of kings and kingfisher

Playing volleyball with a soccer ball all weekend takes a serious toll on one's arm muscles…
The Honours College retreat @ Kingfisher Resort in Jinja was perfect. The weekend was kicked off at an ice cream social at Mark & Abi's house on campus (USP staff), followed by an epic night game of capture the flag and the night ended with an astounding birthday/fruit/dance party. Spice cake plus pineapples & sugar cane plus Shakira equals best evening ever. :) The whole point of the Kingfisher retreat was for the USP and Honours College to finally all have a great get-to-know-you weekend of bonding. After a dance party like that though, perhaps Kingfisher was a bit obsolete… when the bass is pumpin' you really get to see personalities break out- that's all I'm sayin…

Kingfisher was SO beautiful and relaxing. I didn't realize how badly I needed a weekend away to relax til Saturday night after our first full day of group games (hello, camp flashbacks), swimming in the glorious outdoor pool (complete with chicken matches), and incredible coffee served at tea time. the lights of fishing boats on Lake Victoria at night were breathtaking; bobbing across the brightly moonlit horizon. I was homesick for North Harbor as I walked back up from the beach Saturday night to find a few other HC people playing guitar and running through worship songs for Sunday morning. It was so fulfilling and peaceful to be by the pool with the almost full moon reflecting light on the water and every other smooth surface as we sang Holy, holy holy- is the Lord God Almighty- who was and is and is to come…With all creation I sing- praise to the King of Kings! You are my everything, and I will adore you.

from armchairs to jungles

Fiona apple: slow like honey

My two week home staycame to an end this morning, my last night with my Kisitu family last night. I have been named Nanteza and I feel I will keep the name at least as long as I am in Africa. Nze Nanteza. Nze Alli. Nze Spartacus. Nze loca. (a rose by multiple names maybe smells sweeter?)
My sister Racheal painted my nails HOT PINK last night…I've decided to just be ok with it since the robust colour reminds me of Hannah :) And to top it off I painted my toenails crazy blue today. When all your skin starts to own the dust and sweat and burning peanut smell of Africa, you have to jazz yourself up somehow to still feel like you have some control over your appearance, especially when you don't have a mirror anywhere around to even have an idea what you look like. (I find it shocking to walk past car windows that reflect the sun just right to catch my image… the thought usually goes through my head "oh that's what my hair looks like today?!" and then is gone as soon as I hear a boda honking for me to move or be crushed)
I'm going to miss my dirt path walk home past the hostels and cows and children yelling "Bye Mzungu!" at the top of their lungs, walking me hand in hand half way home. I'll miss tea time waiting for me at the table with Mommy and Racheal - boiled milk with tea and veggie samosas. I'll miss evening prayer time and Hidden Passion. I will not miss the screaming puppies, the screaming baby, and the screaming next door neighbors at all and every hour of the night that has prevented me from sleeping for the past 2 weeks. For those reasons, I am very excited to return to campus.

Campus sightings:
- A monkey ran across my path yesterday between classes. Commonplace.
- My elephant and giraffe doodles have gotten nearly professional looking, for all the zoning out in class I do.
- African professor's skin plus white chalk dust equals the most absurd, wonderful contrast for my artist eye. Another distraction from notes in class…
- Honours College birthday tradition states clearly that birthday boy/girl is to be "showered" on his/her birthday. Thus this morning was the showering of Erisa; drug from his bed by about six or seven other HC men, carried kicking and fighting to the front lawn, and drenched with about 5 buckets of soapy water. Happy birthday, Erisa ;)
- Quote: "I'm the chairman of the shower club"- Joel
- Mark made a Tony's mom comment in class…in Luganda…and we all understood enough to laugh :)

Without a piano, a Jeep, and a swimming pool to blow off steam/center myself/retreat and relax, I have been forced to get creative in seeking an alternate "outlet" here. I now even more fully support "creative" downloading routes for music as I have only found true solace in my hefty music collection when the moments hit that I just need to be away and get lost in something. Today, I'd like to thank the academy, as well as Jeff Buckley, Fiona Apple, Björk, Mazzy Star, Iron & Wine, Cat Power, Beck, Wilco, Feist & Imogen Heap for pulling me through with clear head, even breathing and calm spirit.

