A Farm and Forgiveness

Several weeks ago, as I was traveling back to Kalisizo from Kampala on a coaster bus, the man sitting next to me decided to start up a conversation.  Although slightly annoyed at being interrupted from reading a book on the pros and cons of development assistance, I soon began to enjoy talking to this young man, named Henry, and finding out a little bit about what he does.  As it turned out, he manages a farm not too far from Kalisizo, and he invited me to come and see it.  So, I gave him my phone number and didn’t think too much about it after getting off of the bus in Masaka.

Less than a week later, Henry was calling me, asking when I might be able to come and visit.  For a while, I couldn’t find the time to get away from work for a little bit, but Henry was quite persistent and kept reminding me that I should come out sometime.  Finally, last weekend, I felt that I could take the time to go and check out the farm.  So I went, and I ended up spending the whole weekend there.  The farm itself was fairly large and interesting.  They grow all sorts of crops, including oranges, pumpkins, maize, groundnuts, and bananas, and they even have a coffee plant nursery.  They also raise cattle, goats, and chickens.  As with every other experience I’ve had being a guest in a Ugandan’s home, we ate lots of food, and I assume that most or all of what we ate came straight from the farm.  I was not able to bring the camera along, because Max was using it over the weekend to take pictures at the site of Brick by Brick’s current construction project, which will eventually become a three-room building at Lwamaya Primary School.  So, most of the pictures this time are were taken there.

Max with a new signpost in front of the office

Being on the farm also provided a great opportunity for thinking and reflection.  Obviously, we toured the whole place, and I spent a lot of time with Henry, but there was also plenty of time to sit in my room and read, think, or listen to music.  (Lots of Ugandan homes seem to have big stereos, and there was one in my room.  The CD player didn’t work, but the tape player did, and, in the pile of tapes next to it, I was able to find a recording of a Beethoven violin concerto, amazingly enough.  I could spend a couple of paragraphs writing about the musical qualities of this particular piece, but that might be less interesting for you than it would be for me, so I’ll just say that it was a very beautiful and interesting work.)

Most of my thoughts, though, were focused on the books that I was reading.  Over the course of a few days, I shot through two books of about 200 pages each (this speed is almost unprecedented for me).  The two books, Left to Tell and Led by Faith, were both written by Immaculee Ilibagiza, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide in 1994.  As a child, she grew up in what seems to be a very happy family, with loving parents and three brothers.  Her family lived in a village along the western border of the country, near what was then Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), and Tutsis and Hutus lived next door to one another, with little or no evidence of the buried tensions that existed between the two ethnic groups.

Brick by Brick masons (in orange) digging the foundation trench

In fact, very little difference, if any, exists between Tutsis and Hutus.  After years and years of intermarriage between the two groups, the only thing that really determined the group that you belonged to was what it said on your father’s identity card.  Your mother could have been a Hutu, but if your father was Tutsi, then so were you.  Some physical stereotypes did exist.  For example, Tutsis were supposed to be taller, but, with all of the mixing, these stereotypes didn’t really have a truth to them.  Tutsis and Hutus were basically the same, but that didn’t dispel the hatred brewing beneath the surface.

In 1994, Immaculee was attending university in Kigali (Rwanda’s capital city), and her father had asked her to come home for Easter.  She and two of her brothers, Damascene and Vianney, were able to make it back to the village, but her other brother, Aimable, was studying abroad in Senegal.  Just before this, the Rwandan president, who was Hutu, had signed a treaty with a group of Tutsi exiles who had been living in Uganda.  Within one day of the family’s gathering, the president’s plane was shot down, and Hutu extremists began a planned campaign to completely wipe out the Tutsi population in the country.  Rwandan radio stations aired nothing but hate-filled propaganda, trying to dehumanize the Tutsi population by calling them “cockroaches” and encouraging every Hutu to join in the extermination.  Machetes, guns, and grenades were freely distributed to Hutus all over the country, and moderate Hutus who did not take part in the killing, or who helped Tutsis to survive, would take the weapons for fear of being killed themselves.  Any Tutsi or Tutsi sympathizer was a target, and the members of Immaculee’s family were Tutsis.

The masons have made lots of bricks...

As a mob advanced toward her family’s house, where a number of Tutsis in the village had gathered, Immaculee was sent to a nearby Hutu pastor’s house by her father, and the pastor agreed to hide her, along with seven other women, in a tiny bathroom.  The women ended up spending 91 days practically sitting on top of one another in that bathroom, barely able to speak or move for fear of being heard by people outside.  The pastor provided them with a small amount of food, but it was barely enough to sustain them.  On several instances, Hutu extremists entered the house and searched many of the rooms, terrifying the women every single time, but, miraculously, the little bathroom next to the pastor’s bedroom was never found.

Finally, as the group of Tutsi exiles slowly fought their way into the country and took control of the capital, a small number of French troops also entered Rwanda to help protect Tutsis (by the way, this was the only response from the international community during the genocide, and these troops were recalled before it was over).  After three months, the women left their hiding place and made a run for a nearby French camp, which they reached safely.  However, when the French were pulling out after the Tutsi army had taken control of much of the country, they were not allowed to transport the Tutsis they were protecting the whole way to a Tutsi encampment.  Instead, the women and others with them were dropped off in the middle of Hutu extremists fleeing the country, still hoping to kill a few remaining Tutsis as they left.  Miraculously, though, the group of Tutsi survivors were able to reach the camp safely on their own.

Immaculee soon learned that, while she was in hiding, all of the other members of her family, with the exception of Aimable, who was still far away from Rwanda, had been killed (if you don’t want to know details, you might want to skip down several paragraphs).  She first learned about her father.  After she had gone into hiding, a number of Tutsis took refuge in a stadium, but there wasn’t enough food for everyone.  From a friend, Immaculee learned that her father had “gone to the government office to ask the prefect to send food to the stadium because there were thousands of refuges there who hadn’t eaten for days.  That was a big mistake…The prefect called your father a fool and had his soldiers drag him outside.  They shot him on the steps of the government office and left his body in the street.”

A few days before that incident, her mother thought she heard one of her sons being killed and ran out to try and stop it.  It turned out that it was not her son, and the killers told her that, if she would bring them money, they would not kill her too.  She ran to a Hutu friend’s house to ask for some money, but her friend said, “Get away from my house – we don’t help cockroaches here!”  She then told the killers to take Immaculee’s mother “into the street to kill her because she didn’t want them messing up her yard.”

