Clash of the Titans

9/11/2009. Eight years have passed since the towers fell, but here in Uganda the streets are on fire. Riots in Kampala due to a clash of the titans: President Museveni blocks the king of Buganda (largest ethnic tribe in Uganda) from heading north to a violent area to prepare for a political rally on Saturday. As our wise caretaker said, "The people want change. This will happen violently. This is the African way of doing things." I'm reminded of the theory that the red earth here comes from being soaked with blood since time began. Are human beings destined to destroy each other? Will xenophobia eventually obliterate us? This pondering is perhaps too dark for a Friday morning, but I am awake... trying not to sleep with my eyes open.

Back on the Flip Side

So much to say...

Back on the flip side where the earth is red and the air is thick with the essence of life, raw and real: trash burning, cars honking, cows grazing, birds laughing, children shrieking, chickens scattering, Luganda (local dialect) whispering in the wind...

We arrived to the general madness of Uganda but slowly we are settling in. The house is gorgeous. We literally have views from every window of Lake Victoria. We still need some furniture but things are coming together. We have battled our way in and out of Kampala, Dan finding comfort in the total disarray reminiscent of Boston streets. The car is a clunker perfect for this country. We've been barreling up and down the dirt roads like Kentucky Derby racers. Bodha loves it too - he leaps right in whenever we open the door and say "up up up."

Over the weekend we walked up this hill across from the house, sensing it was full of juju. When we reached the top the energy was intense and dark, with black stains of fire burnt into the shrubs, crippling the ground. As we came around the corner we met the caretaker and "fire-maker" of the area. He would make for quite a character with his over-sized red v-neck sweater, shredded at the seams, sagging khaki pants, and bare feet. He explained that it was indeed a ritual ground used for prayer to the local god, Jaja Lubowa." He instructed us in the traditions of the area, how to pray properly for luck and success in all things, reminding us to look to our dreams for signs from Jaja Lubowa.

My boys are thriving here. Dan is in love with the house, particularly for the astounding views, and is already well at work on his dissertation research. I cannot express the sheer bliss of returning home to him each afternoon, of waking up to his face each morning. It has completely transformed my experience. And Bodha is so freakin' happy here. He is always at one of the windows gazing at birds or romping around outside in the grass, schnuffing everything in sight. I think he's a bit confused by the schedule of everything since he doesn't have a consistent walk time but he'll get used to it soon. He came to school with us last weekend while we were setting up my room and ran around campus and had a blast. It's fun to have him here.

My students so far seem great. I've got a nice group for IB Theatre Arts with an interesting mix of nationalities (American, British, Ugandan, Italian, Indian, French, Venezuelan...). They seem excited. There is pressure on my end since I haven't had the training yet, but hopefully I can pull it off for a few months. In any case, having a room is awesome. Dan did a huge "theatre arts" graffiti banner for me and I created an "actors inspiration" board so that students in grade 6-11 can bring in anything that inspires them as actors and post it up on the board as an ongoing collage with layers upon layers of inspiration which I will photo-document throughout the year.

The first week of school is always a bit of madness and I need to do some planning so that we have a logical progression in each grade. It's hard work but I want to design a great program for this school so that whenever I leave there is a real curriculum in place instead of nothing at all. The students deserve that much.

Thus it begins. I miss you all and send an open invitation for visits at any time... come see the view, it might just change your perspective on the world.

Home Sweet Home

After the children went home, the closets were cleaned out, the rotting boxes were piled up in the halls, the curriculum maps were drawn out for the year to come, we said our goodbyes and left the bells and tests and disciplinary action behind for planes across the world. Destination: home sweet home. Now I'm sitting on the couch with my husband by my side and our dog in his little bed - bliss. My eyes keep closing on this perfect dream but I will try to stay awake a little longer. More Uganda to come in August...

