I felt that this was a day that was worth documenting.  To me, this was a day that epitomizes what life in the Peace Corps is like.  It was about 50 degrees and cloudy/rainy.  I started the day by walking roughly four miles to the royal kraal for a community meeting.  I sat for two hours in the community center, a building with a roof but no walls.  It’s perched on the top of one of the tallest hills in my community, the biting wind blowing straight at us the entire time.  The meeting was on a very interesting and worthwhile topic (sex and gender-based violence in the community).  However, it was all in Siswati which meant I sat there for two hours, shivering and completely oblivious to what was being said, except for the rare times that what of the women next to me so graciously translated.  I then walked another mile back to the tar road to catch a taxi to town.  About half way there, my whole foot suddenly felt like it was on fire.  I ripped my shoe off and found the culprit, a bee stuck in my shoe!  Bees here must be different from bees back home… or maybe it’s just been a while since I was stung because my fingers started tingling, my heart started pounding, and my foot hurt so bad that I couldn’t put any weight on it.  Just then, I saw a taxi approaching, flashing its lights at me (its way of asking if I wanted a ride).  I flagged it down and staggered over to it, all the passengers inside staring at me the whole time.  By the time I got in to town, the pain had let up enough for me to walk, and I was no longer afraid that I was having some kind of deadly allergic reaction to the bee venom.  I had two hours to kill before a meeting at the local children’s home, so I spent almost the whole time eating food.  I feel like all I do here is eat.  I spend almost all my money on food, and I’m still hungry… all the time!  I finish eating, and I just want more food.  I’m really not exaggerating on this point.  I have always liked food.  Even back home, I ate.  But here I eat a ton.  I calculated it and, on average, I walk/jog 30 miles a week, some weeks more.  It is a constant battle trying to get enough calories into me on a Peace Corps budget.  While making my way around town, I was proposed to five times by five different men, which is really the norm in my town.  Finally, I sought sanctuary at the Children’s Village an hour before my meeting, cold and tired of being harassed.  My meeting was VERY successful!  Worth everything I went through.  I have about three different projects I am going to be working on there (more on that later) and my counterpart there is very enthusiastic and seems to be really invested in her work.  I walked out of the meeting just in time to see my taxi back home pulling away.  I ran down the road, trying to flag it down.  My driver saw me, rolled down the window and signaled that he’d be coming back.  That meant that I had over an hour to wait…just as thunder rumbled in the distance and the skies opened.  As I made my way through the downpour, I remembered that I had left my laptop out in my hut…lying right under one of the spots in my roof that leaks.  I just prayed that it wasn’t raining hard back in my village yet.  There really wasn’t a point to obsessing over it.  My laptop ended up being fine, but that definitely isn’t a mistake I’ll every make again.  Luckily, there is a covered shed at the taxi park so I at least had cover.  I hunkered down, bought another snack, and stuck in my i-pod to wait it out.  About 30 minutes into my wait, one of the taxi drivers from a neighboring village (they all know me by now) walks up to me with a piece of paper.  I hesitantly turn off my music and read it.  It’s a love note…I figured as much.  “Dear baby.  You are beautiful.  I love you very much.  Please marry me baby.  I want to be your husband.  I love you baby.  Write me back your response.”  Some days, I would be amused at this.  Today, I wasn’t.  I told the man no about ten times before sticking my headphones back in and walking off.  Finally, my taxi pulls up.  By this point, there are about 30 people waiting for the one taxi back to my village.  No one wants to have to wait in the cold rain for another hour until the next trip so a mob scene literally ensues.  People crowd the door.  There is pushing and shoving.  Like I said, I really wasn’t in the mood.  I just stepped back and watched.  Luckily, my driver likes me, and technically, I had been waiting the longest of everyone.  He had my back.  He locked the door, cracked the window, and told everyone to step back and let me on first.  I gave him a thankful smile, climbed on and watched as everyone proceeded to try to pack as many people as possible into the 14 seats.  We made it back to the village, and I walked the 100 yards to my homestead in the pouring rain, only to remember that I forgot to stop at the local store to buy airtime.  It was thundering, lightening, and starting to get dark, but I REALLY needed airtime so I sucked it up.  I carefully navigated through the mud, puddles, and pouring rain to the neighborhood store where one of the men standing out front whispered that he loved me.  Believe it or not, I still wasn’t in the mood.  I just gave him a look, pulled up my hood, and took off for home again.  I plan to spend the rest of the night cuddled in blankets watching a movie.  It was a brutal day, but at the end of it, I have to say that I love this place more than ever.  This day was what being a Peace Corps volunteer is all about.  Enduring the not so pleasant, the endless marriage proposals, walking miles and miles through mud and rain for that one moment when you feel like you are actually achieving something.  That something is actually happening.  That your presence here is making some kind of positive impact, no matter how small it may seem at the time.  And I love it.

Life as a Peace Corps Volunteer

September 5^th, 2012

It has been cold and raining for almost a week now.  I have been largely stuck inside the whole time, reading, cooking, occasionally trying to do something productive.  It’s hard to haul myself out from under my tent of blankets, though.  The thermometer in my hut barely passes 50 degrees during even the warmest part of the day.  How my skin longs for the heat of the sun, to be released from the prison of layers I have been wearing since this wretched weather started days ago. 

It is times like this that I feel so disconnected from my life back home, so utterly caught up in my world here that I almost feel as if I am existing in a whole other universe.  It’s amazing how quickly the body can adapt.  How quickly new habits are formed and old habits are forgotten, my life here so different from the one that I led back home.  Things that at first seemed so daunting and burdensome have now become the norm to me.

One of the most defining elements of life here is water.  The most critical part of existence.  Vital to every living being, but yet, something that I have so taken for granted all my life… up until now.  You never really realize how much water you use in your day-to-day business until you have a 25-litre jug of it sitting in front of you, and you know that’s ALL you are going to have until the taps open again in three days.  But really, I don’t need more than that anyway.  Another thing I have learned since being here…how little water we actually need to get by.

Everyday, I boil two litres of water and immediately filter it.  This is my drinking water for the day, occasionally a little of which I will use to cook with.  In the evenings, I use another few litres to wash all my dishes from the day.  Finally, I use a mere litre to bathe.  And that’s it.  Except for laundry days, which are few and far between for me.  Here, I’ll go three or four days without washing my hair.  Likewise, I’ll wear my clothes at least four or five times without washing them.  When water is such a precious commodity, you wait to wash something until it is truly dirty.  When I do wash (either my hair or my clothing) it is all done by hand with a bucket.  My “bathroom” consists of a plastic basin with a shower curtain hung around it and my toilet is the pit litrine in the back corner of the homestead shared with the rest of my family.  As foreign as this all may have seemed to me six months ago, before I found out I was joining Peace Corps, it is amazing how normal it all is to me now and how little I actually miss of the amenities from home.

Village life was also a fast adjustment, mainly how different my daily routine is here.  There are no street lights illuminating the dirt roads of my village.  When night falls, it is DARK! No one is out and about after 6pm in the evening (except those types of people you definitely don’t want to be sharing a pitch black street with).  As soon as darkness descends, I padlock my burglar bars, lock my door, and latch all the windows.  I usually fix dinner, do the dishes, take a quick bucket bath and am in bed by 8pm.  Likewise, I rise much earlier.  My sleep cycle here is basically controlled by the sun at night and the roosters in the morning.  The roosters start crowing at 4:30 every morning like clockwork.  I’ve only used my alarm clock once since arriving in the village over a month ago.  Once the roosters start, there is no more sleeping.