Her youngest brother, Vianney, “was killed at the Kibuye stadium with his friend Augustine [who was a Hutu].  There were thousands of people there – and they were all annihilated.  First the killers shot them with machine guns, and then they threw grenades at them.  I don’t think anybody survived.”

Starting to lay the bricks that will be part of the foundation

Finally, she learned about Damascene, who had been able to hide with a friend for some time.  When the friend’s family found out, he decided to try to get across the border to Zaire.  He almost made it but was betrayed by another friend’s brother, who turned him over to a group of extremists looking for victims.  The killers taunted him and beat him with the handles of their machetes, but Damascene remained composed and told them that he was praying for them.  A pastor with the group said, “Does this boy think that he’s a preacher?  I am the pastor around here, and I bless this killing.  I bless you for ridding this country of another cockroach.”  The killing was terrifyingly brutal (one more warning to skip down a bit).  One of them “swung his blade down into my brother’s head, and he fell to his knees.  Another killer stepped forward and, with a double swing of his machete, chopped off both of his arms.  The first killer took another turn with his machete, this time slicing Damascene’s skull open and peering inside.”

It is sometimes hard to believe the depths to which our actions can sink.  People betray their friends, have more concern with their lawns than with another’s life, bless killing, and take some sort of twisted pleasure from completely mutilating a victim’s body.  And yet, the people who commit these atrocities are not complete monsters, devoid of any emotion or remorse.  Shortly after Damascene’s murder, one of the killers (who actually went to school with the victim), “broke down and cried for days…He talked incessantly about all the things he and Damascene had done together, such as playing soccer, singing in the choir, and being altar boys.  He was haunted by the kindness my brother had shown him and all the other boys they’d known…’I will never kill again…I will never get Damascene’s face out of my head.  His words will burn in my heart forever.  It was a sin to kill such a boy – it was a sin.’”

More foundation bricks...that bigger section will be a column

What is the human response to such inhumanity?  In fact, the killers exterminated Tutsis with even greater “efficiency” than the Nazis murdered Jews during the Holocaust.  The genocide lasted for about 100 days, and approximately one million people were killed.  Immaculee’s response is to tell the story, and to forgive, with the hope that the forgiveness will bring healing.  After the genocide was over, she went back to her village and confronted one of the men who had killed some members of her family.  He was being held in a prison.  “His name was Felicien, and he was a successfully Hutu businessman whose children I’d played with in primary school.  He’d been a tall, handsome man who always wore expensive suits and had impeccable manners.  I shivered, remembering that it had been his voice I’d heard calling out my name when the killers searched for me at the pastor’s.  Felicien had hunted me…

“His dirty clothing hung from his emaciated frame in tatters.  His skin was sallow, bruised, and broken; and his eyes were filmed and crusted…I wept at the sight of his suffering.  Felicien had let the devil enter his heart, and the evil had ruined his life like a cancer in his soul.  He was now the victim of his victims, destined to live in torment and regret.  I was overwhelmed with pity for the man…Felicien was sobbing.  I could feel his shame.  He looked up at me for only a moment, but our eyes met.  I reached out, touched his hands lightly, and quietly said what I’d come to say.  ‘I forgive you.’”

Several years ago, I read a book called The Sunflower, written by Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor.  He told a story about a dying Nazi soldier who asked him for forgiveness (when the author was still in a concentration camp).  Understandably, Wiesenthal did not know what to do.  The second half of the book consists of letters written by a number of religious and philosophical leaders giving their opinion, and the responses were quite varied.

Christians preach forgiveness of sins.  God forgives us, and we should do likewise for others.  But, as I read Immaculee’s story and think about what happened to her family, I wonder what I would do in that situation.  Just from reading about these atrocities, I am filled with sadness, fear, and anger that we can do such things to one another.  If I were actually in her place, I honestly don’t know if I would be able to say those three words, “I forgive you,” to the one who had brutally murdered members of my family and who had hunted for me as if it were some sort of game.

And yet, it seems that the only way to achieve a true, lasting peace is forgiveness.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer stated, “The forgiveness of sins still remains the sole ground of all peace, even where the order of external peace remains preserved in truth and justice” (On the Theological Basis of the Work of the World Alliance).  His point, I think, is that, even if killers are brought to justice and order restored, our hearts and minds will not be at peace with each other if we do not forgive and if the killers do not feel remorse and repent.  True peace and reconciliation must come out of this combination of repentance and forgiveness.  If the perpetrators do not repent, they will continue to feel hatred for their victims and will want to kill again.  If we do not forgive, we harbor our own hatred for the killers and might even wish for the opportunity to kill them or make them suffer.  The peace is not complete…It is only external, and someone is likely to eventually break the fragile peace.

But who am I to say this?  As I said, I do not even know if I could forgive if placed in that situation.  Who am I to tell anyone else that he or she should forgive?  I feel like this is the problem that we sometimes experience.  We can say anything we want, from the security of our own comfortable situations.  But until we are actually confronted with horror and react a certain way, our words are somewhat empty.  Even after the action, words only say so much.  The action itself is our testimony.  Bonhoeffer puts it very well, I think.  “The primary confession of the Christian before the world is the deed which interprets itself.  If this deed is to have become a force, then the world itself will long to confess the Word.  This is not the same as loudly shrieking out propaganda.  This Word must be preserved as the most sacred possession of the community…The deed alone is our confession of faith before the world” (The Nature of the Church).

I think we should try to forgive (while not forgetting, of course, lest we repeat our mistakes), but, since I have never found myself within one of these terrible situations (thankfully), I would quote Levar Burton from Reading Rainbow and ask that you “don’t take my word for it.”  Read Immaculee’s story, or pick up a copy of The Sunflower.  Or, find another story of forgiveness in the midst of inhumanity.  Or, I guess you could think about Jesus, who said that we should forgive “seventy-seven times” (sometimes translated as “seventy times seven,” or always, since the number seven signifies wholeness in the Bible), and who did it.  After torture and near death, the words uttered from the cross were not those of anger, hatred, vengeance, or retribution.  They were words of love, reconciliation, and peace.  “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

A Christmas Story

Okay, let’s face it…Christmas in Uganda is a bit different than Christmas in the USA.  One or two decorations in a couple of shops around town, a few “Ugandanized” Christmas carols on the radio, and temperatures that are basically the same as the rest of the year…obviously, I did not experience a white Christmas this year.  And yet, although I barely realized that Christmas was coming, even during the week leading up to the big day, there is something special about it that just won’t let it pass without notice.  On the morning of Christmas Eve, I woke up with “Silent Night” in my head, even though that song had not been on any of the radio stations in the taxis I’ve recently used.  The two evenings before that, I had felt a pretty big urge to read through the stories of Jesus’ birth found in Matthew and Luke.  No, even without the sensory overload that characterizes the holiday season back in the USA, Christmas would still happen and would still have great meaning.

