Ugandan Treat~~photos at bottom

I recently got to spend my 'birthday weekend' in Kampala, Uganda. What a fabulous treat that was: catching up with my long-time friend, Edward; and attending a Gukwa (Dowery) Ceremony with Edward's family.

It took me 12+ hours and 5 different kinds of vehicles to get from my home to Edward's: piki piki (motorcycle taxi), ferry, matatu (van), comfortable coach bus, and finally, a car. While I'd been able to meet Edward's 4 grown children last year when I was in Kampala, I hadn't seen Edward for 10 years, and I'd never meet Vasta, his wife.  So, (re-)connecting with them was so very special!
As many of you know, my interest in Africa began way back in 1963; so in January 1974 when Edward arrived at the windy, frozen Trinity Seminary campus to study, I enjoyed befriending this always-cold, charming student from a country of 'eternal spring' (his description of Uganda to me). I knew of Idi Amin's terrorizing rule of Uganda, and yet all   Edward said about Amin was that he was concerned about his family, because there would be long gaps between hearing any news from them.  
But now, 38 years later, in the comfort of his home, I was able to get the details...  to hear the news that he had been unable to utter back then! I learned that he had been smuggled out of Uganda in 1973 because he was one of the dissidents on Amin's 'hit list'. 'Earning' this designation started while he was a college student in Kampala: representing his university student group, with a few students from other Kampala universities,  they courageously met with Amin to respectfully protest his decision to evict Ugandans of Indian descent. Then, some years later, Edward had been forced to watch one of Amin's firing squads execute suspected rebels, one of whom was Edward's student at the time. This prompted Edward, a young deacon, to preach and sing songs of protest.  When his bishop learned that Edward's life was in danger, he arranged for Edward to flee, and to study in the US.  Once in the US, Edward needed to change his name, apply for refugee status, and not return home for 8 years. While using this time of exile, and getting his Masters and PhD degrees in the Chicago area I had no knowledge of the extent of his stress; for his own safety, Edward could not blow the cover that had been created. One small way I'm now able to appreciate what he went through at that time is that I can't imagine suddenly going 8 years with seeing my dear family and friends, and without eating any of the familiar and favorite foods from home!!! 

We spent much of one day at the Gukwa (Dowry, but read "bride-price") Ceremony of close family friends: Edward's daughter Tsimiine was an attendant for Grace, the bride. Both Edward's family and Grace's family are from tribes whose homes are in southwestern Uganda. All the African guests wore traditional dress, sewn in gorgeous fabrics!!  By the end of the day I'd learned to distinguish the Bafumbira (Grace's tribe, near the Rwandan border) style from the style worn by the Bakiga women (Edward's tribe).  After a feast of African foods, the modernized version of the Gukwa formalities began... with the 2 families sitting opposite each other across a wide lawn. Other guests were on the 2 remaining sides.  Speeches in the local tongues, and the presentations and acceptances of gifts were interspersed with very beautiful, colorful Bafumbira dancing, music and singing!! It was really fantastic!!!  Obushera (a fermented drink made from sorghum) was served in calabashes, then the couple cut and served the western-style wedding cake!  What an incredible privilege it was for me to be present at this ceremony!!

Edward and Vasta

Great drumming throughout!

The array of gorgeous dresses and fabrics begins...

Now for the Bafumbira dancing!

Bringing in the Gukwa gifts

The happy couple...  the Gukwa Ceremony is over; the wedding is in a week!

You're invited to A Virtual Trip to visit me in Mbita!

Life here is hard and exhausting, as well as meaningful, gratifying and a special, very unique experience!
My typical school day starts at 5:45, ideally doing some sit-ups as soon as I get up (otherwise I don't do them!), having breakfast, praying and reading scripture on my front porch before leaving for school at 7 AM.  For the past few weeks, I have been trying to not bring work home, which has made evenings and weekends much more restful and renewing; but that also means staying at school until my work is done, as well as being very disciplined to work during the cracks between classes. I am now generally getting home between 5 and 6 PM. One thing that was nice about getting home earlier was that my shower water was warmed by the sun; it's often cooled off later in the day.  The 'rainy' season hasn't been so hot, but when I do arrive home all sweaty, I undress in the shower... and wash my clothes right then and there as I take them off!  Fortunately, I have concrete floors in my house, which are not damaged by some water dripping on them.  I've strung a back-packers' clothes line across one end of my bedroom (I happened to buy it when I was at L L Bean a few years ago.)  Nancy and Don Richards, who started SEEK (Suba Environmental Education for Kenya) and CGA (Christ's Gift Academy), and a delightful young Dutchman named Bob, and I usually eat dinner together at the SEEK dining hall. Back in my house after dinner, I often read (Thanks to my children for giving me a Kindle for Christmas, I'm able to buy an e-book online, download it to my computer, and then transfer it to my Kindle!!!) or watch a DVD movie.  I savor the few DVD's I have, as to not 'use them up' too soon! It's great to have the time to watch the 'bonus' features...  how the movie was made, behind the scenes, etc.  Having recently read Let's Roll, and then seen the movie "United 93", now I'm watching the video clips of the bios of each United 93 passenger, reported by their families.  Then I head to bed around 9:30, and continue my "Reading through the Bible" before falling asleep. I started at Genesis 1 in February, and am now in the book of II Kings.