Purpose

I suppose you could say I've fulfilled my purpose here: I was hired to bring theatre back to life at ISU and I believe I have succeeded in that venture. Our production of Romeo and Juliet had the students brimming with excitement, and the seniors wishing I had arrived years earlier so that they could have participated in more shows. Students are playing drama games during their lunch breaks and parents are relaying the message that their kids are excited about performing. The board has agreed to begin building a black-box theatre this summer which I will call home starting in January (if all goes well... remembering that "This is Africa."). I also managed to inspire 6 students to sign up for the IB Theatre Arts course, an intensive two-year study of theatre for grades 11 and 12, which I had hoped to pilot at the school. I've witnessed some profound changes in my students - many who began the year shy have burst forth from their shells with gusto while others who struggle both academically and socially have found their unique skills invaluable on the stage. There have been moments of sheer genius in class: 7th graders transforming into Commedia dell' Arte characters with ease (gender-bending without resistance), 9th and 10th graders furiously writing plays in small groups about relevant social issues, a 4th grade girl doing a priceless imitation of a teacher. At times it's been quite overwhelming, but I've managed to emerge from the darkness of insecurity with some light, some joy, some laughter. Next year should prove more comfortable - I will only be teaching in the Senior School (grade 6-11), I've been promised a permanent classroom space for the Fall and will hopefully move into the black-box mid-year, and above all I'll have my boys by my side (Dan and Bodha). I cannot really imagine calling Africa home, but I know that once I have my family here I will feel the warmth of heart I need to survive.

I've been focusing on the positive, the good aspects of this life I now lead on the opposite side of the planet and the new work that accompanies it. This is my first "real" job. As an actor/teaching artist work was sporadic with prolific times of long hours and great progress going hand in hand with times of complete stasis. There is a consistency here that I am unaccustomed to, a daily routine, a rigidity that I often push against. The incredible director Anne Bogart writes that only within the container can we find freedom (while she speaks mainly of the actor/director and the necessity for setting choices into place when rehearsing, I find her words extend beyond the world of the theatre). This is my container right now, my boundaries are set from 7:30am to 3:30pm - but within the confines of classroom walls, attendence lists, ringing bells, and curriculum goals, I may have the opportunity to experience unparalleled freedom. My work here is to ignite imagination, to transform the space each class inhabits so that the "math room" may simultaneously be a courtroom, a palace, a bedroom, a kitchen, a forest, a ship, a club, a bar, a living room, a rocket to the moon... My own imagination thrives in that liminal state, betwist and between reality and fantasy such that the line blurs between the two. I can only hope my passion is infectious, that some of these students walk away changed, with a greater perspective and a child-like sense of wonder when encountering the world. Perhaps these are grand aspirations. But, as Marianne Williamson says:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?

So, who am I not to be? Who are you not to be?

Post Spring Break

I won't lie, say it isn't hard to leave behind everyone you love, the warmth of heart, the smell of home, the familiarity of those who love you for who you are, not what you do. The return is never gentle, the plane slammed down onto the Entebbe runway with unnatural force, wheels screaming, "Wake up! This is now! This is your life!" Jet lag kept me in a zombie state for the past few days, but slowly the coma confusing past and present is fading and this reality is coming into focus. It is not perfect. It is not ideal. But it is what is. For this moment I am a teacher. I'm breathing into the role: looking for the ways it might ignite my imagination, trying not to take anything too personally, and working with the mind that resists and reaches into the future. There is nothing simple about this work, each moment brings new challenges, new triumphs and new mistakes. The line is hard to draw, especially in terms of discipline. When does exuberant enthusiasm become hyperactive distraction? The choices are endless, some succeed and some fail. I'm learning. For now, I will rest in the present, here in the computer lab with the fan blowing and the birds chirping and the sky growing grey with storm clouds as I write to all of you.

