Death by Giant Cattle or Agama Lizard?

I think my animals have death-wishes. Today I took a walk with my dog. It is not unusual for us to encounter a wide array of animals as we walk the neighborhood: goats, chickens, birds, squirrels, stray dogs and cats. Benvolio likes to chase chickens and tests the power of his leash if a goat gets within pouncing range. However, he is usually smart enough to leave the cattle alone, especially the cattle with horns that are longer than any of my limbs. Not today, though. We were walking by a few grazers when suddenly, Ben decides to initiate play…. with a 1,000 lb cow! Luckily I was able to ward the cow off and get my dog away before we got mauled. Gee whiz! Who know walking could be so treacherous!

Check out a picture of a typical Ugandan cow (stolen from Wikipedia):


My cat also seems to want to die. This week she took on an Agama lizard and lost a chunk of her nose in the process. I understand when she chases geckos, but Agamas are half her size. Well maybe not half, she's a tubby cat. At least, proportionately, the lizard was a better match for her than the cattle was for my dog.

An Agama lizard sunning at ISU:

Trusting life vests

In January, I went rafting in the Nile at Jinja. On several of the large rapids, our boat flipped or I was flung into the currents. Years of having asthma have taught me to relax in such moments; panic yields little, instead, stay calm and trust that oxygen will eventually come. Sure enough, my life jacket buoyed me up to the surface often enough to gasp for air and the rapids eventually spit me out into peaceful waters. After each bout, I remounted myself at the head of the raft and waited to be catapulted again.

The last month has felt like I’ve been ejected into another category 5 rapid. The bustle that comprises the last month and a half of a school year has submerged me below the surface and I have had to simply trust that adrenaline will carry me; that a respite from the chaos will indeed come. That the grading, planning, extra events, million and one obligations and expectations, comment writing, proctoring, and meetings will eventually slow down. That I will eventually bob up into the calm of summer break.

Many good things have happened in the last month: my IB grade 12 students have finished their exams and have graduated. I have watched the new Global Issues Network group at my school grow from 0 to approximately 45 kids. My garden has finally started producing vegetables. The puppies I fostered have settled into new homes. My car is finally back in working order and ready to tackle Kampala's potholes. I have successfully written all my exams and semester comments. I have gone to Jinja again (this time just to relax… no rafting). The Ugandan walk-to-work protests have de-escalated from burning tires, flying boulders, live bullets, and tear gas to synchronized car honking and pink tinted water.The bill proposing the death penalty for people who are homosexual in Uganda was dismissed. I have created unit plans and syllabi for classes next year. Several potential new IB books have been finished and considered. I have relinquished control over things in my school that cannot be changed. I have celebrated friends who are moving on from Uganda. I have made new friends within the Kampala community.

All-in-all, it has been a month of many positive and productive steps. Yet, I cannot stress enough how much I am looking forward to surfacing for oxygen. June 18th cannot come soon enough!

Taking Puppy Steps

It feels like ages ago that I agreed to take home two little foster pups that were no bigger than potatoes. The first sleepless nights of 3-hour bottle-feeding shifts and assisted puppy toilet functions thankfully feel eons ago. Now, as I sit with one puppy snuggled in my lap while the other runs through my living room, I am amazed that the three-day-old little rat-like things I brought home have grown into five-week-old dogs; that the inventive homemade milk mixes I made due to a lack of puppy formula in Uganda have not completely failed; that both the puppies and I have survived thus far. There were moments I doubted that any of us would make it.

In the beginning, the puppies were so fragile I was terrified I would break them. I am sure this is a normal new “mother” phenomenon. With every cough, paranoid flashbacks to online articles about puppy pneumonia crossed my mind. I browsed dozens of dog-owner sites and memorized the steps of puppy development. I simulated a mamma dog’s presence with hot water bottles and socks filled with rice that, electricity permitting, were heated in the microwave. I eagerly anticipated the opening of eyes. I stressed at milk consumption fluctuations.


Yet, before long, one puppy voraciously ate her way into the stable category. This tubby puppy quickly gained weight and began tottering around my bathroom floor. As she beefed up, my fears about her fragility subsided and became replaced by concern for the well-being of my shoes (which she manages to find constantly).


