes planning and patience. Another guilty pleasure is traveling in matatus, taxis, because they pack them so tight. It may get hot, but people are mostly friendly, you stop and vendors come to the window to sell snacks like roasted plantains and maize, and I love that feeling of being packed in. I am weird I know, but it sort of feels comforting. If you don’t feel like riding in that, the most popular form of transport is by boda boda, motorcycle. It is super fast and cheap. However, pcvs are not allowed to ride these because of how dangerous they are. But what you can do is give them a little money and send for things like groceries or airtime, maybe even a key to your hotel room that your friend took with them haha.

Another thing I love is how contend and humble most people hold themselves in this country. Life is hard and people bare with it and work even harder. Therefore, the simple things are all the need and they don’t have grand ideas about what they should have or should not have. Strangely there is a large sense of entitlement in regards to money, but not in regards to goods or services. Time is also spent leisurely and freely when work is not to be done. For the most part, everyone is very warm and friendly, glad to see me in their country. The kids are even better. They will run up to me shouting “muzungu” and saying hello, many coming in for a hug or a touch on the hand. They just love us strange white people. The students at school can really get attached and it is a love I really enjoy feeling. Watching them play is also really entertaining, they are so creative with the games they come up with and they are ever doing gymnastics around. A popular one is taking an old tire and using a stick to travel with it, or finding spare parts to make toy trucks.

The men here are gorgeous. Facial structure, tall and lean with muscle from work, long lashes, and good skin and teeth. Can’t help but include this haha. Fresh vegetables are always available, in fact I don’t eat anything that isn’t fresh, local, and organic; that is all they have here. I probably pass the gardens where the food is grown! And if I need to top up dinner with an egg or something else, I can just walk to the duka (store shop) right down the road that has all the essentials people in the village need. Walking around anywhere you are forced to greet all the time. Although at first I was not used to this, it reminds me of the human element in living in a community and how simply recognizing someone else and taking time to ask how they are can mean so much.

Now this is getting long so I am just listing what I am even more grateful for:

Lots of veggies and beans so I can stay a vegetarian

Somewhat moderate climate (could be much colder and much hotter)

Good friends that I see on weekends

A married couple of volunteers that are my neighbors-Love the Rentropes!

Good communication home to people who love and support me endlessly

Being challenged by this place and these people to be a better person 

Cool small cities to enjoy, one of which is very close

Abundance of coffee

I can go running and exercise

A couple really good co-workers at site

The real friends I have made with Ugandans

I am not wasting much (little garbage, tons of compost)

I have running water and electricity most of the time

National language is English

I am healthy and safe on a regular basis

Tons of things to read and watch

I have a good bed and a net to sleep under

Oatmeal in the mornings

I am learning and growing personally and professionally

Where am I...oh yeaaaaah, Uganda.

I sometimes forget that I am in a developing country; I sometimes can’t do anything but think that I am in a developing country. Uganda is filled with extremes and paradoxes; it is definitely part of what makes being here so entertaining, in fact I often feel like I am living in a tv show like the Twilight Zone. Let me explain.
Aside from some culture related issues that would happen anywhere, the most frustrating times of my life here are usually centered around work. Uganda has an education system, they have a national curriculum, they try to educate every child below 16, they have examinations, and they have universities. All of these structures lead me to forget that Uganda is a developing nation, which still has a far way to go. When that happens I get mad that the teachers do not go to work and the students are not learning a thing. So although there are many great things in place that exist in the developed world, that does not inherently mean it is going to be successful because there are plenty of departments that need to exist behind the scenes to make education effective. Number one being accountability, which simply doesn’t exist. Number two being a body of people in Uganda that are reforming education according to Uganda’s situation and not merely copying what happens in western cultures. Number three could be what causes so much of Uganda’s delay in moving forward, proper management of money and resources. UPE (Universal Primary Education) was created as a mimic of what many western countries have been doing for decades, calling for all children to receive a basic education where they can acquire basic skills. Unfortunately, the planning period for this edict must have been short because it is barely funded at all and there is no monitoring being done to ensure what the government says should happen actually happens. So there is one way that I often forget, but then am subtly reminded I live in a country that is still trying to learn how to swim. On the one hand, they have a country-wide system of schools and, on paper, everything looks in order. Just seeing that causes my mind to operate like it would in the US and expect certain things to happen at school. However, digging a little deeper reveals all the infuriating little things that prevent schools from running the way they should, like teachers not receiving pay in three months and schools not being given any books from which the curriculum is based. Other areas, like the fact that Uganda has a complex system of roads and highways and that the capital city, Kampala, feels like a small US city often lead me to forget where I am. However, I would do much better to remember to have more patience and forgiveness for this place because they are in fact still developing and really trying. Despite being one of the poorest countries in the world, the people here for the most part are so resilient and happy. You don’t walk around and see people who looked depressed or starving (although that absolutely does happen, it is just not everywhere and luckily agriculture is something Uganda does well and is very self-sustaining on so although a balanced diet is lacking for most people, so also is starvation lacking for most). Maybe that relaxed attitude is hurting Ugandans because they don’t have the desperation to change and develop that some of their less fortunate neighbors have, such as Kenya or Sudan. However, it also keeps Uganda relatively peaceful. If you look at all the countries surrounding Uganda, almost all of them have wars and rebel fighting going on. For the past decade or so, Uganda has remained quiet.
The other side of this is that feeling of living in a unreal world that my friends and I often get. That comes from little things like hearing Celine Dion or Shania Twain on the radio of a really macho man, waiting in a taxi that is pretty much full but not overfilled to leave for about two hours and then breaking down half-way to your destination forcing you to get out and stuff into another taxi that doesn’t leave, not being able to swim or touch water for fear of parasites, teachers thinking that mid-day cleaning of the compound is way more important than a lesson, when cleaning means sweeping dirt from one area to another nearby, and countless other little mishaps that happen (I will write a blog all about this). Sometimes these are really irritating, but mostly they are just funny. I have to admit the transportation issue was at one point the bane of my existence, but now I plan for it and rather enjoy being crammed into a taxi where I am smashed between four people; I am learning to be patient and go with the flow and realized how I have virtually zero concept of personal space! So Uganda is teaching me some valuable lessons and when I remind myself they are not a country with a GDP to match the US, I can relax and take a breath and let things happen the way they do. After all, the slow pace allows me to have such delightful mornings where I eat my breakfast, drink my coffee, and read before going in to work, in fact it is when I wrote this lovely little post. Cheers.