The Play Is the Thing

ISU presents Romeo and Juliet

The hall was made for conferences at a reproductive health center with the most hideous curtains known to man - thick cream fabric with bold wavy patterns in navy and blood red, dizzying to the eye. I spun the space on its head so that we could use the balcony, making their platform our audience.
The stage was a configuration of wooden black risers, warped from years of rain and romping, splintered at the corners, hollow beneath such that even flip flops filled the room with elephant-like stomping sounds.
The costumes were jeans and t-shirts, Montagues in black and Capulets in white, some traditional Ugandan robes for the Friars, and an Ethiopian dress accompanied by a white eyelet parasol for the Nurse (played by boy of course).
The cast comprised of fourteen students from grades 8-12 of every nationality you can imagine: Congolese, Bangladeshi, Iraqi, British, Korena, Ugandan…
The transitions between scenes required the students to run around the entire building, mounting and descending stairs with the rapidity known only to teenage lungs and legs.
The students were brilliant: the intensity of their emotions heightened the language to such an extent that our little nothing of a play became the shot of adrenaline so needed at this school.
The student audiences giggled at the kissing and gasped at the fights, staring with wide eyes at the feat before them.
The parents were glowing.
The faculty and administration were slack-jawed.
“How did you do this in such a short amount of time?”
“You turned a sow’s ear into a purse!”
“Drama is back!”
The director of the school said he had never seen such amazing acting in any high school production.
I know this play backwards and forwards and yet they still moved me. When my lovely Romeo pronounced, “Is it even so?” after learning of Juliet’s death, tears welled up in my eyes.
After the final performance, the students hugged me and thanked me for being “the best director ever.” Seeing that I’ve never directed before in my life, nor even fully comprehend what it means to do so, I was and continue to be stunned.
And thus, a little triumph for Ms Eve was born.

Romeo and Juliet Rehearsal

rehearsal rehearsal rehearsal
Shakespeare in bite-size pieces
swallowed by young minds
slowly digested into truth

the clues are in the text
listen to each other
bring the language to life
voice body - body voice
put it in your own words
what if what if what if

a bare-bones production
the world slowly coming to life
a nascent form of brilliance
the spark of teenage stage kisses
lighting up the sky

Saturday Afternoon

Internet at home got too pricey to justify so here I find myself at school on a Saturday afternoon, sun blazing, gentle breeze pushing the swing-set like the ghost of a child. Feeling nostalgic today - a twinge of loneliness. The picnic bench where I sit is painted bright red, the red of grandma's kitchen table where she stacked the tins of brownies for Thanksgiving. I can hear the sound of the metal lids pop and smell the sweet chocolate wafting up from beneath the layers of wax paper. I can still see her hands, spotted, skin worn like your favorite set of sheets so thin you can almost see the invisible dreams gone by. I wonder what she would've thought of all this adventure. Everything here is strange: the giant leaves on the trees reminiscent of a Dr Seusse illustration, the argument in Luganda hovering in the air from the construction workers just beyond the parking lot, the brick red earth that sneaks into my apartment dusting the floor with the fine filth of Africa, the stench the reeks from the pores of poverty...
I could certainly use some company though the silence of empty classrooms is simply solace.

Performance Uganda Style

"O-Obama! O-O-Obama!"
we cheerleaders take the stage
red white and blue inspired
jumping like hot potatoes
the audience laughs and claps along to the rhythm of change
"Yes We Can" gospel roaring "Amen"
"America, America" harmonizing with contemporary African steps
real reactions taken to extreme in the body of a small white woman
with a big voice and a bigger heart
holding hope in the final moment
before blackouts and bows
the tension of the future hanging
delicate and thundering in the distance
so close we can all taste it
bittersweet

*National Dance Week Uganda performance at the National Theater (2/27-3/1) with Okulamba Dance-Theatre Company.

