Dancing in the Moonlight

Last night was interesting…

At about 10:30 PM, I heard a knock on my door.  Wondering who in the world would want to talk at such a late hour, I reluctantly got up from the comfortable chair in my bedroom and made my way into the front room.  Opening the door, I found that the person responsible for disturbing me from my relaxation was a woman who helps to run the guest house next to our compound.  She is also a friend of my landlady, and she had been sent to invite me to a graduation party for my landlady’s daughter.  The party was scheduled to take place at…10:30 PM last night.  (Actually, it was probably scheduled for like 8 or 9 PM but was actually just getting started.)  After overcoming my surprise surrounding, first, the fact that my landlady has a daughter old enough to be graduating from college (I’m assuming it is college…it was never explicitly stated), and, second, the fact that I was being invited to a party that was starting at 10:30 on a Thursday night, I found out that the party was happening at the guest house next door, and that they were hoping I could come “just for 30 minutes or an hour.”  (I’ve learned enough in the past year and a half to know that this timeframe would be a significant underestimate.)  I paused and looked down at my outfit, which consisted of the dirty t-shirt and shorts I only wear before bed when I’m alone in my house, and my friend at the door quickly realized that this ensemble simply would not do.  So, she told me that she would wait for me at the guest house.  I agreed, shut the door, and put on some pants and a slightly less dirty shirt with buttons.

It was a really beautiful night.  The stars were out, and the yellowish moon, just past full, was shining brightly down onto the courtyard of the guest house.  I paused at the entrance to the courtyard and took a breath, knowing that, as soon as I stepped through the doorway, I would become the center of attention for at least a few minutes.  I generally need to take a second to prepare myself for something like that.  If you ever want to experience service, be a muzungu guest at one of these Ugandan functions.  Once I finally did make my way to the section of the courtyard where the party was getting started, chairs and tables suddenly moved to provide me with a place to sit where I could easily see everything.  In his haste, one guy, trying to move a small table, only grabbed the top part (the legs were left sitting where the table had previously made its home) and, without even realizing his error, tried to place the table in a new location.  As he let go of the table top, it promptly dropped to the ground.  A second guy discreetly passed him the forgotten legs, but not before everyone had a good laugh.

A few speeches were made congratulating Maria (who I had never met before last night), Maria said a prayer, and then food was served.  Now, it was past 10:30 PM, and I had obviously already eaten dinner.  Actually, Griffin had been in Masaka yesterday and had brought me a huge cheeseburger and fries from an amazing restaurant there, because she’s just an awesome person.  As you might expect, I had really enjoyed dinner and was feeling completely satisfied.  I would have been quite content with not eating anything else last night.  Instead, suddenly, sitting in front of me was a huge platter that on which you might serve a small turkey.  (Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit here…It was probably only big enough for a whole rotisserie chicken.)  Every square inch of this thing was piled with matooke, rice, and some sort of meat…I’m guessing beef.   I was not hungry at all, but, thinking that it would be impolite to refuse, I slowly shoveled as much as I could into my mouth for the next half an hour or so.  I made it about three-quarters of the way through the stuff, and I think I impressed Rita, the girl who had served me.  After picking up my nearly-cleared plate, she said something along the lines of “You didn’t give your food to someone else, did you?”

After 'second-dinner,' a few friends gave Maria some gifts, and then the dancing started (and the title of the blog starts to make sense).  Ugandans can dance.  These people have rhythm.  Even the little kids have solid skills.  On the other hand, if you know anything about me, you probably know that dancing is not one of my favorite activities, and I am not very good.  Sometimes, I think that the reason I like playing music so much is because, when I play music, I don’t have to dance to it.  Well, as you might imagine, a muzungu standing up and dancing would be quite a spectacle, and quite a few people were trying to persuade me.  I remained steadfast for a few minutes, but then my neighbors in my compound started to work on me.  I like them a lot and found it much more difficult to say no.  So, it happened.  I stood up and found myself dancing in the moonlight with my neighbors.  Actually calling it “dancing” might be a bit of a stretch, though, seeing as my only move consists of rhythmic swaying, incorporating very subtle knee bends on the beat.  Granted, the long hair adds an entirely new dimension, forcing me to include a few quick head movements to keep the hair out of my eyes.  Needless to say, the company enjoyed this sight quite a bit, and I suppose I’m glad that I could add to their evening.  Sometimes, I guess, you just have to accept that you’re going to be a spectacle and go with the flow.  Obviously, though, to an impartial observer, I was put to shame by the others dancing around me.  Sarah, who I described in my last post as the woman who cooks, cleans, and takes care of some of the kids in our compound, had some especially impressive moves.

