swing life away

So let's pack our bags and settle down where palm trees grow.
We live on front porches and swing life away…

I have tried to refrain from blogging mundane activity, as I don't think most people would find daily things very interesting to read about. I try and capture beauty and accentuate it by sharing beautiful experiences on here, but to be fair: I find just about everything beautiful… ergo a slightly less exciting, but nonetheless meaningful few days to share with you:

This post coming to you from my perch on my bunk-bed; where I have spent the past few afternoons since it is literally too blazing hot to be outside in the mid afternoon. (conveniently I don't have classes at this time, so I get a few hours of relaxing, reading-- Stieg Larsson currently- and taking in as much water as I possibly can) Today I'm finally coming down from an exciting weekend that really stretched to yesterday (it feels like) in exhilaration and exhaustion simultaneously.
Last Thursday was Lauren's birthday- thus warranting another night spent out on the town with some USP & Honours alike friends. Friday class was converted to a theater for the filming of Cry the Beloved Country (a film severely lacking in creativity as far as dialogue was concerned…) and after that class I received mail from my beloved Roommate Heidi back home-- a card complete with bits of dried lavender from the flower shop she is currently working at back in Massachusetts. I stuck the pocket of lavender into my journal - now riddled with the scent. Beautiful. I think if I were ever to actually sit down and record an album of my piano music, I'd name the album Dried Lavender. Just throwing that out there.
Friday night was another epic adventure with the boys from Bemba Hostel. There's nothing like dancing on a rooftop under the stars. And there's nothing quite like the smells of a night at an African club:
The smell of cologne and perfume mixed with that slightly sweet and ever so familiar scent of body odor (not the stinky kind of body odor like you smell when that one gross kid walks into a classroom full of freshly showered people, but the sweet kind that just happens out of your pores as result of a fun night of dancing, or when you've been running, or just moving…)
Cigarette smoke (the un-suffocating kind that allows you to pick up the waspy aroma but still breath clean night air)
Beer on the breath of whichever mzungu-stunned guy comes over to dance with you (because as one of the two mzungu in a crowd of at least 200 Africans…you're kind of a novelty)
The ever present smell of trash burning in the distant- a sweet musk of wood, citrus, nutty smells and potatoes…? Maybe…
All the enticements of the senses just produce the sort of night that makes you catch your breath in the abrupt, overwhelmingly lovely realization that "O my gosh…I'm in Africa". ((this is what dreams are made of))

Saturday was almost less of a productive day than Friday, and then Saturday night was a night of pure glamour. The 5th Annual Honours College Alumni/Reunion Dinner was hosted at the Red Rose Hotel in Kampala. It was a marvelous afternoon of getting back in touch with my feminine side (a nice break from Spartacus) as Esther dolled me up -complete with eye make up, Heidi be proud!- she and I and Taui all swapped dresses and earrings until we could passably make ourselves look cute in all each other's clothing. Then listening to Eminem and wearing a bakini top in rebellion of putting on clothes while there was still preparation to be done for Lauren, I sat and stitched up a dress for her to wear that night and just nearly pierced my lip with the sewing needle for all my loss of common sense in my deep, rap-music-induced concentration. Finally, all of us ready- we jumped ship and went to grab coffee before the dinner…but coffee turned into the best milkshakes of our lives!- then we joined the dinner of all our friends from Honours in their absolute best dress. It was a fun night, but at one point I leaned over to Mark to express with agony how old I felt… There we sat, at a dinner with a high table and honoured guests giving speeches…making announcements about marriages, engagements, and births of the past year and giving recognition for career advancements made in the past year (including appointments to the top gas & oil company in Uganda, International Justice Mission, and the United Nations- no small feats) and asking alumni to donate money to this and that for the college… it was the sort of dinner that I only ever had seen in movies where the socially and financially elite attend and carry shiny little clutches and scrape liver pâtés around on their plates until the speaker is done and the classy music starts up… I just felt so old being old enough to sit with my peers as they talked about career advances and babies popping left and right and pulling at the purse-strings of alumni. When did this happen? I miss the sort of dinners where I was pushed over to the kids table, expected to do nothing less than fling food, cause raucous, and try and wipe my mouth on the table cloth instead of my napkin…who am I kidding… I totally wiped my mouth on the tablecloth Saturday night, let's be real.
After the dinner a whole crew of us went out to meet the Bemba Boys at a club in Kampala, where Esther and I both lost 20,000/= to a pick-pocketing fat man in a white sweatshirt. So today I spent the afternoon sewing a pocket to the inside of my jeans…complete with a button. Ain't no hands rippin' me off while I'm bustin' a move again. Nuh uh. We literally danced until 6am… I think I may have sat down on a bar stool for 1/2 a song. Maybe. Between climbing these hills and this mountain that I live on multiple times a day just to get back and forth from class to my room I'm building up rock-solid calf muscles and with all the dancing, my legs have never been in such good shape. Shazam.

