Well folks, my post-Peace Corps life has more or less taken shape and I just turned 30, so I figure its an appropriate time to reflect back, take stock of my experience in Africa, and spit out those put-a-bow-on-it comments I promised back in January.

First, by way of providing a quick update, I am…

...happily re-employed at the Federal Transit Administration, coordinating the delivery of Obama’s stimulus money to the very worthy providers of public transportation in America’s majestic Rocky Mountain west and golden northern plains.

…thoroughly enjoying sharing a home with the most specialist, bestest, making-me-giddiest girl in the whole wide world.

…a proud owner of a brand new Mostly Yellow Lab puppy, who shows little interest in eating Larry the Cat, and who – nearly three months into our cohabitation – has yet to eat any of my flip-flops either.

… lamenting a World Series that doesn’t include the Rockies, but thankful that those Rockies timed their miraculous resurrection and clearly-unstoppable-until-it-wasn’t-anymore run to a championship with my relocation to Denver a few months back.

Add it all up and I’m just swell. Super swell.

Anyways, so a few weeks back, after an honest day’s work…sitting on the couch next to my girlfriend… with the dog napping on the floor… and with baseball on the TV… I realized just how different my life is now as compared to my time in Uganda. By the time I left my little volcano-nestled village, “work” had become this sort of abstract concept to me, something in which I could only vaguely recollect engaging at some point in my distant past, in a land far, far away. My girlfriend was someone who existed to me almost exclusively in the form of international text messages and once-every-couple-of-weeks emails. Dogs were pests to be exterminated; I saw maybe a half-dozen my entire time there. And for a Peace Corps Trainee, watching baseball on television was a pleasure requiring a clandestine escape to the capital city in the middle of the night.

While I wasn’t in Uganda as long as I planned to be, I was certainly there long enough for it to feel normal. So as strange as those circumstances described above might sound, each of them were genuine realities for me. And it really only took about a month in-country for them to feel completely not-strange; along with things like sitting on the lap of a stranger and next to a live chicken on the matatu ride to town to buy a toaster.

Ahh, matutu rides… I actually miss ‘em. Now, having to strategically dehydrate myself to facilitate the following day’s self-imposed piss embargo for the 12-hour, get-off-the-bus-at-your-own risk trip from Kampala to my village? Not so much. However, Most Things Uganda, including my bucket-baths and my hand-washing of clothes, I miss. Not so much because of those things in and of themselves – although I will admit to taking a sort of sick pride in performing those tasks – but mostly because they came along with all kinds of other good things. Things like farmer’s markets sans crepe stands, $1000 paintings, and other pretentiousness… the serenity that comes from time being so nebulous and from living life at no particular pace… and just the overall simplicity of an existence that includes plenty of big-picture hardships to be sure, but none of the crap that taints my day-to-day life in America. Things like absent-minded drivers on cell phones, having to shave my face on Monday mornings, or sharing a hemisphere with Ann Coulter… I was very much at peace in Uganda; and in ways that are impossible to recreate back in the U.S.

To be clear, on balance, I like my normal life here and now better than my normal life there and then. I didn’t change that much. I don’t look down my nose at my countrymen or my native culture. I didn’t emerge from my experience in Africa thinking Americans are “out of touch” or “spoiled.” I think the United States is a great country, I don’t think it got that way because of blind luck, and I think the existence of America and Americans in general has done humanity worldwide far more good than bad. I’m proud of my country and I’d rather live out my days here than in Uganda.

But here’s the amazing thing about Uganda that I didn’t expect and won’t ever forget: those people are freakin’ happy. They laugh, they smile, and they genuinely appreciate life for life’s sake. Moreover, Uganada’s brand of Happy is utterly and relentlessly infectious. (On the other hand, so are a lot of other not-so-happy things in Uganda, but still…) Ugandans go through life with such good cheer, in spite of the things that so often completely suck in their lives. By contrast, as a group, Americans seem to take precisely the opposite approach. Obviously, these are generalities; there are plenty of “woe-is-me” Ugandans and plenty “look-on-the-bright-side” Americans. But it is my clear and consistent observation that while those Ugandans chug cheerfully their half-full Bells and Moonburgs, us Americans sip sorrowfully our half-empty Keystones and Coors

There are plenty of Americans out there who have truly shitty circumstances, of course. The immutable Law of Averages mandates that for every life lived as Tom Brady, there must be a life lived as the person who cleans Tom Brady’s bed sheets. But that being said, your typical Ugandan, on top of the problems common to many Americans – unfulfilling love life, not enough respect, too little money, etc. – has problems that your typical American could never comprehend. Rampant disease, laughably corrupt government, and the constant threat of deadly violence being brought quite literally to your very doorstep? Check, check, and – Kampala Daily Monitor: “Last week’s riots, killings were very ‘good’ for Uganda - check . But forget all that. If you’re a typical Ugandan, you don’t own a pair of shoes! I wish I were exaggerating. Still, they smile. Damn near endlessly, they smile.

I remember being told a story by an older Ugandan gentleman in Wakiso Town in which he spoke about his reasons for living modestly. I paraphrase: “Yes, I once had a television. But then my house was robbed and it was taken with everything else. That was the not the first time everything had been taken when I was away from my home. Now I just don’t buy things that other people want.”

Sad, right? For sure it is. But this man was laughing. And not in a “well, someday this will be funny and that day is now” way. And not in a “wow, weren’t things really crazy back then?” way. Because things aren’t any more or less crazy now than they were back then. That kind of thing happens in Uganda now as much as ever before. In fact, during my own time in Uganda, I had a bicycle stolen right off my front porch while I was five feet away inside. Two months later, I returned from a few days away in Kampala to find the mortar surrounding my front window chipped away and the bars covering the glass half pried out. And my house was considered to be amongst the more secure dwellings in my village! A typical Ugandan’s life is surrounded by bullshit like this. But instead of wallowing in that bullshit, they make bullshit lemonade and serve it with groundnuts, matoke, and an incandescent smile.

Now, to play my own Devil’s Advocate, I’ve heard a not-so-positive theory to explain this general attitude amongst Ugandans, which I think holds at least a grain of truth. And I’m not talking about a theory based in the idea that “if you don’t know what you’re missing, blah blah blah….” I don’t buy that one. Believe me, most of them know what they’re missing; or at least they think they know what they’re missing, which is probably worse than actually knowing.

What I’m talking about is the idea that their resilient happiness is rooted in a sort of hazy detachment. The theory goes: perhaps things are so bad there, and have been so bad there for so long, that many of them have lost a certain capacity to be hurt, angered, frustrated, and so on. Maybe because those things have become such a regular part of life there, and because life starts getting so tough at such a young age, the emotional nerve endings have just frayed and wilted under the relentless and crushing weight of it all.

A story to lend credence: One of the Ugandans I got to know best while I was there, and perhaps the Ugandan I found to be the sweetest, kindness, most selfless of them all, once told me a tale about a scene he witnessed while standing in line to vote in the last Presidential election. The crux of the story is this: A Ugandan woman was in line to vote along with her husband. She notified her husband that she intended to vote for a different candidate than the one he supported. He ordered her to vote for his candidate. She refused and, as a consequence, was beaten unconscious by her husband. The worst part? That my story-teller – the man I regarded so well – was laughing as he told it.

So maybe there’s something to that detachment theory. And if that’s the case, than even though it’s understandable given the context, maybe I shouldn’t be cheerleading for the Ugandan Way when it comes to the orientation of one’s frame of mind.

Thinking….

Thinking…

Thinking…

Nope. The first me was right. That silly self-sabotaging me can save his energy for getting us both kicked out of things.

Now back on my soapbox. . .

I was struck so often by displays of enduring positivity on the part of your typical Ugandan that I often found myself wondering if it would make more sense for Uganda to send emissaries to the United States, rather than the other way around. Perhaps what they could offer us, including but not limited to improving our skills in attitude adjustment, is far more valuable than what we can offer them, which ostensibly is improving their skills in “development,” whatever that means.

