Eat, Pray, Change

Travel changes you.  And the longer you travel, the more profound the change.

Eat, or not eat 

It is 3 a.m. on Saturday morning in Stone Town, Zanzibar.  I've had parts of this post brewing in my brain for a couple of months.  I knew from about 6 months in Africa that my body had certainly changed.  A 55 pound weight loss left me with energy to spare, which I needed every joule to make it through the day, and into the long nights with friends.  When I moved to Nairobi, the demand for that energy tripled or quadrupled -- there was night life, not just sitting with friends bullshitting over water.  Alcohol with pretty good taxis, a thriving expat community and my German housemate Silke, demanded a level of energy I don't think I ever needed before in my life, even in university.

So there's the more energy change -- not a good thing, Martha, but a great thing.  And I could go on ad nauseum about how your perceptions and understanding of people, of poverty and the politics of it, of the lives of the poor, etc., change and you change.  But no one wants to hear yet another person who has returned from their foreign study/gap year prattle on about this.

Pray

During my time in rural Uganda, the poverty of the people I worked with was stultifying.  Families of 6 or 10 or more living on about $400 USD per year.  I had and still have no true comprehension of how they made it work.  The school fees alone for the local average of 6 children per family consumed about $200 of those dollars every year, not including the uniforms.  If the family purchased the uniforms, then the children lived and played and worked in the uniforms because it was the only clothing they had.

For most of my life I have prayed in one fashion or another.  To those who read my Facebook ranting, it is probably a surprise to you that I do this.  I have a love/hate relationship with the God of Christianity and it is an understatement to say that I find organized religion the anathema of any relationship with God that it purports to extoll.  But, nevertheless, I find myself praying for understanding of life's events and people most of the time.

But when I came to the community of Kapuwai, Uganda, this encounter with the stark reality of life shook the foundation of everything I believed about issues of faith and belief in God.  In the worst of circumstances of life, the people of this community praised God and prayed to God with a sincerity that I had never seen in my life and my usual prayer for understanding abruptly changed.

I didn't pray for understanding of others anymore.  I began to pray that I would do nothing to destroy the one source of hope these people have in their lives of nothing but the worst suffering.  I became less sure of my belief that there was an all-powerful and all benevolent God, not that this belief had ever been sure in my life before.  But I knew I would be damned if I would take away the hope and the joy that their Christian faith brought them.  Others' joy became more important to me than my own beliefs to the extent that I censured myself on expressing my own beliefs to anyone but a very small minority of very close friends.

I don't know or even believe that prayer changed me, but seeing living and sincere faith certainly changed my prayers.

Change, at least from the outside

Sometimes travel can change a stranger's perception of your nationality.  You read that correctly.  When you travel internationally, because the rest of the world is so truly hospitable, people learn greetings in as many other languages as they can so they can make you feel at home.  If you are a taxi driver, it is good business to greet potential passengers this way.

Case in point:  I arrived in Zanzibar Thursday around lunch time.  After unpacking a few things, I headed to lunch at Mercury's Bar and Grill.  It was close and since I was in Zanzibar, I felt I owed the  spirit of Freddy Mercury a little homage.  The owner of this restaurant purports to be a childhood friend of Freddy's (more likely, I think cynically, the primary tormentor to a young gay boy during a time that didn't allow you to be gay).

As I walked to Mercury's sporting my new Jackie O. sunglasses and a smart dress, red lipgloss and heels, a row of taxi drivers are lined up under an impossibly large tree trying to solicit passengers.  As I approach, the first driver hops off the hood of his car and looking directly at me, raises both his hands in the perfect gestures of an Italian and shouts "Grazi!!", "Ciao!" and "Grazi" in rapid fire succession with all the gusto and sincerity and hope he can muster to win a passenger during the off season.

Mama mia, I have changed.  Cincin to me.

Channeling my inner Italian

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Revised: Sunday morning, 1:33 a.m.  Still in Stone Town, Zanzibar, Tanzania and I realize I have finally been to a place in this big world that my husband has not visited.  Next, hopefully Arusha, Mombasa or Masai Mara National Park (Charles has been to all of these).