I've been reading the Primal Vision by John V Taylor for one of my classes here, and I have to say- as outdated as some things seem to be in the book from the 60's, there are other parts that are standing out so profoundly in the book:
"Let Western minds make their inductive and precious generalizations; Africa, if she is true to herself, remains stubbornly inarticulate."
---this has been ringing in my head ever since class last week when we discussed the quote as it was brought to the conversation. In coming here, I knew the typical perception of Africa that Americans in general had, and I tried my best to reject it (pretty successfully, I think). And in coming, I was encouraged by one Ugandan student to write home and work to dissuade that perception; by another the other day I was encouraged to not write home often so as to allow everyone else the same opportunity I now have to develop my their own views. The second told me it was their responsibility (you readers) to travel here yourselves and discover what is true, what is bogus, what is unclaimed. I'm also finding that even my African professors, in trying to convey their lessons to our class, give sweeping generalizations of East African thinking, EA lifestyle, traditions, typical behaviours- and each professor seems to have a vastly different idea of "the norm" than the next. In light of these incidents, I am falling ever in love with this piece from Primal Vision in finding that Africa, in everyone else's attempts to articulate her, is "stubbornly inarticulate" in her uncanny ability to evade description, explanation, and even common observation among people of her own nation, to people of every other nation; from armchairs to jungles she remains mysterious, evasive, confusing…and therein lies her beauty.

And…
"The isolated individual self is an abstraction. We become persons only in and through our relations with other persons. The individual self has no independent existence which gives it the power to enter into relationships with other selves. Only through living intercourse with other selves can it become a self at all."
--- Here, here! And I raise my glass.

calendar marks

Calendar marks by My Favorite Highway. Hannah(s)--- check it out. You'll love it. You're welcome.

I love my Ugandan family. We watch a marvelous Spanish soap opera called Hidden Passion that's dubbed over with terrible English every night as a family. At first I thought it was a good laugh, but now I find myself anxiously watching the kitchen clock for 8pm every night to go see what Franco will do next! My sisters are hilarious and loud and beautiful. :) Feels like home to walk there every night to tea time and conversation, Spanish soaps and visitors popping unceremoniously in and out always.
Typical morning in my Mukono home: instant coffee.
Reading the 6th Harry Potter as a nice no-brainer way to get myself going. Don't judge. I know you all love those books too.
Mosquitoes that never actually land on you/bite you.
Bread and butter.
Greeted in the arms of whatever fool HC boy is out of his dorm that early in the morning when I walk back to campus with a "Welcome back, sister!"

Speaking of family: Honours College is most definitely family now. Can't really say much else, other than I find the relationships there completely unlike any other and so welcoming, so intentional, so comfortable. I'm blessed.
I got to get into Kampala the other day (finally!) with a bunch of the IMME (students living with families for the whole semester) kids. We went to the New York Kitchen in Garden City for good ol' American pizza. Beautiful. I hit up the book store on the way out and just the smell of books took me back to Borders… LYNNSAY: I miss you desperately. You and our book dates. People here think I'm crazy. They're all homesick for foods and family members- I miss books and snow. Dear January: I will see you in the Bangor Borders. Every day. Open to close. ALSO was escorted over to a legit coffee shop with real coffee for a latte and slice of chocolate cake. I miss coffee. And coffee shops. And coffee culture. But as much as it was nice to indulge in an American day in Kampala, I think I'm all set for the rest of the semester with spending that much money just to "taste" home. Rice and beans are fine with me.
Went to the consecration of the new Bishop of Mukono on Sudnay. 8 hours of my life I'll never get back. Did get to see the President though- when he showed up about 5 hours late with a car as a peace offering and congratulatory gift for the new Bishop (aren't things like that illegal during election season in the US?).
Nanny sent me a package of peanut butter chocolate chip granola bars the other day. No note. No letter. Just pure grandma love in chewy bar fashion. Perfect. Nanny- if Sue or Mom pass this honorable mention on to you- may it be known that you're the favorite grandmother of every USP student since there was enough to share and you knew just exactly the way to our desperate-for-chocolate-hearts. Thanks :)
Note: if anyone would like to compete for that title…feel free to send packages :)

Uganda Studies Program
Alli McPhedran
Uganda Christian University
PO Box 4
Mukono, UGANDA

I read this last night in a poetry book from my African Lit class:
Epilogue by Grace Nichols
I have crossed an ocean
I have lost my tongue
From the root of the old
One
A new one has sprung



You have my attention like a shout through an empty sanctuary

Speak but a whisper...

stream of consciousness

The best way to sum up the past few days is just a stream of rambling… embrace it.