Finally, around 12:30 AM (didn’t I say that 30 minutes would be an underestimate?), things started to wind down, and I told my landlady that I needed to get to bed after thanking her for inviting me.  As I left the guest house and walked the short distance to my door, I thought a little bit about the experience.  What I found most striking was the sense of accomplishment that permeated the entire group.  It was not just felt by the graduate herself, but by her friends and family as well, as if it was a team effort.  Truly, I’m sure it was.  Personally, I know from my own experience that I would not have been nearly as successful as I was in school if I did not have a wonderful, loving family, a great group of friends, and supportive teachers standing with me through it all.  It seems that Maria has these things, and I think that the children of several other families I have met here have them, too.  This is the kind of realization that brings me joy and that allows me to truly enjoy my time here.

So, our compound's saga of interesting and amusing events continues.  Who knows what next week has in store…

Hanging Out, Making Jokes, and Eating Fruit

I still haven’t completely figured out the timing of jackfruit season, if there is a specific season for jackfruit, but I’m pretty sure it’s happening right now.  Over the past several weeks, at least a couple of times each week, some of my female neighbors have been bringing jackfruits back to our compound, and then all of the kids, and some other women, gather round while someone starts hacking up the fruit and distributing the pieces.  They have also started inviting me to these jackfruit-eating parties.  Okay, it might be a bit much to classify it as a party.  We just sit in the courtyard on plastic chairs eating fruit for half an hour, but I have to say that I have been enjoying it.

Jackfruit - I don't have any good pictures, so these are from Google

So, maybe I should start by explaining what a jackfruit is, since I had never seen one before coming to Uganda.  A jackfruit is a massive fruit (Wikipedia tells me that the biggest ones can weigh up to 80 pounds, can be 3 feet long, and can be 20 inches in diameter) with hard, prickly, green skin.  We don’t eat the skin.  People here usually use a little machete to hack the thing open.  The inside contains a bunch of thick, rubbery strands that are sort of a pale yellow color, and fairly large pods, which are a darker shade of yellow, are interspersed with these rubbery strips.  The pods, which contain the seeds, are also sort of rubbery and very sticky, but they taste good.  Some people have described the taste as a cross between a banana and a pineapple, or just as a tart banana.  In any case, it’s pretty sweet.  So, to eat the pods, you need to dig them out of the fruit, which is sometimes a little difficult, because they are attached to the inside of the skin and to the rubbery strips.  So, getting to the good part can be some work.  It’s usually worth it, though, and hacking into one usually becomes a big event, because, unless you think your stomach can handle eating pounds of candy-like fruit, you need a bunch of people around who are also willing to indulge themselves.

So, for the past few weeks, I have been taking part in the jackfruit-eating extravaganzas in our compound.  In fact, yesterday morning, as I was leaving for the office, the woman who cooks, cleans, and helps to take care of the kids inside the compound pointed to a bit jackfruit lying beside her and announced to me in half-English and half-Luganda that, when I got back from work that evening, we would eat it together.  And we did.

