Boy Meets Blog

Remember the Boy Meets World episode when Corey and Topanga are on their honeymoon? They go to an exotic paradise of some kind (Hawaii, perhaps?) and Corey doesn’t want to leave. Ever. So they stay. Of course, by the end of the thirty minutes, with sufficient commercial break-age, he realizes vacation ceases to be such when it becomes perpetual. Topanga misses “home.” Tropical paradise became less exotic.

I look up at the trees here and remember (an incessant theme in my blog, perhaps) I’m in East Africa. Palm and banana leaves swept across the sunset outside Josephine Tucker (my dorm) and I didn’t notice until I looked at pictures. I often let this “exotic” escapade fall into mere school and life. I think of Corey and Topanga realizing how far vacation is from reality, and wonder if this experience will persist in the reality I am bound to re-enter in a mere two months.

Then I realize that Topanga’s name is Topanga. Where did that name come from and why did it take until now for me to realize its, well, weird?

Last Saturday I flew through the air over a Class 5 white water rapid called “Big Brother” when our raft flipped. Our instructor, Roberto, had never flipped a raft on that rapid in his six years of experience on the Nile. The next day I watched several USP students bungee jump 140ft, dipping their upper halves in the Nile as they climaxed (div-axed?) their initial decline. The jump is free if you do it naked. No one took the offer last weekend, but apparently it’s not a rare occurrence for the boaters below to hand the jumper a towel for modesty as they take the straps off their ankles.

In two days we leave for rural home stays. As Uganda’s population is 80% rural, it seems next week will be my first interaction with “typical” Uganda. I was told I will probably be in a hut, sleeping on a floor. I will definitely not have electricity or running water. I may be 30-45 kilometers from the nearest white person. Here I go…

Look your fill.

I sat on the banks of the Nile; wrote Linda a letter and listened to SongaDaySibs under a thatch-awning. SongaDay haunts me every time I try to concentrate. I turn on the iPod shuffle, inherited from that melodic sib, and attempt to read “Mission to Kala” for literature class, or write a letter to the ‘rents and suddenly mio fratello is strumming and humming in my ears. I hit the halfway point like a brick, lonely at the idea of returning to a continent and a campus that has gone on without me. My dear roommate Aimee is from California. Sarah, who’s frequent “meow” still kicks up my feet at the idea of an actual cat at my heels, is a Chicago chick. Goodbyes seem far away, until I think of how quickly and richly this time has already passed. And those new friends will at least be in the states, n’er mind Mercy, Florence, Nyio… So I find myself pining for home, but only because it seems safer than continuing to invest in what is bound to be left behind. The honeymoon is over. Now I’m choosing to love this, fearful of what leaving love will feel like. Within fear though, there is faith. In that letter written to Mom: “I can’t help but reflect on the past two year’s intensity…In spite of the intimidatingly open future I am bound to faith by what has been incessantly made manifest. Faith that, though unknown, the future is worth waiting for. I’m sitting under a thatch roof, looking out at Lake Victoria and the Nile, joyfully fearful at what could possibly come next.”

My arms are sore from planting grass at St. Stephen’s Primary School on Tuesday. I arrived to start my service project, and was presented with a large metal hoe and pointed toward a grassless red dirt area about a ½ basketball court. Hard, cracked, and dry dirt, aching to be dug and planted so the rag-clothed children could play barefooted on green rather than perpetual red. For the next thirty minutes eight year old boys put my hoe-digging ability to shame. Each girl who kneeled down to hand me a chunk of grass roots incited guilt that I would be bowed down to, simply because of my skin color. Kneeling is a strong form in this culture- my homestay siblings always kneeled when giving our parents anything- representing respect for those older or of “higher” stature. The grass-kneelers reminded me of saying “I love you” to my Southern campers a few summers ago, and receiving “yes maam” in reply. So, I remind myself that guilt is general and conviction is specific- this guilt is a superficial knee-jerk, and I need to accept ‘the kneel’ as oddly, but sincerely, kind.

When we ran out of grass to be planted the project paused until next week. The teacher supervising retrieved four badminton rackets and a birdie, handed them to me, and suddenly the 50 or so boys were clamoring to be the first to play. Yes, at least a 50 students to 4 rackets ratio, with one non-Luganda-speaking mzungu to organize. Thirty minutes later I was laughing amidst them all though, watching this somehow work, and remembered once again that I am in Africa. I stood on a hillside, amidst so many dark faces, looking out at the Mukono dusk, and wondered again how it is that I got here.

“Every evening as the sun went down, the distinct features of the village and surrounding forest merged in dark anonymity, and night spread across the sky like a great velvet cloth, yet scarcely more somber than the tropical undergrowth which it obscured. And every evening, watching this metamorphosis, I thought: look your fill. A darkening picture, perhaps; but look closely, you cannot risk forgetting it. When you remember it in after time, think of your pleasure at recalling every minutest detail, even the infinite gradations of shading in the evening sky, or the bird in the distant forest, sadly celebrating the faithlessness of each fickle day, like a boy weeping for his mother’s death. Think of the grey, neutral banana-trees, their sharp outlines melting into the darkness till they take on the semblance of ghosts. Think, last, of the moon, rising in splendid self-annunciation behind the tangled trees, unlooked-for and incredible, slowly climbing till she rode clear at least, tranquil as a goddess, gleaming, radiant” (Mission to Kala, 51).

