An Alternate Resume

If you didn’t read it, my last blog post consisted of a story in which I saved the day by pulling out little pieces of wood from a car door keyhole, so that my coworkers could get into the car.  It was suggested that I create a “resume” of completely random skills, sort of along the same lines as “proficient in removing small wooden fragments from car keyholes”.  If you were to ask my coworkers, they would probably say that I’m an expert in a great many fields.  Just last week, Suzan asked me to edit and proofread a short report she had typed, about the selection of households to receive water tanks from a grant Brick by Brick had been awarded, and about health education sessions that were being held for those beneficiaries.  I certainly don’t have any special abilities or experience when it comes to health education or figuring out the best candidates to receive water tanks, but, after I had finished going through it, we gave it to Max, so that he could “approve” it.  “Oh, I don’t need to read it,” he said, “The expert has already gone through it.”

After Suzan started to agree with him, I interjected, “What exactly am I an expert in?”

Suzan takes this question.  “Oh, you’re an expert in the English language, designing reports, computers…” Her voice trailed off as she listed a few other things that I can’t remember.  After a bit more conversation, Max did read the report…

I suppose that it’s nice to know that my coworkers see me as a valuable member of the group, but I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t classify any of the things listed by Suzan as areas of special expertise.  However, for some frequently needed comic relief, I confess that I do, from time to time, think about some of the more obscure skills and abilities that have developed as a result of living in Kalisizo for more than two years.  The following list is certainly not exhaustive, but it might give you an idea of the professional benefits of living in Kalisizo.  Of course, some of these skills won’t be so useful after I leave…

Traveling Skills

Navigating crowded city streets and sidewalks – I think, at one point, I described the Kampala taxi parks as similar to those little puzzles with sliding pieces.  There’s one open space in the whole puzzle, and you have to move all of the pieces around before you have space to move the piece you actually want to move.  I think that this comparison still stands.  Take a few trips to this area of Kampala, and you will be forced to quickly learn a number of skills that are needed to get you where you need to go.  I could write an entire blog listing these – looking like you know where you’re going, even if you don’t; knowing when to squeeze in between two taxis that are about six inches apart; changing the position of your backpack so that sneaky people can’t get into the compartments without you realizing it, etc…

Traveling long distances with no personal space – When I was younger, I thought that the three or four hour drive to the beach was long.  Now, that kind of trip would seem like nothing.  I mean, I had an entire seat to myself, and I could move my arms and legs a little bit.  The trip between Kalisizo and Kampala takes about the same amount of time (on a good day), but I have also been on public transport for, and I’m not exaggerating here, ten to twelve hours in a single day (and I spend the next day being sore).  This is part of the reason why I have been able to read so many books over here.  What else is there to do?

Packing light – When you have to travel on public transport, as partially described above, you realize that having only one, relatively small bag with you is quite advantageous.  I’ve traveled around the country for a week or more, all with a single backpack (that still has quite a bit of room in it).  When I think about the massive bags that I lugged over to Uganda back in 2011, I have to laugh at myself.  There’s no way that I needed all of that stuff…

Household Skills

Making candle holders…out of other candles – I inherited a few candles from the volunteer in Kalisizo before me.  Obviously, these come in handy when the power goes out.  However, I couldn’t just sit the candle on a piece of wooden furniture, so I found a whiskey glass, also inherited from the previous volunteer, and put the candle in there.  After that initial supply of candles was used up, I couldn’t find the same type of candle, so I bought these tall, skinny things that can’t stand up on their own.  What to do?  Well, the bottom of that whiskey glass had started to accumulate quite a supply of candle wax, so this was heated up, and the bottom of one of the skinny candles was plunged into the resulting pool of hot wax.  After a while, the wax solidified again, and the candle stayed standing.  Now, when a candle burns the whole way down, I immediately stick a replacement into the hot wax.  The four pencils in the picture function to hold the candle upright until the wax cools down again…

Water Conservation – Our compound’s tap only actually gives us water for a couple of days each week, if that.  Considering that three other families live in this same compound, I don’t get very much.  You are forced to figure out how to use as little water as possible.  Take bathing as an example.  After two years, I am now able to get myself relatively clean with less than one liter of water (a liter is slightly more than a quart).  I have no illusions about this.  I would get much cleaner in a long, hot, pressurized shower…but I get clean enough.  And I just get dusty again within a few minutes anyway…

Alternative Hairstyles – Over the past year, my range of possible hairstyles increased from one (which I’ll call “let it all hang down”) to two.  I can now put my hair in a ponytail.  Yes, I’m very proud…