What it looks like inside

As might be imagined, I often become the topic of conversation during these little gatherings.  I don’t mind it, because the ladies always joke in a very good-natured way.  Some subjects include the length of my hair and the fact that one of the women says I should cut it off so that she can have it (I think it might look a little weird on her, though), the types of fruit I eat in the USA, and the offer that, once I produce children (that’s how it’s phrased here), I can bring the kids to one of the ladies for childcare.  She said that I just need to bring along money, milk, and some other Luganda word that I didn’t catch.  Oh, another favorite topic of conversation is the slow and meticulous way that I eat.  Most Ugandans shovel huge amounts of food into their bodies in short amounts of time (Dad and Luke would fit right in).  I can compete as far as the amount of food goes, but it takes my about twice as long to finish it.  Jackfruit is an even more extreme case, because I eat sweet things very slowly and don’t like to eat a ton.  So, I always request a small piece of jackfruit, which ends up being at least twice as big as I would prefer it to be, and which is roughly the same size as, if not smaller than, the piece the little four-year old girl gets, who is like an eighth my size.  And, while simultaneously dancing around the compound and firing seeds into the waste pile with the velocity of a spitball aimed at a teacher from the back of a classroom (important note: I never did that), she finishes her piece before I’m even halfway through with mine.

The pods that you dig out and eat

But, I think the most amusing conversation happened about two weeks ago.  One evening, as I was starting to eat dinner, one of the women knocked on my door.  After putting my plate down and eventually opening the door, I saw that she, some other women in the compound, and the kids had just cut open a huge jackfruit and were starting to dig in.  After protesting a few times, saying that I was already eating dinner, I gave in to their persistence, left my rice, beans, and veggies to sit inside, and came out and ate some jackfruit with them.  Eventually, the conversation turned to the fact that I still don’t have a wife (not an uncommon topic).  “John, when are you going to get a wife?  You need someone else in your place to chat with, so that you won’t eat dinner so early.”  (It was like 7 pm at this point.)  Then, they started planning the whole thing for me: “You will go back to America, find a kazungu (rough translation, a pretty little white girl), and bring her back to Uganda.  Then, you will have your wedding, we (the women in the compound) will be maids in the wedding, and then we will dance all night at Nabisere (the nice hotel just outside of town).”  So, it’s all set up.  We just have to, you know, find the kazungu…

So, why am I going on and on about eating jackfruit?  Well, I was filling out this report form that I have to periodically submit to Peace Corps this afternoon.  (By the way, the annoying form didn’t save correctly, even though I told it to save like five times, and I ended up having to fill the whole thing out again.  Not that this is relevant to our current discussion…)  One of the questions deals with integrating into the community, and I realized that, without even thinking about it, that is basically what I’m doing when I go outside and eat jackfruit with the other people in the compound.  Admittedly, it’s pretty easy for me to get lost in my work, to spend all day at the office and then come home, either to do a little more work or to just sit in solitude and relax.  I’m not saying that sitting in solitude is a bad thing.  In fact, true to my introverted self, I usually really enjoy it.  I’m just saying that, from time to time, it’s probably a good thing to break out of this cycle of work plans, schedules, and solitary relaxation, taking an opportunity to hang out with the people around me in a completely unstructured and unassuming way.  Of course, there are still differences between me and the other people sitting in those chairs, but, while I’m sitting there, I feel like I am becoming more a part of this tiny community within the compound.  This post isn’t about something any deeper than that.  We’re all just people, hanging out, making jokes, and eating fruit.

Helpful Harmony

You might remember that, a while ago, I recorded a CD.  My plan was to take any profits that I made off of it and to donate them to one or more charities, development organizations, and other groups focused on helping people in need.  Thanks mostly to the efforts of Mom and Dad (I had been in Uganda for several months at this point), and, of course, to the people who decided to buy one or more CDs, we sold quite a few of the copies that the recording company had sent to us.  Now, it has been a while since all of that happened, and, up until now, nothing has been done with the money.  The main reason for this delay is that I have not been able to make up my mind as to where the money should go.

Living and working on the ground in Uganda, it has become fairly easy to see the darker side of development – corruption, inflated administrative costs, projects that don’t work but continue to be funded, organizations that exist on paper but don’t actually do any real work (so-called “briefcase organizations”), etc.  Lots of organizations do great work, don’t get me wrong, but it is often very hard to be sure that all, or even most, of the money you’re donating is actually going where you expect it to go.  Going hand in hand with that, I have a responsibility to many people in this situation, to make sure that the money they have so graciously given me goes toward a worthwhile, uncorrupted cause.

