Travel Jitters

See post from Feb. 10 for context

Cultural Chaos Part 2: 

Day 1; 7:02 am: After about 25 minutes of loading and rearranging, we finally pull out of the driveway. The dog barks from within the compound, his head protruding through the gate’s peephole, his cocked expression perplexed at the sudden disappearance of all his people. Harriet calls goodbye out the front window and returns to her conscientious examination of Ugandan maps. Seven-year-old Loveline sits behind me with a sprawling grin, her right foot taps in an anxious beat on my seatbelt. Before we even make it down the street (note: my street is exactly one house in length), she asks to pull over so she can urinate. Gracious re-adjusts himself in the back seat as Loveline scampers from the car, pulls down her leggings, and squats on my perimeter lawn. Gracious’ 3-year-old son, Kevin (named after an action figure), remains a statue on his dad’s left knee. The toddler glares at me and studies my movements skeptically. Gracious pets his son’s shoulder and slides his other hand reassuringly along his wife’s knee. He mumbles to her as Loveline hops back in the car. She hugs the 9-month-old girl to her chest as Loveline settles at her side. 

I start driving again and head towards the main road. As I merge onto Entebbe Road, Gracious announces that his wife is terrified of cars (things that would have been nice to know before strapping her in a car for 20+ hours of driving in two days). On cue, she flings a blanket over her head to shield herself from the moving world. I peer through the rear-view mirror to see a rocking purple mound where a mother and baby were once visible. My eyes return to the potholes. Gasps escape the mound with each bump. Gracious nudges her and chastises in Luganda. “I want to enroll her in the army, teach her a gun” he proclaims loudly in English, a language completely foreign to his wife. I navigate around a stalled mutatu in the left lane, unsure how to appropriately respond. I look in the mirror, his smile offers a hint. “Then she will not be afraid of cars,” he exclaims with a laugh. Harriet chuckles in the front seat. I force half a laugh as I try to imagine the purple mound behind me bearing a riffle. My mind is still searching for a link between comfort with guns and comfort with vehicles, but Loveline breaks my thoughts with another toilet plea. 7:18, pit stop #2; this time she squats in the ditch beside a chapatti stall. The lack of car movement suddenly reveals that the infant beneath the purple blanket has wet herself. Harriet notices as well and recommends we recommence our journey; “then the smell won’t catch us,” she says. I try not to breath or let my face give away my discomfort.

A few minutes later as the pothole dodging continues, Gracious calls out for a plastic bag; the three-year-old is motion sick and puking. A chain effect, the purple mound and Loveline follow the toddler’s lead. I stop again to let three back seat passengers empty the contents of their anxious stomachs on the side of the road. 7:27. Pitstop#3. I make note of our whereabouts—even with Gracious’ shortcut and a complete absence of traffic (a rarity in this city), we are not even half way out of Kampala.

Mints are distributed. Nerves are calmed. We start yet again.

7:47: We make our final pit stop within Kampala. This time, Loveline dodges a group of goats and relieves herself beyond the edge of a lime green building.

8:14: My passengers’ digestive tracks and bladders are sufficiently empty. My seatbelt has stopped contracting in an anxious rhythm. The purple blanket has moved to a bag on the floor. The toddler is looking out the window while Gracious identifies cows and trees in heavily-accented English. As we spin around the Northern Bi-pass, finally exiting Kampala, I breath a sigh of relief that the first round of jitters have effectively been quelled. Only another 19+ hours in a confined moving vehicle to go!   

All You Need is Love

“After that trip, you’ll have enough stories to write for a year!” a friend joked as I told her of my plans to take the people who work for me and their families on their first safari. I guess she’s right; if you pack 4 adults and 3 children under the age of 7 (6 Ugandans + 1 muzungu; 6 completely inexperienced travelers); 2 full and 2 half English speakers (with a total of 3 first languages); 2 days’ worth of food; 1 tent; 1 headlamp; 1 strobe light; and a leaking kerosene stove into a 5-seater RAV4 destined for a distant game park, cultural chaos is bound to ensue…. and ensue it did. Alas, the first of (likely) many intercultural musings from the trip.

Cultural intersection #1, in honor of Valentine’s Day:

I occasionally lament playing the role of bachelorette, the never ending search through the muck of leftover men…or perhaps undiscovered gems (so I like to believe). I still maintain an utterly idealistic picture of a man who will whisk me off my feet and cling to the hope that one day, I will “just know he’s the one.” As I wait/date/search, it is easy to bemoan the required effort, to loathe the disappointments that accompany such romantic notions.

Over a shared flask of Waragi our first night, I discovered some of my travel companions took a vastly different approach towards spouse-hunting. Three years ago, my gardener, Gracious, informed his village he would be returning home to choose a wife for his 30^th birthday. Several women appealed for consideration. Gracious returned to his home village, met his (present) wife--once, talked with her on the phone-- twice, asked for her consent to marry-- was approved, and held a wedding just one week later. Only a month after their wedding, Gracious’ 19-year-old bride was pregnant with their first child.