Where I'm At

Been a bit negligent in my revelations and recollections of life on this side of the Earth. So here's where I'm at:
- Traveled to the waterfalls of Mt Elgon on the 9th grade trip where we worked for a day in a rustic clinic with a patient intake of over 1000. Seeing that they only operate the clinic once every few weeks, they finally had to shut the doors after running out of medicine - can't quite shake the sound of the metal doors slamming people away like cattle.
- Still reckoning with the juxtaposition of dreams/hopes/expectations/what is/what could be.
- Lobbying for a black-box space so that drama might thrive at the school since I'm currently teaching in various classrooms around the campus (drama ain't drama when you teach it in the math room).
- Trying a new method of acceptance and nonattachment, as in, "I love your enthusiasm today..." rather than "Stop yelling and listen to each other..."
- Rehearsing for a dance/theatre piece to be performed this weekend at the National Theatre - it's about life after Obama (combination of contemporary dance, documentary theatre style monologues, and good old fashioned cheerleader exuberance).
- Engaging in collaborations both as an artist and teacher outside the school walls as I search for ways to integrate Uganda into both my experience and that of the students.
- Studying Butoh dance/theatre with a Japanese master visiting Uganda - learning to walk to the rhythm of the music inside and slowly disappear into no dance... no self.

So that's where I'm at: making friends, making meaning, making theatre, making progress, making mistakes, making choices, making chai, making it all up as I go along.
It's quite a ride this life... you never really know what you're signing on for - the reasons we use to justify decisions may in time prove meaningless, usurped by a truth too profound to envision. Who knows what will come of it all.

Some pics

The Prime of Creation

The prime of creation:
6 dancers
3 white and 3 black
3 American and 3 Ugandan
all born of hope and possibility
choreograph a cheer to the 44th President
spelling the letters of change with glee
bare feet stomping out the past
on the earth that mothered us all
before continents shifted into difference
and we became "I" and "you"
the rhythm is old
the words are new
sweat drips hands clap bodies writhe
ecstatic beginnings of an uncertain end
where once-upon-a-time a preacher dreamed
stands reality smiling

*this poem describes a dance piece that will be a part of Uganda's National Dance Week the last weekend in February - yes I'll be taking to the stage in a dance/drama performance!

Death at Dawn

i woke up to a bright pink dawn
the magenta sun breaching the periwinkle gray cloud cover
highlighting the glory of nature
only to find a large beetle flipped on its back on my bathroom floor
despite my desperate attempts to right him
he had resigned himself to slow death
waving his goodbyes with twitching limbs
reminding me of the creep of time
perhaps i might have helped him on his way
but i wasn't in the mood to play god

Musings on the System

still seeking the poetry in a day ordered by the school bell
students filing about like soldiers
armed with apathy in place of guns
just as deadly
to the soul

seen them itching the wound where imagination once thrived
mourning the lost limb of creativity
numbing to the fate of desks and grades
calculators and connotation and correction in red ink
like a blood sentence of achievement

i too have barked like a drill sgt
clapped my hands like thunder
shook my head in disapproval
asking what happened to my former self

what are we breeding in these systems?
is there another way?
can we have order without orders?
can we break the 4th wall without 4 walls to break?
can we leave the answer unattended
and let the question take the lead?

no, it is not all despair
there is brilliance and delight
giggling in the halls, kissing in the shadows
the gentle slam of a body into a locker
the hand raised high with insight
the pride of something learned

and yet i wonder
because "why" is a gift
i never take for granted

Jane Goodall

Jane Goodall flies on the eagle, her white hair spiraling loose from its low bun, bristling in the wind of wings and the call of the chimpanzee.
She is slight and sweet with thin lips, kind eyes, and long limbs reminiscent of her constant subjects and her closest friends.
At the age of four, she hid in a haystack for hours to discover how the hen lays her eggs since explanation could not parallel witness.
Even Jane waited tables to save up enough money to board a ship and wave goodbye to life before dreams came true.
Her mother camped beside her in the jungles of Africa on her first journey, for how could a girl of 23 go unaccompanied into the wild.
Jane wonders where indigenous wisdom has gone – why the elders no longer meet to discuss the fate of the world; why each decision is made based on selfish immediate gratification.
She laments that we have somehow lost the connection between the clever brain and the human heart.
Jane says hope is a seed growing into a shoot, powerful enough to break through brick walls with its sheer will to survive.
She is a believer in the indomitable human spirit and the resilience of all things livng.