So, let me say that, now, I have made a decision that will make use of most of the money we have available:

Patrick Muleeto is one of the sons of my Ugandan counterpart, Max.  He is about thirteen years old (though I’m not exactly sure), and the two of us have spent a decent amount of time together.  Pretty soon after I started working in Kalisizo, Max started sending Patrick over to my house to practice on my computer.  Now, Patrick comes over whenever he wants (which isn’t really all that much, considering I’m working most days and he is only home during school breaks), often waking me up on a Saturday or Sunday morning so that he can spend some time practicing typing and then playing around with the games, movies, and music that happen to be on the computer.  At this point, he doesn’t really need me to be watching over his shoulder anymore.  He turns it on, I type in the password, and then he’s free to do as he pleases.  Just last weekend, he spent over five hours doing stuff on the computer – he even found that Angry Birds game, which I didn’t even know was on there – while I sat nearby and read.  He’s a great kid.  He’s smart, quiet, polite, and has a lot of fun playing with his younger brother Emma (short for Emmanuel).

Patrick, taken on Christmas Day, 2011

Anyway, Patrick finished up primary school at the end of last year.  In Uganda, the school year follows the calendar year, and each year consists of three terms, with breaks in between.  Primary school has seven levels (P-1 to P-7), and, at the end of P-7, all of the students take what is called the Primary Leaving Examination (PLE), and your score on this test plays a large part in determining which secondary schools will accept you.  The exam tests four subject areas – math, English, science, and social studies – and you get a numerical score, ranging from 1 to 8, for each subject.  Lower numbers are better.  My guess is that a 1 or a 2 is about the same as an A in the USA.  Patrick’s aggregate score, which adds up the scores from all four subjects, was an 8, so he basically averaged a 2 for each subject.  This is very good.  Aggregate scores from 4 up to 12 are classified as “Division 1”, which is the highest level you can get.

Max and his family are Catholic, and Patrick has already decided that he wants to study to become a priest.  The academic progression to become a priest is also a little different in Uganda.  After primary school, students who want to become priests enter a seminary that corresponds to the first part of secondary school.  Secondary school consists of two levels: ordinary (“O”) level, which includes the first four years in secondary school (S-1 to S-4), and advanced (“A”) level, which consists of the last two years (S-5 and S-6).  So, the first seminary that Patrick will attend matches up with the O-level, and then he would move to another seminary that corresponds to the A-level.  Finally, he would finish up with two or three years at a more advanced seminary, which could be considered equivalent to the university level.

Sending one of your children to seminary is not cheap for the average Ugandan family.  Good secondary schools are not cheap either.  Patrick was accepted into this first seminary, and, last week, Max showed me the list of fees for the first term.  For the entire year, the total cost is probably going to be about $700, which is definitely a significant amount of money, especially for parents who have several children.  In most cases, if the family can find the money to do it, as many children as possible are sent to private boarding schools.  Unfortunately, these schools are far above the level of their public counterparts, which results in an educational system with significant inequalities across the country.  I guess this sounds similar to parts of the United States.

Anyway, Max and I were talking about these financial issues last Monday.  By the way, I think it’s a testament to our friendship that the two of us could talk openly about what I would consider to be a very private matter.  I am usually not incredibly comfortable talking about these personal issues, unless it is with someone with whom I have developed a strong relationship.  With Patrick entering this higher-level school, Max and Teddy (Max’s wife) are finding it difficult to keep many of their older children in these private secondary schools, and they were thinking about moving one of the girls to a local government (public) school.  As I said, this would be a major step down for her, and they know it.  As the conversation was winding down, I decided to throw out the idea that I might be able to help a little bit, maybe paying part of one of the kid’s school fees, maybe Patrick’s, for example, since we have spent the most time together.  Max was very happy to hear about this possibility, and said, “Oh, yes, it should be Patrick.  He loves you.”  Putting my head down and blinking back a few tears (as I am doing now), I said that I would need to do some checking to figure out how much I could contribute.