Today was just a relaxing, breezy day. Class was cancelled so I thoroughly enjoyed tea time with Tony & Esther - complete with INCREDIBLE instant coffee mix from Starbucks (thank you Mona). In the States, I would have scoffed at the idea of this VIA coffee, but here- combined in milk tea…it's just about the most sacred thing around. Hallelujah for caramel flavoured coffee mix and fresh boiled milk :)
Spent the rest of the morning curled up in a nightgown (because yes. Those are normal here.) eating Swedish fish, stitching up my pants, and doodling cityscape concepts for painting when I get home. Note to self: start bringing acrylics with me everywhere- no matter what.
Walked down to pick eggs with Tony for our baking date later today; there is a massive Thanksgiving feast (expected 70-80 people) for all USP and the ex-Pats on campus tomorrow so the job of the USP students is to provide desserts. Tony, Mark & I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies this afternoon with real pumpkin listenin' to the beats of Citay and Bach. It's a long way from recipe-testing these kinds of cookies with Allison Kavin year after year in preparation for the staff-Thanksgivings we always have at the Phed Farm. Kavin- I'll miss experimenting with spices with you this year.
I'm dreading leaving the simplicity of life here. Where afternoons are casually spent on hostel balconies listening to jams, looking out at the sunset over the valley, chatting with anyone walking by on their way to and fro the local well at the bottom of the road. Where time is spent gently swinging on the swings up the hill, or walking about ten minutes or so to get a cold Fanta (which just somehow tastes so much better in a glass bottle), or doodling and listening to De Capulet (you're welcome, Hannah).