My friend's mother passed away on September 9th and I was asked to attend the burial in Eddie's village of Palisa on Saturday. I joined some other Honours College and mass communication students (his major) for the long ride to Palisa to go support our brother in the burying of our mother, Oketcho Jen. It was nothing like attending an American funeral at all. The women closest to the late mother were in traditional Buganda dress with bright colours and just mass amounts of fabric arranged in such an intricate, voluptuous way around their bodies. There were people there asked to speak on behalf of full groups of people that came to support the living family members- that was something very moving to see, the support for those that were in mourning. I was the only mzungu there and someone even formally directed the entire crowd's attention and gaze to me specifically at one point in his speech. It was an honour to be there and I felt so welcomed into the HC family (though I wish my induction could have been under lighter circumstances).
Classes are in full force. I'm trying to learn Luganda…but the professor is going at lightening speed. Grammar lessons that took three years of Spanish classes to build up to in Luganda are only taking three days. Anyone ever heard of suffix infixes? Blowing my mind.
I was dropped off at my family's house on Sunday. For the next two weeks all of us USP students are staying with host families at night and over the weekend to get a real African-family-living experience…or something like it. I feel right at home :) I was driven there in a Jeep (making me miss ol' Campy…) and introduced to my mom and dad who are (go figure) a teacher and pastor. I have a younger sister Phoebe who is ten, Irene is about 17 or 18 and hysterical, and Racheal is about 20. My sister Tabitha lives out of town with her husband, but her son Emma (Emmanuel) lives with us- he is 2 years old and terrified of me and Jen (the other USP student at my house). Emma screams when we're in the room. Hopefully he'll get over that in the next couple weeks… between him and the roosters screaming at 4am I'm not sure how in the world I'm going to survive these next couple weeks. My family is beautiful though; Racheal is so sweet and Irene taught Jen and I a beautiful song in Luganda which we sang around the kitchen table by candlelight as we were playing cards (power outage).
Went into town with Eddie yesterday afternoon for cold pineapple drinks and ice cream. It's the simple things around here that keep my grounded, remind me to just slow down and enjoy Africa. Three months from today I leave Uganda. :( already SO not looking forward to that. I can't believe it's already been a month since I've been here. Fahad and Eddie walked me home last night from campus through all the twisty dirt paths littered with banana peels and cows, and Fahad pulled his mocking voice out to bid me well at leaving me on my doorstep- saying how oh! So proud he was to see me growing up, leaving on my own! And I thought of Daddy saying goodbye at the airport and didn't realize just how long ago that actually was.
I miss snow. If anyone can find a way to mail me some snow… that would be lovely. I had a vision the other night…of getting home to Boston, driving up to Maine and just laying down in a snow bank in my driveway in mid January when I get back.
HC truly does feel like home. It's wonderful to walk back to campus these past couple mornings to come to class and hear someone yelling "Spartacus!" or one of my many other names as I walk down the path toward HC dorms. Cards and rolexes and walks into town with my brothers, sharing bananas and small-campus gossip with my sister Brenda across the hall… running into familiar faces in canteens and on the hill to town--- infinite moments (hannah).
From "The Primal Vision": 'The African reading the Bible is glad to find a civilization which marches to the same rhythm as his own. No obsession with efficiency, , but life as it unfolds is qutie simple in its tragedy, its hopes, its slow rhythm, its cruelties, too. Christ walking through the dust from one village to the next, drinking water from the same wells, delighting in the movements of the sower, the radiance of the setting sun, the flowers of the field, talking at great length to crowds- in this we find reflected the black innocence, the irresponsibility of Africa, her timeless existence, her freedom.' <-- this is for Mallory. your email was perfect, and in response to it's subject "You belong to Africa now." i can only say that this is the wonder i feel in thinking of my east africa and this is how i quietly agree with your title. thank you, mal.

emirembe. peace.

quick

not enough time to post a lot, thank you very much multi-thousand member campus using internet instead of going to community worship...
mama: don't worry. i'm safe. trust me.
dad: Norton stuff...? my email isn't working so i can't even open the link to get to the antivirus stuff... call me later so i can write down the link.

more later on the burial and my new family that i'm staying with for the next couple weeks :)
much love.

and super loud shout out CONGRATULATIONS to Hannah Nicolet on being freaking ENGAGED!!!!!!!! wooo! you better not get married til i'm home!

Source of the Nile. Source of Life.