I immediately shot off an email to Mom, asking about the total amount of money we had received from the CDs.  Timing was almost perfect, because I had an answer within a few minutes.  It turns out that we should have a little more than enough to cover all of his fees for the next two years.  After running it by Mom to convince myself that it was actually a decent idea, I told Max the story about the CDs and let him know how much we could cover.  For now, we have agreed to only one year, and, as long as everything goes well and nothing crazy happens, we can easily add on the second year.

Of course, this isn’t what I had in mind originally, but I guess that’s how stuff usually works.  You have new experiences, resulting in new perspectives, which allow new opportunities and possibilities to present themselves.  This decision is certainly not a sustainable solution to the countrywide educational issues in Uganda.  A real long-term strategy would involve working to improve the quality of education in government/public schools, so that all of the country’s children have the opportunity for a good education.  But, right now, using what is available, this contribution can help to keep one more child in a better quality school and can help two parents to provide for all of their children.

Let me close with these thoughts: This contribution is not “mine”.  Many people have played a part to make this thing possible, and I want to thank all of those people – you know who you are.  As I said, this was not exactly my original idea, but it seems to fit.  A need is there, the resources to meet that need are also there, and the means to bring those resources here to meet the need are easily available.  Besides all of that, in my own personal journey (in both the physical and spiritual realms), it seems to be the right time for this to happen.  So, once again, thank you all for the important part you have played in making this thing a reality.

Oh, and of course, happy 21st birthday to my brother Luke!

Is my life really all that interesting?

Well, it has been quite a while since I’ve even thought about writing a blog.  Part of the reason is that I’ve been pretty busy with work, and, when I’m not working, I really don’t want to do a whole lot of extra writing.  But that’s not the whole story.  I guess you could say that, over the past few months, I’ve had something of an existential crisis about this whole idea of blogging.  Do I really have something of value to say, or am I just droning on pointlessly about what happens to me from day to day?

It seems to me that, for my blog to be justified, it needs to be based on interesting experiences and thoughtful, relevant ideas about those experiences.  When I started this blog last year before leaving for Uganda, I thought I was getting into some crazy, outrageous thing that would be drastically different from anything I had ever known before.  This expectant fantasy has never really turned into a present reality.  Of course, some things are different, and I’ve had some new experiences.  I can’t drink a glass of water right out of the tap; I can’t take relaxing, 15-minute hot showers right after I wake up in the morning; I can’t always just flip on a light (although power has been getting significantly more consistent in Kalisizo – knock on wood); I go to the bathroom in a hole in the ground; and I certainly don’t get the leg room I would like while traveling.

I’ve also seen some difficult things, especially out in rural parts of the country, where well over half of the Ugandan population lives.  Kids walk for miles to fill a 20 liter jerry can with not-so-clean water, which weighs about 45 pounds when full.  Twenty liters is considered to be the minimum amount of water needed to satisfy the basic needs of a single person, so more than one trip might be needed in a day.  Women dig out in the garden for hours with babies strapped to their backs, and they also spend a lot of time cooking over very smoky fires, probably breathing in a bunch of that smoke.  One of the most common forms of discipline is beating (sometimes with a stick, referred to as “caning”), both at home and at school (corporal punishment is actually illegal in schools, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen in many places).  People need to use dark, smelly, fly-infested latrines, some of which only have mud floors and a torn up plastic sheet over the entrance (I’ve used one like this before…and I was definitely visible through the holes in the sheet).

But, really, after living here for more than a year, the different experiences don’t seem different, and while dire poverty truly does exist for many people, there are also many people who are doing okay, who are getting by, and who are able to help those people who do find themselves in dire poverty.  I see this because Kalisizo is not a rural village – it’s a town.  A small town, but a town, nonetheless, with some people who are pretty well-off.  There are some really nice houses around, and several people form local organizations of their own to try to help lift up other members of the community.  I am certainly not living in a little hut in the middle of a jungle, surrounded by people who have never had any contact with the outside world.  Most of the houses in Kalisizo have brick walls and metal roofs, a lot of people have TVs, and people drive cars on (sometimes) paved roads.  Most importantly, though, there’s nothing surreal about the place or the people.  I’m surrounded by regular people, living their lives.  And that’s how I feel – I’m just someone living his life.  I wake up in the morning, I go to work, I say hi to some kids on the way, I occasionally turn the office into a day-care center when Max and Griffin aren’t around (some of the kids nearby really like to color), I stop at a few shops and the market on my way home, I cook dinner, I read, I watch a TV show or two on the computer to relax, and I go to bed.  What’s so incredible about that?  What’s so interesting about that?  Why does that need to be written down and sent to anyone who wants to read it on the internet?  I never had a blog about my life before I came here…My life never warranted a blog before…What’s so different about my life now?