of pianos and proposals

Yesterday was Eid al-Adha- the Islamic holiday celebrating the story of Abraham and honouring his willingness to sacrifice his son before God. The holiday is dependent on the moon cycle, so it was not announced that this holiday was actually occurring until yesterday, Monday night. Gwyn had all of us USP students over to her place Monday night for a feast of desserts (chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and delicious, dark chocolate brownies) and a game night. After this, Lauren and I strolled down to fetch rolexes and came back to sit and read our Eat.Pray.Love books in each other's company.
We brought in the Muslim holiday with our form of indulgence and recognition of sacrificial living. We jumped a taxi into Kampala and promptly went over to the Serena Hotel- Kampala's (and for that matter, I think Uganda's) only 5 star hotel. The place was an absolute palace of beauty and warmth and relaxing, spacious architecture. We had been told by a friend that he plays piano there occasionally and so I went in on a quest to find my heart and soul back in the eighty-eight. We traipsed all through the upstairs lobby in search of this piano, which was rumored to be in the lounge, and finally I spotted it. I kid you not- my heart stopped. It literally did a little flip- the likes of which my full body has only ever been able to replicate on a trampoline with the assistance of serious spring action. Before annoying all of the hotel- I went up to the woman sitting at a table near the lounge and asked, "Nnyabo, could I please play (quietly!) a bit?" and she smiled and nodded, "Kale, kale. Is ok." I gingerly lifted the cover, took the felt strip off the keys, and sat on the small, squeaky, undersized-barstool style seat.
In a flash second when my fingers touched the keys I remembered freshman year at Gordon when I discovered the magnificence of the recital hall in Phillips. I vowed not to play in that hall until the first snow- so that I could fully embrace the majesty of that place overlooking the pond with perfect floor-to-ceiling windows and it's high, intricately designed ceilings of perfect acoustics. The first time it snowed, as luck would have it, I was working a six hour shift in the dining hall and couldn't get to the piano. By the time my shift was over it had rained and all the snow was gone. But the second time it snowed- by God- I raced down there and just let the perfect winter envelop my soul through the snow on the pond, the snow falling, the snow still stuck to my shoes as I kicked them off to sit at the grand and lose myself in playing. The scene should have been in a movie.
All this jumped across my mind in a split second and then the noise. All the noise. I forgot how much of a power surge it is to sit, quite still- straight, controlled- and produce such sound with the very many delicate flicks of one's fingers. I could have balanced M&Ms on the backs of my hands all the while filling that whole hotel with a small interlude in the key of D that made many fine suited young businessmen come to stand and listen with polite interest. (Mary, my piano teacher when I was 8, would have been so proud…I was always more interested in eating those M&Ms than balancing them during lessons)
It was a miraculous, emotional, holy few moments of reuniting my heart and soul- as I feel they've only been drifting aimlessly from each other since being here and having nothing to ground them. Once I felt like a whole person again, I closed the lid and stood, the miniature barstool creaking obnoxiously, announcing my finale. Lauren and I went to the bar downstairs and had a lovely chat with Richard the amicable bartender, and ordered Irish coffee- which was complimentarily served with a small array of olives and cheese. So classy. As we sat amidst the leather couches and polished wood and classy African stone carvings on the wall, delicately sipping our Irish coffees and occasionally pretending like we had the attention span to get through our copies of Eat. Pray. Love., Lauren piped up: "You know, I'm not ready to go home yet, but this is so nice!" <-- just the ability to be in a Westernized kind of environment where there were Americans and Brits in business suits, a fully stocked bar with familiar libations, and a general air of comfort. That is not to say that everything in America is comfortable, or by any means that Uganda is not comfortable (I actually am more relaxed 95% of the time HERE than in the States), but just an acknowledgment that, like it or not, we were both born into Western society and (quite unfortunately…or maybe not) that is what puts us at ease now- the going back to that sort of familiarity. While it is not with an air of self-sacrifice that we have come to Uganda, we are slowly realizing all the things that we have indeed given up in coming here. It is yet undecided in my mind if I feel like these are sacrifices are detrimental to my mental health (or physical health), but living without such things as used to be staples (easy transportation systems, ever available caffeine, reliable communication systems, certain appliances) is taking it's toll. Again: not in a sad or painful way, just in a noticeable way. I do, however, stand by my former declaration of loving life without a mirror here. In my building the only mirrors around are the small hand held mirrors that individuals have purchased themselves in markets, or even just broken shards of mirror. I never considered myself a very vain person before coming here, and never wore make up so there was no cause to ever really look in a mirror that often, but even so- I find a massive relief and self confidence in not knowing what I look like everyday. I also have this immense sense of self confidence that is just paired with living in a culture where self image is not about your face but rather how you conduct yourself socially. In addition, I (and other USP girls I have been talking to) feel, for quite honestly the first time in a long time, completely content with being single here. With the extreme taboo of public displays of affection here, there are no couples making out on park benches or even holding hands here- and with that total void of public emphasis on relationships I find that I don't feel pressured at all to be in a relationship- which I can't say I've ever felt in America. For the first time in years I feel like no one is pushing me to rush into some relationship, yet on the flip side- a good chunk of African men are indeed begging for me be in one with them… strange paradox to be in. I will say, on that note, that it will be a self esteem shock to go back to America where every other man is not proposing to me from the side of the street. Ah well.

of instant coffee and swedish fish

hands down: best package sender award hereby goes to Mona & Michael Holsapple.
all USP girls of Josephine Tucker Hall thank you- not only for the beautiful American delicacies which were sent that we are all enjoying- but we thank you immensely for the atomic BOMB of explosive joy that rippled through the building as we unearthed, together, all these tasty gifts. there has not been such screaming, shrieking, laughter, and overwhelming ecstasy in many moons here!
thank you M&M :)
much love.

a somali coffee conflict

Mary Oliver talks of red bird; a story set in timeless beauty from its origin in Ohio to the reading aloud of itself under a great, indescribably awesome tree in an African backyard.