In the U.S. it takes engaged couples longer to settle on a florist than it took Gracious and his wife to meet, marry, and reproduce. Through my western lens, this approach towards marriage is both foreign and slightly unsettling. And yet, as I attempt to extricate my cultural biases, I am struck by the problems that such an approach eliminates (think: a limited number of awkward first dates; far less psychoanalysis of compatibility; an absence of breakups; no pangs over flirtatious text message phrasing…). At the base of it, there is something oddly romantic about the faith a couple (that know next to nothing about each other) put in the construct of marriage, in the idea of fostered love, commitment, and family.

I still gravitate towards Westernized conceptions of love. Yet, as Valentine’s Day rolls around (and I am just as single as ever), I can’t help but chuckle at the idea of an announcement in the San Jose Mercury proclaiming my intent to marry. A line-up of men to choose from might not be so bad!

Sonata of Clinton Close

The first movement begins as the sun's fat fingers stretch beyond the precipice of the hills. Mosques shatter the subtle hum of nocturnal insect ensembles with insistent calls to prayer: reminders reverberate like ping pong balls, reflecting across valleys and over wire-clad walls, to the ears of restless sleepers. The morning curtains raise and reveal bleeding oranges and pinks that signal the entrance of the sunbirds' delicate chirps. The whir of trucks speeding down gravel, the bleats of moving herds of cattle, the rapid footsteps of work-goers, and the honks of half-filled mutatus quickly join the tune.

By midday, the key shifts and the cacophony crescendos into a muddled din.  Dogs bark sharply at wandering goats. Boda bodas chastise swerving cars. Laughter trills; another couple is reposed under the shifting shadows of my overgrown ficus. Tires fling pebbles as cars announce their arrivals with echoing horns; metal peepholes rattle open and close; sandals slap the pavement as escaries pull at squeaky gate hinges. Radios atop vehicles or bicycles blare Lugandan tunes. Children 's falsetto voices call "mzungu, how are you?" as pale men amble towards Quality Shopping. Squawking turacos add their staccato jabbers to the dissonant chord. My dog and cat scutter about, a duet of screeches and growls as they wrestle; dry leaves crunch as the cat escapes under a bush. An ibis protests the hoopla with angry cries as it abandons the scene in search of more peaceful gardens. The tempo of this afternoon medley is fast, its fortissimo tune broken only by momentary pauses as life frantically grasps for air.

By sundown, a nearby bar's bass serves as a metronome. Its persistent rhythm keeps time for rounds of impending car alarms, off-key choir rehearsals, and rambling 1 AM wedding speeches. The syncopated jingle of my cat's bell signals a gecko hunt in progress. There is a harsh grating of nails as she scales the door's mosquito screens. The wire sags under her cumbersome weight. A generator purrs in the distance. Meanwhile my inverter struggles to compensate for Umeme's failed promises; it groans as it fights to protect my duty-free chocolate in the fridge. Strays report their locations; my dog lifts his voice to join the canine glee club and my scolds banish him to the yard. Crickets commence their enthusiastic all-night minuets.

Poco a poco the volume decrescendos. The celebratory ululations from various churches decrease in frequency. The tinny voices of a guard's radio prod him awake. My cat concludes her nightly stalks, her bell silent at last. The relentless drip from my faulty bathroom sink patters in time. The bugs continue their steady nocturnal strums, their high-pitched buzzes forming a seemingly infinite fermata. Even in these wee hours, the drone of life and movement persists. Pianissimo, a term Uganda does not know.

A Year in Review

Every December, I reflect on the moments that have composed the last year of my life. A few snapshots/sentiments in "top five" format:

Top 5 Amazing Nature Moments 2011 

1. Christmas sunset in South Africa

2. Up close encounter with a leopard in Uganda

3. Lounging on beaches in Zanzibar

4. Walking beside week-old giraffes (that were already way taller than me) in Kenya

5. Watching abandoned two-day-old puppies grow into dogs that people were able to adopt!

Top 5 Strangest Issues to Problem Solve in 2011

Every day in Uganda I am asked to flex my adaptability muscles. Just a few of the year's odd predicaments:

1) Problem: How to get Harriet and Loveline out of a cement/metal barred room when an old lock completely jammed... twice.

[Solution: saw through the metal lock and pry the frame from the door, of course! Time 1: colleague's husband, time 2: locksmith from a nearby market]

2) Problem: How to complete online applications when the electricity was out for 4 days straight!

[Solution: charge multiple computers/batteries at school and then borrow from all my friends when my collection of charged tech ran out... thanks for the people who stepped in!]

3) Problem: How to identify the cause of a week without water/deal with a week with no water

[Solution: fill cans with water for toilets/washing on other people's properties and mooch showers from friends; call National Water repeatedly to hear that they have "men working on the fault"... they "have been working on it for one month"!! Finally, discover that there is a leaking pipe in the yard-- plug it with a maize cob and a plastic bag until a plumber can get there to fix it]

4) Problem: How to find an alternative route through Ugandan mountains when a huge rainstorm closed the main road and our map only included 4 (out of several dozen) villages along the path

[Solution: stop in every village and ask for directions... not an efficient or direct approach, but we got to our desired destination in the end]

5) Problem: How to deal with a stream of safari ants that crawled up my leg while we loaded the car in the dark (and were not discovered until several minutes later when they began biting my legs as I drove)

[Solution: slam the car into park; throw my pants off... on a public highway; and do a literal ants-in-my pants dance until I was free of the pesky buggers]

Five things I am proud of from 2011

Some of the experiences that stretched me the most this year:

1) teaching 25+ new books in one year and re-working curriculum to give kids a more balanced/rounded approach to literature!