Just as when I was teaching in Oak Park, weekends fly by!  Most Saturdays I walk the hour into town to do various errands... buy fruits & vegetables, hot chocolate mix, and/or airtime minutes for my phone and internet services.  I have yet to get started early enough to avoid the heat of the day... I can't seem to tear myself away from an hour or 2 of peaceful, beautiful Saturday morning on my front porch, enjoying the birds, sometimes the naughty monkeys who think they can get some good food from the gardens, and on very special occasions, seeing a shy dik dik (tiny relative of a gazelle).

On one of my excursions into town, I  was glad I happened to have my camera with me when I saw this little, impromptu parade. 


My late start to head into town means I walk home (more uphill than down) in the heat of the equatorial sun, so I usually arrive home too exhausted, hot and hungry to do anything productive for quite a while! After a shower, then lunch, I lie on my bed listening to music Dot or I loaded onto my computer  Special events are movie nights at SEEK, or weddings or funerals, which are all-day affairs!
To go to church on Sunday, I leave home at  9:30, and get back home at around 2:15. Usually I end up leaving the service before it's done, driven home by hunger pangs.  The day quickly passes as I make and then take some food for that evening's meal, worship and fellowship time that we Mzungus (white people) have at the Pierce's home.  Guacamole is one of the foods I enjoy making (actually, eating!) here, using the fresh, wonderful local ingredients; I will certainly miss that treat when I return to Chicago!  I also really enjoy fruit salad, when I can simultaneously get ripe pineapple, bananas, mango and papaya!  The only problem with food preparation here at the equator is that with no refrigeration whatever I make needs to be eaten within 24 hours.  Two solutions: eating guacamole, or various other dinner-time dishes, for breakfast, or making the food for a community meal!
Even back in the US I found cooking and cleaning on the weekends to be a nice break from the intensity of teaching during the week. Baking here, though, is a lot more involved...  planning ahead to borrow measuring spoons and cups, and cookie sheets, cutting chocolate bars into 'chips', mixing everything by hand, and then hiking up and down, over a bridge, then up and down again, to Nancy & Don's house, to use their oven.
There are several other weekend domestic activities that transport me back over 100 years, to pioneer days in the US.  I've designed and hand-sewn a skirt!  I was prompted to do because I wanted a skirt as cool as possible, while also fitting the modesty standards of this culture; in addition I wanted a deep pocket in my clothes, so I could carry chalk with me when I got to the different classrooms where I teach!  [Bringing chalk to each classroom each day is essential: the 'resourceful' CGA students, who have essentially no personal possessions, and certainly no art materials, will snatch up any chalk left by the board, and use it for their own artwork between class periods!]

And here's a photo of me using a charcoal-heated iron to iron my clothes!!

I love my chaco sandals...  comfortable, good arch support, great grip on the rocks and hillsides, easy to wash the mud off!  And..I think I'll be wearing my chaco tan for quite a while....

                        Enjoying the SEEK beach, the waves & the view! (Note the Palm tree)

I kind of have a cat, or 2 or 3...   The mother cat was left in the neighborhood when her owner moved away last year. She got pregnant, hung around SEEK, gave birth somewhere in the wild, then started showing up. 

I took this photo by leaning out my living room window...  the cats were just below!  

Aren't they darling!!!  But the babies were totally feral at the time this photo was taken.  A side-mission for me has been to domesticate these darling kitties, as far as my energy and food supply allow. Unfortunately, before I could get very far, the middle kitty must have been a tasty dinner for an eagle or snake.  The other 2 are now gangly 'teenagers'.  I've now managed to name them. The mother is Maia, Greek for 'good mother', I believe, which indeed she is. The one in the front is Liam, named after my grandson...  both of them were reluctant to give up nursing. The one with a 'patch' over one eye is Asy, short for 'asymmetrical'. He is still quite a 'scaredy cat', still feral, but Liam is making steady progress tolerating my presence nearby.