Gap Year Continues in Nairobi

I have left Kapuwai, Uganda and many friends to work for the Arrow Web Hospital in the Kayole-Soweto slum of Nairobi, Kenya.  I will miss my many friends from Uganda, but it is time to move on.

I'd like to thank my husband, Charles Grose for this gap year in Africa.  I have grown more patient, more understanding and more caring for those who aren't as fortunate as I am.  Thanks honey!

Monkeys near Agnes #1's house in Kumi District

Cheers from Nairobi:)

Happy 1 month Birthday Lisa Ellen Grose

Every time I see my namesake, I cannot help but sing this Furman lullaby to her.  In my heart, this song is for for little Lisa and her mother Christine Acham.

New International Standard Proposed: Updated

There needs to be a new international standard for the strength of deodorant.  Really.  Just think about the various situations in life that you face regularly and how your deo either cuts it or it doesn't.

For the record, in Africa, I stink.  Two hot baths a day, plus my so-called deodorant and I still smell like hell.  The problem is, in part, that I have chosen one that is "unscented".  This is perfect for my mighty endeavors of things like eating lunch with the girls where I don't want anything to clash with my carefully chosen perfume.  Can you imagine what the other ladies who lunch would say if I did otherwise?

When I was packing for this trip, I bought a flotilla of my normal deodorant being certain that they would not sell any that was worth the money in Uganda.  On this account, I was right.  Remember Ban roll-on from the 70s?  Well, all that left over Ban that did not sell in the US in the 70s is now for sale in Uganda.  And, get this, the deodorant that they do sell is kept behind the counter with the booze and condoms.  I guess smelling presentable must be more likely to lead to sexual encounters here than in the rest of the world.

So here's a starting proposal to deal with the problem of assessing deodorant strength and developing a rating system.  First, since this is a global problem that affects all Westerners and therefore it affects the non-Westerner too even though they are not yet enlightened enough to know it, I propose that the UN, the World Bank and NATO (just in case there are strategic military interests at stake in the the solution to this problem) form a joint committee to study the problem.   From my friend/colleague Carolyn from Sydney, I know that it will take 2 years to come up with a name for this working group.   Carolyn has also taught me about the skill of vague-ing things up when dealing with international committees on the resolution of anything.

But this is the rough outline of what I hope the standards will look like in ascending order of strength:

• Mall Walking for Seniors
• Part-time fast food worker
• Middle distance runner
• Endurance athlete
• Africa strength

Pretty good start don't you think?

Anna, Agnes #1, me in my ubiquitous aid worker skirt and Mary Akengo

Saturday, 18 October 2014:  I have just paid 20,000 UGX for a stick of Old Spice high endurance.  This translates at the current exchange rate into about $8.00.  8-f'ing-dollars!  I better smell darned good all day for this price.

The Crochet Project

First sentences are always a bitch.  No matter how clever I try to be, I usually just sound like an idiot or a jerk.   And let's face it, when I'm thinking of what to write in the shower,  I always sound more clever than I actually am.

And another thing, writing well is a lot like good taste and a sense of humor.  Everyone thinks they have good taste and a good sense of humor, but in truth not many of us actually do.  If we are lucky in life, we have many friends who have one or the other, and sometimes we get really lucky and have a friend who has both.  Thus, I am not much of a writer; I'm more of a think-out-loud-on-paper type communicator.

So, why Uganda and why now?  Many of you may know that for the past four years or so, I have been a volunteer grant writer for the Pallisa Community Development Trust or PACODET.  PACODET is located in Kapuwai Village, near Pallisa township, in Pallisa District of Eastern Uganda.  PACODET is a non-governmental organization (NGO) that works to improve life for the 60,000+ residents in the area it serves through food security, integrated rural community health services and agricultural/environmental projects and initiatives.

I will spend 7 months on this trip to teach about 12 to 14 women whose lives have been affected by HIV/AIDS how to crochet.  Together we will set up a micro business to sell these items first in the local markets, and later on, hopefully, we will expand upward and outward.  I have very high hopes for this project.  I want these women to succeed in every possible way and I'm willing to work myself to death to help them achieve that goal.

I leave for Uganda on Sunday, June 8, 2014.  Posts to this blog will be made weekly, and some times more often if there is more to share.

Hope you enjoy the ride!