If you read my last post, you know that I had decided to stick around in Kalisizo for the Christmas weekend and to celebrate with my Ugandan counterpart, Max, and his family.  I had told Max that I would try to get up early and meet him at the big Catholic Church for morning prayers on Christmas Eve.  The prayers started at 6:45 am.  Yeah, you guessed it…I didn’t make it.  After rolling out of bed some time around 9:00 am, I gave Max a call, and he told me that one of his younger sons, Patrick, would ride his bike to my house.  Then, the two of us could ride back to Max’s village, Kajaguzo.  Early in the afternoon, it started raining pretty hard, and it didn’t stop until around 3:30 pm or so.  Shortly after the rains, Patrick showed up, and we rode our bikes through the mud back to his house.  I actually think the ride was a bit less scary this time, because the muddy roads slowed us down quite a bit.  Of course, there was a point at which we had to leave the road because it was so muddy, but we made it without completely wiping out or anything.  (Although, I had luckily brought an extra set of clothes, because my pants were about half-mud by the time we reached Max’s home.)

We arrived to find a pretty good number of people there.  Teddy, Max’s wife, greeted me, and then I proceeded to find seven of their kids (probably ranging in age from late twenties down to eight) and two little grandkids.  The youngest granddaughter, Leticia, who was probably 3 or 4, was kind of scared of me.  There were also three young men from the village who were at the house just visiting for a bit.  The only person missing was…Max.  Apparently, he was still in town running errands.

                                                                                                                       

Emma, Max's youngest son and our primary photographer for this post

So, I sat down outside with the young men and had a very nice conversation with one of them.  Paul lives in Kampala now and had traveled back to his home village for the holiday (that seems to be the general trend…and taxi drivers recognize this.  Fares from Kampala to more rural areas go way up before Christmas, and then the return journey is hiked way up after Christmas).  Teddy served us “lunch” around 4:30 pm, which was very good.  It was more or less a pork stir-fry, with carrots, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, and some other stuff.  After eating, I went with Paul to see the house where he grew up.  I met him mother, he pointed out the graves of his father and a few of his sisters, and he showed me the tree under which he was born.  It was kind of a powerful ten minutes or so.  He had never known his father, and this loss was obviously difficult for him at times in his life, but he was so thankful just to be alive.  As he said, some people born in nice hospitals don’t live as long as he has, and he was born underneath a tree near some animals.  It reminded me just how miraculous the birth of Jesus was, from a health standpoint.  I’m assuming that stable wasn’t sterilized and that a doctor wasn’t around.  Yet, he survived to do great things.

After visiting Paul’s house, I went back to Max’s house, where Max was still not around.  I had assumed that I would be traveling back and forth to his house on Saturday and Sunday, but it was getting dark, and I didn’t really want to ride back on those muddy roads when I couldn’t see them.  I now realize that Max and his family had expected me to spend the night, since that is just what families do, and they wanted me to feel like part of the family.  So, it worked out just fine.

Patrick, who is dressed very nicely after coming home from church

Eventually, Max arrived, and the two of us talked as the kids all huddled around his computer to play some games and his wife and older daughters cooked dinner.  During our conversation, which was lit by a single fluorescent light powered by a single solar panel, I discovered that there was a Christmas Eve church service, but that it was like three hours long.  (Luckily, we would be attending the Christmas Day service the next morning, which was only around 2 hours.)  I told Max about the candlelight services that traditionally happen in the USA, and we talked a bit about work-related stuff.  I realized that Max is pretty happy with the work I’ve been doing, and appreciates the fact that I’ve been working hard (indeed, I have been busy).  He even already started campaigning for me to extend my Peace Corps service for a third year (that’s an option after you finish two years).  Max has worked with two volunteers before me (both of them named Jon, and both being engineering students in the Master’s International program), but both of them had been engaged.  Max’s rationale was simply that, because I don’t have a fiancée, obviously I have the freedom to stay in Uganda for longer than two years.  Of course, it’s still just a bit early to be making any decisions about that.

As we talked (and during the rest of the weekend) I was introduced to a variety of local alcoholic beverages.  I tried banana wine, banana beer, and waragi (I think it’s like gin) made from, yep, you guessed it, bananas.  All were significantly sweeter than the stuff I’m used to, but they were pretty good.  I think my favorite of the three was the banana wine, which was apparently made by Max’s sister nearby (I told him that I’d like to see how she makes it at some point).

I'm looking into the house from the back doorway

Eventually, a pre-dinner appetizer was served, probably around 9:30 pm.  Apparently, the pig was all used up, so we started in on various parts of a cow.  The appetizer was the liver…this was my first opportunity to eat liver, and, I have to say, it was pretty good.  The dinner consisted of a wide variety of starches and cow intestine soup.  Really chewy and hard to eat, but not bad.  After dinner, they showed me a little guest room where I could sleep, and Patrick made sure I knew where the latrines were outside.  (By the way, no toilet paper…we used leftover pieces of notebook paper.)

Teddy, Max's wife

On Christmas Day, I woke up and went outside, where Teddy and the older daughters were preparing morning tea.  Morning tea was actually a pretty big meal…matooke, beef, tomatoes, peppers, onions…along with four pieces of bread and a cup of the sweetest tea I had ever tasted (seriously, I saw how much sugar was in the mug before they added water…there was like a layer at least a quarter of an inch thick).  After tea, with a full stomach and an intense sugar high, we went to church.  We were a little late, and the inside had already filled up, so we stood outside with hundreds of other late-comers.  We couldn’t really hear what was going on (not that I could have understood all of the language anyway), but I’m sure it was a very nice Catholic mass.  After the service, we came back home, and the ladies started in on lunch (obviously, a lot of things revolve around food).  If you’ve been wondering about any presents under the tree on Christmas morning…well, first of all, there wasn’t a tree.  Secondly, during the weekend, Max asked me, “Who is Father Christmas?”  So, yeah, presents weren’t really a part of the celebration.