I’m only half-joking. My greatest disappointment related to my Peace Corps experience was what, for me, amounted to an unveiling of the reality about the efforts on the part of outsiders to develop the “Third/Undeveloped/Developing World.” I cringe while I write this – it’s completely antithetical to my bleeding-heart, liberal roots – but I’m afraid I emerged from my volunteer experience a believer in the theory that the vast majority of the aid we’re sending to these countries creates dependence on that aid and, at least in the long run, little else. I’m thinking that maybe, despite our hopes and good intentions, we need to accept that the kind of development were pushing over there just isn’t going take hold in any sustainable way.

Going back to my whole “happiness” diatribe, there are some who believe that it’s the average Westerner’s eternal discontentment with his life that’s driven our economic development. We constantly want more and better of everything, and so we’re always working like crazy to make it happen. Conversely, perhaps it’s the tendency of the folks of the Third/Undeveloped/Developing World towards accepting whatever conditions they’ve been given – by God, by fate, by whatever else – and just making the best of it that slows their economic development. There are plenty of other theories, of course, for why development isn’t happing in places like Africa: political corruption, tribalism and ethnic conflict, lingering effects of European colonialism, and a dozen or so more. I’m obviously not qualified to really dissect of any of them, but whatever the cause of the problem, I don’t think foreign aid is the solution. But maybe my thoughts on this subject are simply a product of my own bitterness at having felt unproductive for six solid months, which maybe is simply a product of me being a crappy volunteer who sucks at do-gooding. Maybe.

Regardless, let’s just say that development initiated, led, and/or funded by outsiders is a long shot. And furthermore, let’s just say that Peace Corps is a really inefficient way to go about it in the first place. (Did you realize that Peace Corps costs about $40,000 per year, per volunteer worldwide? How many wells could we build and maintain with that? How many doctors could we put in-country?) All of that being said, I still whole-heartedly support the existence of Peace Corps. And with the obvious exception of its out-of-site policy, I generally admire the way Peace Corps goes about its business. I think it’s a good outfit. Why is that?

Well, for one thing, as an organization, I believe Peace Corps generates international goodwill in much the same way Lady Gaga generates crappy music: fast, unexpected, and in ways that linger forever in conscious and unconscious minds of those exposed to it. In terms of diplomacy, Peace Corps Volunteers penetrate deeper into the native populace, make more - and more genuine - personal connections, and make longer-lasting impacts on hearts and minds than any formally entitled Ambassador ever could. Would you want a Peace Corps Volunteer put in charge of convincing a dictator to stand down his nuclear weapons program? No, probably not. But if amongst our goals is to improve the way in which Americans are perceived around the world – and it damn well should be – then there’s no better way to accomplish that than through the Peace Corps. At least in my somewhat moderately humble onion.

Oftentimes, a Peace Corps Volunteer is the only American with whom a typical Ugandan will ever come into contact. This is especially true in the rural areas, which is where most Peace Corps Volunteers, by design, are posted. A typical Ugandan might occasionally see a white person, but only from the side of the road through the window of an SUV with “United Nations” or something like “Adventure Tours” emblazoned on its side. I supposed based on sporadic TV-watching or magazines, most Ugandans believe that all Americans are Donald Trump, GI Joe, or Barbie. We all own mansions, employ servants, and none of us have any problems. So when the locals see a Peace Corps Volunteer buying the same food in the same market they do, on a bus instead of being driven, or washing clothes by hand, it makes an impact. When they actually get to know the volunteer as a person, rather than as a type-casted caricature dropped into their world for a few days at a time, it has a profound effect on how all of us Americans are perceived.

One day almost exactly a year ago, I was talking with a man in my village about the upcoming election in the U.S. and about Barack Obama. (The Barack-star, by the way, is freakin’ HUGE in Africa. He’s the most loved person on the continent and it’s not even close. Even before he was elected, locals were naming their salons and hardware stores after him. No joke; in Uganda you can go to “Obama Mart” and buy a machete.) While discussing Obama’s chances, the guy says “Ah, but you Americans will never allow yourselves to be ‘ruled’ by a black man.” Although this was the most bluntly I’d ever heard it stated, this sentiment was pretty common amongst Ugandans. I think it speaks volumes to how our culture is so wrongly perceived by much of the grassroots around the globe; from relatively simple matters like how decisions are made, to more complex issues like American societal values. I don’t know about you, but this is all terribly disturbing to me.

Does it really matter, in practical terms, what the folks out there in the hinterlands of these countries think about Americans? By that I mean: are we safer or better off in any tangible way? I would argue that we are, in all kinds of not-so-obvious and indirect ways, but just suppose that we aren’t. Taking aside whatever benefits, large or small, the host-country nationals derive from the work of Peace Corps Volunteers, what if the only benefit that any American gets out of the work of Peace Corps Volunteers is the effective worldwide communication of a more accurate and positive image of what Americans are really like? Even then, I still think JFK knocked the ball out of the park with this whole Peace Corps idea. Lots of publicly-funded programs and activities yield nothing but non-tangible goods like warm fluffies and smiles. If the Peace Corps is a waste of resources, then so are municipal fireworks displays on the 4th of July. And try telling that to Little Johnny or Sally.

I realize I’m droning on here. And getting a little preachy. I’m not sure anybody’s even going to drop by this page after so many months of inactivity, and if you are still with me, from the very bottom of my heart: I’m sorry. This entry is too long and mostly for my own sake. Along those lines, I just want to de-clutter my mind of a few more thoughts. But feel free to click over to something else. I won’t hold it against you. In fact, I’ll make a suggestion.

Anyways…

Even though it ended bitterly and prematurely, I’ll always be thankful for the opportunity Peace Corps gave me and for the experience I had. A couple years ago I found myself unexpectedly at a crossroads in my life. For the first time in quite a while, I had a chance to totally reassess where I was and what I wanted to do. It’s not so much that I was questioning my long-term aspirations or goals, or even that I felt frustrated or discontented with my life at that point. On the contrary, it was broad fondness of my general existence that made the decision to put that life on hold so difficult. It’s not easy to explain, but I guess the best way I can describe it is to say that, while I was going where I wanted to go, I’d been feeling like my life was more-or-less on autopilot. And when I realized I had an opportunity to switch over and fly manual, I decided I’d better take advantage of it, do some loop-d-loops, and maybe buzz the tower before resuming my original flight plan.

Wait, did that make it more or less clear? Let me try again.

Living and working overseas was something I had considered back in college – first with study abroad as the vehicle, then later with Peace Corps – but ultimately passed on. I had good internal justifications at each decision point, but in both cases I ended up thinking that those decisions were bad ones; or short-sighted ones, at least. Eschewing study abroad was one thing – that was a trade-off between one selfish desire and another: an adventure in Europe vs. not missing a semester’s worth of killer college parties, a tough call I’ll always be able to forgive myself for. But dismissing Peace Corps was mostly about cowardice and the thought that it was just “this thing other people do.” In addition to all the personal benefits, considering all of the amazing things embodied by Peace Corps service, in particular the volunteerism and charitable work to benefit the ultra needy, it was something that always kinda bugged me. And regret’s a bitch of a thing to live with.

At this moment, I can honestly say, perhaps for the first time in my adult life, that I am completely regret-free. And I’m a happier person than I’ve ever been. That’s not a result of Peace Corps alone, but Peace Corps is a big part of it. And while I never felt like I accomplished much while I was in Uganda – at least not in the way of development – it was anything but a waste of time. Perhaps because of the environment I was in, or perhaps simply because of the endless hours with little else to do but stare at a wall in self-reflection, I have a much clearer idea of who I am, and where and how I fit in with the rest of the world. And the perspective I gained while living in Uganda will impact how I think and feel about virtually everything I see and do the rest of my life. Peace Corps didn’t change me, but it did certainly add elements to my life and to my soul that would have been absolutely impossible to get in any other way. So much of this is cliché, and you know how the rest of the cliché goes, so I won’t repeat it here, but the thing is: it’s just so, so true. I will always look back on my time in Uganda as perhaps the single most profound experience of my life.

Sigh...

Well, that’s all I got. Blog over. Thanks y’all for riding along!