Half-baked

I've reconciled myself to the fact that this half year will be half-baked. Everything I attempt will not be fully realized as I'm functioning within the constraints of a system I've not had the privilege to devise. But I am determined suddenly to use the next few years here to design what I want out of drama - to start fresh next year with the potential created by this half-baked half year... because everyone likes a cookie even if it's undercooked and in its nascent form there is still the sweetness of what could be once fully gestated in the oven of my imagination. I remember my musings on "could be" in graduate school - the world an open possibility once the mind can grapple with what if, a blossom of creativity, a birth of possibility. I hear West Side Story lilting in my mind.

Heavy Sky Morning

The sky hangs heavy this morning, portentous; the weight of rain sagging the clouds towards Earth in a kiss of grey, blurring boundaries. I too feel heavy and boundless, smothered over with too many emotions to distinguish. Grey has feeling - betwixt and between the light and the dark. Each moment changing shades but never quite reaching one pole or the other. Juxtaposing the opposition in its own shade, in its own way. I hesitate, a breath between strength and fear, wondering where I stand. Thus, I sit at another computer, in another country, on another morning, with another storm thundering in my waking dream.

Goodies?

In case anyone wishes to send me old fashioned letters or goodies (i.e delicious chocolate bars or cheap dvds or anything else I can use to amuse myself when my head isn't spinning like a top or distract myself when I'm missing home), my address is as follows:

Ms Eve Kagan
The International School of Uganda
Plot 272 Lubowa, Entebbe Road
P.O. Box 4200
Kampala, Uganda
Phone: 256-414 200374/8

You must use registered mail (DHL is best) so don't send anything too heavy or it will cost a fortune and the truth is you can get a lot of fine things here I'm just a glutton for reminders of home these crazy days.
All love

The Prophet and the Poet

"Issa is the prophet Jesus," explains my hired taxi driver. "For Muslims, Jesus was a prophet." So Issa, the prophet Jesus taxi driver, steers Eve, the first woman and sign of life, through the maddening traffic of Kampala on a rainy Saturday morning. What a ride. Issa's voice is warm and smooth, like coffee with milk and sugar, yet it is his high falsetto laugh that wins me over - shocking, piercing, genuine, like that of a little girl shrieking in delight. A crescent moon scar from eyebrow to cheekbone graces the left side of his face, the side that turns towards me as we fill the time between moving inches with broken English conversation. "Dancing Queen" by Abba plays on the radio and he drums his finger against the dash as my foot flops in and out of my sandal with the rhythm of that silly delicious song. Issa has five children, one wife, one Toyota Corolla taxi, and more passengers in his lifetime then he could possibly count. For some reason I feel grateful to be one of the many this morning.

It suddenly strikes me that here I am in Uganda in the midst of it all: the motorcycles whirring around us with ladies sitting side-saddle in colorful skirts and flip-flops, the goats roped to fences bleating their woes, the children running in front of cars in street-crossing that resembles trench warfare, the bum on the street with his hand outstretched in the universal mudra of poverty, the guards at the bank with shotguns aimed at poorly tiled hallway floors, the boys on the median selling newspapers and phone cards at your car window like old-school drive-in diner waitresses minus the roller-skates, the hustle and bustle of the markets where mangoes topple in towers reminiscent of Pisa and bananas grow the size of your thumb, the life that teems regardless of the hour and the day and the time and the year all over this crazy beautiful world.

Getting Real

Alright time to get real... my stomach is doing flips from some weird food, my bed is hard as a rock (even with the comforter as a pillowtop), there was a roach the size of a golf ball in my bathroom and fire ants marching across the bathtub, the internet is down, the students are giving me hell and all I can think is how badly I wish I could trade places with them, the water only works on occassion, I feel totally underqualified for this job and I'M LONELY!
I had to just get that out there because I don't want you to think it's all poetry and light. I wouldn't want to lie and say the transformation of minds is simple or beautiful. Change is difficult. We struggle against the new even as it unfolds before us everpresent. I try to go breath to breath, moment to moment, but sometimes the air is suffocating, sometimes it gets caught in the lump in my throat (a lump of fear, regret, sadness, suffering), sometimes it's all just reflex and awareness jumps out of the mind like the spiders on my bedside table. It's all happening. The bittersweet of the moment. The pain and delight of choice.
The now. The now. The now.