The littler one, though, had challenges from the beginning. Early on, she developed skin issues that only subsided with the aid of a vet and some vigorous orange topical medication. Once she passed her skin scare, a persistent eye infection began to plague her. The poor little one’s slow growth and struggles to overcome health issues have been accentuated by the rapid growth of her sister. However, in the last few days, she has finally started to seem more stable. While she still has visible reminders of both health struggles, the little one is starting to wobble her way back onto a more typical developmental track (just a few weeks delayed).


I, too, have had moments where I was unsure if I would survive the experience. After several weeks of sleepless nights, I strongly questioned my decision to foster these puppies. Now, I more often wonder how I will manage to give these little guys up in a few weeks to new homes. I will, don’t worry; four animals in one house is way too much work to maintain full-time. I am going to miss these little peanuts when I give them up, though!


(little one is snuggled in my make-shift puppy sling; tubby one is a ham and likes the camera)

Global Issues Service Summit 2011

Enthusiasm is contagious. Put 200 students and teachers together who are all global-issues advocates, and inspiration is bound to arise. Pool resources and ideas from 18 schools around Africa and watch innovative solutions mold and expand. Build relationships that transcend nations and sustainable partnerships surface; support networks weave themselves into place. Look to students as leaders and they rise to the responsibility.
I just returned from the 2011 African Global Issues Service Summit in Maputo, Mozambique. Along with my colleague, Johnny, I brought 4 students to this international gathering. For four days students swapped stories, ideas, and visions. We watched guest speakers like the former first-lady of Mozambique/South Africa, a 17-year-old who started a plethora of aid groups, the minister of Education in Mozambique. We listened to expert panels on disease within Africa, trafficking, water conservation, education for all, and the digital divide. Groups gathered to seek solutions and build communities. Students participated in a day of service alongside local organizations. Teachers gathered to swap successes and learn from each other’s mistakes. In short—it was a jam-packed week of learning, growing, encouraging, and planning. I came back to Uganda full of ideas and eager to make positive changes in my community.

My Stinkin' Bleeding Heart

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t such a sucker for sob stories; that I could proceed with my life when faced with strays, tragedies, or apathy. However, in the same way that I cannot hold back tears when faced with emotional situations, I cannot restrain my desire to do something when presented with problems.

This is not a good thing when I live in a land where stray dogs traverse the hills in large packs, where men, women, and teenagers knock on my gate weekly asking for jobs, where children are put in prison because they have no parents to care for them. Or maybe it is.

Let me set the stage. In any teacher’s life, the dreaded time of the school year is the week or two surrounding the turn of a quarter. This is when reports must be written, a million and one assessments must be marked, new units planned, and parent-teacher conferences navigated. I am in the midst of such a time. Add to this the chaos of planning an international trip (in a week and a half I am taking 4 kids to Mozambique for the Global Issues Service Summit). Plus I am getting training in peer mediation for four days next week. And don’t forget to add all my usual time-commitments including a writing group and Bible study to the busy backdrop my life.

Commence Act 1: Last weekend I showed up at my friend’s kid’s birthday party. I was planning to pass along a gift, give hugs, and perhaps stay long enough for a piece of cake. I had no intention of bringing home incredibly time-consuming animals. However, when another friend arrived with 15 abandoned puppies, each only about a week old, I quickly found myself sitting in her car trunk coercing tiny creatures to suckle from a bottle. In a country with far too many strays, puppies of this size are nearly always put to sleep. I found myself disconsolate at the thought. And so, on an utter bleeding-heart-whim, I asked my housekeeper if she was willing to split the duties of caretaking for three of the tiny needy creatures until they are adopted. She was. And before long, three of the smallest dogs I have ever seen were nestled into a plastic bowl in my bathroom. Three little cuties who require feeding every 3 hours. Who cannot go to the bathroom without help. Who are still blind and deaf. Who make me feel like I have newborn babies to care for.

Act 2: Also in the last week, I have been unable to pry myself away from headlines about Japan. Eager to do something, I plastered posters around school, urging students and teachers alike to join me in brainstorming possible contributions. Finally, we settled on a grade 6-12 fashion show with ticket sales benefitting the Red Cross. Alas, I now find myself responsible for facilitating large numbers of students as they create costumes made from recycled materials and sell tickets for our very own ISU Project Runway show. The show is set to run a day and a half before I fly to Mozambique.