So who knew, when I was young and in grade school learning about the world's most famous body of water (The Nile River) that I would ever stand on a small cement outlet at the very source of it, near where Gandhi's very ashes were poured in? I sure as hell didn't. But yesterday, as God would have it, was full of surprises.
After class I stripped off UCU dress code, threw on my walkin shoes and jumped in the car with another Honours student- Joel - to go and visit a school where he sponsor's an 11 year old girl (Brenda) who is an orphan from his village. On the way through we were stopped by some police and a soft spoken conversation and 2k shillings later from Joel into the discreet hand of the police woman, and we were back on our way with no penalty. (if only it were that easy to get out of tickets and fines in the US!) We drove through past Jinja to a small village where there are multiple school compounds and had to go through two of them before finding the newly placed Brenda with her beautiful smile and soft voice. Joel- in the middle of supporting himself through university here studying Law is also fully covering four children from his village to go to school through the end of secondary (high school) as conviction of repaying the favors done to him as a child by his extended family. (( in hearing multiple stories like his, I'm thinking I would love to take these young African men home to slap around some of my guy friends. Step it up world. If this "developing country" or "third world"s young adults have it figured out- what's your excuse?))
On the way back towards Jinja Joel's car broke down, thankfully right next to a mechanic. So we grabbed our jackets, left the car, and went for lunch. I thoroughly enjoyed that we were sitting inside while the downpour started, and that we had entertainment of watching another muzungo fool on the other side of the road trying to wade through torrents of rushing street water in flippy floppies. (ha!) Jumped a boda boda to the Nile River and as we were sitting on a tiny cement jetty in the water, three other muzungo showed up and started up conversation. James and Chris- two Canadians- have been travelling for the past 3.5 months throughout Africa, starting in Capetown and jumping all over the continent, working their way to the Mediterranean. They picked up a lone ranger from New York- Erik- who I believe they met hiking Kilimanjaro (something I desperately want to do). So the three gentlemen joined us for drinks on the Nile and we sat- Ugandan, American, Canadian- united discussing the two subjects you should absolutely never bring up in conversation with strangers and employers: politics and religion. There is something so vivacious about conversing with strangers- the freedom to know that everything happening is ultimate and beautiful and fresh and there will be no pressure to try and create more than what is going on RIGHT THEN when the interaction naturally wears off into the evening and your individual paths. We all went to grab dinner together and exchanged blogs and emails and blessings and wishes for safe journeys all around and our vagabond troupe dispersed into the Jinja evening covered by freshly bright stars- the kind of bright that you only notice after too many cloudy evenings in a row.
However- the night wasn't over. The car broke down again on the road home…which only preceded me drifting in and out of consciousness on the side of the road while Joel and various other mechanics pointed and shouted in a few different languages at whichever car part they suspected being the source of our troubles. Left the car in a garage, jumped a taxi, met two guys that had been robbed on their previous taxi at gunpoint, reached Mukono, jumped a boda boda and through the gates we collapsed in laughter, relief, exhaustion, and elation- the kind of ALIVE feeling that only comes after such a ridiculous day of unpredicted, unexpected adventure that you just had to greet with a shrug of the shoulder, a smile, and a soft mumbling of TIA baby, TIA. (this is africa).
Welcomed home into the laughter of a couple other girls fresh back from Kampala with adventures of their own, and the worried arms of Eddie and his bemused smile at my ability to just embrace the day. If there is anything I have learned in life that has best prepared me for Africa- it's this:
In 99% of situations you are faced with, worrying will get you no where. So just go with it.
*Someone asks you to go meet a child: you jump at that beautiful opportunity.
*Car breaks down: slip your shoes on and find some food.
*Cell phone runs out of air time: may as well just wait for someone to call you, and enjoy the time in the afternoon you have being fully present in the human interaction directly in front of you.
*Meet some guys on the Nile: grab a beer and share travel theories, perspectives on Africa, spiritual differences, laugh, kick back, enjoy the freaking Nile!
*Car breaks down again: take a nap, let the men work (feminist views fading..what?)

*USP gives you some rules: bend them a little bit for sake of humanity and growth. :)

From Rwanda: with Love.

Rwanda Night One:
Got up at 4.30 in the morning to drive 12 hours to somewhere in Northern Rwanda on a dusty, dirty, cramped bus piled with USP students and the Ugandan Honours students that came with us as well (about 42 of us?). It was an interesting trip before we even hit the main road as Fahad and Eddie (Honours students) had a bit of singing war and Fahad's voice stopped the engine of the bus to a dead halt (that's the story we're sticking with for explaining the bus dying). It was nice to sit on a high city wall eating gas station lunches and talking politics with the Ugandan students while they fixed our bus. The border crossing was a little intense, having to present our passports to men with rifles across their chests. Between the border of Uganda and Rwanda was this vast dusty space of complete "no man's land" which was terrifying and freeing all at once…

…sitting outside in the African dark on the smooth, cool, dirt red concrete that seems to be the common foundational material of East Africa, leaning against brick wall under one of the few building lights here that reaches outdoors. I can hear chickens, unfamiliar birds cheeping sporadically, a cow moaning and crickets everywhere- until the breeze comes and moves the long, crisp, dry tree fronds and carries children jabbering in Rwandan from across the hill- I hear all of this. But looking out across the deep valley between my hill and the hillside producing this whole African night song- I see absolutely nothing beyond the two inches of pavement past my toes.
I could stay here forever...