For those of you unfamiliar with the tale of the man after whom this blog is named, at one point in the story, Don Quixote, the great romantic adventurer, the saver of maidens in distress, “the man” of La Mancha - and a bit of loon - meets and engages in epic battle with his nemesis, which he believes to be an evil giant but which is, in reality, a windmill. He loses. Well, my friends, in a bit of literary irony, I myself have met and been conquered by my windmill. And its name is Blog.

My tale ends more or less thusly...

Over my recent Christmas holiday, I and my girlfriend, visiting from abroad, traveled about to a great number of splendid places. Over hill and under dale, we frolicked about and “did what.” (Uganglish for “hung out.”) Those travels were posted on a blog, which was read by Peace Corps, which landed the hinny of yours truly squarely on the proverbial hotseat. You see, a Peace Corps Volunteer, even on his own free time, even when his organization’s office is closed, must seek permission from Peace Corps to leave his assigned community. I did not.

I find the genesis of my demise somewhat ironic given my pre-Peace Corps attitude on blogs. If you’ll refer to my initial post, I have always been somewhat suspect of the blogosphere. I decided to engage in this exercise in personal publicity only after contemplating what I thought would be my reality here in Uganda in terms of the means of correspondence at my disposal. I have to admit, I’ve come to enjoy having this excuse - and this vehicle - to express myself in a open forum, but I still find it ironic that, given my initial reservations, it was a blog that become the beginning of my Peace Corps end.

Anyways, back to our hero’s story…

After being summoned to Kampala to meet with Peace Corps to explain myself, and after submitting a statement in my defense, I hunkered down and awaited the decision of the powers that be. I despised my exile to Peace Corps Purgatory and waiting for the final verdict was agonizing. It was nearly three weeks I spent in that limbo; the verdict was long in coming. But for that, I do not feel aggrieved. My case was complex.

The rule in question was one about which I’d already expressed to Peace Corps staff my misgivings and even outright contempt. I’ll spare you the philosophy (although will be happy to share with any interested seeker my thoughts about request). Suffice it to say that I felt absolutely no contrition with regards to my actions themselves. And I said so as part of what I consider to be an articulate, well reasoned, and thoughtful statement to my superiors. I am not predisposed to break rules for the sake of breaking rules. I am no rebel, I have a cause. And I won’t speak mistruths just to get what I want. While I believe my honesty was appreciated, my overall posture, I’m afraid, was not. Add to that the fact that my entire training group had been put on notice after half our number were discovered to be away from their sites without permission not two weeks pervious, and my prospects were decidedly bleak.

At the same time, dismissing an otherwise model volunteer is no insignificant act. Taking the accused transgressor’s own personal interests out of the equation, there is the fact that the recruiting, transporting, and training of a volunteer represents a substantial investment of money and time. And while letting a rule-breaker off the hook may make it more difficult to effectively enforce that rule going forward, at the same time, to expel that rule-breaker in hopes of maintaining credibility is also an act that deprives a blameless community of a volunteer. It is a complex question with no good answers. Putting he who administers my little corner of the Peace Corps universe in a position where he had make such a decision was something I did lament, was something about which I did feel sorrow and regret. And I said that in my statement, too.

Ultimately, I was given a choice. I could resign, or I could stay. But I could stay only if I agreed to conditions that, in my opinion, were wholly unacceptable at best, and altogether inappropriate at worse. Again, I’ll spare you the philosophy (although, once again, interested seekers need only inquire within). Suffice it to say that both my sense of principal and my concern with my own day-to-day sanity and ability to be effective at work made the choice I was given a false one.

And so my Quixotic Adventure to the Source of de Nile comes to an abrupt and early conclusion. While I am deeply troubled and critical of the rule that was my undoing, I hold no ill will towards any of the Peace Corps staff here in Uganda. I knew the rule. And while I never imagined my conscientious objection to that rule would come to this, I respect completely Peace Corps staff’s right and obligation to enforce their policies as they see fit. I am pleased to report that I depart Peace Corps having formed a strong mutual respect with my aforementioned administrator and with each of us sincerely wishing the other all the best as our paths diverge.

As for what’s next, I’m not sure. I’m debating two options. The first involves tapping my Bachelor’s Degree in Economics. I got great grades in Economics back in the day and can draw some absolutely killer graphs. I thought I might lock myself in a closet full of text books, notepads, a few mechanical pencils, and a headlamp, and not let myself out until I solve the riddle of the capitalist business cycle and resurrect our poor nation’s economy. The second involves running a Ugandan food cart in downtown Denver.

Before I shut this bloggy thingy down for good, I intend to post one more entry. While I didn’t ask for my Peace Corps misadventure to end now and in this way, I am nonetheless at “peace” with this outcome and feel like I got a great deal out of the experience. I learned a lot about how people go about their work and play at the other end of the global economic spectrum and I found out a lot about myself in the process. I think I came up with some new theories about life, which are probably total crap, but they’re mine and I like them. I think I’ll try to organize all that abstraction in my grey matter and then, after realizing it’s all ridiculous, starting over, and coming up with something totally different, dump it all out on virtual paper as a capstone of sorts. Aren’t you excited?!

So last week I ventured out on my first work trip. A co-worker and I went to a town called Bushenyi to meet with some other non-profit organizations who are undertaking water and sanitation projects similar to ours. The meeting itself turned out to be, for the most part, a long bitch session. Normally, I don’t get much out of such get-togethers, but in this case, being the new kid, I actually found it pretty helpful in that I now have a much better understanding of the kinds of hurdles that exist in this line of work – from lack of follow-through by volunteers, to poor upkeep/monitoring, to outright government corruption. But today’s commentary will focus on the travel, not the meeting itself.

Originally, we thought we might be able to complete the trip in one day. It’d be a long day – Bushenyi is about six hours by bus/car from Kisoro by way of Mbarara – but potentially doable since we could leave Kisoro as early as 5am on Friday and the meeting was only supposed to take a couple hours. It was a long-shot, I knew, but since I figured that, worst case, I’d just have to stay one night in Mbarara and then could get on a bus first thing Saturday morning, I could get away with just packing a toothbrush.

Oops. First off, the meeting got shifted back to Saturday morning. Then it started three hours late. Then the meeting went long. After having lunch in Bushenyi at about 4pm, not reaching Mbarara even until twilight, and being convinced to wait for a free ride back in Kisoro by a partner organization instead of taking public transport (I was told we would leave at 9am – we left at 1pm) my fate was sealed: three full days on the road (for a single half-day meeting, mind you); one pair of undies.

As I relate to you the story of my trip, I will occasionally sprinkle in a bit of compare-and-contrast to what would have been a typical three-day work trip in my former life as a federal employee. I found myself doing a lot of that in real-time over those three days; plenty of time to stare out the window at the passing scenery and think.

I awoke at 4am on Friday in order to meet Charles, my travel companion, at the post office in town. We had to start sniffing out bus tickets early because Friday is a popular travel day to the capital, Kampala – the same direction we’re headed – and the buses would probably fill up early. In my former life, I’d have had my arrangements booked online weeks, if not months, ahead of time. Even here, we could have bought tickets the day before, but Charles doesn’t like to do that because the bus companies don’t always honour them, he says; best to make sure you’re actually sitting on the bus before you pay anybody anything. Unfortunately, it did, in fact, turn out to be a busy travel day; all buses full, no spaces for Charles and me.

We eventually managed to get on a matatu (mini-bus taxi) that would take as far as Kabale (half-way to final destination) at around 8am. Matatu rides cost about the same as bus rides, but are far less comfortable because they put between 18-24 people on a vehicle designed for 14. Our manifest that morning included a woman who was anxiously trying to catch up to one of those aforementioned buses, one that had left an hour earlier with her baby inside. I guess she had exited the bus and left the baby momentarily to relieve herself and came back to find that the bus had left. She was hysterical, of course. I still have no idea what happened after we parted ways in Kabale – how that story ended.

Anyways, after a three-hour layover in Kabale, Charles and Imade our connection via bus to Mbarara. Back home, I’d have had at least four cups of coffee in me by now, along with an Aunt Annie’s pretzel. Also, I would typically have purchased a little sleeve of those flavoured almonds to snack on during the plane ride. Here, I bought roasted maize and bananas through the window of the bus from street vendors in the towns and villages we passed through.

