Pictoral Shenanigans.

I try and try and try to upload pictures onto blogspot but have failed and failed and failed. I am still hopeful that I will be able to post some eventually, and am attempting different options, but for now thanks for your patience. I do hope that my words have been able to paint some images for you. ALSO: I was JUST able to post some on facebook so you can check out pictures here: http://gordon.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2017982&l=ba7e9&id=68400086

Also a brief note before my battery dies: thank you for your responses. They are savored and rerereread. They are the majority of my minimal contact with anything off the east coast of Africa, and even though I absolutely love being here, I know coming back in three months will be made easier if I am not completely out of the loop. I'd also love to hear about your lives if ever you feel inclined to drop an email or a note. Don't let anyone get engaged, married, switch careers, move, be born, etc. without filling me in!

Another post summarizing the end of homestays is in the works. Lovelove.

The importance of being called.

My homestay family calls me ‘Nissali.’ My peers here call me ‘Kimberly.’ My phone vibrates to its “Liszt” ring tone and I hear ‘Kimi’ called to from a kitchen table in Bozrah, Connecticut. The story of Genesis accounts a God calling his very creation into being- inbreathing life and calling forth purpose. My homestay Mom asked to be called by her first name. It was her mother’s name. Perhaps in the breathing forth of “Deborah” I call into being her mother within her- pull out the strength and love Deborah desires to reflect of her namesake.

Is a different self called to being with each name that resounds in my direction? Am I more clever when called Nissali and more studious when called Kimberly? I find that I feel more serious in response to Kimberly, but I think that is more a reflection of what “Kimberly Dawn!” meant on the rare occasion I heard the tight tone of reprimand growing up. I find my innards growing warm and cozy at the incantation of Kimi, but because the voice that most often calls it forth is the woman that carried me forth into being, and the kitchen table from whence it come stands in the presence of tea cup memories. Years of confessions, consolations, and cohering resonate in that kitchen incantation.

Children on Kampala Road say “bye.” Somewhere in translation the general populous of children lost “hi” but caught “bye,” so they wave hello and say goodbye as I nod my head and walk forward. The even more personal of the impish beings skittering in their holy threads yell “mzungu” or “give us dollars.” What are they attempting to call out of me? I don’t think they really just want my American dollars or meager, though humorous, attempt at a Luganda “hello, how are you?”

“Oli otya nnyabo?”

I fell on the way home. Apparently the red dirt called me forth. If it hadn’t been for Sarah’s presence, I would have been cozily dropped into the cement crevice of the drainage ditch that runs between the road and the walking path. Instead I just wiped out on the uneven terrain, and Sarah and I laughed at our selves while I patted the red dirt off my right side before assessing the damage on my leg. Its relatively minor- no worries. Would Nassali, named for cleverness, misstep in such a way though? Would Kimi from Connecticut be walking along Kampala Road in Mukono, Uganda?

I contemplate the self that is being daily called into being. My self. I attempt to imagine how the simultaneous selves within me are merging into a gelatinous mass of unity in a place so far outside any self I have ever experienced before. Arriving in Entebbe over a month ago was surreal. The disconnect between me and here was that I was still following myself around. I came all the way to East Africa, and I’m still here. What pieces of me will I find here and how am I fragmented into places so far from the kitchen in Connecticut?

"I bought you a fried fish!"

Last night was full of firefly moments- moments I wanted to catch in a jar and keep because they let off light I'm desperate to hold onto. But if I keep them closed in they'll die. So I'll let them out here, let them fly and breath, and let myself keep moving too.

Fireflies: The moment mom laughed and threw her arms around me when I asked how she met dad. The quiet span of time spent fingers-intertwined with her as we walked back in the dark from buying sugar and bread. Song and prayer every night with mom and dad in the sitting room, when mom closes her eyes and does motions with her hands to "Go tell it on the mountain." Last night dad after the song spoke of how the day has "come to end," and we must be thankful for the moments that will never come again.