Color your World

The local paint company says, "color your world!"
What color should I choose?
The motled green skin of the mango or the bright orange of its meat?
The brick red of the earth or the deep brown of the skin?
The bright fuschia of the flowers or the dull white of the plastic bags?
The ice blue of the mid-day sky or the indigo of the evening?
The haunting grey of the storm clouds or the shocking pink of the dawn?
The blood red carcass of the goat or the mangy golden fur of the street dogs?
If voices had a color perhaps I would paint the music in the air of Uganda - the birds and children and whispers in languages my ear is yet to comprehend.

"Best Lesson Ever"

"Miss, miss, best lesson ever!" shouts one of my 10th graders. The lesson: Augusto Boal and power in the Theatre of the Oppressed. We began with an activity called "chairs and power" in which each student placed their chair and their own body in what they considered to be the most powerful position in the room. One by one the students and their chairs mounted bookshelves and tables, even the concrete overhang above the classroom door. Once all the chairs and students were in place the discussion on power exploded - I simply facilitated by asking who in the room held the most power. From time to time I quieted everyone down, particularly when the overlapping voices were too intense, so that each student could be heard:

"Miss, power is the ability to hurt others."
"No, no, it's the ability to manipulate others."
"Manipulate others in any way."
"How about just the ability."
"It depends on what you mean by power: strength, unity, intelligence, numbers, money..."
"Power is to be remembered after you die."
"No one person can have power alone."
"Yeah, power is union."
"We have no power as students."
"But if we all got together couldn't we have power?"
"Those two have the most power because they look like a king and queen on the throne and all the rest of us are the snipers protecting them."
"Why do we keep refering to this as a dictatorship? Couldn't the room be something else other than a kingdom?"
"Miss, power is an illusion."

Our activity/discussion lasted 40 minutes. I realized had some other teacher or administrator walked in to see the students literally climbing the walls and arguing over power and oppression it might have been the end of my career as a teacher - it would have been worth it!

Little Delights

- 4th-graders jumping up to stand beside me in the circle
- Afternoon thunder and fresh sprinkling rain
- True multiculturalism
- "That's my new favorite teacher"
- A hug from my husband
- Planning political theatre revolutions for grade 9/10
- Lake victoria glittering below the lush green fields
- Motorcycle taxis named after our pup
- An international talent show
- A glimpse at what may become our first house
- Fresh banana bread from the canteen
- "Are we gonna get to act today?!"

Routine laughter

Walking to school with the masses en route to work... heavy heads hang with the weight of late nights and early morning dreams still lingering in the corners of eyes glazed with what might be. Suddenly there is routine to my life - a morning commute Africa style, not quite the hustle and bustle of a subway or freeway but somehow that familiar look on faces painted with the stasis of struggle to survive be it in a boardroom or a streetside market.

I wonder if the laughing bird is mocking my hubris, thinking I might transform young minds through drama. Perhaps I too have fallen into the trap so beautifully expressed by Freire: the banking concept of teaching in which the teacher holds all knowledge and deposits it into the empty receptacle of the student mind with no regard for the intricacies of what comprises each individual - seeing all as void of content. Did I think I would fill these minds with a passion for theatre? Was I so blind to my own arrogance thinking they would open arms to the art I love? "Ha ha ha hahahaha," says the bird. I can't help but laugh along with him.