One answer to these questions is…nothing (or not much, at any rate).  But, actually, that’s something, because it shows the common humanity that exists among all people in the world.  It shows that one group of people is not inherently superior or inferior to another group, that most people, regardless of their home, their culture, their religion, or their language, want and hope for similar things, and that these people are ready to work together to achieve those goals.  These are important things, things that are valuable for everyone to know, things that can contribute to creating a more peaceful world of compassion and understanding. 

Another answer to these questions is that I am asking the wrong questions.  The subject of the blog isn’t really me and my life…honestly, that wouldn’t really be so interesting.  If you are reading this, you probably already have a pretty good idea of who I am (although I do feel as if certain parts of me are changing as a result of this experience).  Why would you want to read what you already know?  The real subjects of the blog are the people and places that surround me.  Many people from my own culture don’t get the opportunity to live where I am living right now, and I think it is important for others from my culture to understand something about people from a different culture.  Although the common humanity of all people is certainly apparent, I am also definitely aware of differences between me and these people who have grown up in a completely different place.  Again, there is not a hierarchy here, in which one group’s ideas are inherently better than another group’s ideas.  This cultural diversity is simply a collection of different lenses through which similar people look at the same world.  The various lenses draw attention to different things, and they help to see the same thing in a variety of ways.  By learning about another culture, we can get at least a rudimentary idea of the structure of that culture’s lens(es), which helps us to see things from a broader point of view.  Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”  Learning about different people and places opens our minds to different ways of thinking, and seeing the relationships between various ways of thinking can suggest pathways towards completely new ways of thinking.  So, like the commonalities among people, the differences can also contribute to progress, growth, and a better relationship with the world.

All right, so it seems that my initial question is actually the wrong question.  Whether or not I have the right to maintain a blog about my life is irrelevant.  “Is my life really all that interesting?” is beside the point.  The real question is whether or not I have a responsibility to maintain a blog about the people and places around me, and I think I do have that responsibility.  I should try to share with you the interesting lives of the people in Uganda and the ways in which those lives are similar to and different from the lives of people within my own culture.  It may still not be all that frequent (I am still kind of busy), but I will try to do a better job of relating the experiences connected to this place and these people.  Besides the fact that the stories of this place and these people are interesting, I think that the importance of learning about a diversity of peoples cannot be overstated.  To close with another Einstein quote, “Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.”

Musical Memory

Near the end of last month, Max and I took a trip to eastern Uganda, to a town called Bugiri.  We went to visit the project site of an Irish NGO called Goal, where the organization builds houses for vulnerable members of the surrounding communities.  When Marc, Positive Planet’s executive director, was in Uganda in March, we had a meeting at Goal’s office in Kampala to talk about this project.  A few years ago, they had done a pilot study using the same kind of interlocking bricks that we use (Interlocking Stabilized Soil Bricks ISSBs) and comparing the costs with those using traditional burned clay bricks.  They found that, in the end, their construction with traditional bricks was significantly less expensive and required much less cement than construction with ISSBs.  So, this result caused some concern for our organization.  Goal agreed to let Max and me visit the site where they’re currently building houses, so we could get a better idea of their process and try to figure out why traditional bricks turned out to be so much cheaper.