Leticia, a granddaughter, on the phone (or so she thinks...)

I decided that it might be a good time to break out the camera, but, since I’ve never really liked taking pictures, I decided to show Max’s youngest son, Emma (short for Emmanuel, a very seasonally appropriate name), how it works, and then set him loose.  He and the other kids took a whole bunch of pictures, and all of the ones in this post are courtesy of them.  After the picture-taking session was over, Max showed me around his property.  They grow a lot of their own food there.  He showed me banana trees (of course), sweet potatoes, maize, coffee, ground nuts, pumpkins, and sorghum.  They also raise some pigs, chickens, sheep, and goats, and I know they had a cow not too long ago, which was slaughtered.  Then we went to visit one of his friends in the village.  Whenever you make a short visit to someone’s house, it’s customary to provide some sort of drink or food.  This guy brought out a liter of Mountain Dew, and I can’t tell how excited I was to be receiving yet another drink with outrageous amounts of sugar.  Ugandans don’t really seem to make really sweet food, but they certainly enjoy their sweet drinks.

Christie, one of the daughters, on the phone (for real)

After walking back (with a slight sugar-induced headache), we took lunch (that’s how it’s phrased here…you “take” lunch, or tea, or supper).  This was the huge Christmas day meal…and I mean huge.  I was still relatively satisfied from the morning tea, but we had plates filled with rice, matooke, potatoes, posho, spaghetti noodles, greens, cabbage, and these big, slightly bitter berries that taste similar to eggplant (they’re called “entula” in Luganda…I don’t know if there’s an English word).  On top of that, there were big bowls of a kind of beef stew.

Ivan (grandson), Robinah (daughter), and Patrick (son)

After lunch, the kids got excited.  Max has a small generator that he fires up on special occasions (like, for example, Christmas) to power a TV.  There aren’t any power lines in this village, but, as I’ve said, some people have a solar panel, and some have a little generator.  Anyway, it took them a little while to get out all of the equipment (the generator, the TV, the DVD player, the speakers, etc.), and then to get the generator working, and then to reconnect everything correctly, but we eventually sat down and watched a variety of Ugandan-made, soap opera-ish movies.  Supper consisted of leftovers from lunch, which were quite substantial (I mean, they probably had like a whole cow back there in their cooking shed).  As you should know by now, dinners are pretty late here, so it was time for bed.

Grace, another daughter, is cooking cabbage on a charcoal stove

Monday is still considered a holiday in Uganda (Boxing Day…I’m still not sure what exactly this day is for), so I also spent Monday with the family.  I took a pretty good portion of this day to sit outside with the girls while they were preparing food, trying to learn a little bit about their cooking methods and stuff like that.  In addition to watching them cook, they also showed me that mud and certain types of leaves can be used as soap substitutes if you don’t want to buy soap, and I watched them collect the oil from the meat to save for future cooking sessions.  I was also able to correct some misconceptions about the USA.  For example, they were under the impression that all of the country is developed (meaning, like, one huge city).  While there are a lot of cities and towns, I explained that rural areas were also still in existence, telling them that my family lives in a rural area and has a vegetable garden, and that my grandpa raises cattle on a farm.  These things were pretty surprising to them…

Ivan prepares to fight the camera

There were some more fun conversations with Max, too.  Positive Planet’s director had mentioned Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in our meeting the previous Friday, and Max didn’t know the story.  So, I gave him an ultra-abridged version (it’s been a while since I’ve seen one of the movie versions), which he seemed to enjoy.  He has also been trying to be able to say the name of my home state for a while (Pennsylvania can be kind of hard to wrap your mouth around), but I think he’s got it now.  I told him where the name comes from (combine “Sylvania” meaning “woods”, and William Penn’s last name, and you get Penn’s woods, or Pennsylvania), and I think that helped.  He also has a bunch of trees on his property, so he wants to start calling his place “Maxsylvania”.

By this time, I was kind of feeling like a member of the family, and they told me that they would adopt me into their clan and give me a “clan name” (Ugandans have a bunch of names…a Christian/Muslim name, a family name, a clan name, and there might be more, I’m not sure).  Anyway, I’m now a member of the nnyonyi clan (it means “bird”), and my clan name is “Ziwa”.  That word doesn’t really have a meaning, but I did find out that it’s also Emma’s clan name.  So, that was nice.

Emma also prepares to fight the camera

Meals on Monday were sort of whatever was left.  Lunch consisted of lots of matooke (there’s never a shortage of that), the rest of the beef stew, and some groundnut sauce.  Dinner was simply a big place of rice and beans, which was actually really nice, because my teeth were crying out in pain after eating all of that really tough, chewy meat.  Oh, and we also had morning tea, but I was able to prepare my own…with significantly less sugar than the previous day.

After spending a final night in the village (by the way, the stars in the village are awesome…no electricity has benefits), we took one more morning tea, and then Max and I finally had to get back to work.  I’ll tell you what…spending about three days out in the village, without my computer, and even without any books, was really nice.  I just spent all of my time hanging out with the family…and that’s Christmas.  Being with family, being with people you care about.  Don’t get me wrong, I missed being with my family back home a lot, but I did feel very content and at home with Max’s family.

And, of course, you know that’s what it’s all about.  It’s not about the decorations, the trees, the presents, the snow, or anything else.  For me, Uganda stripped Christmas down to its core: a simple family being together, and a baby boy entering the world to be with all people, each of whom he loves very much.

Tuesday night, I finished off my Christmas Bible reading with the first 14 verses of John’s Gospel, and, after thinking about the similarities and differences of the various accounts and about my experiences over the weekend, I spent some time working on another poem…

All that’s Left is Right

In Matthew, we start out to find a kingly genealogy,

The words of scriptures past outlined, fulfillment of the prophecy,

Joseph’s angelic dream recalled, his choice to stay with Mary,

Eastern Magi, a star they saw, and royal gifts they carried.

In Luke, a detailed long account reveals a physician’s mind,

A mother releases any doubt, her holy task defined,

In Bethlehem, King David’s town, no room for two or three,

And shepherds hear the angels’ sound, far from royalty.