2) encouraging students at ISU to respond to global issues

3) coping with the challenges of living in a developing country

4) taking the risk of giving up a job I enjoy to apply for graduate school

5) learning how to be a compassionate boss (it has been a whole new experience having numerous people completely dependant on me!)

Six 2011 moments of worlds converging/reunions!

I couldn't cut one, so this will have to be a top six list

1. Reunion in Toronto with friends who I worked with in Korea who are now scattered across three continents!

2. Sarah Yu (friends since 9th grade) sat in one of my ninth grade classes.... in Uganda! Then we had the chance to travel the country together! She was in East Africa for nearly a month.

3. Good friend from high school, Mori, hosted good friend from grad school, Lauren, and I in Seattle and Vancouver. He was an amazing host and it was fun to bring two worlds together.

4. Weekend in Kenya with friends who I worked with Korea (one flew in from the States, two families live in Kenya)

5. High school reunion for Gail's wedding. It was the first time we had all been in one place in years!

6. Trip to Hawaii with the entire immediate family! Great to spend time with all of us in one place distraction-free.

Five Aims for the New Year

One might call these resolutions.

1) Prioritize people. In the end, people are way more important than my ever-accumulating stack of marking.

2) Learn to be more comfortable being uncomfortable. Press my boundaries-- take a new class or try activities that I have little experience with.

3) Expand my global knowledge through travel, reading, conversations, etc. I have started a new mission, one that will undoubtedly take years to actualize, to read a text (fiction or non-fiction) about every country in the world. I have already read books from 43 nations... I hope to raise my count to at least 60 in the next twelve months!

4) Act on my beliefs:  serve regularly, seek solutions for problems, encourage, and love.

5) Seek balance. This is a consistent area for growth for me amidst the business of life!

Well, if you make it this far, I'm impressed. Happy New Year! 

Testing Navigational Skills

Is a flight that takes you southwest to Kigali, Rwanda, then northeast (over Uganda) to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, followed by a flight southwest to Johannesburg, and a final leg further west to Capetown classified as "excessively indirect"? [Note: departure time is 2 am, landing 6pm... clearly ideal travel times] Perhaps the amazing deal is not as amazing as it seemed at first...

Just remember: Christmas with penguins, Christmas with penguins, Christmas with penguins!

Fling, flung

To "fling" implies a sense of acceptance, a willingness to embrace suspension, an intentional movement beyond the secure present. At this juncture in life, I fling myself into the unknown once again. I propel myself into to the void of subjectivity and hope to fall on soft ground.

The realm of international education is a strange one. My friends in the U.S. maintain stability through long-term jobs, perhaps considering promotions or divergent tracks within reasonably contained spaces. Meanwhile, my friends who are international educators reconsider the gut-wrenching question of "where do I want to be in life?" annually as contracts are renewed and benefits revised.

Sometimes international educators chose to stay another year, two years, in the communities they have acclimated to. They learn a new language, refine curriculum, relish friendships, or explore community offerings. However, equally often, international educators eject themselves into the black hole of job fairs, resumes, and Skype interviews. They uproot themselves and restart their lives on new continents, in new cities, amidst new people. They transition towards familiar. Towards foreign. Towards challenging. Towards ease. Towards unknown.

All international educators know the dizziness of dropping, the uncertainty of parachutes as the world sprawls before you. I am now in the midst of that terrifying free fall stage: I have relinquished a position I love at The International School of Uganda and have released applications for doctoral programs to the whims of admission boards. No degree of grasping at air will reverse my trajectory or maintain my job vacancy until March. Instead, I can simply hope that one of the programs I have applied to will embrace me with my academic interests (the intersection of human rights and education).

When I went skydiving a few years ago I nearly fainted as we flew up to the 12,000 ft drop point. As I watched the trees below me shrink to miniscule dots, dozens of scenarios (many less than desirable) bombarded my mind. Fear clenched my hand tightly. However, when my tandem buddy shouted "Now!" and we propelled ourselves from the plane, a surprising sense of peace transcended. I can't honestly say that I have that degree of serenity yet. But I am eager to see which metaphorical pasture I land on. I have flung myself towards new opportunities and my free fall will be over before I know it.

What is at the end of the rainbow?

The answer, I have found, depends on your cultural frame of reference. In the US we suggest that you will find a creepy green man with a pot of gold. In Uganda, I learned today, the rainbow's end points at a white ship (that has a pesky habit of vanishing into Lake Victoria when pursued). Or, to some Ugandans, the rainbow is a message from a higher being that the looming storm will not show its full wrath on the people. Or to the abundant Ugandan Christian masses, it is a symbol of a promise from God. Who knew those technicolor arches held so much lore and symbolism?!?