Another interesting and educational month has passed; I hope
you all stayed warm and healthy! Things in Kisoro are back to normal, we had
another “Hurricane Happy” strike. She left us for about two weeks and traveled
through Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda around Lake Victoria and back to us in
Kisoro for another week of amusement.
She taught a few more classes while she was here and when we
went to our friend Paul’s village just before starting her Sexual Health class,
a cousin of Paul’s asks, “So, what is the class about?” She tells him, “It’s
about sexual health, STD’s and contraception.” His response is, “No, nothing
about contraception, my mother isn’t home right now, but she’s a Catholic and
she wouldn’t approve of contraception being taught at her home.” So, as I choke
on my tongue Happy, hesitantly, but happily agrees not to talk about
contraception. I gaze around at the clusters and clusters of hungry kids and am
startled by how complicated and contradictory Religion can be. How can we not
encourage desperate people to prevent another pregnancy which may be either dangerous
to the mother’s health or perilous to the child’s welfare? A woman dying of
childbirth is too common in Uganda. The lifetime risk of a woman dying from childbirth
is one in thirty-five, that number increasing as the number of births increase,
not to mention the quality of life decreasing for each family member as the family
grows. The rain comes and we all squeeze into the small house, the little wooden
shutters on the one square window in the house are flung open for light and
Happy begins her schpeel. Of course, it’s a much shorter class without the
contraception information, but thanks to Mukaka (Grandmother) it lasts just
as long. Mukaka is so ecstatic about the muzungu’s being there that she just
can’t stop talking! She is constantly interrupting Happy, even standing and pointing,
cracking herself up at some mysterious joke! Of course,
she doesn’t speak English, so she doesn’t understand any of what Happy is
saying and she isn’t listening enough to hear it from the interpreter. When Mukaka
stands and wants to leave half-way through the class, the cousin tries to stop her. I look at him and ask
him, “What are you doing?” He tells me, “She wants to leave, but I told her to
wait.” “No, no, no…” I tell him. “Let her go, she is making it very difficult
to teach by interrupting!” “Oh!” He says and tells Mukaka she can go and she
happily wobbles her way through the dozens of children and few adults there. Happy
and I look at each other with the same astonished look we’ve given each other
countless times and smile. Of all the things I’ve enjoyed about having Happy
here, this is probably my favorite, having someone to share those, “Oh My God!”,
or “Can you believe this?!” moments with! That and the hysterical laughter, I
miss that too!
I’ve moved out of the Reverend’s House and am
renting a
small room in town. It was time for some space and some privacy,
something most
Ugandan’s don’t seem to be aware of. Even now as I sit and type this
people
will freely come up behind me and openly read what I’m writing or
they’ll pick
up my notebook, open it and start reading! Didn’t even realize quite how
unique and
coveted privacy is! Many people grow up in a room like mine, a 12x12
square, cement room for a whole family. Often they hang a curtain across
the center of it to
separate the bed from the sitting room. A family of sometimes five or
six people
all sleeping together in that space, the neighbors share the same
compound, bathing
room and toilet. Usually these rooms are built in two long rows facing
each
other with a gate for security at one end and the small courtyard in
between
the only “yard” any of them have, which is where they cook and do their
washing. The shared toilets and bathing space are a series of four or
five
small closet-like rooms with either a squat toilet or a drain for
bathing.
Everyone knows everyone's business! I can hear the neighbor’s music when
he wakes up, I can hear his conversations when he has company and I can
hear
the whole compound arguing on Saturday morning when the electricity bill
is due
and we all have to pay our share. This has been a whole new experience
renting
a room in town. At the Reverend’s house when we ran out of water, it
hardly
affected me; the maids went to fetch water. When the power was out, they
would
heat my bathing water on the fire and even light candles for me to see!
Now,
when a water pipe breaks or the water mysteriously stops flowing for
three days, it is me carrying my jerri-can to Amazing Grace to
fetch water from the tank or bathing with cold water when the power is
out. It
is a more accurate experience of African Life, and it’s nice to take
care of
myself. The maids felt more like servants to me and that was the hardest
part
about living there. That and eating dinner at 10 or 11 p.m., now I can
eat at a
more reasonable hour and go to bed! It feels good to do things for
myself,
including washing my clothes, which everyone insists I “can’t manage”
but I
assure you, I can manage! No matter how much they shake their head and
insist
I’m doing it wrong, no matter how much they ask about our washing
machines and I
explain them, I continue washing my clothes in my little basin and they
are
clean.ish by the time I’m done!
On top of that new adventure I’ve also strangely
become the
“consultant” for a local hotel/restaurant/bar. This new job of mine has
possibly taught me more in the past month than all of the last year has
taught
me, or at least I’m happy I’ve had the past year of experience in
African
culture to prepare myself for this! There are so many things that boggle
my
mind and amaze me, it is difficult for me to take the job very
seriously! Beginning with the pay these people get. How can I expect
them not to sit around and watch the t.v. all day when they are getting
paid less
than $2. per day to be here six or seven days a week from 7 a.m. until
11p.m.
or maybe even midnight if there are customers? They
usually get one day off each week, but
many of them live at the hotel so it’s spent here anyway and they
certainly
don’t have money to go do anything on their day off. The owner of the
hotel
lives in Kampala and when he hired me, then went back to Kampala one of
my
first assignments was to fire the majority of the staff, there simply
isn’t
enough work for all seventeen of them, so he wanted me to weed them down
to
seven! I waited until the end of the month, paid them all, then sent
most of
them on their way. It went surprisingly smooth, when he was here he told
them
he was cutting back the staff and I reminded them throughout the
month. The real problem came when the owner came back last week-end, he
flew
to Kisoro with a group of business men whom he was discussing major
renovations and
marketing the hotel with. These business men own a very high class hotel
in
Bwindi forest, where tourists go to see the gorillas. The first night
they spent
at “Cloud Hotel”, where a room goes for $900 USD per night!!! Bill Gates
has
reportedly stayed here multiple times, so that’s the time of clientele
they are
attracting. The second night they spent here, at “Kisoro Tourist Hotel”
which attracts a much different type of client! It's a nice enough place
but needs some work and some marketing, we have bad comments on Trip
Advisor from previous staff and management. I am trying hard to replace
them with better comments and working at
training the staff on customer service and cleanliness. Despite the fact
that the owner says he will come this week-end and fire the remaining
staff and start fresh! So, while these high
rollers were staying here, helping the owner with ideas and improvements
they
stayed up until 2 a.m. drinking whiskey and discussing, as you do...when
they finally went to bed, one of
the two white men went to bed, closed his door, but did not lock it. He
woke up
in the morning to his laptop, camera, blackberry, backpack, his 3
million
Ugandan shillings and his 6 thousand USD stolen! Oooooh….not a good day!
After filing a police report they immediately flew back to Kampala.
Later that day, after
bailing the receptionist out of jail and firing a few more people, we
still don’t
know who committed the theft but the new manager is threatening to quit
because
the owner is insisting we fire the one woman who actually works around
here. Judith
is the server, but she runs the show, she opens the place, and closes
the doors
at night, and does everything in between. Whether it’s 2 a.m. or 10 p.m.
she is always the last man standing
and does a great job at it. The irreplaceable must be replaced. Wheeeew,
I need
a drink just writing about it!
For those of you that are concerned I’m never coming home…no
such luck! In March I will renew my visa one last time for another three
months, which means I should be home just in time for a nice Minnesota summer!
Nothing but love,
Bonnie B.
"Life
is nothing more than a stream of experiences
- the more widely and
deeply you swim in it, the richer your life will be."
~Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi
No comments:
Post a Comment