In Mark, the shortest of the four, the birth remains unmentioned,

Baptism, rather, opens the door, to capture the earth’s attention,

While John’s majestic opening of light and truth and love,

Reveals for this small baby boy an eternity above.

The joyful tale we know so well that comes with each December

Takes more than one to fully tell, so perhaps we should remember,

Peace on earth, good will to all, one perspective may not bring,

Instead, we might tear down the wall, to hear as others sing.

The tales, like us, when stripped to the core, show something that’s the same,

Whether one is rich or poor, regardless of one’s name.

Beyond the trees, the turtledoves, the tinsel, and the lights,

Left with new life’s hope and love, all that’s left is right.

A Sad Passing

So, I was planning on having the final pre-Christmas blog be a fun little thing (granted, my blogs probably cannot be called “little”) about people asking for my hand in marriage, or telling me that I should be finding someone to marry (after all, I’m going to be here for two years, which is, like, an eternity), or asking me to find them a person to marry (one guy asked for a young, 18 or 19 year old American girl, one girl asked for an older American man with lots of money, so she can buy Porsches and stuff).  But then, something happened late last week.

The mother of my counterpart, Max, has been ill for some time now, battling what sounded like some form of cancer – possibly ovarian cancer, but I’m not sure.  She had been in the hospital for a while, and, a month or so ago, Max moved her to his home so she could be with family.  I only met her once, several weeks ago, and, at that point, her stomach and feet were quite swollen, and she was unable to stand.  Not too long ago, Max told me that she was not even able to sit up anymore, and he was periodically shuttling a doctor back and forth from the hospital to his house to extract fluid that was building up inside his mother’s stomach.  It has definitely been weighing very heavily on his mind for a long time, and he felt bad whenever he needed to leave Kalisizo for a site visit…but he also felt bad because, in his own words, his work has been “bumpy” (meaning inconsistent and unsteady, since he has needed to spend a significant amount of time taking care of his mom).  Obviously, I told him that I completely understood and that he was still doing good work.

Last Thursday, he told me that he had talked to a doctor who was suggesting palliative care and giving his mother a prescription for morphine.  At this point, I figured that her passing couldn’t be far off, since the doctor obviously wanted simply to make her as comfortable as possible.  That night, a little after 8:00 pm, I got a call from Max.  For a few weeks, I had been a bit scared whenever I would receive a call from him at night or early in the morning, but, up until Thursday, the calls were always about something else.  On Thursday night, though, I knew it as soon as I heard Max’s first word.  He said, “John, my mother, she has died.”  My initial response was simply, “Oh, Max, I’m so sorry,” which was actually all I was able to say at that point, because he said thank you and quickly hung up.  I had been in the middle of making dinner, but I just stood there, motionless, probably for about a minute, with the phone still held against my ear.  I really had no idea what to do at that point.  It was too late for me to go to his house, which is probably about 5 kilometers away, so I decided to send an email to the rest of the Positive Planet people, letting them know what happened.  This turned out to be a good choice, since Max called again a little after 11:00 pm, asking me to do exactly what I had just done.

On Friday, I tried to do any work I could in the morning, and then, after eating an energy-packed lunch consisting of a guacamole sandwich and a banana, I decided to try to make it to Max’s house by bike.  Five kilometers is not a long bike ride…on paved roads.  The roads to Max’s house are not paved roads.  As I was jostled about by massive bumps, as I dismounted to push the bike up the really steep hills, and as I careened down the other side of the really steep hills, I tried my best not to completely wipe out.  Last year, I had grown accustomed to going for speed on the wide, flat, completely paved roads of Tampa.  Going for speed was not exactly the best strategy in this situation.  In many cases, there was probably one very specific path to take that was sort of safe, and, in many cases, I think I missed that very specific path.  Miraculously, I did not completely wipe out, but, after I had been clutching the brakes in a death grip while speeding down a very steep, very bumpy hill (with a herd of cattle taking up the good half of the road), my back tire blew out, and I had to get off and push my injured bike the rest of the way.  Luckily, there was only one more hill to climb before reaching Max’s house, and so I made it, safe and sound.

Quite a few members of the extended family, neighbors, and friends were there.  A bunch of guys were outside, attaching big tarps on trees using, I think, dried banana leaves (they’re very versatile resources), Max and some other older men were sitting on some benches outside, and the women were inside the house.  Spotting Max, I went over and sat with him…We talked a bit about what work I had accomplished Thursday afternoon and Friday morning (I think I had actually been fairly productive), and a bit about the current project our masons were finishing up out in the western part of the country.  Then, I met some of Max’s brothers and some other relatives, greeted the head teacher and the assistant head teacher from the primary school across the street (I had met them a few weeks ago), and saw Max’s wife, Teddy.  I spent the whole afternoon there, sitting outside with the guys (it seems that, for the most part, the men stayed outside and women stayed inside), and learning a little bit about traditional practices when someone dies, as I attempted to explain what often happens in the USA.  Having relatives who own a funeral home helped a bit, in this respect.

So, here’s what I found out.  The tarps were being put up because many family members would be sleeping outside that night, just because (I think) there isn’t enough room in the house.  To help keep the people warm, some of the guys had started a fire with some huge logs…these would take a long time to burn and would probably last through the night.  People do bring gifts to the family of the deceased, and these gifts are often very practical.  Some people will bring needed supplies for the ceremony…for example, Max showed me the burial cloth that his mother’s body would be wrapped in, and said that sometimes this will be brought as a gift.  (Some people in Uganda do use caskets, but Max said that the traditional way is to wrap the body in a burial cloth.)  Others bring firewood, and others bring food (the family cooks for all of the people who are staying at the house…which is quite a lot…we saw one person drive up with a 50 kilogram (about 110 pound) bag of rice on the back of his motorcycle.  And some people will give money to the family.  Max was keeping a record of the money he was receiving in a little composition book (like the ones we used in elementary school).  Whenever someone new would arrive, he or she would first formally greet all of the men outside (greetings are important), and then, if the new arrival was a woman, she would go into the house, where the women would cry loudly…I think the term for this is “wailing”.  Actually, the women did something very similar when I saw a funeral in Suriname (the culture of the rural villages there is still quite similar to the cultures in some parts of Africa…I won’t go into a big Suriname history lesson right now, but basically, African slaves were taken to the former Dutch colony, they escaped very quickly, fighting ensued, and the Africans escaped into the rainforest, where they established villages with cultures very similar to those in Africa).