It is one of those weeks where sleep is under-rated and I wonder if my bleeding-heart syndrome is going to spur me towards collapse. Hopefully at least I’ll help a few causes in the meantime!

The Power of Words

Making metaphors is easy. At least when you’re an English teacher and you pepper all your feedback with niceties; you dust all your encounters with layers of connotations; you dissect intentions innately, holding filaments discretely in the tweezer-hold of linguistics and carefully gliding them into the light. I’m certainly not suggesting I fold every paper I receive into a dainty origami. Nor do I sand wood down until corners transform into smooth arches, or bury cars one snowflake at a time. Yet I am overcome by the power of language. To change. To heal. To accuse. To minimize. To justify. To exploit.

About two years ago, I crawled slowly through the galleries of the peace museum in Hiroshima on a cold February day. In a numb state of bewilderment I absorbed photographs of houses obliterated into nothingness, tiny melted shoes, subtitled documentaries of siblings lost, drooping spoons found beside plates of food unfinished, outlines of vaporized people blasted into cement walls, and factual displays outlining horrific side effects of radiation poisoning. With each memoir, I felt tides drag me deeper into a muddled sea of loss, guilt, and helplessness. Before me, the sores of humanity lay raw and oozing; I felt incapable of even swatting the metaphorical flies away.

After I finished wandering the main gallery, I decided to peruse the lobby’s basement, an exhibit of misfit items, while I waited for my friends. I found a wall of crayon drawings that resembled children’s doodles. I soon discovered these rudimentary sketches were painfully etched by the wobbly hands of old men and women, years after the atomic bomb incinerated sisters, bosses, mothers, sons. They were snapshots of unspeakable horrors, representations of nightmares, of realities.

I edged down the line. The only other person in the room was an elderly Japanese man. He too shuffled from picture to picture. From time to time, he let out a low moan and muttered to himself in Japanese. Every few pictures, our eyes met. Mine questioned the man: Did he lose someone? Did he see that infamous cloud? Was he one of the distraught kids ushered out of tottering buildings? Or was he lucky enough to be on foreign soil? Could he be old enough to have fought in the war? Would he fight again? His damp wrinkled eyes merely smiled at me knowingly. I nodded and averted my eyes, refocusing on the stick figures’ tears. My own tear ducts stoically sealed, awaiting solitude.

When I reached the corner I allowed myself to glance around the spacious hall. A few haphazard cases in the center beckoned me with their dim florescent lights. Beneath the beams I discovered newspaper clippings from August 6, 1945. Familiar images greeted me, mushroom clouds ballooning out of cover creases. I skimmed text that relayed known statistics. And then I saw the headline, the one that broke me. It was from an American paper: “Giant Golf Ball Dropped on Japan.”

The crayon depictions? Just reminders of another day on the greens. That man with charred skin? You could say his day was equivalent to a few strokes over par.

I staggered to a bench, emotions cascading from my eyes. For a few moments I floundered between pity, responsibility, shame, and anger. Images swirled at the forefront of my mind. I shut my eyes, attempting to regain equilibrium. Then I felt someone take my hands. I looked up into the face of a man whose country suffered at the hands of my own. I looked directly into his eyes as he spoke reassuringly to me in calm Japanese. His grip tightened as he continued his speech. Slowly my breathing settled and my shoulders stopped heaving. I found my lips muttering in apology, in appreciation, in understanding. Eventually, I rose and we parted.

To this day, his words are as illusive to me as I am sure mine were to him. Yet I am certain that on that afternoon, sitting on a stone bench in a deserted museum basement, we made a vow of peace and responsibility.

It is now over two years later. I sit at my desk in Uganda and scroll through digital headlines of radiation leaks, tsunami evacuees, beaches lined with hundreds of bodies, and vanished trains. Thousands of miles away. The images look nothing like the Japan I traveled. I skim the pictures and do not find his face. My eyes go back to the headlines. Again I find myself wondering at the words and at their power. Is the media amplifying aftershocks? Is anyone tipping the figurative caddy this time? Or instead, are words lifting the rubble, one piece of plywood at a time?

Kenya escapes

Reunion with friends in Nairobi. Walking safari at Lake Naivasha. Driving safari at Amboseli. New friends. What a fabulous 4 day weekend!

