blog practice

ok, it has been a long time since i did anything with my blog. in fact, i believe i was sitting in my half empty apartment in baltimore the last time i logged into this thing. but that is all about to change now! i am converting all of my previous mass emails to blog posts soon and will make a point of posting here for the rest of my time in uganda. in the meantime, enjoy this glorious thunderhead.

in the middle of a great book...

for most people, the real world ends on the threshold of their house, at the edge of their village, or, at the very most, on the border of their valley. that which is beyond is unreal, unimportant, and even useless, whereas that which we have at our fingertips, in our field of vision, expands until it seems an entire universe overshadowing all else. often, the native and the newcomer have difficulty finding a common language, because each looks at the same place through a different lens. the newcomer has a wide-angle lens, which gives him a distant, diminished view, although with a long horizon line, while the local always employs a telescopic lens that magnifies the slightest detail.

- ryszard kapuscinski, shadow of the sun (a book i highly recommend to anyone looking for an extremely thoughtful, well-written, and captivating book about africa)

glorious sipi falls

yesterday, a group of us went up into some incredible mountains east of here to a waterfall to chill out and spend the night. it is like paradise - perfect temperature, no mosquitoes, incredible colors (red clay, green vegetation, blue sky, white clouds, gray/brown rock, waterfalls), amazing views, and a sunset from on top of a peak looking out over the never-ending plains to the west.


i had already been to this place once before and hiked to the base of the main waterfall (see above), so i wanted to do something different. a few of us went with a guide through the small village nearby, walking up a dirt road to a small trail entering some matooke (green banana) fields. he told us there was a path to a "lookout" that he could take us to but we would have to pay 1000 shillings to pass through someone's property. no big deal, so we continued on through an impressive maze of small walking trails through these matooke fields, past thatch-roofed mud huts, women washing clothes and children carrying water, cows and chickens milling about...it was a surreal glimpse at a life that is far from anything i have ever experienced...an amazing degree of isolation and resilience, i guess. after 10 or 15 minutes, we reached a clearing onto a rock face which dropped several hundred feet straight down below to a patchwork of matooke and coffee fields on a plain leading up the continuation of the mountain range. i counted 5 waterfalls on the side of the mountain facing us before an old man, the owner of the land, came out to greet us (and collect our shillings). i greeted him in one of the local languages i know and he was shocked to hear a white person greeting him like that. it was great...one of those "i can't believe this is my life" moments. and so far, there have been many here in uganda.

got my v-card!

hello once again everyone!

i am wrapping up my first week "at site" (my new home). it has been much more eventful than i would have imagined, mainly because i have been scrambling around between my village (kisoko), the nearest town (tororo), and the coolest city i've been to in uganda (mbale) looking for things i need. i wonder if you can find those places on google maps or ms live local or something. i'm not really able to try on these machines :)

I HAVE A NEW ADDRESS NOW!

send all letters, packages, and rubber chickens to:

******************
rick barley, pcv
po box 881
tororo, uganda
******************

anything sent previously will end up in kampala and i will have to retrieve it myself when i return there (sometime soon, i hope). so unless otherwise directed, send all mail to the new tororo address!

you may notice that i am a pcv now, no longer a pct. i received the big V last week during our swearing-in ceremony at the ambassador's house in kampala, (see group photo above) shortly before our many-hour hour ride in a pickup truck containing 6 people and 3 volunteers' worth of luggage. we got in an accident, too. t-boned a cow. it was amazing. and the best part was when the cow just got up and walked away. i thought it was dead!

my new home is pretty great, though still filthy. i have yet to spend a full day there to really lean into a much needed cleaning project. we painted the place on monday, which made a huge difference...now i need to clean up the cement floor and kill all of the termites. i was fascinated to see them in action yesterday...they start on the floor at the base of a (freshly painted) wall and move upwards, making a trail of dirt or something brown on the wall. it starts as a single line (about 1cm wide) near the floor and branches off in many directions to form what looks like a dirt rendering of a leafless tree on my wall. greaaat. check out the photo below!


lots of scrubbing and killing to do. and speaking of scrubbing, i've taken my first few african bucket baths (i was spoiled to have running water at homestay). the first one took about 40 minutes until i discovered the "splash-n-rub" technique, which is key. oh, and my house has electricity! (though it's mostly off and problematic when on...)

i bought a "sports bike" (mountain bike) yesterday in mbale. it is very used, but serviced well, i think. the gears shift a bit unpredictably, which is fun. the best part is the name on the side of it: INTERWOLF. i love it. it will be my means of transport for most of the next 2 years. riding the wolf.

i will keep this short(ish) for now. thanks for all of your messages, calls, and mail. i'm feeling pretty good (though eating less now that i need to hunt and gather on my own) and surprisingly busy for just arriving. i leave today for a 2 week workshop at one of the training colleges...so by the time june comes, i will have stayed at my house only 3 nights. oh, and one more thing about the house...it will have a GUEST ROOM (with bed and 'skeeto net). so do not fear the accommodations if you want to visit (and you should!)

i hope you're all doing well...talk to you soon...