The men didn’t really take part in the crying.  They just made small talk and did “guy stuff” – for example, they spent a significant amount of time trying to fix up my bike with some super glue…which, eventually, actually worked, I think.  Around 3:30 pm, “lunch” was served, which turned into kind of an ordeal.  I was brought posho (the clumps made from maize flour and water) and beans, but Max wanted me to have a bit more variety, so he told them to take it back and put matooke on there, as well.  It turned out that there wasn’t any matooke (which is weird…everybody always eats matooke), but there were sweet potatoes.  So, Max asked them to add sweet potatoes instead.  Well, that was misunderstood, and I was brought a bowl of beans and a plate filled with about eight sweet potatoes…no posho.  So, Max told them to also bring a plate of posho, at which point I said, “You know, I would be fine eating anything.”  But Max remained intent on getting me a variety of food.  So, I ended up with a full bowl of beans, a plate filled with sweet potatoes, and a plate filled with posho…and, remember, I had already eaten lunch.  Almost immediately, I said, “So, uh, Max, do you want some sweet potatoes?”  He took about half of one, and left me the other seven and a half.  So, I went to work, and (this probably shouldn’t come as a big surprise) I finished everything.

Around 5:00 pm, some of the guys broke out some hard liquor.  They had something called Waragi (which I think is gin), and something else made from cane sugar (it could have been a light rum).  And we witnessed yet another of the many uses for banana leaves…a cup for drinking alcoholic beverages (just fold one a couple of times, and it seems to work pretty well).

Eventually, around 6:00 pm, I told Max that I should be heading back, to make sure I got home before dark.  I gave him a small monetary gift, grabbed my newly repaired bike, and headed for home.  Once again, I was able to avert complete disaster, although I had to get off a few times to reset the chain after traversing an especially intense bump.  If nothing else, I now have tremendous respect for the Ugandan people who travel on these roads every day of their lives using bikes and motorcycles.

The burial service was on Saturday afternoon.  I spent the morning in Kyotera (the next fairly big town to the south), because we needed to send some money to our masons out west, so that they could make it home once they finished the tanks.  Max obviously wasn’t able to do it that day, so I went and took care of it in his place.  Around 3:00 pm, I started heading up to where the burial was taking place.  It was at another house (I’m assuming the house of one of the other sons), not as far away as Max’s, so I was able to walk.  I arrived right as they were finishing serving lunch and beginning the mass.  The assistant head teacher from the school next to Max’s house spotted me, took me to a seat, and got me some food (again, I had eaten lunch already…obviously I had not learned anything from the day before).  There were no utensils, so I finally got to eat in the traditional Ugandan way…with my hands.  Rice isn’t the easiest thing in the world to eat with your hands, but it worked fairly well.  The really awkward thing was that I was eating through nearly the entire mass (it was a big plate of rice), but I think it was okay.  Other people were eating, too, and nobody seemed to find it odd.  Maybe, to a certain extent, this shows the importance of eating when you have a chance, in a place where people might not always have enough food.

Anyway, the mass was pretty standard (besides the fact that it was in a different language), and as they were slowly transitioning from the mass to the actual burial, the assistant head teacher showed me the grave that was in the process of being dug.  It looked to be about a meter deep and was lined with bricks and a layer of mortar.  We spent a few minutes talking about similarities and differences between Uganda and the USA…gravestones, caskets, cremation, etc.  Eventually, the body, wrapped in the burial cloth, was brought over to the grave, the priest said a few words, and several men lowered the body down into the ground.  People started passing out small leaves and flowers to drop into the grave, and then, after someone would drop those things in, they would go over to a banana tree and break off a leaf.  I wasn’t able to find out what this might represent.  Eventually, the grave would be filled in, and a concrete pad would be placed over the top.  I don’t think they will put up a gravestone, but I could be wrong about that.

After it was over, I got to talk to Max a little bit.  He seemed to be doing okay, and he was happy that I was able to come and see the service.  Ever since the death had occurred on Thursday, I had been thinking about changing my Christmas plans and spending the holiday with Max and his family, and, as we talked, I made up my mind, and told him that I would really like to be with his family for Christmas (I didn’t just invite myself…a few weeks ago his wife, Teddy, had mentioned that I could come if I wanted).  I’m happy to report that this seemed to make him very glad, and he rushed over right away to tell Teddy.

So, I guess I’ll get a chance to experience Christmas from a truly Ugandan perspective, and hopefully I’ll have some good stories to report in the next installment.

On a completely unrelated note, for some reason I’ve started writing a little poetry over here…possibly because I don’t have quite the same opportunity to write music, and I need some sort of outlet like that (though I have started playing around on a Ugandan instrument…more on that in the future).  Anyway, it’s not connected to the funeral, or to Christmas, or to anything else in this post, but I thought I’d share the poem I wrote last Sunday night.  I put it up on Facebook, so you might have already seen it…

Dreams

The dreams, they come less seldom now,

Though memories dissolve with morning’s light.

Fleeting landscapes from worlds unseen,

Partial fragments, pieces of night.

Why these wanderings through the mist,

These brief escapes of fantasy?

Are they, perhaps, designed to hide,

To shield from harsh reality?

Yet how can I deny the cry,

The child, alone, left to die.

Not sure how to dry her eyes,

I find, still, that I must try.

For when this life has passed its prime,

When earthly things seem less sublime,

Will I lament that I was lost

Amid a sea of dreams uncrossed?

Or will I look into your eyes,

And say, I did my best to try,

To sail beyond the fantasy,

To face the true reality.

And still, though oceans separate,

I know you help to navigate.

So as the sun completes its flight,

Let me dream of you tonight.

Tis the Season…For Grasshoppers

As I expected, when I’m at my site, I’m almost exclusively a vegetarian.  For breakfast, I’ll usually have a variety of fruit (some combination of orange, passion fruit, papaya, and banana), along with a toasted piece of bread, and I’ll either put peanut butter and jelly or a fried egg on that.  For lunch, it’s usually a simple sandwich, maybe peanut butter and jelly again, maybe peanut butter and banana, or sometimes avocado (and I want to make guacamole soon).  For supper, it’s usually either pasta or rice with my supreme sauce.  “Supreme” doesn’t have anything to do with the tastiness of it (although I think it’s pretty good)…I just call it supreme because it basically consists of every vegetable I currently have in the house (kind of like a supreme pizza), mixed together in a frying pan.  This past week I did get a little adventurous and bought a pumpkin, having very little idea how to cook it.  It worked out pretty well…I just cut it up, boiled it, added a little cinnamon, sugar, and the veggie sauce, and then mashed it all up, kind of like mashed potatoes.  I liked it. The second time I tried it, I added banana to the boiling water to replace the sugar, and I think that worked out pretty well too.  Anyway, my point is that I rarely, if ever, eat meat.  Even when I go out to one of the local restaurants, I’ll get beans, peas, or ground nut sauce as my source of protein.

