Uganda be lovin' life...: February 2009

wazee aryo (two elders) in the village...

we met for the first time well over a year ago in my old trading center. i was hanging out with the bicycle mechanic and a "saloon" (barber shop) manager when an old man came strolling down the main dirt road strumming the most weathered, beaten-up guitar i've ever seen. he was wearing a new york giants baseball cap and a humble, self-satisfied grin as he sang a song in dhopadhola - something about riding a bicycle, if i understood correctly. the whole scene shocked and thrilled me; i had spent months in the area without ever seeing a guitar aside from my own, let alone someone who could play. it was therefore easy to forgive his immediate request that i bring him new strings from america. in this case, i was not so annoyed; i saw a lot of potential for friendship and exchange and so the following day i left him a set of very nice, long-lasting guitar strings in the trading center.

mzee's original guitar
(i could barely play the thing but he somehow made it sound good!)

his style is a happy, finger-picked kind of blues, performing songs in many languages from the immediate local vicinity to the wider region and even a few vaguely familiar european and island tunes. he plays almost exclusively in the key of C and gets a surprising amount of mileage from its three major chords. his brother also plays, but has clearly absorbed a very different set of influences. having lived in kenya and the seychelles and traveled extensively while employed by a tobacco company, he absorbed a variety of styles and his playing is now seasoned by traces of spanish and reggae. the brothers live about an hour from my house by bicycle and i visit them fairly often, usually once a month, to jam and learn new local songs. my favorite so far is definitely nyir ma nagongera:

in dhopadhola:

nyir ma nagongera kibeyo de be
odikin g'othieno jochomo yo town
nyor'aromo g'alowo ka chamo samosa
alowo, alowo, ango mumienin?

in english:

girls from nagongera(*) are not very good
morning and evening, they run off to town(+)
yesterday i found alowo(#) eating samosa
alowo, alowo, what's wrong with your head?

(*) nagongera is a town believed to be the center of the original jopadhola settlement
(+) town refers to tororo town, i.e. "the big city"
(#) alowo is a common girl's name

after trading guitars

an adhola school of rock...

when joining the peace corps, a person must understand that there will inevitably be many things that are beyond one's control. one of those very important things is the volunteer's site, their home for these two years of service. i've unfortunately seen some very bright and capable volunteers struggling at sites that clearly don't fit their skills, interests, or tolerance for corruption. thankfully, mine is not such a site. i certainly did not expect to be living and working at this teachers college, but my expectations are not necessarily based on things i can control. i was unable to do anything about the fact that my site was shifted away from a place i really loved to one i was initially unhappy with after my improbable return to service here in uganda. but thankfully i was able to recognize that, while starting over again would be frustrating, there would likely be many more work opportunities here than i had found at my old site.

i suppose sooner or later i would have thought of beginning a guitar education project here, at a school which already has a music department. countless times, i was begged by the possibility as students and community members repeatedly asked me to teach them. my answer to their requests was apologetic and sadly repetitive: "i'd love to, but without a guitar to practice on, you'll not be able to learn properly." after numerous such refusals, it dawned on me that i might be able to help them after all if i could only do something about the lack of instruments here. so i wrote a project proposal to begin a small guitar school which was generously funded by my former jazz guitar instructor. through patience, networking, and some hard bargaining, i was able to turn the project budget (for the purchase of only two guitars) into nine guitars - a blend of old and new from a range of kampala music stores, second-hand markets, and departing volunteers.

six of our nine guitars are shown here, including:
- one with the words "j. page led zeppelin" on it and
- one with a built-in speaker and tremolo control (!)

i am currently trying to organize this newfound fleet of instruments and restore some of the more badly treated of the lot. i imagine that a significant portion of them will be kept here at the school for use by the students and college staff, while a few others may go to a youth center or other appropriate community location which can provide security for the guitars and allow students to come for regular practice. in the meantime, i am teaching at the college and inviting aspiring musicians to join me here for training. i have teamed up with the head of the music department at the college, who is working closely with me to learn the basics of guitar playing and maintenance. he commented excitedly as his nyap (weak) beginner fingers gradually became tek (strong) with regular practice. he plays often for his children at home, and one of his sons is quickly learning how to play.

the head of our music department singing
"he's got the whole world in his hands"

individual lessons

word is beginning to spread about guitar lessons here and my students are increasing in number. in every case, they are not only excited by the opportunity, but motivated to make the most of it. they are practicing harder than i would have ever expected and come back to me not only having mastered the assignment i gave them, but bringing with them additional discoveries they've made along the way. for example, more than one student has taken a few chords i've taught and used them to play songs they know from church or school. essentially, they return teaching me songs!

one student of mine is a painter who recently decided to give the guitar a try. like my other students, he is a very determined person and is not discouraged by a somewhat unique struggle to fit several of his very large fingers onto a relatively tiny fretboard to form the chords i'm teaching him. he just fights through it, succeeds, and moves on to the next challenge. when i see investment and dedication like this in my students, it's not hard to imagine that they are chasing something beyond simply making their A chord sound right. not long before christmas, this student gave me a painting of his which ventures to depict the way he feels while playing the guitar (which i think any musician can relate to) - he feels like a different person, like he's temporarily escaped reality to become someone else.