Muzungu in the Mist

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.