So, we went and visited a bunch of their housing sites, some of which were still under construction, and some of which had been completed.  The quality of the work seemed to be good, and they really do a good job of getting the cost of each house as low as possible, while maintaining quality.  But, it didn’t take long to figure out why the traditional bricks were so much less expensive.  Normally, when someone lays a brick wall, the standard mortar that would be used is a mixture of cement and sand.  Water is added, which reacts with the cement, and the cement basically glues all of the little particles together.  Goal used to do that, but, because cement is expensive and because their contractors often tried to use less cement than they should have to save money, the organization decided to change to a mortar that is a mixture of sand and clay…basically mud.  Clay also has certain properties that help to hold things together, so it still works…maybe not quite as well as cement, but it serves the purpose here.  Obviously, clay and sand are pretty readily available in the country, so using clay in the mortar reduces costs quite a bit.  One of the big selling points of ISSBs is that the interlocking structure of the bricks creates a more stable connection between bricks, both horizontally and vertically, so you don’t need to use as much mortar to hold everything together.  The production of ISSBs does call for a small percentage (5-10%) of cement in the brick mixture, but this amount of cement would normally be outweighed by the cement savings that you would see when using less mortar during construction.  With no cement in the mortar, the cement in the ISSBs would just be extra, and the overall cost basically has to go up.  The walls have a heck of a lot of mortar, but there’s no cement in there, so it doesn’t really matter when compared to an ISSB wall.

After realizing this, I suggested the idea of trying to find other materials that we could substitute for some or all of the cement in the ISSBs, in an effort to lower the cost of a brick and further reduce our cement usage.  It’s going to take a while to figure out what kind of materials to try, and then to actually test them out…and there’s a reason cement is the material currently recommended (nothing has been found that’s better and cheaper).  So, this might end up being much ado about nothing, but I think it’s at least worth a try.

Now, the reason I started talking about this whole experience was not to drone on about the technical details of brick-making and brick-laying.  I want to go back to when Max and I were in Bugiri.  Goal had these nice Land Cruisers that we got to ride in when we were out visiting all of the sites.  It was quite a change from the cars and minibuses that play the “stuff one more person into the vehicle until it’s almost ready to pop like a balloon” game.  It was certainly nice and comfortable, but I have to admit that it was also a little strange.  Riding through the countryside in this thing, I sort of felt like I was riding in to “save Africa” on some white horse or something.  Maybe I’ve just lost the ability to appreciate a comfortable car ride, but I’m pretty sure I felt a bit of that “savior mentality.”  It kind of made me realize the value of the “Peace Corps experience,” in which we don’t get to ride around in nice, spacious vehicles and work in offices with generators, desktop computers, and break rooms (Goal’s office had all of this stuff…it was kind of nice to just sit in there and marvel).  We actually walk or take public transportation.  When the power goes out in town, the lights go out in our office and at my home.  The only running water is the one tap in my compound, which is on sometimes and is only used to fill up my storage tank.  There’s actually something refreshing about living like this, facing many of the same issues as the people with whom I try to work.  Let’s be honest…I don’t have to deal with everything.  Quite a bit separates me from the average Ugandan (for example, I’m typing on a laptop computer right now), but I’m certainly more aware of certain things than I would be if I got to drive around in a Land Cruiser all the time, and there’s something to be said for that.

My main point here is that I think I’m pretty much completely over this whole idea of coming in to save people.  Don’t get me wrong…I hope the work that I do makes a positive impact on people’s lives, but the whole idea of being some kind of “savior” or “bringer of life and hope” or something sort of leaves a bad taste in my mouth now.  I think at least part of me used to believe that I could be these things to everyone around me, but, now, I think I’m starting to realize that I don’t want to be that, and that I shouldn’t try to be that…

Through some combination of my faith, my perfectionism, and my occasional idealism, I have sometimes fallen into the trap of thinking that I can be everything that everyone needs…essentially, in Christian terms, that I could “be Jesus” – the perpetual suffering servant who never thinks of himself, only of the needs of others – to all those around me.  I can’t…why?  Because I’m not Jesus, or God, or a person with any more potential than anyone else around me.  As much as some people here might think that this white person can solve any problem (I recently got a call from someone who dialed the wrong number…after convincing him that it really was a wrong number and that I didn’t know anyone named “Flo,” he asked me to help him find Flo…how the heck was I supposed to accomplish that?), this white person cannot do everything (even if he does vaguely resemble the long-haired guy in the westernized Jesus pictures that hang in quite a few houses around here).

