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!

A bit of a predicament

I can drive. Yet I cannot take a shower. Or wash my hands. Or flush my toilets. Or clean my dirty feet. City water has been out and my tank has been dry for three days now. I have been told the water "is coming" multiple times, but am yet to see anything that resembles liquid from my faucets. Baby wipes are my new best friends.

Things I do not love about this country.

What it takes to buy a car

Just a few things I have come to appreciate about American car shopping vs. Ugandan car shopping:

Car owners must disclose basic things (like doors or windows that don’t open). Or holes in windows, worn down tires, spewing exhaust pipes, jammed locks, missing gas caps…

Car lots tend to keep their cars clean and filled with sufficient gas for test drives. Or at least to turn them on to check that the engine starts! (No kidding, there was a car I was interested in that they would not put petrol in so I could check that the engine worked before buying it. I was told they would retrieve gas “after I agree to buy it.”)

Paperwork is clear (or more-so) and traceable. A dealer checks to make sure proper transfer forms exist. And they certainly don’t bring you a completely different car at work without asking (that is “better” of course, with proper documentation) rather than drive across town to get the original papers.

Car vendors have working telephone numbers that do not change every day. Now is that too much to ask for?

You are not usually forced to cough up thousands of dollars of cash on the spot.

When you finally buy a car and it is delivered, car dealers always ensure you have enough gas to get to a petrol station before refilling!!! Nothing like filling my new car tank through a funnel made from a water bottle in order to take my first drive as its owner.
*****
Alas, even with all these hurdles, I successfully bought a car this weekend. My new 1995 RAV4 was delivered to me on Tuesday. Today I took my first solo drive into town and successfully navigated through the traffic, potholes, pedestrians, goats, bodas, cows, etc. Driving here is going to be a new challenge, that’s for sure. However, I am stoked for the new freedom I am sure this car will afford. And I am slowly adjusting to driving on the left hand side of the road from the right side of the car.

That’s right, people, I am now an official Ugandan driver.

Hesitancy

I have frequently considered the mysterious disappearance of my blog muse since my arrival in Uganda nearly six months ago. I transitioned from chronic blogging in Korea to sporadic forced posts. Life in Kampala is far from mundane and I have long since passed the “I have no power for my computer” excuse. Though, ironically, the power is really out yet again as I write this. Luckily, an inverter purrs contentedly in my kitchen and inside my closet rests the extra insurance of a spare battery pack (that miraculously made it un-stolen in a labeled box from the States).

This week I joined the first writing group I have been in since my time in university classes. As I shared a work-in-progress, the inevitable questions of audience and purpose were asked. And that is when it hit me--- I have been carefully editing my blog for the sake of my audience. My muse has been paralyzed by a fear that there are many things in my new life that might rattle people I love: the baby snake I helped my friend carry out of her compound, the class five rapids that chucked me into the Nile, the financial canyon my school is trying to scale out of, the puppy castration that took place on my front porch. I have been so scared to taint the already tedious perception many of my loved ones have about my chosen home that I have been hesitant to share life. The good and the bad.

I am coming to the realization that the vast majority of the people who read this blog are about as likely to visit me in Uganda, as I am to sit still for a week straight. This might be the only account they ever get of my daily triumphs, observations, and surprises. I think it’s time to let my reluctance go a bit and release my stories from hibernation.

Reflections on 2010

Ten goals for 2011:
1. keep pushing the boundaries of my comfort zone
2. cook more often (and better)
3. serve others regularly and inspire kids to care about the world
4. continue to develop my faith and trust God’s plan for my life
5. find more balance between all the things that pull at my time
6. see a new place (or two… or three…or four…)
7. date more—I gotta get out of my married friend bubble and put myself out there from time to time
8. learn to drive in Uganda
9. write, design, and create more often
10. make time for family and friends

Ten things I never imagined I would have done in 2010 but did do:
1. taught with amazing people from all over the world: the UK, Colombia, Italy, Holland, Kenya, Germany, etc.
2. took a Ugandan dance class and then danced in public
3. coached multiple championship soccer teams (it does not really matter who won the games… both teams made it to finals!)
4. saw a leopard in a tree! Leopards, giraffe, hippos, crocodiles... more reasons I am excited to live in Africa!
5. was a chaperone on an international service trip with my mom ☺ Pretty neat to serve alongside both students and my momma in the Philippines!
6. hired a night guard with a giant gun to protect my three bedroom house--- what!?!
7. taught 7th grade—while I am doubtful that I would intentionally do it again, it has been a good learning experience. I do appreciate the hugs, notes, and plants ripped out of the garden complete with roots that come along with my eager to please 7th graders.
8. acquired a puppy and a kitten. I never really pegged myself as a cat person too, but I have loved having both little guys!
9. held my puppy’s legs down while he got castrated on my front porch… vet services are a little different in Uganda! If only I got to drop him off at the vet’s office and return when they were done like I would have in the states!
10. walked beside a family of rhinos

Ten things I did in 2010 I am proud of:
1. got hired. In today’s economy, that’s no small deal.
2. consistently went to a home church in Korea and have joined a Bible study in Uganda
3. made decisions I knew people wouldn’t all agree with about what to do job-wise this year. I am proud of myself for doing something I felt was right even though I knew other options would be much easier.
4. moved to a country where I knew no one, and a developing country at that. This move, more than any other, has really stretched me!
5. maintained mentor relationships with some of my students from Korea even when I moved a continent away
6. spent quality time with family and friends
7. learned to cook more (thanks to the Lubowan social crew for the expert modeling)
8. dealt with power outages, a lack of hot water, mosquitoes, holes in ceilings, etc.
9. managed to teach 4 grade levels at the same time (grades 7, 9, 11, and 12)
10. got actively involved in a variety of service opportunities in Korea, in the US, and in Uganda.