I will try.
I will step from the house to see what I see
and hear and I will praise it.
I did not come into the world
to be comforted.
I came, like red bird, to sing.
But I'm not red bird, with his head-mop of flame
and the red triangle of his mouth
full of tongue and whistles,
but a woman whose love has vanished,
who thinks now, too much, of roots
and the dark places
where everything is simply holding on.
But this too, I believe, is a place
where God is keeping watch
until we rise, and step forth again and-
but wait. Be still. Listen!
Is it red bird? Or something
inside myself, singing? (Mary Oliver)


Got in a heated discussion yesterday that just nearly broke my heart to pieces. I went out with another USP girl and Ugandan guy… we went to this great Somali petro-station/restaurant (sounds like such a Maine thing…where you find businesses that offer ballroom dancing and printing services in the same venue, or hardware stores selling jewelry…) for lunch and coffee, and as we were chatting, the conversation turned to the issue of the Homosexuality Bill attempting to be passed in Uganda. Basically, this bill permits the public punishment/hanging of outed homosexuals in Uganda. I pray to God that human rights groups are as on top of this as I think they are and thus will prevent it from going through, but still- the threat is there for horrific bill to go through sometime in the coming year here in Uganda. In this conversation- Lauren and I stand firmly AGAINST this bill, each having multiple homosexual friends and in general a Western-tailored tolerant view on this lifestyle --- at the very least to the point where we would never dream of execution (public or otherwise) being a reasonable or lawful response to this lifestyle. However, our male accompaniment at the table stated with such a rueful passion and intensity in his voice and eyes that he very firmly agrees with this bill and thinks it only morally right that it should be passed. "Why should we allow them to live in our society?" <--is the general Ugandan attitude towards homosexuality. In this debate, the general opinion is that homosexual individuals should not even be allowed to be in society- they are not just ousted from churches or religious institutions, certain schools or workplaces, No- society as a WHOLE. "No room in the inn" for social deviancy of this nature. As he sat there spitting about the "disgraceful" and "disgusting" practices of "those people" and adamantly - with furrowed, serious brow and PIERCING eyes (a term I feel I've never understood until yesterday) - condemning these PEOPLE, not their decisions or lifestyle or sexuality as separate entities from themselves, but the very PEOPLE: somehow God granted the grace to keep my hands solidly in place on my lap and not assailing his face with my fists in rage. Somehow. (and people say miracles don't happen anymore…) At one point he even asserted that "public hanging is not enough. The punishment deserves to be more severe- they should be boiled in hot oil."
At this point, I asked him if his opinion would change were it to personally involve one of his friends.
He looked at me, annoyed, thinking I was bringing up some outrageous hypothetical "what if" point that would of course change his views but had an impossible probability of ever needing to be considered realistically. I stopped him as he smiled and shrugged, undoubtedly thinking "none of MY friends would ever be homosexual, so I would never have to think about this situation you're proposing."
I stopped him by pointing out that a good friend of his is a lesbian. Here at UCU, a close friend to many Honours Students is a lesbian. I told him "She hasn't told you that, but she's told me. What now?"
He placed his hands on the table, flat and firm, looked me directly in the eyes without blinking and responded "No difference. She is no exception."
At this point I looked away and flatly suggested we all pay and leave.