"Ms Eve"

Walking through the open courtyards on campus I hear, "Hi, Ms Eve," echoing from little mouths. I'm only just beginning to feel the weight of the word "teacher," the formality, the responsibility, the potential to ignite minds with a passion for creativity. Bright eyes and soft voices - shy girls with crossed arms blocking the buds of adolescence, eager boys bouncing out of their skin with sweat stained hair plastered to their faces. The awkward and the confident mingling as bodies morph from child to young adult. Perhaps these hours together will be an opportunity to step into the shoes of what they may become... Not to say they are all ready and willing, with teacher comes the testing the boundaries (I've heard those gone by have been reduced to tears), pushing hard against discipline to dangle limbs over the edge of disobedience. It seems unreal to give detention in drama class but so be it if the disturbances continue for there is much work to be done and I refuse to sacrifice our short time together for those who will not step in line. We shall see what is in store for Ms Eve as our saga continues: will she be coveted and loved or mocked and hated or a little bit of both?

Dancin' in the Streets

Dan and I walk hand in hand down the red dirt road to the local market, the sun blazing through the low hanging clouds in the late afternoon blue sky. A group of children stand by the road singing and beating a plastic tub as a drum. They spy us as we approach. A small girl in a bright indigo dress jumps to the center and points her fingers at me, a universal invitation to dance. I'm never one to refuse a dance so I shake my hips and we join hands and dance in a circle. The rest of the children run up to us and take our hands, hanging on us, joyful, bright, genuine, a momentary universal connection. Dan and I are left smiling as we wave goodbye and continue down the road basking in the glow of spontaneity.

a tiny princess

a tiny ugandan girl lies belly down on a retaining wall in a bright white dress - the contrast between skin and cloth is stark yet she looks like a disney princess bald head and all. she smiles one of those genuine open-hearted grins known specifically to this part of the world, the kind that lights up your soul and reminds you that we are all one.
our conversation goes like this:
girl: "how are you?"
me: "how are you?"
girl: "how are you?"
me: "how are you?"
girl: "how are yooooooou?!"
me: "how are yooooooou?!"
both: (giggle giggle giggle)

images

barefoot children standing in the red earth slowly turning a rotisserie of small skinned animals glazed in the juice of necessity. baskets of bananas perfectly balanced on heads bald regardless of gender. trash burning on the corner giving new meaning to pollution as smoke rises from a wilting plastic bag. matatus (taxi buses) filled to the brim fighting for space on the road with horns reminiscent of clown cars. faces stern on first glance melt into pure affection with the offer of a smile. giant maribu birds like vultures circling the city as if it were a cremation ground. green everywhere even in this dry season. the sound of life bold and unforgiving and beautiful.

TIA

TIA: This is Africa
lush, green, crickets and birds sounding day to night (most shocking is the laughing bird which sounds almost like the wiked witch of the west with wings), a crescent moon hung in the sky like a bowl spilling stars into the darkness, hot sun pouring golden light through my morning window, cool breeze swishing palm fronds in the evening, a lingering handshake and a genuine smile bring warmth to even the most stern faces from taxi drivers to street children nothing like a grin to change the mood, water that runs only sometimes, power shutting off in the grocery store, the faint smell of bodies and traffic wafting everywhere... this is Africa.

Thus far I've met kindness everywhere from my colleagues to strangers. The school is beautiful and while I'm far from knowing my exact responsibilities or schedule I have a feeling I will slide into place here. Having spent time in India and Nepal, I fall easily into the 3rd world sense of time - there is an ease here, a lack of hurry, a different time table for measuring when and if you give up the hurried worried mentality you find that there is really no need to barrel forward into the future, it's coming at whatever pace you move so why not greet it with a relaxed embrace. My apartment is lovely, though I've seen some of the houses and long already to move into one where there are yards not even Bodha could imagine (with avocado trees and sugar cane). I cannot say I'm without fear but I decided to burn it up for the New Year, to stop indulging in insecurity and to live in a space of "I can" (shout out to Obama who according to Uganda is "made in Africa!"). We are all capable of more - we can give more, learn more, teach more, love more, live more - we can step outside the boundaries we set for ourselves and dip our toes in the unknown without hesitation, even if it is just for a moment, the glimps might change us for lifetimes.