The way I conduct myself in the village is also very different than I ever carried myself back home.  Swaziland remains a very conservative country.  In addition, as a young white woman, I get a TON of male attention here….rather aggressive male attention.  I am proposed to no fewer than three or four times every time I go to town.  As such, I dress modestly and carry myself modestly, as well.  Whenever I leave my homestead, I am in a skirt or dress that goes at least to my knees, if not all the way to my ankles, along with a shirt with sleeves and a high neckline.  I’ve noticed that dressing in such a way really does cut down on the amount of harassment I receive. 

Finally, one of the most welcome habits from home that I have quickly broken here is my obsession with time, schedules, appointments, etc.  Every time I leave to go somewhere, I take my time.  I stop to chat with every single person I pass on the way.  Sometimes it’s just a greeting.  Other times people want to ask questions and find out more about what I’m doing here or what the U.S is like.  If I’m not walking to my destination, I have to wait for the khumbi, which runs on no particular schedule, coming and going as it fills up.  Even when I am walking, most days the road has been muddy and riddled with puddles, making for slow progress.  My village is gorgeous though, and I never mind the detours and long journeys.  I often just make up excuses to get out and walk.  I’m soaking it all in as much as possible before I’m back in the hustle and bustle of home. 

August 16^th, 2012

“My Love Affair with a Mountain Village”

I rise each morning with the sun and, of course, the neighborhood roosters that act as the village’s alarm clock, faithfully ushering in each new morning with their cacophony of crowing.

This is, by far, my favorite time of day.  The homestead is still quiet, the rest of my family still savoring their last few moments of sleep while I quickly rise to savor my only few moments of solitude around the homestead.  I swing open the wooden door to my thatched-roof rondavel; the warm air, still heavy with sleep, rushes out as the crisp morning air rushes in to replace it.  The valley lays below me, a velvet blanket glittered with silver lights scattered here and there.   Daylight has just begun to peek above the hills, the sky blushing a soft pink along the horizon. 

I slip outside, still in my pajamas.  Having the homestead to myself means that this is the only time of day that I get to leave my house without modestly donning a knee-length skirt or dress first.  Immediately, my neck cranes upward to catch a glimpse of the moon precariously hanging in the little darkness that remains above the mountain top, a few stars still faintly twinkling their last twinkles of the night.  Here, I love that I can mark the passage of time in moon cycles.  In fact, in Siswati, the word for “month”  (inyanga) also means “moon.”  At home, I’m too busy and distracted to notice things such as the waxing and waning of the moon.  Since arriving in Kudzeni, it has become one of the highlights of my day. 

Spring is on the way…I can feel it tickling my skin.  The African sun has yet to break the Swazi winter, leaving the mornings pleasantly cool.  The valley below still lays blanketed in a thin layer of mist, not yet ready to rise and face a new day.  I cautiously make my way down to the pit latrine in the dawn’s faint light.  On the way, I pass my family’s kraal, where the cows lay snuggled under their usual tree, the low branches offering some shelter from the biting wind.  They lazily raise their heads from slumber to acknowledge my presence.  Sometimes I even mumble a greeting in reply, “Kusile inkhomo.” (Good morning Cows).  In this moment, I feel as if it is just the cows, the mountain, and I ready to greet the sun’s first rays.

By the time I have finished my morning rounds, the sky has brightened, the stars all faded, the rocky hillside red above me, bathed in an early morning glow.  Likewise, the homestead begins to awaken around me.  As I retreat to my hut, I hear the first cries of my sisi’s baby, the door to the main house slamming repeatedly as my younger bosisi dress for school, the clamor of hooves as our herd of goats rush past my hut to spend the day grazing the mountainside.

Six days a week, I set off down the dirt road for training, my two dogs, Tiger and Boss, following along behind me, their entire backsides wagging with excitement.  I hear faint cries of “Bongiwe!” coming from the children on the homestead up the mountain from mine.  I always smile and return their waves, loving the feeling of belonging that their greetings give me.  When we reach my neighbor’s homestead, we are joined by Heather (a fellow volunteer) and her puppy, Kona.  Together, the five of us make our way down the mountain, the puppies wrestling contentedly, occasionally rushing off into the tall grasses in pursuit of some ever-elusive prey.  We pass groups of timid school children, marching purposefully in the opposite direction on their way to the local primary school.  They all smile and offer shy waves, giggling as we pass.  After seven weeks, we have become a part of their morning routine, just as they have become a part of ours. 

After hours of tedious training, my mind breathes a sigh of relief when the bus finally drops me at the base of my beloved mountain each evening.  I almost always opt for the “shortcut” home, following a narrow, dirt path that weaves through thick, brittle grasses then under and around a grove of mango trees before depositing me back on the main road halfway up the mountainside.  The heat hangs so heavy by the afternoon that the edges of the surrounding mountain tops always appear hazy and blurred at this time of day.  But as I complete the final leg of my journey, crossing a small stream and climbing ever higher up the mountain, there is a merciful drop in temperature.

Cold evenings are spent huddled around the fire in our outdoor kitchen, chatting with my bosisi as they prepare the evening meal.  As darkness descends, life on my homestead begins to draw to a close.  My bhuti gathers the wares of his small outdoor shop and safely stows them away for another day.  My babe and oldest sisi arrive home from a long day of work in the city on the last bus of the evening.  In the distance, I hear the yapping of my dogs and the shrill whistles of my bhuti, followed by the vibration of dozens of hooves on the packed earth as the goats and cows are herded back down the mountain and into their kraals for the night.

As the first stars begin to shine, I retreat to the sanctuary of my own hut.  Although evenings remain crisp, I now fall asleep to the lullaby of crickets singing below my window, and once again, I am reminded that spring is on it’s way.  

TRAINING

We arrived in Swaziland after a grueling 36 hour-long journey on the evening of June 28^th.  I can guarantee that all 41 of us were in bed, fast asleep by 8pm.  Training began at 7am the next morning and would become a near constant in my life for the next 8 weeks.  Looking back now, it’s hard to believe that was almost two months ago.  It honestly seems like a whirlwind.

We had training from 8am until 3 or 4 in the afternoon six, sometimes seven, days a week.  I considered it a Peace Corps boot camp of sorts.  Any and every topic was covered, some obsessively so.  There were Technical sessions.  Health sessions.  Cross culture sessions.  Safety sessions.  Language sessions.  Really, the Peace Corps tries it’s hardest to make sure we are at least somewhat prepared to become active and productive members of our Swazi host community once they finally cut the cord and set us loose at the end of these two months. 

Swaziland, in general, is considered one of the hardest Peace Corps posts.  For anyone who doesn’t know, it has the highest prevalence of HIV in the world….Yes, in the world.  Just to throw some statistics out there….the current prevalence of HIV is estimated to be at 31%.  Within pregnant women, the latest survey shows it to be almost half (Pregnant women by definition are women who have had unprotected sex, so they are more at risk).  Up until two years ago, each person who was invited to serve in Swaziland would receive a personal phone call to discuss the mental hardships of the post before accepting the assignment.  Because of this, we went through extensive HIV/AIDS training and mental health training, as well.  Even as a Youth Development volunteer, HIV/AIDS will figure into almost everything that I do here.  Each one of us is going to encounter death and dying at some point during our 26 months here, and I am already anticipating how that is going to affect me. 