After dinner, before song time, I asked dad what his first impression of mom was. He said she "advised" him- he admired and respected her. They have never "quarreled." When one offends the other, they go into the bedroom, say so quietly, apologize, and move on. "We never quarrel." Do you realize how dynamically counter-cultural that is here? Men pay for their brides, a "bride-price." They are often encouraged to hit their wives- people believe it shows they truly love them. Yet these temporary parents of mine advise one another and discuss their offenses.

There are some moments I am ready to leave behind before they even come though, often occurring at supper time. Two nights ago Dad got home and pulled out a small black plastic bag, the same size as that in which he carried home a chocolate bar for me on my first day of classes this week. But this time when he handed it to me, I did not feel a cool hard square of milk chocolate. I felt the hot, slimy exterior of a freshly fried whole fish. "I bought you a fried fish!" Mom put it on a plate in the middle of our table and ripped off a side with her hands to place in front of me. Scales and all. Its open mouth gapped in my direction while I ate its side and my sister Flavia sucked on its tail. I woke up the next morning still tasting fish, still burping fish. Last night he came home, yippee!, with four chicken legs. I ate a leg of chicken and my stomach gurgled to sleep angrily. I keep having the slimy mental image of chicken in my hands and my mouth. Oh, but Stevie and Danny will be proud. And it shouldn't take that long for me to adjust back to ingesting animals, right?

Nassali of the Chima clan.

Saturday morning meant the embarking on two weeks of living with a family in Mukono. With Meema’s duffle bag and a jerry can of clean water I was dropped at Deborah and James doorstep. Sarah and Grace met the van and took my belongings before I even knew they were there. I followed their scurrying, past the crumbling front steps, and was soon cozy with Sarah on the couch in the sitting room hearing of the “Angels” singing trio she and her friends have at Mukono High School. Milly snuggled in to share how she likes literature and writing stories about helping friends who have AIDS, and welcoming refugees from the North. And it really did seem to all happen that quickly- arriving to belonging in a matter of blinks.

Flavia, Winnie, Isaac, Sarah, Milly, and Grace are my sisters and brothers (four girls, two boys- can you guess which names belong to the boys?). Within my first three days with the Nyonyi’s they have all left for boarding school. Sarah left notes in places we are still discovering for us though, and most of the schools are easily within visiting range. I plan on thanking Sarah for the notes in person when I stop by her school on my way home soon.

Monday evening was my first 40 minute walk back home from campus and Grace ran to meet me as I walked down the last dirt path. Arm-in-arm we past one of the hogs. There are at least three oinkers that I see regularly- one pink, one black, and one a polka-dotted mix. On my way to campus in the morning they are usually wallowing prostrate in the mud, and greet me with a hearty trill. Do they know they are greeting Nassali, named for the cleverest woman in the tribe? That is my Chima clan name, given by my homestay Daddy on Sunday morning after I brought him his tea. Homestay mom likes me to bring Dad his meals, as he is always pleased with my attempts at Luganda (the language) and Buganda customs. Interesting note: supper is eaten much later here than the 5- 6:45 time slot at Gordon. Gordon’s dinner is comparable to our evening tea. We ate past 10 pm both Saturday and Sunday, but since the school week started it has been served by 9. And I am thankful.

In response to the several comments I’ve received surprised at perceived bitterness and frustration, I want to quote part of a previous post: “I fumed with fact after distressing fact. Then I was pressed back into my place by the reminder that it is easier to get angry than be humbled.” I would argue that I have never been as constantly bitter or frustrated in my posts as Caleb would like to assert. I hope that I have presented the hope and joy and beauty I experience daily alongside sadness and frustration. I know I have no right to bitterness or anger- only humility and commitment. Nor did it take coming to East Africa for me to feel much of what I have felt. I am reminded more than I make discoveries; affirmed in ideas where reserved hopes of being wrong hid. I do not think I have been kicking the fridge of blundering foreign policy and atrocities, even though I repeatedly stub my toes. I hope I have just been attempting to open the fridge door, and even though I braced myself, have been surprised by how cold the air is. Shiver.