That is, unless the girls from the guest house next door cook me up some insects.  About a month ago, I was introduced to termites, which were pretty good.  Actually, I don’t know how much taste they really had…I mean, there’s not exactly a whole lot of meat on one of these things.  They probably just fried them in a pool of oil and sprinkled a ton of salt over them.  Now, it’s grasshopper season, and they fried some of those little guys up for me, too.  And, what do you know, they were good.  Of course, this probably shouldn’t come as a surprise…I still don’t think I’ve found a food that I really don’t like.

Harvesting grasshoppers actually seems to be a really big deal, and it appears that just about everybody does it.  In the Luganda language, there’s actually a word that means “the month of grasshopper harvesting” (“Museenene,” which is related to the word for grasshopper, “Enseenene”).  I think it takes place through most of November, and maybe into early December.  From what I’ve been told, here’s more or less how it works: People will stand a whole bunch of 55-gallon steel drums together in a group, and then will put long poles into the drums.  The poles extend way up into the sky, and then lights are put on top of the poles.  At night, the grasshoppers are attracted to the light and have a “flight of Icarus” experience (they get too close, hit the light, and get zapped), at which point they slide down the poles and fall into the drums.  Then, the unfortunate fallen soldiers are collected, cooked, and set outside on a mat to dry.  (Apparently, if you dry them without cooking them first, they develop a smell that is not so appealing.)  Once they’re dried, people will sell them all over the place…in markets, at taxi stops, at other random locations along the street…Some sellers will carry around big plastic buckets on their shoulder filled with the little things, and others will separate them into individual-sized plastic bags.  I was just in the Masaka taxi park a few days ago, and I still saw people selling, so, even though it seems like the season’s coming to a close, it might not be quite over yet.

In other news…

Joseph, Sunday, and Gonzaga (left to right) in their uniforms

As you are probably noticing, the pictures in this blog have nothing to do with grasshoppers.  Sadly, I didn’t get any photos of the high-tech grasshopper-catching systems, and the bugs that I ate were in my stomach before the thought of taking a picture even entered my head.  So, instead, I thought it might be nice to let you see some of the people I’ve been working with.  We’ve been working on getting uniforms made for the Brick by Brick masons, and, a few weeks ago, they were finished.  These pictures were taken when three of our most consistent guys, Sunday, Joseph, and Gonzaga, received their uniforms.  They were definitely very excited to get these, and, as Marc, Positive Planet’s director, said, you’ll be able to recognize them from a mile away…seeing as these uniforms have the same color scheme as a traffic cone.  Right now, the masons are at a school out in the western part of Uganda, building our two biggest tanks to date…30,000 liters each (about 8,000 gallons each).  After that, we’ll probably be heading to one of Positive Planet’s partner schools to build a structure that will contain a classroom, a library, and a storage room, which will be our first thing that’s not a rainwater tank.  As for other brick business activities, we’re working hard trying to get some marketing going…I’ve been in touch with an artist in Kampala who’s printing up business cards, Max is talking to a local artist about designing a signpost to go outside of our office, and we’ll be working on designing an informational leaflet with pictures, prices, etc., that we can give out to possible clients.  Business marketing…not exactly my area of expertise, and not exactly what I expected to be doing in the Peace Corps, but I think it’s going okay so far…

The logo on the back of the uniform

On another note that’s kind of related, I was in Kampala last week (Nov. 28 – Dec. 2) for the Rural Water Supply Network forum.  This was actually incredibly lucky.  It’s an international forum, only held every few years, and this year, it just happened to be in Uganda’s capital city, which is only three hours away by crowded public transportation.  The forum started on Tuesday morning, so I traveled into the city on Monday.  Actually, Max and I came in together, and we used to day to meet with Dr. Moses Musaazi, a professor at Makerere University (probably one of the best universities in Uganda) who helped to invent the technology we use to make the interlocking soil bricks..  He was a very nice guy, and he had several suggestions for us as we move forward into the construction of larger tanks and other kinds of structures.  After our meeting, Max headed back home, and I headed downtown to find Jake and Patrick, two of the volunteers who would also be going to the forum.  We spent that night in one of the standard Peace Corps dives, piling into a room with two other volunteers who were in town for medical stuff (it seems like people are in Kampala a decent amount for medical stuff…I’ve been fortunate so far).  We just got a few extra mattresses at the front desk for a few bucks each, and spread them out on the fairly small amount of floor space in the room.  Early Tuesday morning, we got a ride to the hotel where the forum was being held.  This place, the Speke Resort, has got to be the nicest hotel in the country.  It might be the nicest place I’ve ever stayed in, anywhere.  For one thing, it’s right on Lake Victoria, so it’s a good location.  On top of that, it’s got a massive pool, a bunch of courtyards and gardens, and a nice restaurant, among other things.  And the food…oh my.  Buffets for breakfast and lunch, and eating at the restaurant for dinner…I may have put on 10 pounds over the course of three days…and I was definitely not a vegetarian for those three days.

For most of the people at this conference, the prices were cheap to average…but, you can probably imagine that, for Peace Corps volunteers who have gotten used to spending less than a dollar on lunch at a local restaurant, we were being as cheap as possible.  So, the three of us got one single room with a king-size bed.  And yes, all three of us slept in the bed.  I was the lucky winner of the middle position, by virtue of the fact that I was not in the room when positions were decided.