It wasn’t all serious…there were fun days thrown in every week or so.  Some of my favorites:  We had half of the 4^th of July off so that we could all visit the Country Director’s home for the traditional PC cookout. By this point, we had only been in the country for about a week, so I wasn’t yet having serious withdrawals from American culinary goodness.  The taste of home was still nice though, and I’m sure that I will appreciate the burgers and baked beans even more come next July 4^th.  We had a cooking contest one Sunday morning where we were split up into groups of four.  We each had to cook a meal using our PC cookbook and a propane cooking stove.   Our group made a Mexican feast of red rice, home-made tortillas, fajita veggies, beans, and chips with quac and pico de gallo.  There was also a two-day long training retreat at a permaculture center in Northern Swaziland where we all learned the ins and outs of starting our own gardens here.  We learned to compost, propagate plants, companion planting, irrigation and water conservation… I took notes religiously hoping that I can try to develop a little bit of a green thumb during my two years here. The last night of the retreat, we had our first traditional braai…. I plan on having many more for fellow PCV’s in the future.  So much fun!  (Yes, I realize that most of my highlights involved food.)

Most days though, training was honestly a lot to take in, and there was little time to rest and process any of it.  When we finally got home at 4 or 5 in the evenings, there was more work to be done.  We all stayed with host families throughout training, which meant evenings were spent bonding and learning more culturally.  I often sat around the fire for several hours with my brothers discussing Swazi politics and answering questions about the U.S.  Then, once I finally had time alone in my hut, I had to boil and treat water, cook dinner, wash dishes, take a bucket bath, and spend what time I still had left studying Siswati or journaling…when honestly all I wanted to do was lay in bed and watch movies all night.  But I made it through the 8 weeks, passed my final exams and language assessment… and will be officially sworn in as a PC volunteer later this morning!   

And thus begins the three month long period called integration, where I have nothing but time, time and time.  For these next three months, we are not supposed to leave our site (except for one evening a month), and we are also not allowed to begin work on any projects yet.  Instead, the point of integration is to… integrate.  I will spend these next three months getting to know my community, building relationships, making myself visible and available, and hopefully learning enough to start to develop a plan for my last 21 months of service here. 

Another adventure begins Monday.  I leave for 26 months in Swaziland as a Youth Development Volunteer with the Peace Corps.  Right now....my life is absolutely crazy.  My emotions and mind are running wild.  I can't sit still for more than a few minutes before I start thinking of about a million things I need to do in the next 48 hours before my departure.  I guess it is good that I am so busy because it hasn't given me time to freak out yet.  The panic moment will probably come when I hop on the plane, buckle in, and actually have a few minutes to myself to breathe.  Be on the lookout for more to come.... I just wanted to get this blog back up and running before I depart.  Thus begins one of the biggest adventures of my life...

So I haven't written since I got home from Uganda about a month and a half ago.   Honestly, that's because I feel like I have spent every waking moment since I got back trying to figure out where to go from here.  I have been running around Columbia, South Carolina like a damn chicken with it's head chopped off.  Grad school? MPA? MPH? GRE? Just one giant never-ending alphabet of confusion and hopes and dreams and frustrations and what nows.

Finally, however, I've found a job in Columbia. It gives me space to breath and space to think.  I can stop running around blindly grasping for any opportunity that is thrown at me and really sit down and figure out what it is that I want next.  And in order to figure that out...I know that I need to take the time to really reflect back on what I experienced over the past year.

Reflection is something I have yet to do but know that I desperately need to do.  I saw and experienced and felt things over the past year that most people never encounter in their whole lives.  I had my first truly close encounters with death...the death of others as well as my own mortality.  I saw what starvation looks like.  Not the kind of starvation where you had to skip lunch so you're 'starving' but real sunken eyes, distended bellies starvation.  I rocked malnourished babies in my arms.  I had my first encounters with HIV and TB.  I felt teargas for the first time.  I felt true independence for the first time.  I discovered how it feels to be really lonely, to only have yourself for company.  And I even learned how to enjoy having only myself for company.  I learned how to be healthy and respect my bodies in ways that I used to not.

All these things have left profound effects on me.  However, I haven't quite yet discovered what this means for where I'm going in my life and what direction I need to take from here.  I've had so many different ideas come and go in the past few weeks.  One day I am determined to adopt my own child from the region...to be a mother and caregiver and to let that be the small difference I make in this world.  The next day I want to study public health and move to Haiti to work for Paul Farmer for a year.  And then I want to just go to seminary and work on deepening my own faith and that of those around me.  It never ends...I'm just all over the place.

So for now...I've paused myself.  

The Impenetrable Forest: Not so Impenetrable After All

So this is one of those moments I know that I will for sure be telling my grandkids about one day.  Hiking through the middle of the Ugandan jungle.  It's been almost 8 hours.  I'm exhausted, literally, my only source of energy being the pack of crackers I scarfed down about 6 hours into the hike.  Every few minutes, my misery is interrupted by a brief flash of lightening and the angry rumble of thunder over head.  I'm soaked to the skin, goosebumps quickly rising.  Any semblance of a trail in the dense undergrowth has quickly transformed into a muddy, slippery mess.  On inclines, I push myself forward, desperately grabbing for limbs and branches to keep myself from slipping, losing all the progress I made.  As we descend, I spend most of the time on my butt, the steep inclines, mud, and my lack of good hiking shoes meaning any hope of remaining upright is lost.  I'm covered in mud, bleeding from several surfaces of my body, and can already feel my toes burning underneath a layer of tender blisters.  I'll even admit there were several hidden tears thrown in the mix...I'm not ashamed.  Our Ugandan guides kept assuring the four other hikers and me that the edge of the forest was just another hour further.  An hour sounded like an absolute blessing at this point.

Let me now rewind for a bit.  How did I get here?  What on earth was worth all this pain and misery?  What caused me to penetrate the Impenetrable Forest in the first place?  The answer:  a chance to visit the largest population of mountain gorillas in the world in their natural habit.  Was it worth it?  YES! Every minute of it!  This was the trip of a lifetime, the highlight of my year in Uganda.  An indulgence that I've been planning and budgeting for over the last year.

I left early on a Wednesday morning.  Uganda is a pretty small little country.  Yet, it still took us a solid 12 hours to reach the entrance to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.  This is due to the fact that about 6 hours into the drive, we turned off asphalt and spent the last half of the trip on rugged, dirt roads.  Add to this the fact that it's been raining almost every day for weeks now in that region of the country and it made for a very bumpy ride!  Trust me when I say this.  My tolerance for uncomfortable travel has sky-rocketed since being in the country, but even this was a bit too much for me to handle.  Just a few moments after turning off the paved roads, it of course started to pour rain again.  For six hours straight, my driver didn't utter a word as he concentrated on navigating the mountain roads, covered in thick red mud.  As I could feel the wheels desperately searching for traction underfoot and looked out the window to see the mere two feet of ledge separating us from the straight drop down into the valley below, I decided the best thing to do for most of the trip was to just close my eyes.  Finally, just as darkness was settling in, we pulled into camp.  The first words out of my drivers lips in several hours: "We're here."  The first words out of my lips: "It's about time."

The camp site was beautiful!  Absolutely gorgeous....it was well-worth the drive alone.  My room was a cute little thatch roof banda.  The dining area was a three-wall wooden deck, the open fourth wall overlooking the mountains and jungle beyond.  The mountains were like something out of a dream.  They were the type of lushness that is so green that it takes on a whole different color instead...almost like a deep navy.  Anyone who has seen the lushness of an equatorial jungle will understand what I mean.  In the mornings, mist rose from deep within.  It was almost like the mountains themselves were exhaling.  I guess this is where the whole idea of "Gorillas in the Mist" comes from.  It definitely made for a magical set-up for my epic adventure.

Early the next morning, we set off for park headquarters where we were debriefed by our rangers and split into groups.  There are thirty-one families of mountain gorillas that call the Impenetrable Forest home.  If I remember correctly, I think seven of these families have been 'habituated' which is a two year process the gorilla group undergoes to become used to the presence of humans.  There are three family groups that are visited during current gorilla tracks.  Of course, I was assigned to the family group that is settled deepest within the forest out of the three.