Living in the world of "no homo"

As most of you know, Uganda became famous last year with its threat of a “kill the gays” bill, where being caught in a homosexual act could lead to life in prison. Although most of the aim of this bill was more towards pedophiles than adult gay men and women, it was still a major concern from a human rights perspective. So much so that many governments around the world, including ours in the US, told Uganda that if the bill passed they would lose all aid and funding; that was a big uh-oh for this country. So, the bill has been put on the backburner and is not really going anywhere. Since being here, I have discovered that this issue is mainly a religious one, and Uganda is one of the most religious governments I know of, that was started by missionaries that came here and was taken up by MPs in districts in order to gain public support. Some people here are very against homosexuality on moral grounds, but most people either don’t care or don’t know about it. I doubt the bill will ever pass since Uganda relies on foreign aid more than any other African country. Interestingly, despite being such a homophobic country, it is also the most homoerotic place I have ever been.
It is totally common to see two men or two women holding hands, way more common than a man and a woman. It is also common to see two men sitting in one another’s lap, massaging some part of the others body, and leaning on one another on a bench or seat. More than that it is custom for friends to talk about how much they love one another and express that physically with the aforementioned signs of friendship. And believe me that is all it is, friendship. I am not sure where the culture came from, maybe even from the extreme religious beliefs that say men and women can’t be physical unless married and in the bedroom. However, there are more weird things that happen here. It is perfectly normal for a man to walk around wearing a pink shirt, tight jeans with bedazzled jewels on it, nail polish, carrying a purse, and sometimes even ladies shoes. What!? In my world at home, this would be a gay man walking down the street. Here it is just fashion gone awry. So maybe the US has some catching up to do; boys would be humiliated and maybe beat in some parts of the country if they held each other’s hands even as friends. In fact although some of it can be really confusing for me…is this seemingly feminine man hitting on me or just trying to be my friend?...I think it is one of my favorite parts about Uganda. I mean relax guys, holding hands is a physical way to show friendship and trust and love, it doesn’t have to mean homosexuality. The pink bedazzled clothing, well I guess gender norms are a lot looser here. This bodes great for me seeing that nothing I do really could be considered gay and I am totally safe from being outted on accident. Now I just need to navigate a new set of rules for flirting and dating and friendship, because you all know me if someone tells me they love me my heart melts. I guess here it will just have to be a friendship melt.
On the bright side there is an underground gay community here, mostly in the capital and big cities. There are groups that support one another and even fight for rights and medical care. There are even nightclubs! Somehow everyone knows they are there, which is why I think being gay is not such a big deal for the public here (at least in the more liberal and open-minded capital) but more a political issue. Don’t worry, I know what you are thinking. I am being safe! I am just really excited to make some friends and see what life is like for that group of people in Uganda and maybe even get some dancing in where I feel comfortable. In a small sense, I am feeling what it is like to be a minority group somewhere. Yes I am white so a minority in an African country, but that is different because being white here has a very specific connotation of having money, thereby making the minority experience different (probably my least favorite part about Uganda). But being a part of a group that is so incredibly targeted and penalized is very interested. Back into the closet I went! However, I am strangely still allowed to wear tight jeans and walk with a strut without anyone thinking anything; I can even hold a boys hand in public and get away with it!