Quotes from USP students: "do chickens travel in packs?"
"can you be rabid if you don't have teeth?"
"it was just a hot, sweaty, wonderful worship mess"

...I have no pictures from the first beautiful guest house we stayed at. I feel like I'm so intentionally soaking up everything I don't even have the physical capacity to hold a camera for need to keep both hands always ready for everything else, and to keep both eyes ever fixed on everything happening. I feel no stress to take pictures here, only a burning need to just live every single second. I think Africa and I have an understanding: she is here for me; exposed, raw, presented. But I dare not try and tame her or box her in with a camera lens…

SUNDAY: Today I met the Africa I have always dreamed of. We split into groups to go to Rwandan Anglican churches and as my group's bus turned into the dirt lot for our parish in Gatore- there was a pile of about 60 plus children there jumping up and down and waving and singing in beautiful Rwandan language. Next we were ushered in to meet the reverend by a line of singing Rwandan choir- goosebumps head to tattooed foot. The most beautiful, heavenly sound. We spoke in their service and got to hear seven choirs SING like angels. It was especially cool to see the faces of all the congregation when the children got up to sing and dance- to see that proud parenting and the endearing smiles that watch innocent children stamp their feet translates exactly the same all over the world. I learned that "Neetwa" means "She is called…" as I was introduced "Neetwa Alli" to the congregation. I am learning the flexibility of names in this culture as I seem to adopt a different title everywhere I go… I am called Spartacus by another Ugandan student Joel who discovered I like the movie Gladatior… I am called loca by Eddie since I told him that's the Spanish word for "crazy"… I am Pauline by Timothy who looked at my passport on the bus and thinks I act like an old woman… the list goes on. I also discovered that "hallelujah" esta la palabra mismo en cada idiom (is the same word in every language). THAT may have been the most astonishing, AWESOME part of Sunday.


08.30.10
Squished myself into the back of the bus with Eddie & Fahad (newfound Ugandan friends from the same dorm complex as USP students who went on the Rwanda trip with us) to drive the supposed two hours here to Kigali. Except…after two hours of singing Disney songs and Whitney Houston ballads, we stopped on the side of the road where a little kid had thrown a rock at another bus of ours and shattered the window. So two hours turned into an African two hours…aka almost four before we landed at the marvelous buffet then the Kigali Genocide Museum…

POST RWANDA: 09.06.2010
Everyone keeps asking how Rwanda was. I don't have a lot of words for the trip as a whole. I can say that it was incredible (not like…good incredible…just… undefined incredible) living in the tension that Rwanda presented. On the one hand we were visiting memorials and hearing first hand accounts of people directly effected by the 1994 genocide. I stood in a church (Nyamata) whose tin roof outside the front door still had burned holes in it from grenades that the Interhamwe used to blast open the church door. I walked into a sanctuary and leaned on a wall where various innocent Tutsi people were dismembered and called "cockroaches". I smelled a room piled high of clothes still covered in dried blood from only 16 short years ago and covered in the dust that tries to cover all the history of East Africa. And in that moment, for the first time in my years of being a believer, I found myself incapable of believing that our God is a merciful God. Sitting there, unable to even stand, unable to cry, unable to move- I found I could not let myself believe that He is merciful. Pero en el otro mano, I also experienced the best and most beautiful and sacred of humanity in the developing relationships of our group those nine days in Rwanda. It was amazing to see what came of putting 15 Ugandan students and 32 American students (who still barely knew each other) on a bus to all go experience Rwanda for the first time. To have the variety of interpretations and perspectives of Americans and Africans in this broken country so pushing towards peace and reconciliation in the aftermath of tragedy. Our down time was spent eating, taking tea, doing yoga, playing silly camp games like Ninja, Mafia, zip-bong and blink-you're-dead (kind of appropriately morbid games). Long conversations, theological debates on bus trips and in the open stone courtyard of one of our hostels under a giant red, African moon. As I said- living in the tension of learning about and seeing the results of the worst that humanity has to offer amidst experiencing and growing in the most beautiful moments humans can create- those of developing intimacy and friendship- was breathtaking and bewildering.