Not for the faint-of-heart, or weak stomached... Maia, the 'Good Mother', catches a garden snake for a family meal on my porch!

You've heard how cats will play with a mouse; here they are playing with the beheaded snake. (I saw the mother eat the head after she killed it.)


Time for lunch, and a break....  more another time, including news about the Touch Typing I began just last Monday, teaching 5 Grade 8 students!  In 5 sessions, these students who had never touched a computer before made great progress...  one girl getting to 13 words/minute with 95% accuracy, using 11 keys!  
Thank you very much for your visit to Mbita today!

A Banner Day (written, then 'lost' last March!)

A Banner Day!!
Whether in the US, rural Kenya, or anywhere else, work is still work, teaching children is still teaching children! There are days when the teacher can see engaged, interested students learning new things, and then there are days when the teacher feels like nothing is getting through to the students' brains. This past Tuesday was one of those wonderful days!  It actually started brutally early...  At 3:40 AM, I got up to be a Skype participant in the women's growth group I've been part of for the past few years.  Whatever the content of the sharing, the connection with these women is special and meaningful.
Arriving at my classroom, there was Belinda, alone in the semi-dark, sweeping the classroom. The previous day we'd run out of time to have the kids sweep and tidy the classroom, so I'd asked that day's cleaing crew to arrive early the next morning to do their jobs. The kids on that crew didn't arrive early, but Belinda did. She's a girl with a bunch of rough edges, and a nonchalant demeanor, but I like her, and have been finding various ways to connect with her.  This gracious act of her service really warmed my heart, and made me thankful to God for this evidence that I was connecting with her!
Later, in science class, the topic of our plant study was the different parts of flowers.  This class of primarily squirmy, active boys (21 of them, plus 6 girls), was less than attentive, and didn't seem to care to know the answer to my question: "what is pollination?"  So I leaned over the podium and in a soft voice said, "It's plant sex".  After that you could have heard a pin drop, as they hung on my every word!!  That impromptu lecture was followed by some really excellent questions!  And then, at the end of the class 2 very bright students started asking me some questions I didn't understand, which ended up with them showing me a big newspaper article they'd brought in on growing plants!!  It was so gratifying to me to see how these students were thinking about what they were doing in class and making connections to things in the newspaper!!!   An hour later, at lunchtime, another student from that class came up to me, and offered to take the bucket of left-over banana peels to our garden to use as compost!!!  I was so happy to see these 2 examples of them connecting our book learning with real life!!!  And now we'll see how these kids do on their all-important Term 1 exams in 2 weeks, which will probably not have anything on it about compost or plant sex!!  [They didn't do as well as I'd hoped...  but then the exams are ridiculously hard in some ways. One of the questions required knowing what an anemometer was...  which I didn't even know!  It measures wind speed. Not only is it not in the Grade 5 science books, but so far, I haven't found it explained or pictured in any of the school's science books, all the way up to Grade 8!]

That day ended with my working with the Grade 8 students in "Math Club", teaching them how to  play Sudoku~~what fun!

A story in pictures: Palm Sunday...posted 2 months later :-(

Palm Sunday 2012

Starting my 1/2 hour motorbike ride up into the hills, to the 

tiny village of Gera, carrying my Bible, sermon notes and 

this palm branch from SEEK's beach. This transport reminded

me of the surfer who solved the parking problem at Waikiki  

by mounting brackets on his bicycle to carry his surfboard.

I love Palm Sunday, almost as much as Easter. And I'd been told that many churches here don't celebrate these 'high holidays". So I was delighted to be invited to preach at a small, remote village church on April 1, which happened to be Palm Sunday; that way I'd be able to guarantee my participation in a Palm Sunday celebration!! I really enjoyed my study of the different Gospel accounts while preparing the sermon. And then it was wonderful to infuse the service at the fledgling Gera Pentecostal Church with Palm Sunday elements.  
We were all a bit water-logged, as it was raining heavily at the beginning of the day, when I gathered this large palm branch from the SEEK beachfront.  Cutting the palms from the branch, everyone got at least 2 palms.  Then with the help of an excellent keyboardist, and a congregation used to singing and dancing, we waved the palms and sang the words from  Matthew chapter 21, verse 9:  "'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!"  

The Gera church meets under this tree; a generator provides

power for the keyboard (at left). Note the huge speaker hung

on the tree! Fortunately the heavy, early morning rain stopped!

 

Even the little kids are participating, while also exploring the surrounding area....