Nope, I’m just John, trying to live my life as best as I can and making mistakes in the process.  But isn’t that what makes our lives and our world so interesting and charming?  The fact that we are not perfect, that we cannot do everything ourselves, that we don’t have all the answers…No one’s pure light or pure darkness.  We’re all some shade of gray, and we don’t really know exactly what shade (as we look “through a mirror darkly”).  The imperfections, the inconsistencies, the mental battles with ourselves, the uncertainties…these are what make us human, and these are what make those brief glimpses of the divine, when the whole universe seems to be working together in harmony, all the more beautiful.

Over the past few months, I’ve realized that these things I sometimes see as weaknesses or imperfections – my mind occasionally placing greater importance on my own personal needs than on the needs of others, my frustrations with certain aspects of Uganda, my (relatively frequent) desire to have some time to myself (I recently referred to my house as the “fortress of solitude” as I was thinking about things in my head…in addition to not being Jesus, maybe I also need to remind myself that I’m not Superman) – these things are really just parts of me…that I shouldn’t necessarily try to deny them whenever they creep up.  The fact that I find certain things about Uganda and the culture of this place a bit frustrating just shows that I have a somewhat different set of cultural values, that I was brought up in a slightly different way, and I can’t deny that this is the case.  I like to talk about how we’re all so similar, how very little separates me from a Ugandan, but there are certain things that do separate, and it’s not right to try to deny that or to refuse to acknowledge that.  While I have to have respect for the culture in which I find myself, I also have to have respect for my own culture and for my own needs.  And that’s why I, personally, can’t be this ideal “suffering servant.”  There’s a reason the “body of Christ” is made up of many parts.  Having the faith to move mountains is a lot easier when lots of people believe that it can happen, and then we all pick up shovels to get things started (I think that might be a slightly altered Indian proverb…).

So, with these thoughts in mind, while I still spend lots of days working crazy hours and not really taking time for myself at all, I have started (or, more appropriately, resumed) doing a few things that help me decompress, de-stress, and relax (if I have the time).  Aside from trying to spend time with friends (which has become easier now that another PC volunteer is living in town J), these things almost all involve music (and now the blog title finally makes sense).  I’ve been listening to music a lot more recently, spending entire evenings working, cooking, or doing whatever to the sounds of the Beatles, Billy Joel, the Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, Queen, the Who, and a whole bunch of others in the classic rock category (including right now…John Lennon – post-Beatles – is currently cued up).  It’s really interesting to me how much some of my memories are tied to music…I’ll hear a certain song, and remember that it was the song playing as I was driving to visit a friend, or that it is another friend’s favorite song, or something like that.  So, I think about people back in the states a lot when listening to music.  I’ve also put a music writing program on my computer a few weeks ago, and apparently I had a lot of pent up musical creativity waiting to find some sort of expression…I’ve already written a fairly big piece for cello and piano.  Now, if I could just play it…  I mean, the computer plays it back for me, but it’s got that mechanical perfection that just so boring.  Here’s another example of how our humanity, our “imperfections” and “inconsistencies” make things more interesting.  The little idiosyncrasies of a real person playing an instrument (sliding from one note to the next when making a big jump, starting out a hair sharp and then relaxing into exactly the pitch, tiny changes to the tempo to make things more intense and then to sit back and take a deep breath) make each performance unique and a personal experience that can connect the people performing and the people listening unlike almost anything else.

Anyway, that’s probably enough of my “music is amazing” rambling for today.  The important thing is that I’m trying to make sure I give myself what I need, and to be better at accepting it when others give me what I need, while I also try to give others what they need, when I am able.  Sometimes it’s a tough balancing act, but, other times (maybe during those times when everything in the universe is working together in harmony), it all happens at the same time.  I am fulfilled, others are fulfilled, and everybody helps everybody else…no hierarchy, arrogance, or egotism.  Just selfless love that nourishes the self as it nourishes others…