where in the world is poo fly? (vol 5)

freezing in regina, saskatchewan, pondering his next move...
...moose jaw?
...swift current?

six strings to work with

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.

timothy's painting of the masked guitarist

dry season is hot!

124 degrees!

i'm not complaining. i was just surprised last weekend when i decided to put my alarm clock thermometer out in the sun to see how hot it actually was. a few moments before this photo was taken, it read 127.5 degrees! this is winter on the equator, and that's ok with me :)

it's been quiet in tororo...

...but not for too much longer.

the holiday malaise is lifting as students return to school and work shifts back into high gear. there has been a lot going on in terms of planning and organizing for the coming school term and i'm excited for the opportunities it will bring. [uganda has 3 school terms beginning in february, may, and september.]

i apologize for the lack of content recently; i've been pulled in many directions and my time online has been brief and sporadic. however, i promise some more news from the work front as my projects develop. in the meantime, enjoy photos from my recent trip to rwanda!

christmas 2008 - rwanda

on the gorgeous, hilly road to rwanda

changing ugandan shillings into rwandan francs

nyungwe: a dense, enormous, mountain rain forest

hacking through nyungwe in search of chimps!

view of lake kivu on one spectacular hillside drive

old man slowly moving up from the kisoro-kabale road

the virunga volcanoes on the border of uganda, rwanda, congo

transportation II: it's the dry season

"if you live in uganda, you must agree to swallow dust."
- boniface

it's been at least a month since the last significant rainfall and i am seated next to boniface, who is deftly maneuvering his late model mercedes, perhaps a bit too confidently, at 160 km/hr through a dizzying gauntlet of potholes, motorcycles, roadside tilapia vendors, petrol tankers, and oncoming traffic. i am seriously beginning to question this particular alternative to public transport when a stall of irish potatoes piques his interest and he quickly pulls over.

for a moment, i can relax.

this is not the first time we've stopped to purchase food; the road from mbarara to kampala is lined with periodic clusters of stalls featuring a particular type of item. one region offers stunningly fresh fruits and vegetables, another potatoes, another fish, yet another beef. it is a veritable "some assembly required" drive-through feast. there was even one stretch of road several kilometers long lined with enormous bathing loofahs jabbed onto the ends of bare tree limbs.

roadside meat vendors await drive-thru customers

boniface had earlier stopped to buy meat, but decided against it after several minutes spent anxiously eying the dozen or so animal carcasses hanging from a wooden beam because he felt like they were likely covered in too much dirt. i guess that's just the additional price you pay for anything on the roadside in this country. where there's traffic without rain in uganda, anything within 50 meters of the road gets coated in a layer of orange dust. green trees turn a ruddy brown, cattle resting lazily on a roadside garbage heap squint and flap their ears against the airborne onslaught, while innocent people choke on the polluted blend of powdered earth and nauseating emissions from poorly maintained diesel engines. this is quite simply not a nice time to move around the country, especially with the windows down, but that's what boniface and i do all the way from mbarara to kampala. i take a few shallow breaths and enjoy the relative comfort of my self-imposed hitching holiday from public transport...

season's greetings from father christmas

as the end of the school term approached at my teacher's college, plans were made for the annual christmas show, which includes drama sketches, readings, carols, and for the first time ever, an appearance by father christmas himself (played by yours truly). i was honored and amused when the show's organizers approached me about the gig and so i eagerly accepted the offer. my costume was a cultural hodgepodge of ugandan formalwear, a pillow to increase my waistline, and an american-style hat and beard. thanks to a pair of muzungu elves and a sack full of candy, it was a great success.

merry christmas to all!

where in the world is poo fly (vol 4)

making benefit glorious nation of kazakhstan

thanksgiving in tororo

lots of food, lots of friends, and one very long table!

on saturday, november 29th, a healthy contingent of peace corps volunteers descended upon tororo town to celebrate thanksgiving. not only was there an impressive amount of delicious food, but everyone got to eat at the same time... off of plates... with their own utensils! typically, a small gathering of only a few people will exhaust a volunteer's flatware supply. but for thanksgiving, we planned ahead!

for a mere 40,000 ugandan shillings ($20-$25),
i turned one of my supervisor's turkeys into thanksgiving dinner!

for the first time in my life, i was directly involved in deep-frying a turkey. under the expert, patient tutelage of a fellow volunteer (from the southern u.s.), i learned the ropes. after injecting the meat with an intense mixture of special spices using a veterinary syringe, i spent most of the afternoon dunking, checking, and replacing chunks of our holiday bird in 10 liters of bubbling vegetable oil. all in all, it was a pretty delicious experience that i hope to repeat someday...

clockwise from top: turkey/chicken, stuffing, green beans,
mac-n-cheese, sweet corn.
not pictured: cornbread, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie,
spice cake, apple pie, and more!