Our latrine is outside, across the small cement courtyard we share with the neighbors. I love using it at night. I did not foresee experiencing joy in the need to unbolt the back door to use a pit latrine, with my headlamp aglow and toilet paper in hand. But the view shivers with radiance resonant of David Crowder: “I look into black skies strewn with shimmering dots of light - nights with stars that sometimes seem to hum and buzz with word of their maker. Moonlight you can feel on your skin if you pay really close attention …a touch of remembrance that the sun is shining just as bright as ever and dawn is coming.” No really, you should use a pit latrine at night sometime in East Africa, you won’t regret it.

spring up a well

This semester has already freed me to be more fully myself. Excused from any form of history or back story, I find myself singing more. Dancing more. Quieting my frustration, and laughing more. We laugh a lot. It is a precious commodity to the emotional welfare of this wonderfully draining semester.

The last ten days were spent in the beauty of Rwanda. With green mountains towering overhead and mounds of rice piling on my plate at every meal, we visited churches, sat with speakers varying from the Bishop of Gahini, representatives of World Relief and Cards From Africa, legal reps from the Gacaca Court System, the Mufti and Reverend Emmanuel Gatera. Each day was full, and I paint a mere sliver of reflection here.

Rwanda is best known for the 1994 genocide of more than 1 million people. Less publicly known is the way genocide was rehearsed in the years leading up to the “Final Solution,” with the exile of 700,000 Tutsis 1959-1973 (result of ethnic cleansing encouraged by Belgian colonists), and the “mini- genocides” that occurred: October 1990, January 1991, February 1991, March 1992, August 1992, January 1993, March 1993, February 1994. The political world knew genocide was coming and on 6 April 1994 it was instant. Among the most disturbing things I learned were of the churches, convents, and schools turned into killing centers. Pastors herded their congregations into house after house of God, to purposefully turn around and watch death win: Nyarubuye, Kibungo- 20,000 dead; Nyamata, Buyesera- 10,000 dead; Nyange- 2,000 bulldozed with church. The genocide left over 300,000 orphans, with over 85,000 children at heads of their households. At least 500,000 women were raped by men known to be HIV/AIDS positive.

General Dallaire, UN General in Rwanda, estimated that as few as 5,000 troops could stop the genocide. Instead, by fall of 1994, refugee camps bulged with over 2 million people.

Ibyangywe na jenoside. Devestation.

I fumed with fact after distressing fact. Then I was pressed back into my place by the reminder that it is easier to get angry than be humbled. I shook my arms and turned my eyes upward to see the life that shunts forward in the mountainous beauty of Rwanda. The depth of the wound Rwandans unveil for those willing to peer testifies to their unconquerable hope. Their need for us to move forward in humble recognition that we take part in the very crime that caused genocide in Rwanda and continues to cause it all over the world: the crime of self-interest.

Leaving The Murambi Memorial Centre I wrote in my journal:

I see my mannerisms mirrored in those of the Rwandan genocide victims: sleeping hands curled quietly under a face, just the way I drift away each evening. But these quiet hands are white laced with lime, and this face is not gently drifting into rest. Hundreds of bodies, room after room, of white skeletons. Rid of the skin that deemed them fit to die.

This place is so beautiful- each ride gasps at the landscape. Yet, it is not the beauty of the mountains that seek out God in me. It is the depth of pain. A yearning for some relief to the struggle to stand in the knowledge of such evil. The presence of such evil.

All I can smell is lime. All I can see is white. Empty sockets stare at me.

I left Rwanda the same in at least one way- in awe of the country’s beauty. The same mix of surprise, joy, and frustration at each “mzungu” I hear yelled in my direction. The same admiration for each man or woman carrying a world unknown to me atop their head.

And that is what so much comes down to- this is a world far and wide unknown to me- over my head and I’m without the neck to lift the weight. Still my heart aches to try though, prods my hands and feet to move forward in placing bits and pieces above my snow-white complexion. Like the snail that climbs Mount Fuji, I urge to continue breathing in these volcanic Rwandan mountains, but slowly, slowly.