In honor of my birthday...

my dog brought me a screeching half-murdered bat that flapped around pitifully on the ground. I got to smash its head in with a hoe to put it out of its misery. Talk about an un-welcomed gift. Well, that was a first for me.

On a lighter note, I got dozens of loving messages, a nice BBQ, and a relaxing happy hour with friends. This was definitely more than a birthday of smashed bats. Thanks for the love, everyone!

Election Update

Many of you have sent me concerned emails lately regarding the upcoming presidential elections in Uganda, so I figured I would update everyone.

I have accumulated enough groceries to last me weeks on end, extra candles and kerosene lamps, and spare gasoline for my car. I have also planned weeks of lessons that my students could complete from anywhere in the world. We have started dismissing early from school and will be closed for about a week beginning this Thursday. However, it seems that (hopefully) none of these precautions will be necessary. A series of political rallies have been completed peacefully. Security has made its presence felt on street corners and major roads and extra military reinforcements have been brought in to quell any potential uprisings quickly. So far, things have gone very smoothly indeed.

Everyone is hoping that peace will persist for the next week here. Presidential elections begin on Thursday and a series of other elections take place in the week after that. The turmoil in Egypt has made everyone a bit more jumpy than usual, but it seems that everything here is under control.

If you are the praying sort, please pray for stability in Uganda in the next few days! Please know also that I am in a suburb (Lubowa) a good way out of the city center and am highly unlikely to be directly caught in the middle if any potential chaos.

What’s in a Hiring?

Every month, at least 5 people knock on my gate begging for employment. However, when I first moved to Uganda, I was not sure how I felt about hiring someone. American friends jokingly teased me from afar about considering servants. While I knew that they were kidding (and that many of them would employ someone to cut their lawns if they had a lawn to mow), I had to admit that the idea of paying someone to regularly clean or cook for me seemed oddly similar to slavery. As my friends in Uganda told me about their hired caretakers, cleaners, gardeners, cooks, and drivers, I found myself cringing, subconsciously assuming that there was an element of elitist oppression involved. But what I have gradually come to realize is that by responsibly employing someone in Uganda, I can actually help free rather than oppress.

When I met Harriet, she was a guard for the company securing my school. The only woman manning the front gate, she stood out with her big smile and her welcoming words. Every time she saw me, she would leave her post to come give me a big hug greeting me with “Good morning, madam,” a sign of respect, or “How are you?” At that stage, I was living in a small manageable house, was sharing a day guard/gardener with my compound companions, and was still ambivalent how much “help” I felt okay with. Harriet was simply a welcoming face each morning.

I found out I was moving into my current home in October. With more rooms and a huge unattended garden, the prospect of hired help seemed more alluring. I had gradually warmed up to the idea of someone else living in the roomy boys’ quarters on the property and was beginning to think about options. The day my move seemed cemented, I was walking to school and found Harriet taking the same path. As we commuted to work together, we chatted about life. While mine was heading upwards, Harriet’s was at a desperate standstill. She urged me to consider passing her name along if I knew anyone who needed someone to help work for them. It all seemed like too much of a coincidence.

Before Harriet worked for me, she started her life in Kampala a shack smaller than my current closet with a dirt floor and a roof that virtually collapsed with any drizzle (needless to say, it did little to ward off the frequent tropical downpours). She gradually upgraded to a single 8x8 ft room, but it was hard for her to advance quickly on a guard’s salary. Working 7 days a week for 12-hour shifts, Harriet was lucky if she made 60,000 shillings a month (or about 30 USD). Harriet could not afford to have her daughter live in the city with her and had to leave her in the village to be raised by her grandmother. Harriet could not attend church on Sundays because she worked 7 days a week.

Alternative employment offered Harriet a new life. Working for me, she gets a sizeable salary, a 2 bedroom house with running water and electricity, a day off a week to go to church, a reasonable boss (if I do say so myself), and probably the most noticeable difference: the ability to have her daughter live with her and go to school nearby.

Two weeks ago Harriet returned to her village and brought her five-year-old back with her. I do not think she has stopped smiling since. While Loveline speaks no English to express her sentiments, I think her laughter and constant enthusiasm speak for themselves!