I cannot risk forgetting this. Thanks for helping me set it down for remembrance sake.

Minuscule me.

I was the only mzungu (white person) at my friend Florence’s graduation party.

There was a monkey outside my bedroom window.

I took a matatu (taxi) by myself.

The sunset last night made me feel very small.

The stars that followed…I am minuscule.

There are points at which my heart screams and the words that escape are “We’re in Africa right now.”

I know college is the “easiest” time to travel- program, scholarships, educational excuse- but my current frustration is that I have college impeding on my attempt to merely exist in this place. Be present in this place. College also happens to be among the busiest and most confusing times of life (or so I hear). I don’t like dealing with the crunch of papers due next week. I don’t want to pull an all-nighter in Africa! I am thankful for the safety net of program and departure date, just like I was thankful for my brotherly safety net in New York City this summer. Leaving the city I hoped for the courage to move back without such safeties if ever I receive the chance though. Now I hope that someday I may work up the courage to exist outside myself in the ways this semester has pulled me to do, without a safety net.

I hope to exist someday.

Last Friday was a UCU graduation, and my friend Florence graduated First Class in Literature. Saturday I ate lunch at her apartment (beef and rice, yum) before going to “Rest Gardens” with Lucky, Mercy, and Grace to decorate for the graduation party. I blew up balloons and learned how to “make ribbons” for a few hours before donning a dress of Lucky’s and welcoming the guest of honor. As a thank you Florence again had me to her apartment: on Tuesday I sat amidst 6 or 7 Ugandan girls on the floor and ate lunch. Then Mercy fell asleep while I helped Lucky type a paper about the internet. When sleeping beauty arose, she and I walked backed to campus. We are sisters, Mercy and I, because both our fathers are pastors and our mothers are primary teachers.

That’s the kind of existing parade I want my papers to quick raining on. I know, I know- I wouldn’t have met Florence without studying here. None-the-less…

^ Mercy and I after we decorated, looking "smart" for the party.

^Florence and Lucky (the cap-and-gowned left to right) prepare to cut the cake.

MORE PICTURES.

More pictures have been posted:
http://gordon.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2018565&l=2aa05&id=68400086

There are also more in the last album, so check that out again too! (Pictures of...homestay family, more Rwanda, more friends, more precious children...)

Lovelove.

Home is where you take your tea.

Chats about spending four months in East Africa prevailed in my last weeks pre-departure.

Commonly asked question: “Are you nervous about anything?”

Immediate answer: “I’ll do a two week homestay within the first month. And I’m terrified.”

The homestay seemed an abyss of awkward forced social interaction. I imagined myself committing every cultural foe passé; imagined breaking down while struggling to bath with a bucket of cold water in the dark, desperate for a conversation without endless exhausting miscommunication. I didn’t feel as nauseous as I did that June day my songadaysib took a buzzer to my curls, but similar emotional waves crashed. And just like I knew I needed to shave my head because I was scared to do so, I came down on a neutral anticipatory calm the morning homestays began, realizing this was something I also needed to do because I was afraid of it.

“Hello Fear, how are you?” [shaking hands]

Now I am on the other side of homestays, back in my dorm room with my roommate Aimee and my tall white mosquito net. Again this semester gives me an opportunity to reflect on a mere portion of its whole; attempt to make some sense of all the individual moments and whispers each day rises and sets in. But then, of course me and my western worldview would try to make sense of the individual moments. How do I strip myself down to a shade cleaner than my JIK bleached whites, and see the past two weeks in the African eyes of community and participation, rather than individuality?

Western thought is built on the basic notion “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes kicked community in the bum and said we exist because we rationalize. Existence is in individual belief, in figuring out what one believes. The Descartes of African thought may be found in the African Proverb “I am because we are.” I participate, therefore I am. I have been able to talk about the communal focus of this culture for a long time- I studied it, rationalized it, and believed it. Ish. It takes participation to understand, to experience the reprioritization inherent Western understanding must undergo here. Community is not just emphasized. Relationships actually are the priority.

Traditional African thought believes relationships to be the most important aspect of life. What would happen if we were to interact with what we believe? In The Teaching Behind the Teaching Palmer asserts that “the distinction between “out there” and “in here” would disappear; we would discover that we are in the world and the world is within us; that truth is not a statement about reality but a living relationship between ourselves and the world.” As Linda would say, “the reality is” we live what we believe, and no matter how I talk about the importance of community and relationship, I live in a culture of rational thought and deadlines. And I continue to be very pro-rational, analytical thought, but my thoughts mean nothing unless expressed in the experiential nature of relationships. I think, therefore I participate, and therefore I am. I am because we are.

Friday night, my last official homestay night, we took family “snaps” (photos). Mom lent me a traditional Buganda dress, called a gomez, for the occasion. The sleeves of gomezi have princess puffs that are at least 3 inches tall. They are worn with a (often metallic) 8-10 inch thick belt tied around the hips and draping to the floor. And there is so much fabric. It was fun(ny). Participatory. Perhaps in that community of moments I participated in the belief that I belonged in those family photos; I participate, therefore I am Nassali. And I will continue to participate. On Sunday I visited Flavia at her hostel. She introduced me to her friends as her sister. Logically, okay, I'm not Flavia's sister. But on Sunday I was.