To even get to our starting point, we had to drive for about an hour.  From there, we had to hike up a little dirt road that took us straight up the side of a mountain, weaving past little mud huts, curious children lining the path to watch us pass.  The view was breath-taking.  Since we had yet to enter the forest, we could see for miles.  Strong green giants lining the horizon, shifting in color as the mountains layered one upon the other.  Green mountains shifted to deep navy mountains then to a purple before finally fading into a faint gray outline.  It was at this point that we realized that one of our group members just wasn't going to make it.  We were still on relatively easy terrain, and she already had to stop every few minutes to catch her breath (She later informed us that seeing the gorillas was her husband's idea).  This is when the ranger called a "9-9-1"...literally.  He shouted 991 down the mountain side and a bunch of porters and local, able-bodied village boys came running up the road carrying a bamboo stretcher.  Turns out, this women was going to be carried through the jungle on the backs of about 10 seriously ripped Ugandan men.  Props to these men.  They must be some of the most fit men in the world.  I'm still amazed at the ease with which they accomplished this feat!

After trampling through a peak-top meadow littered with wildflowers (picturesque right?), we were finally back at the entrance to the forest.  It is here that the real fun began.  For the next four hours, we hiked straight through.  No breaks or stopping.  Up one side of mountains, down the other.  I'll be honest.  Ever since I knew I was going on one of these, I've been training.  Like hard-core training.  I ran a 5k once a week for about two months straight.  Plus, there is this GIANT hill right outside my dorm that I would just walk up and then run down 10 times in a row.  All the crazy stares that I got from Ugandans wandering the campus was definitely worth it because I was feeling great on this hike!  I was keeping pace with all the local men while the rest of the hikers in my group were about 15 minutes behind me.  I was proud of myself because a year ago this definitely wouldn't have been the case.  I would have been seriously struggling and honestly might not have even been able to make it.

Finally, around 12:30, we were informed that we were close.  We met up with one of the rangers that set off early in the morning to start tracking the family.  After about 15 minutes of trampling through some heavy undergrowth, there they were...just chilling.  There was one big guy who was just sitting and staring at us like "Who on earth are these people."  It was funny.  I couldn't tell who was more curious to see one another....us or him?  The rest of the gorillas were all just feasting.  Gorillas have to eat pretty much non-stop to get their average daily intake of 60 kgs of leaves.  My favorite were the little ones.  There were quite a few young gorillas in our family.  These little guys were actually pretty big and rather clumsy.  They would jump on a tree not quite strong enough to hold them, fall to the ground, roll around some and then hop right back up.

In all, we got to spend an hour with the gorillas, most of which was spent hiking since they kept running from us.  However, our reward came when we finally got a glimpse of the silver-back.  The silver back is the by far the largest gorilla of the family, and quite literally, is silver-backed.  He is the dominant male and mates with all the females, meaning there is only one per family.   Our family also had several older males that were still black in color, but once they become silver-backs they will have to leave and start their own families.  Our silver-back was being very elusive.  We would only catch glimpses of his silver coat through the underbrush as he ran away.  Then finally, towards the end of our hour, as the thunder began to rumble overhead and heavy, cold drops of rain began to patter on the green canopy above, our silver back walked right out of the underbrush and plopped himself down just a few meters from us.  He sat observing the situation for several minutes, then as quickly as he appeared, he got up and wandering away again.

That was enough for me.  I saw everything I wanted to see, and as the rain picked up, I was ready to get out of there, knowing we still had several hours of difficult hiking ahead.  The rest of my group wasn't as eager and we stood around for about another 30 minutes before finally setting off again.  You know how the rest of the hike went from there.  Sheer misery!  Yet, as promised, we finally broke out of the forest's boundary around 4 in the afternoon.  I literally just collapsed to the ground, finally tearing into my packed lunch and amusing all the local village men by showing off my limited Luganda skills.  Once all the rest of the hikers had a chance to catch up, we were allowed to finish off the last mile of the hike back down the mountain to the road below.  I knew my driver would be waiting there with his van, meaning that I was that much closer to a hot shower, warm dinner, and soft bed.  I tore down that mountain!  All the local men were laughing at me, shocked at my speed.  I was literally jogging at some points.  I guess you would call this a second wind.  I finally stumbled onto the road with a huge grin on my face and a solid 20 minutes before the rest of my group.

I felt so accomplished and I honestly loved to whole experience.  Really, I promise I did!  But would I ever do that again....heck no!  There was a couple from Spain who were there on their honeymoon.  If my future-husband is somewhere out there reading this, know that if you ever put me through an experience like that on our honeymoon, I will be filing for divorce the minute I get back.  I love adventures.  I love nature.  I can rough it pretty well for a girl.  But I have my limits.  Still, I know that the added misery of the day just made it that much more exciting of a story to tell to all you guys!  And it gave me an excuse to not feel guilty about skipping the gym as I struggled to even climb the stairs to my room for about a week after the whole experience was over.  

Ethiopia.  For years, the name of this country has had this intense pull on my heart's adventure seeking side.  The name itself just sounds so exotic to my ears.  The cities even more so...names that seem to spring off the tip of the tongue.  Addis Ababa.  Bahir Dar. Lalibela.  Names that whisper promises of the chance to lose one's self, to explore, to taste new flavors.  For two weeks, I got to do just that on my own trip across the Northern (better known as the 'historic circuit') of Ethiopia.

I admit that I was really freaked out to be traveling all by myself for such a long time in such a foreign place.  This is the first time I've ever ventured to try something so new to me (besides the whole coming to Uganda for a year thing).  But I knew if I was ever going to do something like this, now was the perfect time to give it a go.  I've read plenty of blogs of strong, adventurous females who seem fearless in their independent quests to explore this great world, and I secretly envied all their tales.  I just didn't know whether or not I had it in me to be one of these fearless women myself.  After the past two weeks, I'm glad to discover I at least have a little slice of it in there somewhere.

I started off in Addis Ababa, taking an overnight flight from Uganda (by mistake since I was too dense to realize that the times when I was booking my ticket where in military time...It dawned on me about two minutes too late that 4:30 actually meant in the morning, not in the afternoon).  Oh well....There's not too much to say about Addis Ababa.  It's just another city, and I didn't venture far in my exploring since I spent most of my only day in city catching up on sleep and huddled under 3 blankets in an attempt to warm my shivering body that just isn't used to temperatures below 80 degrees anymore.

Then it was off to Bahir Dar...via a ten hour bus ride through the Ethiopian countryside.  The ride itself was beautiful.  Within just a few minutes of leaving Addis, our bus was already climbing up steep winding mountain roads.  Cruising along above the clouds, I felt like I could have been on an episode of Mrs. Frizzle's Magic School Bus...just waiting for our bus to sprout wings, take off in flight, swim through oceans or something equally magical.  After a few hours, we started our descent back down the winding roads, through the Blue Nile River Valley, which ended up being one of the most breathtaking sights of the whole trip.  

The city of Bahir Dar is pleasant enough.  Big without being chaotic.  The streets run right into Lake Tana, the largest lake in Ethiopia.  The roads are lined with huge palm trees that gently sway in the warm breeze off the lake.  There are plenty of walking paths that trail the shores.  My personal favorite...the city's open-air market which is the second largest in Ethiopia after the infamous Mercato in Addis Ababa.  Trust that I spent a few hours exploring there during my last morning in town.  However, the real draw of Bahir Dar is it's ancient monasteries...dotted along the nearby shores and the surrounding islands.