A while ago I was out to lunch with this same gentleman and a few of the other Honours guys and they were discussing the story of how a few years ago in Mukono a serial rapist was caught in the street and a group of boda drivers (notoriously rough-around-the-edges kind of guys) beat him in the middle of the street and burned him alive in front of the church which happened to be on the other side of the road. In a society where the police force is pretty difficult to mobilize and where communal living provides it's own social security, this was a natural thing to happen- but the guys retelling me this account were still raising their eyebrows at the fact that he was burned alive outside the church! How inappropriate! They asked me what I thought of the situation, one asking me "what do you think? Was what the boda drivers did to him appropriate or just? Should they have burned him alive- outside the CHURCH?" - my response being "I would have burned him on the very altar of the church. Of course it was appropriate."
The group was incredulous. They thought my response was the harshest ideology they'd ever heard in concerns to this case.
While I understand my response was hasty and maybe (I haven't quite decided) exaggerated, I would certainly stand firm on the death sentence for anyone who has committed such a fantastic crime as multiple rapes. It may not be Biblical or loving, but I can't see past the emotions that are stirred in me concerning that sort of act. And here I sat, judged and bemusing all the men with my harsh convictions- men who think a man that says he loves another man should be tarred and feathered and hung out to dry in the public square. Literally. There are some parts of this country that still strike me as backwards, in ways I don’t know that I could ever understand.
A shout out to American tolerance. I never thought I would truly know how to appreciate freedom or our very many rights and privileges. I'm trying to roll with the punches here on two levels;
1) Level headedly, that I may seriously try to understand and recognize these views which rub my heart raw and
2) Convicted; that I may still speak for my views without being arrogant and unreasonable, but not backing down from my convictions and passionate beliefs in equality and human rights (in terms of gender roles and homosexuality here). That I may defend my friend here at UCU who has hidden her sexuality from all but a handful of people in her life for fear of her life and for fear of being cut from family ties, but that I may also not judge this guy at lunch for his closed mind- but rather try and nudge the door open a bit at least in showing my willingness to disagree but still hear him out.

In other news, had a girls night in Kampala with Esther, Taui & Jen --- tiramisu, Indian cuisine complete with sweet lassi, UCU basketball game (we won!) at which I met a famous baller who calls himself "Jordan" (of course), and $4 perfume called "Feminism". Perfect.

panty perspective

Hazards of doing laundry outdoors:
Bird might fly into the tree above you and crap into your bucket of just-soaped clothing.
Just saying. It can happen.

On another laundry note- I had a striking realization while doing my laundry the other day regarding wealth in the West vs here in Africa. As I was washing my underwear, the Ugandan girl Brendah across the hall made an obervation: "Oh, Victoria's Secret…rich lady!"
I have never thought of my old VS panties that I got on clearance as a sign of wealth. They're not a scandalous style that most girls my age don, they were definitely on sale, and they're a plain colour. I have definitely never thought of myself as someone with money when I wear them. It was incredible to realize that a brand name from the West can carry so much implication as to my social status here in a "developing country". Even the things I can only afford or justify paying for if they're on clearance or from a thrift store speak volumes of the wealth of our country in the context of living in Uganda where I can buy a pair of panties at the supermarket for the equivalent of about 30 cents ((and they're lacey and cuter than any other pair I own)).


My darling roommate sent me an incredible package today :) Justin Beiber silly bands, curiously strong Altoid mints, and CHOCOLATE :) Love you, Shmeidi.

This past weekend I was introduced to the guys Bemba hostel- down the hill and through the jungle of banana trees growing outside of campus. My friend Mark took me there for a truly "cultural experience" of a rooftop party and told me as we approached the steps of the building, "Oh, by the way- you're about to be seriously out-gendered…" Story of my life. It was an incredible chill time of kicking back on brick-pile-seats, listening to crunk music the likes of which would have made my sister proud, looking at the African night sky so bright with stars silhouette the monkey trees all around the hostel. Gorgeous.

Saturday I went to the local hotel with a couple girls to go swimming and do homework by the pool. At the mention of Thanksgiving I was nearly sick as I realized that it is in fact November and I spent the day lying around in a swimsuit and shades sippin' cold drinks by an unheated pool that was definitely warmer than the showers I take everyday. I am SO looking forward to whatever blustery weather Sweden is having when I get there in January, and to return to the snow banks I know will be piled in my driveway upon my return home. I fully intend to be a small child with my snowy antics when I get home: snow forts, snow angels, catching snowflakes on my tongue… these are the things I dream of here in the mid-afternoon heat as I sit sweating and sipping my tea (even African heat does not dissuade true Ugandans from the all holy Tea Time).