Our hotel the first night in Mbarara was clean and safe, but very, very basic. There was a bathroom, but no running water. The hotel staff would, however, bring a bucket of hot water from the kitchen upon request. I requested. Back home, after showering, I would usually go seek out the closest Thai restaurant, treat myself to a gin-and-tonic or two back in the hotel lounge, and then fall asleep with ESPN on the TV. Here, I ate millet, went back to my room, lit a candle, and started at the wall until I was bored/tired enough to fall asleep.

Charles and I met some folks from a local partner organization the next morning for the ride to Bushenyi. There were seven of us in that Honda Accord –a woman with her baby in the front, along with the driver, and then four grown men in the back. Back home, I would have either gotten on the subway or taken a cab by myself. The meeting was supposed to start at 10am. It started at 1pm. Afterwards, we all piled back into the Accord and made it back to Mbarara at about 5pm. I tired to get on a matatu in a last ditch effort to make it home that night, but just missed it.

Mbarara is hot. I was sweaty, something I never really experience in Kisoro, and had no clean cloths to put on. I decided that if I had to stay in Mbarara another night, I would make it my mission to find an affordable hotel with a hot shower. I did, and checked into Room #1, which I thought was kinda funny. It was my first hot shower in over three months and worth every penny. The water actually looked dirtier coming of my body, as if it were actually working better than the bucket-bathing I typically engage in. Probably not true, but I certainly felt cleaner than I had in a long time. Mission accomplished. The next order of business was finding a decent place to eat some Indian food and drink some gin. I was half successful: had a great dinner (the Indian food in Uganda is actually very good – some say the best Indian food anywhere outside of India), but no gin.

I was hoping to take another long, hot shower the next morning, but sadly, the hot water was off. In a defiant act of protest to the Gods, and as a matter of principal, I skipped my bath that day. I figured the stench from my now three-days-worth-of-sweat-filled cloths would have overpowered my clean skin anyways. What I did next was actually exactly what I would have done on the last day of a work trip back home: go and buy a cup of coffee, eat a scone, and read the local paper while waiting for my ride back home. It was an unexpected treat and I relished the sense of normalcy.

That ride home, remember, was supposed to leave at 9am. I was ready and waiting at the designated meeting place at 8am. Again, we left at 1pm. I got back to Kisoro just before nightfall on Sunday. I’ve never loved or appreciated my nice little hometown in the mountains more than I did that evening, when we crested the pass between Kabale and Kisoro and I caught, for the first time in three long days, a glimpse of my majestic friend, Muhabura.

One last note in way of comparison to that typical work trip back home - the difference in cost. Uganda is, of course, a lot cheaper than the US, but I often forget about that. When I first got here, I was always doing currency conversions in my head whenever I bought anything, big or small. I’d see a price tag for something, marvel at the low cost, and think to myself, “Wow, I can afford that!” which was often not the case. In my mind, I was still spending in Dollars, but unfortunately I had already stopped making Dollars and started making Shillings instead (I get about $300 a month to live on here). My first month in Kisoro, I overspent and had to live for almost two weeks on about $20. I pulled if off, but not by much. Now, I think almost exclusively in Shillings. But I was thinking about Dollars again towards the end of this trip. Here’s the tally with approximate US Dollar equivalents based on the last exchange rate I saw:

Transportation to Bushenyi: 18,000 USh / $9

Food/Drink, Day 1: 6,000 USh / $3

Hotel, Night 1: 16,000 Ush / $8

Food/Drink, Day 2: 10,000 Ush / $5 (splurged at Indian restaurant)

Hotel, Night 2: 30,000 Ush / $15 (splurged for shower)

Food/Drink, Day 3: 8,000 Ush / $4 (splurged for scone)

Transportation to Kisoro: 0 Ush / $0 (we hitched)

Grand total: 88,000 Ush / $44

The budget for a typical three-day work trip back home was over $1000.

I probably won’t check in again until after the holidays, so to all my friends and family back home…

Merry Christmas!

It’ll be very strange spending my favourite holiday so far from Kalispell, Montana, my parents’ home and the place I’ve celebrated Christmas each of the last 20 or so years save one. But thankfully, I’ve got some amazing things planned for the next couple of weeks and, more importantly, an amazing person to do those things with. Christmas in Uganda will be just fine. Just fine, indeed.

I’ve been in Uganda nearly four months now and I’ve already gotten way more out of this experience than I thought I would. I’ve already accomplished a great deal in terms of grassroots diplomacy and cultural exchange. I’ve already learned a lot about myself and like the subtle changes I see in my personality as a consequence of living here. And I’ve already had a ridiculous, almost embarrassing, amount of fun. Just a few days ago, I hiked to the top of 13,500-foot volcano through a misty jungle alongside a machinegun-toting Ugandan, stood in two countries at the same time, and ate the tastiest stale, half-frozen peanut butter-and-honey sandwich of my life.

It’s been a good four months.

But with my belly full of good Thanksgiving fare and my soul full of good Thanksgiving company, I nonetheless lay my head down to sleep last Thursday fully conscious of the sad fact that I’d not really done any real work here. And it’d been weighing on me. I’d been going to work bright and early every day, but I hadn’t actually accomplished anything that I could honestly claim had any value in terms of contributing to the quality of life in Uganda - you know, the whole main-reason-for-having-come-here thing.

On Friday and Saturday, though, I think I might actually have made a difference. I spent those two days training two separate community groups how to design an advocacy campaign (basically, a concerted effort by common citizens to influence public policy and compel their government to act). It’s a topic I felt qualified to discuss and, more than that, I just relished the opportunity to teach a group of motivated adult learners. These last couple of years, I’ve really come to miss my days as a Teaching Assistant back in graduate school and it felt good to scratch that itch.

Anyways, besides the actual work itself, I am further energized by the fact that the objectives of these two committees - the reasons these groups of people came together in the first place - are genuinely important. In the case of the first group, the goal is to improve and/or relocate the “lagoon,” which is what the locals call the sewage plant in Kisoro Town. It’s not really a treatment plant like we’re used to in the States. It really is like a lagoon. It’s a massive breading ground for mosquitoes, which spread malaria, the number-one killer in Uganda. It contaminates the drinking water, which is arguably an even bigger problem here. And there is anecdotal evidence that people from outlying villages often wash vegetables in the adjacent stream - contaminated by the lagoon - on their way into town to sell those vegetables at the twice-weekly market. Yikes. The goal of the second group is to bring safe drinking water to the roughly 10,000 people of their sub-county who currently have to settle for the dirty, disease-causing variety they get from unprotected streams and ponds. This is pretty fundamentally important stuff, right? So, it’d be pretty cool if the tools I gave them have even a small positive impact on their ability to achieve their goals, right? I think so. And that makes me feel good. And feeling good about my work-related life here feels damn good for a change.

Moreover, in the case of the training I delivered to the latter group, I got to feel super “Peace Corps-ish” in the process. The training took place in Murora Sub-County, about 12 km southeast of Kisoro Town down on the border with Rwanda, which means I’m riding a bicycle to work that day. The new bike my organization gave me when I got here was stolen off my front porch in the middle of the night the second week I was here - despite my having locked it to the railing - so now I’m down to a decrepit version of the kind of bike model that isn’t reliable even when brand new. I realize not long into my journey that my front brake is completely broken, which sucks for me, but is, if nothing else, a source of much entertainment for the villagers who get to witness my already very conspicuous self descend in a clumsy, obviously uncontrolled, cacophony down the steep, rocky roads. I take some satisfaction in that. About halfway there, my left pedal falls off. Luckily, on my way out the door that morning, thinking “just in case,” I had tossed a Leatherman tool in my bag. I use it to cannibalize one of the two nuts on the right pedal as a means to reattach the left one. My working theory is that if a pedal has at least one of the two nuts with which it was originally endowed by its creator, then the pedal will continue to function adequately. Kinda like us humans and our kidneys. I’d say my theory ended up being about 70% correct.