Joseph and me sitting in the office

But seriously, getting to the actual content of the forum, it was really good.  As you can probably tell from the title, it was all about water supply for people living in rural areas of developing countries.  Rural populations are often the hardest to reach, and, in just about every country, the percentage of people with access to improved water sources is lower in rural areas than in urban areas.  In cities and towns, it’s pretty easy to reach a lot of people relatively cheaply, because people are so close together.  You can just collect water for everyone and then pipe it to them.  In rural areas, people are often too far apart for this to be an effective strategy.  Even in the USA, this is true.  Many people who live in rural areas get their water from a personal well…that’s what my family does.  So, the task is trying to find the most effective, most sustainable ways to provide water to people in these rural areas.  Over the years, it’s been found that, while community or village water systems sound great in principle, since villages often have a certain amount of inherent cohesion anyway, the majority of these systems are not sustained for more than a few years.  The systems often break down, and they are not repaired.  Part of this is the whole issue that, when something is everyone’s responsibility, each person thinks that someone else will do it, so nobody does.  The other, perhaps bigger issue is that the communities often don’t feel that they truly own and are responsible for the system, because the systems are often put into place by outside organizations and funding sources.  So, there’s a slowly growing movement, called “self-supply,” that focuses on helping rural households improve their own supplies with their own resources.

Gonzaga and me

Now, I think that access to safe, clean water is a basic human right (seeing as we need water to live), so initially I had a little trouble with this idea.  Asking people who already have very few resources to provide for themselves something necessary for health and survival seemed a bit questionable.  But, it’s an issue of practicality and what actually works.  I remember hearing about a mosquito-net distribution program in another country.  If they just gave away the nets, the people weren’t using them for their intended purpose by the end of a year, but, if people had to pay a small amount to get one, then a certain amount of value is placed on the net, and they continue to be used effectively.  So, this concept does make sense, and it has proven to be more operationally sustainable.  When people get their own wells or rainwater tanks, they’re much more likely to repair them if they break, and, as a household’s economic situation slowly improves over time, they can incrementally improve their water supply.  For example, they might start by collecting rainwater with a few buckets and jerry cans, then they might add on a gutter that drains into a ceramic jar, and then they might eventually get a bigger tank to hold the water coming from the gutter.

For this approach to work, local private sector businesses are needed that offer these water supply technologies or the materials to construct them.  If the businesses can turn a profit while providing these technologies to rural households, the approach is truly economically sustainable.  The suppliers will remain in the area, and households will be able to provide their own water supplies.  Brick by Brick fits nicely into this model, because we’re trying to sustain a business that can offer a certain type of water supply.

Of course, it’s not perfect.  The households in the worst financial situations will not be able to take advantage of the approach, because they don’t have the economic resources available to invest in their own water supplies.  We’re starting to explore microfinance options (yet another area in which I have exactly zero experience) so that people who don’t have the cash up front can get a loan and have access to this service.  It still won’t reach the poorest of the poor, but it might expand the range of people who can participate.

Sunday and me

So, I have a lot of ideas coming out of the conference, and hopefully at least some of them will actually happen and be halfway decent.  Along with that, two doctoral students from USF flew in for the forum, and it was really nice to see them.  Both of them were actually presenting papers, so they were pretty important people at this thing.  Anyway, after the forum ended on Thursday, a big group of us went back into Kampala to have dinner at a very good Ethiopian place, and then Patrick, Jake, and I were able to bum a hotel room off of yet another volunteer who was in Kampala for medical stuff.  This time, I was the last one in the room (with 3 beds), and didn’t even feel like making the effort to go down and get a mattress.  So, I was actually on the floor that night…luckily, I had brought along a blanket and a pillow.  Honestly, though, it was kind of fun just bumming around and being as cheap as possible for the week.

On the school side of things, there’s not much going on right now.  In Uganda, schools run on a three term schedule spread out over the year (there’s not really a summer vacation, seeing as there’s no summer), and the final term just ended a week or so ago.  It will start back up again in the middle of January, so most of our projects with schools are kind of at a standstill right now.  Max’s younger kids are home from boarding school, and he’s actually having me work on computer skills with one of his boys, Patrick, who’s probably around 11 or 12.  We usually start with a little typing.  Luckily, the volunteer before me had installed Mavis Beacon onto Max’s computer (remember that blast from the past?), so I don’t have to do too much with that.  Then, once Patrick has gotten tired of that, we’ll go through stuff about what all of the keys do, how Microsoft Word works, etc.  Actually, just today he asked me what all of the top keys (F1, F2, etc.) do, and, honestly, all I really know is that Alt+F4 closes stuff.  So, I just pushed all of the buttons, and nothing happened, so I just told him that I never really use those buttons, except for the combo to close programs.  (If anyone knows any more than this, feel free to let me know…)  Then, Patrick will usually want to end with a game.  I taught him how to play Solitaire, but he definitely prefers this outrageous arcade game demo that came already installed on the computer, I think.  It’s called “Chicken Invaders,” and you basically just fly around in your spaceship and shoot chickens.  They attack by laying eggs in your direction, and when they’re shot, they turn into drumsticks.  I’m actually sitting beside Patrick right now as he massacres flocks of chickens flying in formation with his laser gun.

You know, it’s kind of hard to believe that, in addition to grasshopper season, it’s also Christmas season.  It certainly doesn’t feel like it.  Perhaps part of the reason is the lack of department store ads, not to mention the lack of snow and absence of any sort of temperature drop.  I guess, technically, it should actually get a little warmer, since I’m (barely) in the southern hemisphere.  Instead of chestnuts roasting on an open fire, we have grasshoppers drying in the hot sun…doesn’t quite have the same lyrical quality to it.  At any rate, I’ll probably be heading out to the western part of the country to celebrate with some other volunteers.

As I think about the drastic temperature difference between here and home, it makes me realize just how incredibly fortunate we are.  This planet can contain both extremes at the same time…temperatures that are really hot, and temperatures that are really cold.  If it were to get much warmer or much colder, we might have a pretty difficult time surviving…it might even be impossible.  It’s kind of crazy that this planet is at exactly the right distance from a star that gives off heat at exactly the right intensity for life to survive…and not just to survive, but to flourish in a wide variety of ways, from little grasshoppers to blue whales, from microscopic bacteria to the humans who need to visit the Peace Corps medical office because of them.  I don’t know what the probability is for all of these life-supporting conditions to coalesce, but it’s got to be outrageously tiny.  And sure, there are tons of stars and planets out there, maybe enough to make it likely that at least one could support life, but it’s still amazing to me that it actually happened, that life was created where previously there was none, and that life can be so diverse and beautiful.  Find a Discovery Channel show on life at the bottom of the ocean, and you’ll see just how diverse and beautiful it can be.