Yesterday I went running up Monkey Hill and nearly slipped all the way down a massive stretch of red dirt and stones as I skidded through some mud from the afternoon rain in borrowed shoes a size too big for me. I was only grateful no one was watching the clumsy Mzungu. However, all hopes of going through my running routine unnoticed were shot straight to hell when I agreed to go meet Esther at the track to finish up laps with her after my own run. I got to the track and there were 2 soccer games going on in the center as we, the only white girls to be seen at all within the vicinity of the field, breezed our way around the track. With every lap around by the stone bleachers some odd-ball called out "go Mzungu!" as we passed… great. Just great. Anyone who tells me again that their excuse for not going to the gym back home is that they're uncomfortable being stared at should spend an afternoon trying to go unnoticed at the gym or track here. You'll be the only white, almost always the only girl, and definitely the most uncoordinated person present. No exceptions. The trick is to just embrace your minority status, crack a few jokes with the guys- show 'em you mean business, and just make yourself a kind of novelty to have around. If they're going to notice you, you may as well own it. :)

RECIPE

(they blindfolded her and spun her in circles so she would find her way here by no other means than her intuition)

INGREDIENTS:
1. Save your Scissors- City & Colour
2. Waiting…- City & Colour
3. Call it Off- Tegan & Sara
4. Combat Baby- Metric
5. Tiny Vessels- Death Cab for Cutie
6. Blood Bank- Bon Iver
7. Kinghts- Minus the Bear
8. Be Still my Heart- The Postal Service
9. Lover I Don't Have to Love- Bright Eyes
10. Monster Hospital- Metric
11. Boy With a Coin- Iron & Wine
12. Just for Now- Imogen Heap
13. No One Really Wins- Copeland
14. Sleeping Sickness- City & Colour
15. The Ice is Getting Thinner- Death Cab for Cutie
16. To Be Alone With You- Sufjan Stevens
17. The Con- Tegan & Sara
18. Re: Stacks- Bon Iver

- Rainy day
- Book/poem by Saul Williams ",said the shotgun to the head"
- Bag of cracker jacks your grandma mailed to you
- Cozy sweatshirt

INSTRUCTIONS:
Gather first group of ingredients. Push play and let stand for as long as the playlist lasts.
Gather second group of ingredients. Begin with putting on the cozy sweatshirt, then gradually add the rainy day. crack the poem by Saul Williams and slowly take it in- cover to cover. Mix in the bag of cracker jacks (amount dependent on what you gage to be appropriate).

END RESULT:
Re-centering of self.
If you have been forgetting the words (to your favorite songs, to the names of towns your friends live in, to vegetables you used to eat on a daily basis, to describe beautiful scenes without using the word "beautiful", etc.)- this may help slow you down enough to recover some of the vocabulary of your mother tongue which has felt oceans away the past few weeks. ("they'll never find the words to say which would completely explain just how I'm breaking down")

If you have been forgetting the peace (of your home church, of bundled up fall days with cider, of coffee culture on Cabot Street, etc.) - this may be just the right dose of "indie" life your heart has been going stir-crazy for, what with lyrics like "Like the sea, constantly changing from calm to ill, madness fills my heart and soul as if the great divide could swallow me whole, oh! How I'm breakin' down!" and words from a poet like,

forgive me father
for I have sinned
 
i prayed to you
and cupped
 
the wind

and in doing so
barred her entry
into a century:

100 years
of solitude
 
(yes, the wind is the moon’s imagination wandering)
 
i will now pray
with my hands

outstretched
with these psalms
 
e t c h e d
into my palms

feminism: destroyed.