After the service was over, this young boy rode by on this donkey.  The timing was too perfect; I had to ask him to stop so I could take his picture.  Meanwhile I thought: "I sure hope the donkey colt Jesus was sitting on was bigger than this one!!!"

Rainy Season in Nyanza Province, Kenya!

The long-awaited Rains have come!  A few showers a few weeks ahead of time began to soften up the parched, baked soil. Then the rains started in earnest! Interestingly, and very thankfully, most of the heavy rain often happens at night! Rarely is it raining at 7 AM when I head to school! Here's a photo I took one day as I walked to church. Not only was it slow-going due to the muddy "sidewalk", but whenever a motorbike came along, using the sidewalk because it was less muddy than the road, protocol demanded I get off the sidewalk, stepping into deeper mud, to allow him to pass!
I was grateful it was easy to wash the mud off my Chacos sandals! 

By early April, my Grade 5 students had finished preparing the soil of our garden.  We'd hauled in some well-composted soil for our "nursery bed".  Under the supervision of SEEK head gardener, we dug trenches, and then added nutrients by layering kitchen vegetable scraps, then manure, then ash, and finally leguminous clippings (to enrich the soil with nitrogen), before replacing the 'top' soil.  Here we are working (and playing!) hard to prepare the soil of our garden, and... aren't these kids SO  cute!!!

Above... the green container holds the recent compost we've collected

Adding our banana peels, and other vegetable scraps to the trench...

On the first day of the 2-week break between trimesters, most of my Grade 5 class were real troopers!!  They showed up at the garden for planting our garden!! We'd worked so hard to prepare for planting, making raised beds, which had started out as trenches the students eagerly dug, taking turns with heavy, sharply-pointed picks and spades! [For this job it helped that I had 20 preadolescent boys showing off their strength!]  On Planting Day different groups of students were in charge of planting different seeds. In our special 'nursery bed', full of well-composted soil, we planted tomatoes & kale.  Then beets, bush beans, cabbage, spinach and cilantro went into the raised beds. One student had brought in some watermelon seeds, so he and his buddies quickly prepared more beds for those seeds.  As we left on our 'holiday', we trusted God to do the real work of turning those seeds into plants. How wonderful it was to return 2 weeks later to see that everything (except the beets) had germinated well and was beautifully growing!


Then, how disappointing this week, to find that the goats had managed to burrow under the fence... their favorite food must have been the tender tomato leaves; all they left of the tomato plants were the stems!  We got those holes fixed, and then discovered smaller holes after the chickens apparently squeezed through... to munch on the new cabbage leaves; I hope I barricaded those holes well-enough to last the weekend.  Meanwhile, we've been needing to work hard carrying water to these seedlings, especially the kale we just transplanted.  This week in science class we've been gathering data on weather... including using a home-made rain gauge & wind sock.  Only one day was there any measurable rain, and that was less than 1 cm, so we are, indeed, ready for more rain to fall!!! 

PS-Deja Vu

My first item of business this morning was to go to the American Embassy. I wanted to 'register' my presence in Kenya (re: safety), I wanted contact with Americans, and I wanted to get leads on places in Nairobi to buy American items and food.  Most of the taxi ride from the guesthouse where I am staying to the American Embassy was along curvy streets that follow terrain of large tree-filled gullies. I commented to the driver that this was very reminiscent of "Rock Creek Parkway" in Washington DC. Then I got teary-eyed and sentimental as I thought about how I was now heading to the American Embassy, but that if I were in DC, on Rock Creek Parkway, I'd be heading to "Embassy Row", the section of Massachusetts Avenue where we would exit from the parkway.   

Once at the Embassy, I was surprised at the strength of my emotions; I choked up as I thought about how I was once again "standing on American soil" (at least, that's my understanding of Embassy legalities). I'd been away from "my" country for almost 4 months, which is only a part of my year away, but it is longer than I'd ever been out of the country before. I was graciously seen by "Jennifer", who was very helpful with specific leads for Nairobi as well as the coast.  It was, indeed, a renewing day, "feasting" on western civilization!

My excursion into Civilization

23 April 2012-- my granddaughter, Margaret’s 1st Birthday!

written from the outdoor section of “Artcaffe”, Nairobi, surrounded by big trees. While I know I’m not in America, this feels quite similar!  Today’s ‘Art’ is Bob Dylan’s 1960s recordings on an excellent sound-system, and I’m indulging in good facsimiles of my American favorites: lasagne, merlot, green salad (!!), a cappuccino cheesecake, and drinking a wonderful mocha!!  Plus, the restroom is so pleasant, and attractive... it could be in a chic US or French restaurant!