Anyways, I do make it to Murora Sub-County Headquarters to deliver the training. Murura Sub-County Headquarters is a three-room barn with a tin roof. I use masking tape to adhere sheets of butcher paper to the concrete wall and scribe upon them with an assortment of permanent markers. The green one doesn’t work. The blue one leaks all over my hands. But still, the information is conveyed. I even use some local language here and there. On my way back to Kisoro Town, my left pedal falls off again. I put it back on again. I get lost, but I’m not worried because Muhabura, the towering volcano I would hike the following day, is always visible and it keeps me oriented. In fact, it got its name for fulfilling that very purpose; Muhabura means “the guide.” And, besides, all roads in Kisoro District lead to Kisoro Town and I’m confident I’ll get there eventually. I do. But not before stopping to eat lunch, left-over chapati from the night before, perched atop a short stout stone wall amidst some corn stalks. When I finally get back to town, I notice my hands are completely covered in two things: grease from my perpetually broken bicycle, and blue ink from the leaky pen used at the training that that perpetually broken bicycle nevertheless managed to get me to.

Staring down at my hands, I feel a sweet satisfaction in having had what I’d envisioned, prior to coming to Uganda, to be a typical Peace Corps kind of day.

I hope I have more days like that.

So, this past Saturday evening, I’m on my way back from a very pleasant day in Kabale Town – one featuring a delectable Indian lunch, as well as a toaster purchase about which I’m quite excited – and I find myself in one of those surreal moments I occasionally experience here that remind me just how strange my life has become.

The mini-bus taxi carrying me home – built and regulated (rather ineffectively) by the Ugandan authorities to carry 14 passengers but, in this case, carrying 23 (I shit you not) – stops in a village about halfway through the journey to facilitate a collective pee break. My bladder’s in good shape, but I’m anxious to get out and stretch my legs. And to massage the brand new inch-deep dent in my ass inflicted upon me by the randomly protruding metal rod on which I’d been sitting the last two hours.

The place is incredibly rural, but presumably due to our mostly unobstructed position at the top of the high mountain pass, my cell phone is able to establish a connection with an unseen tower and, by extension, the information superhighway. I receive a text message from my pal Cory back in the States. We’re playing against each other this weekend in our fantasy football league and he’s providing his analysis of our match-up and briefing me on the ramifications of this week’s results on our upcoming playoffs.

So with my nose buried in my Nokia, my thumbs working furiously on my reply, up walks this Batwa villager. The Batwa are pygmies and incredibly poor; poor even by Ugandan standards. This particular Batwa is sporting a absurdly tattered 2nd-hand (or 5th-hand?) suit jacket, a dirt-encrusted, ripped-to-the-thigh pair of capri pants, and a bowler hat. He comes in at about 5’3”, and at that loftiness only because of the rock he, with his full-sized, bare feet, is perched on. Of course, he asks me for money.

Being at this point thoroughly engrossed as I am in matters of critical importance back home – there were playoff scenarios to digest and pre-game trash-talking to dispense – I instinctively begin to form a response along the lines of “Hey Dude, hold on a sec, I’ve got this big game this week and gotta finish a text message.”

And it is at this moment when I realize just how bizarre – how surreal – my life often is here. On top of a mountain, close to if not right smack in the heart in the central business district of the capital of the Middle of Nowhere. Surrounded by destitute Pygmies, beautiful misty mountain twilight, and my clown-car colleagues, pissing in plain view on the side of the road. And then there’s me, engaged in conversation with my buddy in South Dakota, literally on the other side of the world, about to issue some witty declaration of my inevitable Week 11 victory and the crushing of his hopes to defend his fantasy football championship this season.

This is my life.

P.S. On a (relatively) quick note. Also communicated in this exchange of text messages was a request by my friend to register shorter but more frequent blog entries. This would be especially helpful, he expressed, in light of my proximity to the troubles in next-door Congo and the dangers to which I’m at least perceived to be exposed as a consequense. Being the devout newspaper man that he is, Cory put it this way: “USA Today Style, man!” While I am as yet undecided as to the colorful charts and graphs, I’ve decided I’ll do my best to comply with his request. However, that same friend has also in the past described me as a “verbose (expletive),” which is entirely accurate, so we’ll see how it goes. I make no promises. Or guarantees. Or pledges. Or oaths. Or vows. Or statements containing assurances….

Oh, and regarding that rebel activity in the Congo, those of you who care for the wellbeing of this hapless do-gooder can rest assured that I am quite safe here. There are lots of nice Ugandan military men with machine guns standing guard at the border. And even if that were to fail, Peace Corps has a contingency plan for my evacuation – a plan featuring a helicopter, complete with code words and everything. Awesome, huh?!

It means “I am not a tourist” in the local language, Rufimbira. I’m hoping this utterance and others like it will serve me well in my efforts to integrate into my new community. If I’m to be effective in my work here - and also to minimize the degree to which I become a target for robbery and other crime - it is vitally important to establish clearly with the citizens of Kisoro the fact that I am a resident and their compatriot for the next two years. This is a challenge common to Peace Corps Volunteers everywhere, but in a community like mine, I’m afraid the challenge might be a little more… well, challenging. Most people here see my skin color - white as the driven snow soon to be featured prominently in the lives of many of you readers back home - and assume I’m one of the many western tourists who breeze through town on their way to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest or Mgahinga National Park seeking an audience with the mountain gorilla.

So when I say “Umez’ute?” (“How are you?”), the denizens of Kisoro often reply, in perfect English, “I am fine. Give me money.” The children are especially prone to produce that verse. It’s as if they’ve been trained or given a script. And given the steady stream of Dollar and Euro wielding prospects frequenting these here parts, perhaps those children’s parents have done exactly that. Oh, but fear not! I am up to the task. I passed my Peace Corps language test with flying colors and my Rufimbira vocabulary is pretty damn relatively impressive when it comes to introducing myself and explaining what I’m doing here. Don’t believe me? Behold! I sayith unto that child: “Ndava America ariko nzatura muri Kisor imyaka ebyiri. Nkora adahembwa kandi simfite isente nyinshi.” (“I’m from America but I will be living here in Kisoro for 2 years. I work for free and I don’t have much money.”) Impressive, no? Surely, a command performance such as this - a transcendent exhibition of cross-cultural, bilingual, and just generally totally sick, bills-paying skills - would illicit an inspired response, right? Right? The staple fruits of my labor: a pause, a blank stare, and then “You give me money.”

But, again, that’s usually just from the children. And half the time, they’re not even wearing pants (the fact that they can get away with this but I can not actually makes me incredibly jealous, by the way, but that’s the subject for a whole ‘nother blog entry). The adults, upon hearing a Muzungu speak in the local tongue, typically light up like Times Square on New Years Eve, or like Las Vegas on Tuesdays. These people, the pants-wearing majority of Kisoro, typically then let loose such an avalanche of Rufimbira, that I am compelled to employ my trusty, go-to rejoinder: “Vuga buhoro buhoro! Ndikwiga.” (“Speak slowly! I am learning.”) They’re more than willing to oblige. In fact, some offer to become my personal tutor. They’re so happy, so honored, I believe, that a white person is even making an effort. Even the few other westerners here from Canada and Brittan on long-term volunteer assignments don’t speak the language. Unlike Peace Corps, language is not part of their program’s pre-service training curriculum. Furthermore, I, along with the two others from my group stationed here in Kisoro, constitute the first Peace Corps delegation to the district since the genocide in Rwanda some 15 years ago. I therefore reckon that we could very well be the first three white people with any degree of proficiency in Rufimbira the locals here have come across since - watch out, symmetry ahead! - Positive K dropped the album The Skills Dat Pay Da Bills (which, incidentally, featured a hit single that would go on to inspire this blogger in ways that are still being quantified - the subject of a whole ‘nother blog altogether).

Anyways, Peace Corps is so, so right to beat us senseless with language during the two-month training period about which I‘ve often complained. I may not ever develop a sophisticated enough vocabulary to actually conduct my work in the local language - it’s unlikely I’ll even ever speak Rufimbira as well as the average local speaks English - but just being able to introduce myself, greet people, buy food at market, bribe the police, and all the other regular day-to-day type stuff in the local language, does so much in terms of ingratiating myself to the people of Kisoro, which, again, is my primary goal at the moment.