The key to surviving in the African bush is to first- abandon all feminism. Better yet, discard all understanding of Western feminist theory you have at all; there is no context for it there.
The second is to bring skirts with an elastic waistband; your family will feed you more in a day than you typically eat in a week.

Friday morning all USP students set off in a coaster towards the eastern village of Soroti. Those of us living on campus went towards Soroti while the off-campus students headed a bit in another direction to the mountainous region of Kapchorwa. Our group stayed at the beautiful Margaret's home in the hills of Soroti deep in the bush…and I do mean literally the bush. Like…there were bushes whacking our faces and arms through the bus windows as our bus created its own trail to get from the road to her home. We pitched tents, did some hiking to see over the valley which allowed us to see THE WHOLE WORLD- from Lake Victoria to Mt. Elgon anyway. We ate a beautiful dinner and finished only just as the torrential downpour rushed in- sending us all to her living room for the evening to bundle under sleeping bags around a lantern and play mafia and laugh away our last night of being together. I went hiking (maybe this wasn't the wisest choice, in hindsight) in the dark with Mark, Rachel & Becky through the rain and thunder to the top of the hill to watch the lightning bar its way across the sky over the valley--- there was dancing. :)

In the morning, they piled all but two of us onto The Orphan Train of a bus and put Lexi & Leah in the Land Cruiser to head the other direction to their host families…as the Land Cruiser then caught up to our parked bus in town later, we noticed the ominously empty back seats where we had last seen Lexi & Leah and someone gasped "oh my gosh, they're gone!"- at which point the subtle panic set in. Slowly and painfully they detracted us from our cluster of familiarity and comfort and sent us out in groups of two and three into separate smaller vehicles to go to our families. And of course- I was the last one to be dropped.
I was left in a home with the beautiful Mama Janet, my older sister Esther, and my two younger teenage sisters Naomi & Luy. My younger brother Dan and nephew Tony proceeded to just stare at me for the entire week I was there. My family had a new brick kitchen being built, a brick one room building for Dan & Tony, a cement house with a small living room, bedroom and two storage rooms for all the food my family grew (rice, papaya, oranges, millet, sim sim, beans, g nuts), and four small circular mud huts with straw roofs. The place was beautiful, simple, and peaceful with small goats running around, chickens invading the kitchen hut (bold move for a chicken likely to be eaten for that night's meal, I thought), and lizards everywhere. I helped my mom clean g nuts and pick greens for dinner and enjoyed the slightly awkward broken-English, laughing conversation. Just as I had settled in and was feeling comfortable, in walks Papa Stephen.
My week became a feminist's nightmare.
While my days were spent lovingly and relaxingly with my wonderful host Mama and sisters, the evenings were the most challenging hours of my life. Stephen was the farthest thing from my understanding of what a father should be. Rude, condescending, dominating, mean, arrogant patriarchal method of running a household… and had the audacity to demand I call him "papa" (which I would not). With every passing hour my deep appreciation and LOVE and respect for my real parents grew massively- especially for my father. It was like living with a sixteen year old punk with a major macho complex all week- the way he would come home and ask pointedly why I was not kneeling to greet him or serving him tea the second he walked up the dirt driveway and if I had actually done anything useful that day. Monday night I resigned myself to survival mode and became like a zombie for the hours that he was home: I allowed myself no emotion, no feeling, no frustration, I did not look him in the eyes, I did not verbally respond to his tormenting, and for all intents and purposes separated my body as far from myself as I could. The duality and degree to which I was able to actually remove myself from the physical situation was astounding and painful. I knew that if I allowed myself to feel frustration, to feel the homesickness, to admit to loneliness that I would not make it through the week. So I bit my lip and when it got especially difficult retreated to go take another bath under the stars. ((which, btw- there is nothing quite like standing in a cement walled structure, naked, half soaped, under the stars and rushing wind of the African village night)). Stephen introduced me to Mama Janet as "this is housewife. She cooks." and spent more time talking to me about one of his orange trees in the orchard than he did introducing me to his entire family.
All week I kept imagining pulling through until pick-up on Friday morning… being able to step onto the bus full of other USP students and just be able to cry. I looked forward to crying all week long. Because in the company of my family- of the other students here- I knew that I could safely allow myself to break down, to process, to detox. I kept envisioning giving my friend Tony a hug at the end of the week. as it turns out, my friend Lindsey went through an almost identical experience and also kept envisioning hugging our dear Tony upon pick-up. After close analytical discussion last night we unearthed our reasoning for seeing his scruffy face in our mind's eye all week: Tony respects women. He is a teddy bear, brotherly type full of joy and genuine appreciation for people and a truly respectful attitude towards women especially. After our week of living in a home where the father-figure was either emotionally abusive (or drunk, in her situation), all we wanted was a personality to redeem that, which we saw in Tony.
There is no context for feminism in the bush. This week shattered my world views of gender roles, of equality, of dominance, of patriarchy, of oppression. I feel as though all the views I have developed over the years of studying sociology and feminist theory and gender differences/psychology were broken down this week to the point where I'm not sure how to reconstruct them in an appropriate context. I suddenly realized that many things I once considered universal, once considered true, can't even be spelled in this context. What do I do with that? Still unsure… Maybe in a few days I'll come back to this and elaborate and be able to actually spell out my head-on collision with redefined gender roles and everything else around that this past week, but for now: I'm still not quite able to process it all.
Pick up was a breath of fresh air.
The driver picked me on Friday morning and took my swiftly away back through the bush to the waiting bus full of all the other students (I was the last one picked, naturally) under a tree by the side of the road in town. I got out of the small Rav4 that picked me from Kyere and was ushered into the hugging mama arms of Margaret as other staff members grabbed my gum-boots, sleeping bag and backpack and tossed them down the assembly line of arms on the bus. I stepped onto the bus, saw an empty seat next to Lauren in the very front, asked if it was free, and before my butt even hit the seat the waterworks set off.
I lost it.
Completely.