transportation I: injury time

most taxis have a slogan of some kind written on the back.
this is the most appropriate one i've seen thus far :)

since childhood, my brain has been assembling a perception of what i should expect while traveling; this includes such things as the type of cars i see on the road and their frequency, the number of people inside those cars, the speed at which they're moving, the road on which they're driving, the presence of seat belts (or lack thereof), the use of headlights and horns, rules of the road and common courtesy, maneuvers that are considered safe, and the anticipated time required to reach my destination. altogether, this prior evidence is responsible for my current expectations. if everything i experience during a particular journey falls within the scope of these expectations, i am likely to feel relaxed, safe, and maybe even a little bored. but when my senses present something inconsistent with my perception of "normal," i get a wake-up call and my awareness instantly kicks in, whether as a result of being squeezed into the same row as five other adults or perhaps after witnessing a car try to overtake other vehicles around a blind curve. to a foreigner like myself, coming from a country where structure dominates and safety rules are taken seriously, transportation networks in uganda set off a wide variety of alarm bells. after a lifetime of conditioning in the developed world, it's difficult not to feel a little uneasy at times while moving around in a flimsy van stuffed beyond capacity with people, moving at high speeds, dodging countless potholes, guided by the priorities of a driver for whom passing a slow-moving vehicle is apparently more appealing than guarding the safety of himself and his passengers.

why is public transportation so dangerous in this country? for one, ugandans generally do not have a lot of money and therefore tend to take advantage of any income-generating opportunity that presents itself. operators of public transportation are no exception. a taxi in uganda, which is the most common means of transport, typically operates on a specific route making round-trips (e.g. between tororo and kampala). the driver and conductor of a taxi work together to make as much money as they can during a given day, which is obviously dependent on how many trips they can make and how many passengers they can carry. it's not surprising, then, that they pack their vehicles as full as possible and drive them as fast as possible.

the speed of a vehicle in this country is not limited by (enforcement of) the law or even its driver's sensibilities, but rather by the condition of the road on which it is moving. as much as people complain about poorly maintained roads in this country, those potholes provide a natural limit to the speed at which vehicles can move. (un)fortunately, the road between my site and kampala has been greatly improved and, for the time being, resembles a decently maintained two-lane road in any developed country. the problem is that this two-lane road is shared not only by local traffic, but by literally ALL of the traffic that needs to move between the kenyan port city of mombasa and kampala, uganda. this includes tankers, tractor-trailers, taxis, buses, sugar-cane trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, private vehicles and even the president's motorcade. as you can easily imagine, these vehicles naturally move at a wide variety of speeds and frequently need to overtake each other (as often on hills and around corners as on long straight-aways). on occasion a taxi driver may encounter a police checkpoint and slow down, perhaps even buckling his seat belt. but as soon as the checkpoint is passed, his foot again gets heavy on the accelerator and he tosses the seat belt aside.

i find it bewildering that the very same drivers who show absolutely no patience while driving on the road will wait as long as it takes to (over)fill their taxi before leaving or will make countless inexplicable stops along the way. you can imagine how frustrating it is at times to be a passenger in such a system; and when all the taxis look essentially the same, choosing one is a gamble. in most cases, i (along with most people in uganda) choose to take the first vehicle i find moving in my direction. the only time i refuse a ride is if the vehicle is already full and there's no way i can physically fit my 6'5" frame inside. otherwise, i feel compelled to go; there is no way of knowing when another opportunity may come along and my culturally instilled time consciousness says "if you can go now, why wait?" it would be nice to screen taxis beforehand, to know how mechanically sound the vehicle is and how safety (un)conscious the driver may be, but there's unfortunately no way. if you've gotta go, you've gotta go!

goatstock 2008

each october, uganda pcvs gather for their annual halloween party, aka "goatstock..."

which was held this year on the serene shores of lake nabugabo...

where there are monkeys to feed...

wiffleball games to be played...

silly costumes to be worn...

and lots of jumping around...

all of which can easily wear someone out.

proud at last

if uganda was eligible to vote in our recent election, i can assure you it would have been a deep, dark blue on cnn's electoral map tuesday night. the idea that an african man could be freely elected to what is arguably the highest office in the world simply boggles their collective mind. every ugandan i have seen since the results were announced on wednesday morning greets me, not by asking "how are you" but instead "how is obama?" they love hearing americans talk about how happy they are just as much as they love obama himself.

there are many, many reasons that americans should be proud of who they are and where they come from. but i don't think i need to explain how difficult it has been to feel that way in the last 7 years. when our small group of nine volunteers gathered on tuesday night to grill up a bunch of cheeseburgers, bake some delicious apple crisp, and wait patiently on fake leather couches at a nearby hotel for the votes to be counted, there was a growing sense that it was all about to change. swing state after swing state was called for obama and we began doing the math, guarding our optimism carefully. the announcement finally came at around 7am local time, sparking several hours of cheers, high-fives, hugs, tears, and flat out astonishment. as much as we all had hoped this would happen, i don't think anyone was fully prepared for the happiness that comes with knowing we no longer have to use disclaimers or make excuses or feel embarrased to say we're american. we can simply feel proud.

i'm not naive enough to believe that this one election, this one man, will fix all the problems currently facing our nation and the world. but i do believe that this election of this man has changed the course of history. this was an enormous accomplishment and i could not be happier that i was a small part of it.