So, speaking of goals, what have I actually been doing here the last couple weeks? What have I accomplished? Not much, to be honest. Or maybe a ton. I can’t decide. Both my supervisor and my counterpart - the person with whom I’m supposed to be working on a day-to-day basis while I’m here - were out of town the entire first week I was in Kisoro. And while I spent the majority of last week in the office, officially working, I’m definitely still meandering through the obligatory orientation phase, which I think is the same everywhere. It features lots of grinning, nodding, saying “okay,” and just generally pretending like one knows between three and five times more than one actually does. So, there’s been that. Also, I’ve been: 1) exploring the town, 2) designing furniture (everything is custom made here, which is pretty cool for anal-retentive folks like yours truly), and 3) doing my best to perfect the art of crafting comfort foods from locally available raw ingredients. All three things are going splendidly so far. I’d say I’m about 70% of the way towards what I’m now confident will eventually be a killer burrito, complete with handmade tortilla and do-it-yourself refried beans.

I’ve also gone on a couple field trips. Last Sunday, I walked the 13 km (about 8 miles) from Kisoro Town to the Mgahinga National Park gate at the base of Mount Sabinyo, whose peak marks the confluence of the borders between Uganda, Rwanda, and Congo. It’s five hours round trip by foot, and leads one past many farms and through several small villages. And, because I was walking and not riding on a bike or in a car, I also got a chance to talk with and get to know many of the local residents, who would walk with me for some distance on their way to their own destinations or before turning around and returning to their homes. Then, later in the week, I went on a bicycle tour led by my aforementioned counterpart, Charles, to the rural areas to the southeast of Kisoro Town en route to the health center at Lake Chahafi, which lies right on the border with Rwanda. In the case of the first trip, I really just wanted an excuse to get some exercise (I’ve gained 5 or 10 pounds in Wakiso and am determined to ditch them in Kisoro). The official purpose of the second trip was to become familiar with some of the new water resources - wells, protected natural springs, etc. - my organization has received funding from the government to monitor. In both cases, the primary mission was accomplished, but what I really gained from the two excursions was a much better sense of how life is lived for the vast majority of the 250,000 or so residents of the district.

So, how is that life lived? Well, in stark contrast to what I’ve realized to be the relative luxury and homogeny of Kisoro Town, that’s for sure. A visit to the village will expose a traveler to all the beauty and all of the blemish, all of the dignity and all of the disgrace, all of the gaiety and all of the gloom of this place. Rural Africa is the “Real Africa,” I think. For better and for worse.

First, the scenery, at least in my particular version of Rural Africa, is picturesque. There is the lush landscape and the mountains, of course - their grandeur is readily apparent from any vantage point in the district. What I dwelled on and appreciated in much greater detail on my field trips, though, was the terraced farming, which I know I mentioned in the entry previous to this one. I’m not sure what it is I find so remarkable about it; perhaps the synergy between the innate beauty of the natural setting and human beings’ ability to mold it to suit various wants and needs. I love golf courses back home for the same reason. Also impressive is the sheer practicality. Ugandans know agriculture; and they waste not an inch of the very fertile soil here. The people claim that they can grow anything in Kisoro, and they do so on what seem to me to be near vertical planes. It’s amazing and certainly something to be respected and admired. And during my first excursion, I witnessed much merriment, as well. It was a Sunday and for many people here, religion is the only thing they have besides their families and their farming. Church is something to look forward to in ways I’m not sure are entirely common elsewhere. In the villages of Kisoro, going to church is like going to the football game, the rock show, or the water park. There was drumming and other music, big beautiful smiles aplenty, and just general good cheer. Life is brutally hard in Rural Africa, but not on Sundays.

Alas, interwoven in this otherwise serene human tapestry are the all too common perturbences endemic in Africa. It’s like static marring a favorite song on the radio. In the foreground of that lusciously green, misty-mountain-dominated mural are dilapidated and crumbling buildings serving as homes, hospitals, and schools; the settlements are littered with trash, debris, and even human waste. While some people are seen tirelessly working their fields, others are heard shouting in slurred speech, drunk by noon, apparently taking advantage of the generosity of others to survive. And when church services conclude, when the music stops, the populace returns to the reality of their lives: lack of access to drinkable water and to basic medicine, that their child must stop attending secondary school because there is no money to pay the school fees, and the fact that at that very moment, they are walking the rocky, muddy path home on swollen and deformed feet because they have no shoes.

This is the Real Africa, I think. The best of and the worst of this place is out in the village. And while I know that what I’ll continue to witness there won’t often be pleasant, I nevertheless feel fortunate that I’ll be exposed to it regularly as part of my work here. I’m thankful I am not a tourist.

Way back in the 60’s and 70’s – in the dark days of yorn, when our species lived without iPods, Diet Dr. Pepper, and Natalie Portman – a woman by the name of Dian Fossey spent many years traipsing about the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda, Congo, and Uganda studying the habits of the mountain gorilla, eventually producing Gorillas in the Mist, a book later to be made famous in movie form staring Sigourny Weaver. During those times the venerable Ms. Fossey chose to base her adventures from Uganda, she stayed at the Traveler’s Rest, a guesthouse past which I’ll soon be walking everyday on my way to work.

The town is called Kisoro (you senders of letters/packages that spoil me so, please take note of new address on left). It’s in the extreme Southwest of Uganda just a few kilometers from the borders of both Rwanda and Congo. Its high altitude (who’d have thought that I’d move from Denver, the Mile-High City, to East Africa and gain altitude in the process?!) and surrounded by volcanoes, terraced farming, and awesomeness. The scenery is breathtaking, the temperature perfectly suited to me, and although Kisoro itself is kinda small, between the regular flow of tourists coming to track gorillas and the fact that it’s the market town – and the karaoke town – for a district of a quarter million people, Kisoro is also relatively well stocked with goods, services, and opportunities to channel Enrique Iglesias.

In addition to a couple others from my group, I will be sharing Kisoro with three other westerners. Two of them are volunteers with VSO, which is the English/Canadian/Other? version of Peace Corps (they promote sustainable development with an accent). One of them is your classic beer-swilling, happy-go-lucky Canuck. He might not know it yet, but we’re going to be great friends. The other is an English girl with whom I’ve already gotten into a very interesting – but nonetheless one-sided and decisively won – argument about the quality of music now vis-à-vis the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. I won’t tell you who took which side, but let’s just say that she’s every bit as wrong and misguided as was her peoples’ King George some 200 plus years ago. And the repercussions might be just as severe. But I’m quite confident that when – not if, but when – I establish political, economic, and cultural hegemony, she and I will be fine.

The organization with which I’ve been placed is called the Good Samaritan Community Development Programme. It’s a small organization, but they work on a lot of different things throughout Kisoro District, including but not limited to: economic development, gender equality, HIV/AIDS and general health education, water sanitation, and metrosexual awareness (metrosexual awareness project pending approval/funding). Based on our conversation earlier this month, I think it’ll be a good fit. They’re not expecting me to do much of the actual community outreach or field work itself, which is good, because I don’t think I’d be very effective in that role. (Can you imagine?! Me: "Ummm, yeah sure Herbert, that sounds like an effective treatment for acute Tuberculosis to me. Take two!") Rather, they want me to help them get organized in the office, which I think I can do and do well. One of the things I’ve been asked to help with is writing proposals for new projects and the funding to support them. Also, Good Samaritan just got a computer and internet access, and they want me to help them take better advantage of those resources. (Finally! An opportunity to prove once and for all the link between ESPN.com and the promotion and ongoing maintenance of public health!)