My plan was to simply visit the most famous of these monasteries, Ura Kidane Mihret, known for the vibrant paintings that fill its walls within.  I opted for public transport, wanting to try things the local way for a bit...it definitely made things more interesting!  I made my way to the local bus station where I found the one I needed and hopped aboard for just 50 cents.  In typical fashion, we then sat there for another hour waiting for the bus to fill up.  Finally we were off...except not exactly because this bus was so old that it was the push start kind.  All the men piled off...got behind...pushed on the count of three...we inched forward a bit but no go.  Round 2...they pushed again...this time the engine sputtered before finally cranking up...we drove forward as slowly as possible while all the men ran to jump back on the bus.  And then we were off!  The bus ride was about an hour mostly on bumpy, dirt roads before I was finally dumped in the middle of a little village.  There I was...dropped off in the middle of the marketplace, surrounded by chickens, screaming children, and staring men.  Not a clue where to go.  I knew the monastery was just a few kilometers outside of the village, so I tried asking one of the ladies at a nearby stall.  She just smiled her huge, teethy grin at me, shook my hand, and gave me a mumbled response in Amharic.  However, after a little exploration, it didn't take me long to realize there was only one path leading out of town, so that must be it and off I went.  

The walk to the monastery was beautiful.  The sun was out and shining and the little dirt trail took me right along the shores of the lake.  After about an hour, I finally reached the gates, venturing inside where I met a friendly group of monks.  The monasteries themselves are interesting little buildings. Round, the outside walls lined with bamboo, big gold crosses perched above their thatched roofs.  I took of my shoes and ducked behind the entrance curtain only to be met by enormous, bright, colorful paintings filling every inch of the walls within.  Words don't do most of these sights justice.  Nether do pictures, but that's all I have to give you.

After exploring for a bit, I managed to gain a spot on a boat tour that was heading out to some of the island monasteries.  This wasn’t in my original plan, but I had no other idea how I was going to get back to town, so I hopped aboard.  The island monasteries are much more isolated than the ones along the shore, so most of them don’t allow entrance for women.  Instead, I spent the afternoon sitting on the end of the dock, my feet in the cool, green waters of Lake Tana.  In the distance, the red hillside of Ethiopia stretched before me.  Closer still, there was a little lush island with the walls of another monastery barely visible through the vegetation.  As I sat with my thoughts, one of the first things that raced through my mind was the deep silence that I was experiencing for the first time in months.  There was not another living soul visible and the only noise that reached my ears was the gentle lull of the waves and an occasional birdsong.  Then…all of the sudden…the silence was broken by four deep tolls of the monastic bells on the island directly across from me, marking the afternoon hour.  As the bell’s tolls traveled across the smooth waters and entered my waiting ears, I was so moved by the beauty of this particular moment in time that goosebumps literally rose on my arms.  I had my own religious experience on the end of that dock, and at that moment, I could care less that I was prohibited from entering the walls of the monastery that loomed behind me.

Next stop: Gondar.  Again via public transportation.  Again another adventure.  Within a few minutes of claiming my seat on the little mini-bus, a rather large, matronly woman with her particularly antsy toddler climbed in next to me.  Between herself, several bags, and her two children, she took up well over half of the seat, leaving me squashed up against the window with really just a few inches of space.  In addition, she kept elbowing me, stepping on my feet and cramming her thrashing child against me for the duration of the four hour trip.  Along with no space, the driver kept the windows closed for the entire trip, making the heat and the smells almost unbearable.  To top it all off, the lady next to me whipped out a training potty and tried to get her whiny child to use it right in the middle of the moving bus.  I had horrible visions of the whole situation going terribly wrong with me as the main urine-soaked victim.  Apart from all the action on my row, there was the man in backseat who started throwing up about half-way through our trip along the winding mountain roads.  What should have been a relatively quick and enjoyable trip proved particularly torturous.  However, I made it, hopped out of the minibus at the first stop we came to, and booked a room in the first hotel I could find…actually lucking out on my room with a balcony overlooking the city streets below and making for some great people watching.

Gondar itself was a rather tired town.  Nothing more to it than a few restaurants and lots of tour operators as it’s the base point for treks into the Simien Mountains.  However, I was personally a huge fan of my time spent there in the Fasil Ghebbi (also known as the Royal Enclosure).  This compound lies right in the heart of the city, hidden away by crumbling brick wall.  But once you enter the gates, you seem to pass through a portal to a whole other time period.   Within, you find 70,000 square meters of crumbling ruins…the shells of six different castles along with countless other royal structures such as stables, spas and banquet halls.  I actually opted to forgo the official guide and just explore on my own.  I got there pretty early in the morning and beat most of the crowds; it really felt like I had the whole place to myself.  What makes this place particularly great is that unlike the old castles you might find in European cities, there are no guards or barriers here.  You are free to explore and roam to your heart’s content.  There are winding stairwells that lead to nowhere in particular, secret little nooks and crannies, passageways and tunnels…all just waiting for you to discover them.  I lost myself there for well over two hours.  Outside of this time within the Royal Enclosure, the highlight of my days in Gondar was stumbling upon a little art studio where I bought one of my usual paintings…a twin pair of oils on canvas. 

Final destination of my big adventure....Lalibela.  This is the city I was most looking forward too.  However, it was also the most inaccessible.  Two days by bus on some not-so-fun roads meant I opted to fly instead (You can get some amazingly cheap domestic flights within the country itself).  My hotel there, the Seven Olives, was the perfect retreat for my three day stop.  It was a brightly colored little building, tucked away at the very top of the mountain, and covered in gardens bursting with birdsong and lounging felines that have made the hotel their home as well.  Lucky for me, I coincidentally planned my trip in the middle of off-season for tourism, so I could bargain down prices almost everywhere I went.  I've become almost a pro-bargainer in my 9 months here.  My cozy little room with a window looking out over the town and hills below costs me just $18 a night.  

Lalibela was a place where I was forced to slow down for awhile.  I was worried that traveling by myself would get lonely after awhile, but I was surprised that I honestly didn't feel that way at all.  Without internet and a phone, I had a lot of time to think and do some self-reflection, particularly on long bus rides.  I made great progress on my cross-stitching that I've been working on for months now.  I delved back into art a bit, doing some sketches everywhere I went.  I absolutely devoured the four novels that I brought with me.  And I wrote page after page in my journal every day.  It was great!

So Lalibela itself and the rock hewn churches found there…I actually don’t have much to write about these because I just don’t have to words to say what I want to say.  The words don’t exist, and I fear writing about them would only underscore the shear majestic beauty of what is found there.  But here is just a brief overview.  There are eleven churches with in the city of Lalibela, all of them rock-hewn meaning they were cut out of the stone of the hillside.  Some of them are monolithic, meaning they are freestanding.  Others of them are semi-monolithic, meaning they are still connected to the hill on one side.  The site was created by King Lalibela and intended to be the Jerusalem of Africa, and indeed it almost in a sense.  Each year at the Orthodox Christmas (which falls on January 7) the churches receive over 40,000 pilgrims, coming from all over the region.  All of the churches except for one face East because this is the direction the they pray in the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia…it is the direction of Jerusalem from the city. 

I spent two days exploring the churches.  With a local guide, we would weave our way in and out of different tunnels and passage ways.  You would duck, squeeze through one of the narrowly cut passages, only to come out the other side and be met with a huge looming rock-structure of worship.  You would slip off your shoes, enter the massive wooden doors, sometimes having to wait for a priest to appear with an ancient gold key first.  Once inside, you are separated from the bright sunlight, instead finding yourself in a dim, cool room.  Massive stone columns looming in all directions.  Incense lingering in the air.  The darkness occasionally broken by a painting, wood carving or hanging tapestry.  Once finished with the churches, I found that I was the bottom of the very tall mountain that Lalibela lies on.  Like I said, my hotel was all the way at the top, meaning I had quite the hike to get back.  I hardly minded, figuring it is good practice for my upcoming gorilla trek in a few weeks.  The winding cobblestone road took me right through town…I trudged along, passing laughing children, men guiding pack mules, boys playing foozeball. 