Yesterday I spent 9 hours in land travel...  from the shores of Lake Victoria to Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. I started out in the predawn dark on a motorbike, slipping and sliding through the MUD, created by the previous night’s rain the night; we then needed to abandon the motorbike to walk, Hezron carrying my suitcase. 20 minutes late, we met up with my coworker, Lillian and some others, for a taxi ride to Homo Bay.  With four of us squished into the front seat, the driver actually did an excellent job periodically maneuvering through mud (not unlike driving in deep snow). Fortunately, we got to Homa Bay in time for my ‘upscale’ bus, on which I actually had a reserved seat, complete with arm rests. During the 7-hour journey, I’m guessing we climbed around 1000 feet in elevation, across the western third of Kenya.

Though upscale, this bus had little wiggle-room, so I was unable to unearth my camera from my backpack. I did get some wonderful mental pictures of the landscape. I wish I'd been able to photograph a wonderful image, a challenge to Kenyan unity, the juxtaposition of contrasting worlds and cultures: at a small rural market, a man in a suit and tie was walking by a Masai man, who was wearing the stunning, traditional blanket, tending his cow.

When the bus was not jerking, or climbing hairpin turns, I was able to read. Thanks to my Kindle, I’m able to somewhat keep up with the monthly reading list of my Oak Park Book Group. This month’s selection is Nickel and Dimed by Barbara E... a book I’ve been wanting to read for some time. I’m enjoying her account of immersing herself in the ‘culture’ of the low-wage worker of the US. While there are significant differences, here are a number of parallels between her venture and my life in Kenya, where I, too, am trying to immerse myself another culture, though not for scientific or literary purposes.  Here’s what comes to mind: 

**  B.E.:  At the end of her first chapter she writes: I had gone into this venture in the spirit of science, to test a mathematical proposition, but somewhere along the line, in the tunnel vision imposed by long shifts and relentless concentration, it became a test of myself, and clearly I have failed.

     J.L.:  A week ago I felt, for the first time, similar to Barbara Ehrenreich, that I had perhaps failed in my venture.  Not that my efforts hadn’t been beneficial (they have), but that maybe I was cracking up, and would need to bail out and go back to the US early.  Life in Mbita is NOT easy...  there’s a lot of hardship and stress, even for a privileged American like me; add to that the loneliness  and isolation from almost 4 months living as the only mzungu within a mile, along with various frustrations and cross-cultural mis-communications, such as being uninformed of changes in school schedules and plans. Last Sunday I spent hours trying to plan travel, for my vacations and to return home, with no success: neither phone nor internet provided specific times, costs and routes or boarding locations for transportation. [It’s not easy to plan travel in Kenya, because it is usually done by travel agents for westerners. One place I wanted to visit was the beaches of eastern Kenya, on the Indian Ocean; it seems that most Kenyans never even get to Nairobi, much less to the beach... this spring the principal of CGA, older than I, went there for a meeting, for the very first time in his life!]  When I finally gave up on making plans, I decided to treat myself to a movie rental from Amazon... but that didn’t work either... I discovered that they don’t rent to overseas locations!  So I resorted to pulling out the last-remaining, and least-enticing, DVD I’d brought with me, but it ended up being too old for my computer to ‘read’!!  I felt like the last straw I was holding onto had snapped, and that my sanity was also about to snap, that I would need to head home for good.  Fortunately, I was able to pray, have a good night’s sleep, and wake up to a good, new day. The day after that I was able to connect by Skype with my “women’s group” from church, and then Nancy & Don, missionaries who started SEEK and CGA, finally arrived. So, I’m thinking that my safety valves are in place and I will make it until the end of the school year next November! 

And... now I’m here in Nairobi, indulging in my favorite foods in the most “American” section of town... evidence of my success in persistent travel planning!

**  Another parallel, which I’d quote from B.L. if I could find it, is true of both of us in our cross-cultural situations:  we each do our best to immerse ourselves in this 'other' culture, but the big difference between us and the locals is that we each have the safety-net of knowing that we both have the option of bailing out; we have 'privileges' that they don’t have: ethnicity ( for me, nationality), education, job opportunities, good health and medical coverage, as well as financial resources. 

It's time for me to post this, then get to the stores in this American section of town to search for kitchen supplies that I haven't found anywhere else!  [ Note: I didn't find measuring spoons, cups, cookie sheets or pancake syrup here either... the American woman I spoke with in the store said she brought those from the US.]

PS. The "Palm Sunday" posting I've intended to get up for a month crashed; I'll try again...