The only drawback is the distance of Kisoro from the capital city, Kampala, which is the location of the Peace Corps office and also the only place in the country I can get certain things I’ll not want to live without for two years, like blue cheese and the opportunity to reconfirm the fact that structures can be built in excess of two stories. The journey to/from Kisoro is ten hours and the bus is always cramped; in fact, it won’t leave until it’s full, both the seats and aisle. While there’s no getting around the fact that it totally sucks, those ten hours of suck do at least come with lots of free culture. I became intimately familiar, for example, with the characteristics of one nice Ugandan’s right armpit. Then, on the return trip, early on a crisp pre-dawn day, as we wove our way through the beautiful mountain pass between Kisoro and Kable, the woman seated in front of me opened her window and began to enjoy rather intensely, it seemed to me, the clean mountain air and the gorgeous landscape in all its majesty. After a few minutes, she even leaned her head outside of the bus, apparently to facilitate her want – nay, her need – to take in all that the misty mountains of this place, the "Pearl of Africa," had to offer that fine morn. Duly inspired, I began rearranging my bags in preparation to follow suit. It was then that the woman who was the spring of my inspiration vomited. The Ugandan sunrise is somewhat less grandiose when viewed through the smear of what I deduced was the remains of the previous night’s posho and beans.

All this reminded me, however, of how great the food is here. I love food. Cooking it, eating it, cleaning it off the front of my shirt. . . Being able to eat well here, especially as a vegetarian, was one of the few anxieties cluttering my mind in the weeks and months leading up to departing on this fool’s errand. It was therefore with much relief and elation that I discovered the food to be not only tolerable, but downright delightful. Most Ugandan meals come heavy on starches – potatoes, rice, and/or the local staple food, matooke (boiled and mashed-up bananas) – all of which is pretty standard and not all that worthy of comment one way or the other. What’s great are all the sauces; and food here is always served with a sauce. Ugandans can tolerate a lot of hardships – remember, toilet seats are a luxury – but dry food is not one of them. Bean-based sauces are pretty common, as are eggplant and other vegetable-based sauces. And all of them are good. But what I love – and love in a way that might be considered by some Ugandans to be "against the order of nature" and therefore deserving of a life sentence – is the groundnut sauce. Groundnuts are peanuts, but groundnut sauce is not at all like peanut sauce. It’s savory, not sweet. And it makes my Muzungu heart go pitter-patter. Oh, and I’ve never tasted tomatoes, green peppers or onions like this in my life. The passion fruit! The pineapples! Oh my! Even soy sauce is in ample supply. I already miss some things; Cholula Hot Sauce, for example. That, by itself, means that I’ll be living with food-related depression about 30% of the time. On balance, though, I’m thrilled with my menu here. In fact, I’m honestly worried that this is too good to be true. I find myself wondering when I’ll have to pay the proverbial piper. I’m one of few people in my group not to have gotten sick or had some kind of ghastly reaction to the local food/water. Are the Diarrhea Gods just biding their time, gathering their forces for a blitzkrieg of epic proportions on my poor, defenseless intestines just one hour into my next ten hour bus ride? Was that woman sitting in front of me on my last journey to Kisoro in reality an angel of digestive death?

Speaking of death, I got one step closer to it this past Monday, my first birthday in Uganda. While I’ve been informed by friends and family back home that several packages are en-route, and have reason to believe that at least one of those packages is currently sitting in the Peace Corps office in Kampala left undelivered to me here in Wakiso, sadly, I had no presents on my actual birthday this year. That is, unless you count the malaria pills Peace Corps gave me. Monday is my day to take my weekly prophylaxis and, theoretically, it helps protect me from a potentially fatal disease. Whatever. I guess that’s almost as cool as a new head lamp.

Last time I checked in, I promised to deliver something more insightful related to the reason I’m here in the first place: to make my best effort to help the people of Uganda improve their quality of life. Despite the levity of my commentary to date, there are serious problems here. The life expectancy at birth is about 50 years. Disease is rampant and people die needlessly of preventable ailments on a regular basis. Kids gather contaminated water from dirty ponds because there is no alternative. There’s an average of 30,000 people for every doctor in the country. Ambulances are usually pick-up trucks. Women here literally line-up in the hallway to give birth and then take their newborns home on the back of a motorcycle that same morning. The current government has provided security, no small feat in East Africa, but almost every other government service requires a bribe be paid. An entire generation has been lost to HIV/AIDS and the war in the north, making orphans and child-headed families the norm. And just generally, the sheer poverty is striking. Uganda is the 15th poorest country in the world, give or take a few slots depending on which all-knowing international organization you trust the most; people here live on an average of about $900 a year. It’s incredibly difficult to witness all this, to want to "fix it," but feel so powerless. But the people are truly inspiring in their ability to be joyful in the face of all this hardship and suffering. I definitely haven’t been here long enough to really wrap my mind around it all, so I’m hesitant to say too much more at this point.

. . . there is a post office, but you cannot buy postage.

I’m really not sure where to begin. I feel like I’ve lived a year in these last few weeks and it seems like the new friends I’ve made have been my friends forever. I already have a ton of interesting stories to tell; stories about my environmentalist Ugandan Daddy, about making apple pie on a charcoal stove, about witnessing an almost-death-by-matatu . . . But I’m short on time and working from an internet café with early-90’s-speed connection to the web. So, I think I’ll skip the stories and cultural analysis for now and instead just provide a little glimpse of my day-to-day here in Wakiso, Uganda.

I wake up at around 6:00. I need no alarm clock. This function is provided organically via rooster. It’s actually a pretty cool way to begin the day. Next, I get totally pumped about living in rural Africa. This involves me crawling out from under my mosquito net, scratching my head, and saying to myself: “Well, at least it’s not rural Hell.”

Josephine, the lady of the house and probably the hardest-working person I’ve ever met in my life, has breakfast on the table by 7am. Breakfast is usually bread, hard-boiled eggs and tea. The tea is taken with piping hot milk provided just minutes beforehand by a cow that sleeps 20 feet away from where I do. Fresh. Freaky-Deaky Fresh. And also pretty freakin’ awesome, if you ask me.

I’m out the door for training by 7:15am. It’s a 45 minute walk to the class; 25 minutes if I ride the bike Peace Corps gave me. But I usually walk. Walking is more relaxing, I can take in more of my surroundings, and it also gives me a chance to study on the way. I hear “muzungu” every 5 to 10 seconds. Muzungu is what the locals – and especially the children – call white people, usually with much excitement, big smiles, and sometimes even while jumping around waving their arms in the air. Sweet! I’m now a novelty and totally famous! And I didn’t even have to sleep with Lindsay Lohan!

My school day usually begins with language. I’m (theoretically) learning Rufimbira. This is the language of Southwest Uganda. There are only 3 people in my language group, so we each get plenty of individual attention from our instructor. I think I’m picking it up okay, but it’s hard to tell for sure. It seems like it’s been been forever since I learned an obscure Bantu-derived African language, you know?

In addition to language, we’re taught about things like Ugandan history/culture, HIV/AIDS, water sanitation, safety/security, and so on. Some of the sessions are pretty lame and/or not very useful, but for the most part, training has been interesting. My brain usually hurts pretty bad by lunch time, which is when we’ve been getting our shots. Bring it on Yellow Fever! Me and my new antibodies have a can o’ WhoopAss ready for ya!

Training wraps up around 5pm. Sometimes I head straight home and relax. Sometimes I linger in town and do some shopping for things like toilet paper and kerosene (what else does a man really need?!). Sometimes I head up to the Choice Guest House and drink beer with my new Peace Corps buddies. From what I can tell, Uganda has three mainstream mass-produced beers, all of which come in 500ml bottles (that’s about a beer-and-a-half for you stubborn, arrogant, ounces-using Americans back home (see, I’m totally culturally adapting!)). I don’t have many functioning beer-detecting taste buds left, but my sixth sense tells me that, if nothing else, all things being equal, beer-and-a-half beer is a much better than regular beer.

We eat dinner late; I hope for 8pm, but usually it’s closer to 9pm. My Ugandan father is quite worldly and very into politics and history. Our dinner conversations are always interesting. We don’t have electricity, so we eat by candlelight – take that Al Gore! – and we usually listen to BBC news on the radio. I may not learn Rufimbira, but my British accent is coming along nicely.