I spent the next hour on the bus in between staring motionless with furrowed brow out the bus window and just sobbing, finally letting myself feel all the emotions I had denied myself all week long.
After letting myself react and calm down, we finally reached Sipi Falls and met the rest of the students in Kapchorwa. We stayed in cabins on the side of a mountain at the Sipi Falls Resort and enjoyed a weekend of luxurious rest, catching up and swapping stories, hiking through the mountains and behind waterfalls, drinking stellar coffee (which was made on the mountain opposite the one we were residing on), and just generally informally debriefing from our weeks in the bush.

HIGHlights from the bush:
Learning to make cassava chips. So good :)
Balancing a jerry can of water on my head all the way back from the local well.
Meeting Lucy- a neighbour with downs syndrome. She came over for lunch one day and I went over and peeled her an orange… a half hour later she returns with a massive jerry can of water on her head and explains to my sister Esther in Ateso that "she paid me kindness, so I have brought water to pay her kindness." Most precious thing ever.
Hiking with my host-cousin Robert- a former Honours College student who graduated last year. Rock climbing in a skirt…it's a skill. That's all I'm saying.
Bathing outside.
Milk tea :)
Having fresh popo (papaya) at dinner…there is no taste like a freshly picked and cut papaya.
Laughing with my sisters and having my seventeen year old sister Naomi ask me to teach her Spanish.

The weekend was incredible. I stood on top of the world and in caves behind waterfalls and was recaptured all over again by how intense of a Creator our God is. Hiked through coffee plantations and fields of banana trees and corn on small footpaths and over rocks we had to boulder across through the blazing sun that made us sweat until we were soaked through and then through rain and hail that beat down on our heads and sunburnt necks. Watched the sunrise over the mountains and sang worship songs overlooking the valley, swung on a swing hanging over a ledge on the mountainside, and snuggled our way through all night conversations inside the warmth of shared sleeping bags sitting around a small lantern in the lodge. It was a beautiful time of community and adventure and caffeine to be all together again at the resort after our week of isolation, of awkwardness, of life in the village.
Here's to peanut butter pancakes, to the forceful spray of waterfalls just feet away from your shivering body, and here's to a new perspective on family.