Interior Decoration – For people who do this professionally, interior decoration would certainly fall in the next section.  For me, it doesn’t quite make it to a full-blown technical skill…mostly because the extent of my interior decoration ability includes ripping out cool pictures from calendars and taping them to the wall.  Sort of dorm room-esque, I suppose, but I like pictures of animals and landscapes…

 

Technical Skills

Study of Indoor Fauna – My bedroom has no shortage of (harmless) lizards, moths, and other insects, especially in the evening.  Of course, “study” may be too strong a word.  I sometimes just sit in my chair and watch the lizards stalk the insects on the walls and the ceiling.  It should be noted that some of the bugs are a bit too big for the lizards.  See, for instance, the picture of the moth with a wingspan as long as my finger (and my fingers are pretty long), or the picture of the stick insect.  You can get some idea of the scale by noticing the photographs on the wall behind the insect.  Slick, my family’s cat, doesn’t look that impressed…

             

                 

Translation between American English and Ugandan English – Returning now to the Brick by Brick office, we have Skype meetings (audio only) almost every week with Marc, the organization’s Executive Director, who lives in New York.  We have three USB modems from different internet providers.  Usually, at least one of these works...  Anyway, I generally take a backseat in these meetings, so that our Ugandan staff are the ones giving Marc updates.  However, I occasionally need to step in and provide “translation” services.  My Luganda may not be so impressive, but I’m pretty good at rewording things so that something someone said is easily understood by everyone else.  Accents are a problem sometimes, as are some common American/Uganda phrases, that are not so common in the other country…

Do-It-Yourself Pencil Sharpening – For a while, we didn’t have a pencil sharpener in our office.  And yet, we had wood pencils that eventually became very dull.  What to do?  I pulled out my trusty Leatherman Multi-Tool, snapped out the knife, and started to spend a few minutes of each day sharpening a few pencils that way.  It was significantly more tedious than using an actual pencil sharpener, but I got pretty good at it after a while.  The two pencils pictured below began as new pencils, with no points whatsoever, and were completely knife-sharpened…

 

Hammering Nails into Crumbling Walls – A common problem when trying to hang anything on a wall is that the plaster crumbles, resulting in a much larger hole than was desired.  The walls here don’t exactly have wooden studs.  You’re hammering into the plaster, and then you either hit a brick, which bends the nail like crazy, or you keep going through the mortar between bricks.  These plaster and mortar mixes are often not so impressive, and they come apart pretty easily, once they get started.  While I have not yet perfected a technique for getting a nail to stay in the wall without big chunks of plaster falling out, I succeed more than I fail, which, I think, is an accomplishment.  I heard a story that when another volunteer’s dad (who is a carpenter, or works in construction, or something like that) was over here, he also recognized this problem.  Upon returning to America, he sent over a battery-powered drill, in an effort to make it easier for the volunteer to put stuff on the walls.  This idea was not so successful.  The drill just made it worse.  I can visualize hundreds of little flakes of plaster being sprayed all over the place as the drill powers through the wall.  No, the best thing seems to be some careful hammering…

Business Card Design – Changing gears a bit, in an effort to show just how varied my job is sometimes, we had some business cards printed for our office employees and masons about a month ago.  Guess who designed those business cards?  That’s right, I did.  I suppose I was the most qualified person in our organization to do it, since I can move pictures and text around on a computer.

 

Alternative Distance Measurements – Moving out into the field now, sometimes I need to measure long distances by myself.  For example, if I’m working on a rainwater collection project with another volunteer, I’ll need to measure roof dimensions.  The quickest way to do this, especially if a really long tape measure isn’t available, is to walk along the side of the building and count steps.  Fortunately, exact accuracy is not necessary for rainwater collection systems, because rainfall itself is so variable, but I’ve gotten pretty good at taking steps that are almost exactly one meter long.  I’ve checked myself and have gotten quite close.  I guess it’s just muscle memory at this point.  I just have to think to myself that I want to measure distance, and my steps are calibrated accordingly…

Cinematographer – For the grand finale, I’m going in yet another completely different direction.  When Marc was here a few months ago, he wanted to get some video footage of people at our partner schools talking about the work that Brick by Brick has done.  At one school, we found a boy with very good English who was comfortable talking into a camera.  So, Marc basically interviewed him for about a half an hour.  Guess who filmed this thing?  Yep, me.  I spent a half an hour kneeling in the grass (so that it didn’t look like the cameraman was towering over this kid, who was about half my height), with my legs starting to fall asleep less than halfway through.  But, I persevered, and the footage, after quite a bit of editing (probably needed due to my incredible camera work), will be shown at Brick by Brick’s big annual fundraiser in New York, which is actually happening next week.

So, that concludes this list of some of the random skills I have picked up in Kalisizo.  Please feel free to send me any job offers at your convenience…