After just three days in Lalibela…it was back to Addis Ababa for a few days.  Like I said, the city didn’t make much of an impression on me.  It was worth spending a few days there just for the food though.  Most people who know me, know that Ethiopian is my absolute favorite.  But I made a new discovery during my time in the country…it’s called fasting food (a lot more delicious than the title implies).  Every Wednesday and Friday, Orthodox Ethiopians don’t eat meat.  Therefore, each restaurant has what they call ‘fasting food’ which is basically a selection of all of their own special vegetarian dishes.  There are all different kinds of wats (spicy stew-like dishes made out of lentils, chickpeas or beans), cabbages, greens, carrots, salads.  Everywhere you go, they prepare their dishes a little differently, so it’s always a surprise. 

On this gluttonous note, I should explain the one challenge that I found in Addis Ababa (really throughout all of Ethiopia) and that is the shear amount of poverty I encountered there and my inability to do anything about it.  You can barely walk more than a few feet without someone approaching you for money.  I’ve never seen so many beggars at once in my life.  On every corner, there are at least two or three stationed.  Women with their children huddled on mats.  Men, half clothed, sprawled across the bare sidewalk in slumber.  Cripples of all types, most of them scooting along on their hands or bottoms for lack of infrastructure and funds to provide them with any sort of handicap assistance.  Toddlers who can barely talk but know enough to hold out their hands to you, maybe offering a few words in English.  “Hello” “Money” “Food”  These are the ones that were the most heartbreaking to me,  that children of such a young age are already basic pros at the art of begging. 

I wrote a lot about how it made me feel to be walking among such extreme poverty, most of it too personal to want to share with the whole internet world.  However, one thing I did learn during my time here, is that I really have no idea what the feeling of ‘need’ is like.  I’ve never come even remotely close to having to go without in my life.  I have never been truly hungry.  Truly tired.  Truly desperate.  My body has never known how far these feelings of hunger, want, and need can go…has never come close to experiencing the full spectrum of these desires.  And yes, it is true that I have more than enough money to hand a few bills to every beggar that I pass.  However, the political and social implications of the white girl making her way through the streets and handing out such items to these people made me more uncomfortable than having to say no to these people.  Yes, I want to help them.  But what I really want more than anything is for them to be able to help them selves…to be able to live at a level of basic dignity that every human being deserves, where they have the means to provide for themselves and their families…as idealistic and far-off as that goal may seem for this country.  But enough….end of my rant and end of this super long blog post.  I guess I just got a little excited to tell everyone about my time in Ethiopia.  But there it all is.  The good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly of what has been the trip of a lifetime.  

Today, I had the chance to experience my first real riot.  I’ve heard talks of riots past…where teargas flies, stones are thrown and almost anything goes.   I was expecting my first glimpse of such civil unrest to occur following the recent presidential elections.  However, I have to admit I was a little disappointed when Museveni gained a sixth term, and the country remained relatively peaceful despite widespread dissatisfaction over the conduct of elections.  It took steadily rising fuel and food prices along with increasing inflation rates for Ugandans to finally take to the streets.  Monday and Thursday were declared “Walk to Work” Days in protest of the increase in fuel prices.  Monday was relatively peaceful, but Thursday was a different story. 

Thursday morning, I awoke and went straight to my early morning Swahili lessons.  With my phone on silent, I missed the numerous different text messages and calls of warning from my Dag neighbors, leaving me oblivious to the chaos that was breaking out in Wandegeya, the neighborhood right outside of the campus gates. Apparently the Ugandan government wasn’t going to tolerate even the slightest bit of well-intentioned civil disobedience from its citizens.  As the people peacefully made their way to work on foot, riot police were sent to the streets, and chaos quickly ensued.  I even heard rumours that police were declaring it illegal to walk the streets at all in some neighborhoods, arresting and beating anyone who wasn’t in an automobile or on the back of a boda-boda.  Yep, police can do that here. 

Still innocently unaware of what had just occurred, I left class and made my way to Wandegeya for an appointment I had with a tailor there.  I left the gates of campus and immediately realized something was amiss.  On a street that is usually packed with chaotic traffic, there were only two cars.  All the shops were barred shut.  For a minute, I thought maybe it was just a public holiday.  I cautiously made my way to the main street, where an open-bed truck full of police men in full riot gear came screaming past me…this is when I knew something wasn’t right.  If you have ever seen a cop in full riot gear, you’ll understand the flood of panic I instantly felt.  I rushed back to the sanctuary of campus and Dag where I joined a group of neighbors watching the chaos unfold on television.

The next day, I awoke to find that the roles were reversed.  Again, I made my way to Wandegeya to follow through with the appointment I missed the day before.  This time, I found relative peace in the city but returned to utter chaos on campus.  Walking through the gates, I was passed by several groups of students carrying limp branches.  This to me was immediately a warning sign, as I knew enough about the culture here to understand that these students were part of a protest.  Turns out that the school administration recently announced that they would be raising tuition prices from 1 million shillings a semester to 6 million shillings a semester.  To all of my fellow CofC alumni, how’s that for a tuition increase?!

Some of the destruction on campus

My friend John came by a few hours later for a visit.  He had been battling campus all morning trying desperately to carry-out the finishing touches on his Master thesis and was witness to most of the chaos.  I must admit that it didn’t take much convincing before he had me willing to go out and explore a bit with him.  (Sorry Mom, but I just didn’t know when I would have the opportunity to witness something like this again.)  I was immediately on edge.  Within a few minutes of leaving my Hall, we encountered screaming people desperately running for cover.  After a few seconds, we realized the source of their panic as a heavily armoured truck with two giant guns perched on top rounded the bend in the road.  John told me to take cover in some nearby bushes, explaining that this was the same type of truck that had shot at him just the day before during the protests in his neighborhood. 

The remains of an earlier fire

Maybe I should have turned around then, but I just had to see what else was happening.  It’s curiosity that killed the cat, right?  Next, we came across the entrance to one of the local slums where people were running in fear from a group of policemen taunting them with the threat of teargas.  We continued on, casually passing groups of students who were constantly yelling for the two Muzungus to come join their protest.  This is the ironic part of protests here.  If you join, you will be beaten and teargassed by the cops.  If you don’t join, then the students will beat you for not supporting them.  They’ll beat you if you do and they’ll beat you if don’t.  So what do you do?   You run!  Pretty counter-productive if the point of the protest is supposed to be to gain student support.  That concept seems to go right over the heads of the students here, though. 

As we continued on, we came across the aftermath of the early morning riots.  Vendors’ stalls had been overturned and destroyed.  The charred remains of fires were littering the streets where tires, limbs and furniture were burned in protest.  We were slowly making our way back to Dag and taking a few photos along the way when we suddenly found our paths blocked by a stand-off between riot police and the boys of one of the Undergraduate residence halls.  This is how things went for the next hour or so…the boys would thrown stones and antagonize the police.  The police would come in with their gear, fire teargas into the dorm and then retreat.  A few minutes later, the boys would resurface, their faces protected by hankies, and continue their antagonism, chanting phrases such as “We want teargas.” The police would advance again and the teargas would continue to flow.  It almost seemed like a game that schoolchildren would play.  Who is going to have the last word?  Who is going to give up first?  How much can the boys get away with before the police act? At one point, the police even pretended to depart by loading up their truck.  The boys were lured from their hiding places by a false sense of security before the police turned and, full-out, opened fire of teargas canisters on them.  Then they left for real, mockingly waving good-bye to the boys as they drove off. 