After dinner, I bathe. After bathing, I wonder what the hell I’m doing here. Just kidding. Actually, despite the fact that we have no running water, the fact that I don’t have warm water of any kind, and the fact that my bathing infrastructure consists solely of a bucket and a drain in the corner, I’m quite satisfied with the Ugandan bathing program. Here’s how it works: 1. soapy rag, 2. non-soapy rag, 3. pour water over head. (I shaved my head down to about a 1/8 inch, so I can skip the shampoo stage.) It’s amazing how clean you can get with so little water. I’ve gotten it down to about 3 liters per bath. No shit. It’s pretty neat. And by “neat,” I mean, “I’d give anything for a hot shower.”

Then I hit the sack.

We have training 6 days a week; Monday through Saturday. Sundays we have off, so that’s my laundry day. Doing laundry by hand takes several hours and my poor dainty hands are literally bleeding by the end. I do my best to rub out stains with my palms and knuckles and then just massage out the general dirt/odor. My philosophy: if it smells clean, it is clean. I use 3 buckets: one for washing, one for the first rinse, and then one for the final rinse. If I’ve done my job well, as I wring out the item of clothing after each stage, the water coming out will be slightly less cloudy than it was after the stage previous. I can usually pull that off, but it’s virtually impossible to get all the soap out at the end. So, no matter how clean the item is, it will still feel a little stiff and off-putting; kinda like Alex Rodriguez.

I feel morally obligated to mention pooping. Each morning I reaffirm the prime directive I issued to my digestive system two weeks ago: Thou shall deliver product only between the hours of 8am and 5pm. This is when I’m at the training center, the premises of which includes two flush toilets. Toilets that sometimes even work! If my gut adheres to the prime directive, I feel so much at home while conducting my business that I often feel compelled to sing “America the Beautiful.” Of course, we don’t choose such things, such things choose us. So if nature calls in the early morning or in the evening, I get to play Pit Latrine! One plays Pit Latrine more-or-less how one plays Porta-Potty, except that in Pit Latrine, the difficulty is increased from Novice to Expert by virtue of the fact that instead of a seat, the contestant gets a brick-sized hole in a concrete floor. Successful squat-and-hoverers get to complete the game as winners (or at least as non-losers). Those who miss the target must go onto to the Bonus Round, where the only prize is a greater appreciation of how lucky he/she was to have once had running water.

So, that’s my life at the moment. I’ve spent a couple days in the capital city, Kampala, enjoyed a few days up-country in a place called Kibale visiting a currently serving Peace Corps Volunteer, and will have one or two other events/excursions to break things up over the next few weeks. But for the for the most part, this will be my daily routine at least until training concludes the first week in October and I move to my permanent post.

I’ll try to check in again soon – maybe in a couple weeks after I find out exactly where I’ll be placed and what I’ll be doing – and will perhaps share with you something more culturally relevant or socio-economically profound. I really do feel like I’ve had quite an interesting experience already, even having only been in Uganda less than a month. Some things have been really hard, of course, but I’m really happy to be here and am so glad I decided to do this.

Off I go, kids!

I’ve had a great last couple months in the States (and managed to gain about 10 pounds in the process), an absolutely amazing vacation in South Africa (my African "pre-func"), and a very pleasant last week with the folks in Kalispell. Tonight, I gathered together the 80 pounds of America I’m allowed to take with me and, immediately upon concluding this blog entry, will head down to the corner and enjoy the hell out of what may end up being my last Mexican dinner for many, many moons.

I’m feeling neither hesitant nor anxious. I suppose that’s a good thing, although from what I’ve read about the Peace Corps experience, it isn’t at all normal and I’ve actually started to wonder if the fact that I’m not at all worried about anything is, in itself, something I should be worrying about. I’d like to believe that my lack of mental anguish is due to the substantial thought and reflection I engaged in prior to accepting my invitation - that I’m at total peace with all this because I got my mind right and good-to-go early in the process. On the other hand, I think the relative nirvana I’m enjoying could just as likely be a product of some unfortunate combination of naiveté and pure arrogance. Huh.

In any event, I’m freakin’ stoked. I’m so glad the day is finally here. Wish me luck!

And for the love of god, please send Cholula Hot Sauce!

Well, I’ve done it. I’ve gone ahead and chucked away my cushy government job, will soon be selling off all my worldly possessions for pennies on the dollar, and am about walk away from an all-around stellar life here in fun/beautiful Denver, Colorado, to go live in a no-electricity/no-toilet African village and work for free. Yep, I’m getting my liberal on and joining the Peace Corps!

I applied way back in December, really just to keep my options open for later. I knew the application/clearance process could take awhile and that I wouldn’t have to make an actual decision for some time. And, to be perfectly honest, at the time I hit “submit” on the application, I would have placed the odds on me actually doing this at 3 to 1 against. But as I advanced through the process, and as I read more and more about the experiences of current and returned volunteers, I found myself getting incredibly excited. The thought of becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer and all that entails: the challenge, the cultural experience, the opportunity to be an ambassador of my country and to do such meaningful work . . . It enveloped my mind. Waiting for an invitation to a specific country was agonizing.

Finally, just last week, I got an official invitation to Uganda. I couldn’t have been happier. Besides having a rich culture and intriguing history, Uganda is packed full of mountains, lakes, and rivers. Just like my beloved home state of Montana! So that means no cultural adjustment needed for me, right?! . . . Right?

Anyways, I’m going to be working primarily with a non-profit outfit - an outfit to be determined, but likely one focused on community health - as an advisor on matters of organizational development, which includes things like management techniques, strategic planning, etc. I might also get involved in grant-writing and other fund raising. The idea is to improve the capacity of the organization’s local staff to help them help themselves now and in perpetuity. You know, the whole “catch a man a fish, feed him for one day; but teach a man to fish . . . “ thing. I can’t wait to get started. I’d take off tomorrow if I could.

All that said, leaving Denver will be difficult. Despite my excitement about Peace Corps generally and Uganda specifically, I took all the time allotted to me by Peace Corps to make my final decision. I’m fortunate to live in the best city in the country. (I really believe that.) I have terrific friends and a good job that provides me with more than enough disposable income to do all the things I love to do. And then there’s Larry. He’s not my pet; he’s my roommate, my sounding board, my friend. I feel like I’m abandoning him, which I take very seriously and which almost put the brakes on this whole thing. I’ll be forever grateful to two of my aforementioned terrific friends, Chrystal and Peter, for providing a loving home to Larry while I’m away. There are only a handful of people on the planet I’d trust to do that, so the fact that two of those people so graciously and so without hesitation offered their home. . . Well, it’s immeasurably important to me; I literally can not thank them enough. Giving up my life here will be painful in a lot of ways. I recognize fully that I may end up regretting leaving it all behind to go to Peace Corps. But in the end, I concluded that I certainly would come to regret it if I didn’t go.

So, this is my blog. I’ll do my best to keep it up to date while I’m away. I’ve never had a blog before and figured I never would, to tell you the truth. Erecting an elaborate architecture for my musings on the World Wide Web feels a little presumptuous. On the other hand, I found the blogs of currently serving Peace Corps volunteers incredibly helpful when I was trying to decide if this was the right thing for me to do, and so I thought it’d be appropriate to “pay it forward” to any random strangers who might stumble upon this page researching their own potential misadventures. Also, from what I gather, my access to the outside world via the phone, the internet, or even the internets, is likely to be both sporadic and in brief increments, so for those of you who are going to be interested in what I’m up to, this may turn out to be the most practical way for me to communicate with you (as opposed to composing and sending multiple individual emails or making several phone calls, which would be prohibitively expensive, I’m afraid).

I’m leaving on August 4th. It’s my intention to squeeze two years worth of American-style fun into the next two months. After that, I’ll be off for about three months of intensive training in-country, and will then travel to my “permanent” site, which will become my home for the subsequent two years (at least presumably). There are still plenty of unknowns: where that permanent home will be, whether I’ll be living on my own or with an Ugandan family, the particular organization with which I will work, whether or not I’ll be victorious in my daily battles with the fist-sized, malaria-infested mosquitoes, the extent to which I’ll be able to effectively manage my fantasy football team from the bushes of Africa, the effect that the sudden lack of chips-and-salsa in my diet will have on my very will to live. . .

Giddy up.

-Ryan