Water cannon extinguishing flames

Riot police getting into formation

Storming the boy's dormitory to fire off teargas

The fire that was set outside my dorm later that afternoon

It was an eye-opening experience for me.  After my little escapade, John and I returned to the relative calm of Dag and had a brief political discussion.  With the recent events in Egypt and Libya (just to name a few of the most obvious examples) there are murmurs of change almost everywhere.  Uganda itself is a country that has existed under the same leadership of Museveni and his NRM party for the past 25 years.  You can almost feel it in the air here…change is coming.  But how?  How do you bring about change in a country where people can’t take to the streets without fear of being beaten, gassed, or worse?  How do you bring about change in a country where the president has been in power for almost half of his lifetime and still seems pretty comfortable?  How do you bring about change in a country where over sixty different tribes make achieving any form of real national unity a particularly challenging task?  These are all questions that Ugandans must answer for themselves. I hear whispers of change…Uganda, I’ll be watching.  

The Not so Mundane

So...I know I have been really bad about blogging lately.  I told myself when I started my second semester here that I would be better about writing for everyone back home.  I haven't exactly followed through but that is mostly because my life has become so routine here.  It's amazing how quickly the human body can adapt to almost anything.  Cultural differences, differences in the weather, in how I move, how I spend my free time, what I eat, who I hang out with, how I talk, my mannerisms, what I study, what I believe, what I feel, what I think and what I dream...they are all different but have all become almost normal to me now.  However, I forget that they aren't normal to everybody back home...that some people might find what I feel to be mundane as very interesting.  So I figured I would share a little bit about what my everyday life is like here.

To start, there are classes.  I was really discouraged about my experiences at the University last semester.  I didn't feel that I was being challenged intellectually at all.  Instead, I felt that it was my patience that was being tried the majority of the time.  I could write a whole blog post on my trials in the classroom alone.  Instead of going through the same process this semester, I took a little bit of initiative and changed my schedule a bit.  I am still taking three Peace and Conflict Studies classes...however, I made sure that they were the classes being taught by reliable professors who actually believe in class interaction and engagement.  I've also taken advantage of the rest of my free time by signing up for private Kiswahili classes.  I meet three times a week for a total of six hours with a jolly and enthusiastic Ugandan professor named Innocent.  I really can't believe how much information you can absorb during two hours of personalized lesson plans...its great!

Rainy season has finally arrived again.  It seems like it has either been rainy or cloudy for a week straight now.  It also means a welcome drop in the temperature.  From when I got back in January until last week, it rained maybe once or twice.  The rest of the days were filled with brutal sunshine and annoying red dust.  With temperatures in the upper 80's everyday, no AC and open windows...my entire room was covered in a thin layer of red dust, no matter how often I mopped, wiped and washed.  In South Carolina, you have pollen.  In Kampala, you have dust.  Now, there is a red muddy river flowing down what used to be the street outside my window.  Uganda's 'winter' temperatures are in the lower 70's everyday.  Another way I've adapted after spending 7 months here....I actually think lower 70's are pretty cold.  I was wandering around today in a jacket and slippers with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders.  I'm still not as bad as my neighbor downstairs who walks around with a snowcap and a scarf around his neck.

The ironic thing about this past week is that even though it has rained incessantly every day, my hall ran out of water for almost three days.  I don't exactly understand how this happened but it did.  I actually stuck my toothbrush out in the rain yesterday to rinse it off...since the sinks were all running dry.  When it rains this much, Kampala stops.  The boda drivers all park their motorcycles and take cover.  People walking the streets quickly find shelter huddled under the awning of a nearby shop.  The construction workers outside my window stop their sawing and hacking.  Except I don't stop...and people look at me like I'm crazy.  I ventured a thunderstorm today to walk next door and buy my lunch.  There is a little canteen attached to my residence hall that serves local food everyday at one.  And everyday, I show up to have my plate filled with heaps of rice, beans, peas, gnut sauce, a huge slices of pumpkin...all for $1.50.  I used to hate this food.  I would only eat it when I was too lazy, hungry and/or desperate to come up with another option.  Now, I rarely miss a meal.  It's become a routine part of my day.

Other than classes and eating rice and beans, I've become super involved with my host Rotary club lately.  I don't have classes on Wednesday nights anymore, so Wednesday has now become my Rotary day.  It starts around 3 when my host counselor and I go to the gym to work out together.  Then, there is fellowship at 6:30.  Immediately followed by dance practice....yep, that's right.  My host club has a dance team, which I am now a member of.  We have been rehearsing every week after fellowship in preparation for our debut performance at the Rotary District Conference at the end of April.  It promises to be a blast!  After dance rehearsal is several hours of drinks with all the Rotarians wild enough to stay out until midnight drinking glass after glass of wine and beer....which is pretty much the whole club.  Rotary Club of Muyenga is a wild bunch...a whole group of them a planning on attending the RI Convention in May so New Orleans better get ready!

Anyway...that about sums up my everyday life here.  There are boring days and exciting days.  For every day that I get frustrated, homesick or annoyed, there is also a day where I can't help but realize how much I love it here.  The crazy traffic, the nerve-wrenching boda-boda rides, the dust, the rain, the beans, the wooden desks chained to my classroom floor, the police roaming the streets in bright blue camo, the tattered bright yellow NRM campaign posters, nights without electricity,ATM's without cash, the rolex men and women selling sausages, the local pork joint, Reggae nights, my little concrete room....they have all become home to me over these last seven months.

Wandering the streets of Stonetown is like a journey for the whole body, your senses being bombarded from all different directions, all at once...especially this last trip.

The sights...
Intricately carved Zanzibar doors
Splashes of emerald green, royal blue
Weathered paint chipped away to reveal the aged wood beneath
Buildings that tell a story
Wandering the alleys takes you back to the days of spice merchants, sultans, and slavery
The rough grey stone broken by curved, rounded archways
Passing the doorway of a local mosque, politely peeking in
Shoes littering the entryway
Prayers and incense escaping to wash over you
Sequined, bejeweled, beautifully embellished robes of local women
The turquoise waves of the Indian ocean rising to meet the stone walls of the city
Giant vessels resting at port
A sharp contrast to the little wooden dhows, canvas sails bursting with wind, floating past.

The smells...
The tang of local spices, such an intricate part of this city's rich history
Becoming a part of the city's architecture, spicy smells that have seeped into the streets themselves
Into the wood, into the stone
Take a deep breath and you can almost taste it
Rich perfumes from spice carts that litter the streets
Mixed with the perfume of hidden incense, burning inside one of the city's holy buildings
Walking through the local market
The pungent, heavy fragrance of the day's fresh catch becomes almost too much to handle
Fishy odors that are suffocating
A breeze and the sweet, salty sea air fills your lungs

The tastes...

The fresh fruits are what I will always remember the most.

Feasts of the sweetest, juiciest varieties

Straight from the Garden of Eden

Passion fruits

Mangos

Melons

Bananas

Iced cold glasses of their fresh squeezed juices

Heavenly nectars that offer sweet relief to parched tongues

Exotic flavors that lace all of our meals

Rich in the spices of the trade that built this city

Spicy Ginger

Tangy Masala

Thick Curries

The sounds...
Sunsets and sunrises broken by Calls to Prayer...coming from all directions
Spilling from the loudspeakers of the mosques scattered throughout distant alleys
Joining as one, guiding those who gather for worship
The songs of little boys and girls creep out the windows of a small schoolroom
Tickling your ears as you pass
The shouts of street vendors selling their goods
A polite bell of a rusty bike
Issuing a quick warning before it comes careening through the narrow alley
Three nights of the most beautiful music
The festival aptly named Sauti Za Busara (Sounds of Wisdom)
Africa's best artists, pouring their soul onto the stage
Music that I don't just hear but feel.

Stonetown is one of those enchanting places that seems to come straight out of a dream. Getting lost in its narrow, winding alleys, I immediately fell in love with the city.  It's a magical city.  Yet, like the magic of all mystical things, the magic is lost if visited too often.  This is why I've decided to leave Stonetown behind for the rest of my time here.  To remain only with the memories of the city's affect on me...the way its streets fill me with awe and wonder.  And then one day, when I am older and wiser and have lived the better part of my life...I want to return to the city again.  To experience the city's magic one last time.

Today, I woke up to one of the most beautiful days in Uganda yet.  I honestly believe it was a blessing sent to me to remind me how much I love this place... to remind me that this is where I need to be right now.

The view from my window

I spent most of the night in a restless sleep before finally being awakened around 4am by a screaming baby outside my window.  As the baby continued to wail for the next hour, I had time to reflect back on my first night in Uganda, which I spent in this same hotel.  Coming back to this hotel again and again has given me a vantage point to reflect back on how far I've come over the past few months.  The thing I remember most about my first night here is how utterly alone I felt.  Waking up in the middle of the night to find the electricity out, I was literally and figuratively left in the dark.

I've tried several times to put those first few days here into words in my journal but failed.  It's just such a whirlwind of emotions that there really are no words for it.  However, over Christmas break I read Mango Elephants in the Sun, a memoir from a girl who spent two years in a West African village in the Peace Corps.  Although her experience was a little bit more extreme than mine, reading her reflections on her first few days there has finally helped me write about my own experiences.  She writes about how she sits in her hut, dying of thirst, but too afraid to venture out and face the stares of the ladies at the water pump.  My first few days here were also spent hiding out in the sanctuary of my room.  There, I didn't have to pretend that I wasn't lonely, overwhelmed and frankly scared to death.  I would spend hours reading every book that I had packed as a way to escape the world that lay on the other side of the door.  This time around, my first night back felt a little like coming home.  Although I've learned over the past few months that South Carolina will always be where I feel most at home, I couldn't help but feel a huge grin spread across my face as my taxi turned down the familiar dirt road that led to my little hotel.  

I finally drifted back to sleep as the sun was rising and the world outside my window began to wake up.  For the next several hours, I drifted in and out of sleep basking in the warm sunshine and soft lake breezes that seeped through my wide open window.  As I lay in bed, in a room right down the hall from the same room I spent my last night here a little over a month ago, it seemed like the past few weeks spent at home were all just a crazy dream...very surreal.  The Christmas celebrations, the snow days, the trips to Charleston.  It's almost like I just closed my eyes for a few hours, drifted off and woke right back up in my cozy little bed in Entebbe.  The only proof I have that it was all real is the four aching holes in the back of my mouth where my wisdom teeth were removed just a few days before catching a flight back to Uganda.

It's amazing how life can just flash past in a colorful, beautiful blur.  If you aren't paying attention it slips right by, leaving you with only the memories.  

Last night, as I drove away from the airport, I couldn't help but think that the next time I make this drive I'll be saying my good-byes to Uganda, possibly forever.  My heart automatically clenched up.  I know it will be one of the hardiest and heaviest good-byes I've ever had to make.  At this moment, I vowed to make the most possible out my last four months here, soaking in every moment.  Every warm, sunny day.  Every plate of rice and beans.  Every wild, late night with friends.  Every crazy boda-boda ride.  I want to look back on my time here and not just see a blur but a plethora of memories and moments in time.

Have you ever been stared at by hundreds of people?  Like really stared at...them turned 180 degrees in their seats, not blinking, not smiling.  It seriously has to be one of the most unnerving experiences ever!  But its the greeting that we got when we arrived at a traditional 'Give Away' ceremony in Mbarara last weekend.  First, you try to smile back...still they stare.  Then you try staring back...they don't even flinch.  Finally, you give up and just ignore them, turn around several minutes later to realize that they have been blankly staring at your backside this entire time.

After living in Uganda for over 4 months now, I've gotten used to not being able to go anywhere without standing out.  Still, sometimes I wish that I could just go back to being normal for a day or two...to be able to forget that I'm white and a foreigner...that I could go somewhere without being stared at, or hit on, or asked one of the usual questions. "Where are you from?" (Which is followed by an Obama comment 90% of the time) "How do you find Uganda?" "Do you eat matoke?" (I swear I get asked this question at least once a week...I've been here since August.  They eat matoke at every meal.  Yes, I've tried it by now.  And no, I don't like it no matter how big my butt is supposed to get if I eat it)

The beautiful hills of Mbarara with the ceremony tents in the distance

Yet, being foreigner has its advantages sometimes...like Nici and I getting to go to Emma's (a boy in our Hall) 'Give Away' last weekend.  The itinerary turned out as follows:
-Wake up at 5:00 in the morning
-Spend an hour waiting for our ride (who was obviously operating on Africa time)
-Spend 5 hours driving
-Spend 4 hours waiting for the rest of the groom's party to arrive (who were also operating on Africa time)
-Spend 15 minutes eating a feast of matoke, rice, chapati, peas, chicken, gnut sauce, salad and fruit (anyone who knows how slow I eat should realize what a big feat this was for me)
-Sit through 5 hours of speeches in Luganda
-Drive 1.5 hours to our hotel
-Spend another hour convincing the boys that no, we weren't going out dancing with them and to leave us alone so we could pass out
-Wake up and spend another hour waiting for the boys to get up and ready
-Spend 6 hours driving back to Kampala in a car crammed full of 8 people

With the groom and best man

The bride's party covered for the ceremony

All of that was still worth it for the experience.  We got to don traditional dresses (which I LOVED!).  We were allowed to march into the ceremony with the groom's party.  Once we were seated, the bridal party entered, fully covered including their faces.  They remained that way throughout the entire ceremony.  Traditionally, the groom isn't supposed to see the bride between the time that her family 'gives' her away and the actual wedding ceremony which is usually several days later.  The bridal party then presented the groom with several gifts.  Family and friends literally spent hours making speeches and adding their own contributions to the gift pool.  Since Mbarara is mostly a tribe of herdsmen, the bride and groom were pledged over 20 cattle by the end of the night...quite a haul!

So class was SUPER boring last night, and I felt inspired by my love for this crazy place.  I decided to write a poem about it:




The Most Beautiful Piece of Hell


Baking
The brutal beams tearing into my soft pale skin
Equatorial sun
A single bead of sweat leaves a cool trail down my neck
There is no escaping the Heat
Debilitating
Consuming
Burn


Red
My new favorite color
The dust has claimed every one of my possessions its prisoner
A thin gritty layer
In the nose, the mouth, the eyes
A non-living parasite that has consumed my very being
Choking
Suffocating
Grime


Falling
The sky swells, turning an angry and desperate grey
Big fat drops
The earth, dry and scarred, reaches back
Rains that cleanse the city
Washing it all away
The Sweat
The Dirt
The Heat


Cacophony
Blaring horns mix with jarring shouts from passing taxis
"Wandegeya, Wandegeya"
"Bwaise-Kawempe"
The cool mist of early dawn broken only by a distant Call to Prayer
My own Kampala lullaby
Familiar
Soothing
Home