The Run to Paradise

Whew, OK, I am squeaking by with my promised weekly update on a Saturday night.  But here I am!  I have had a whirlwind of a week.  It started on Thursday with the most international Thanksgiving I've ever participated in.  We had Brits, Germans, Canadians, Bolivians, Belgians, Ugandans and a few Americans.  My friend Vicki bought a turkey and had it butchered, so I could almost convince myself in this 95 degree weather it was the end of November and this was actually real Thanksgiving.  Thanks Vicki!

Friday morning I woke up and headed to Kampala with Elizabeth.  In a van full of nuns and priests.  And chickens.  We stopped a bazillion times for charcoal, for fruit, for livestock, for lunch, for random brochures, for tea....  It took us over eight hours altogether (should take between four and five) and once we hit the city it was dark and the dear Father that was driving the van got hopelessly lost.  So we drove around for a while longer. Let's just say both Elizabeth and I were overly ready to get out of that van by the time we reached the nuns and priests' destinations.....

Upon arriving at said destination, Elizabeth and I made our way to stay in a house with this guy (in the lower right corner):



Amazing, right?  I know, you're jealous.  I'm even a little jealous of myself.  His name is Isaac and he's the director of Kampala City Yange - the clean up organization I blogged about last week.  He's also a member of the Ugandan Christian Afro-Rock Hip Hop band called Limit X.  Well, he was.  They were big (biggest African Christian band, Isaac informed me,) back in the early 90s (as if there is any question when that photo was taken) and toured all throughout the UK and US.  He lived in the US for a while and just moved back to Uganda with his two daughters about five years ago.  When I called him Friday morning to confirm that I was heading to Kampala and wondering how to go about attending the clean up the next morning, he insisted that I stay with him.  Elizabeth was welcome as well.  He has an apartment in his basement for visitors, so.....you too can stay with Isaac of Limit X!!  How great is that?!  He is really just such a nice guy with a very charming family.  They fed us meals and everything.

Saturday morning we woke up early and headed to a part of the city called Mengo for the clean up.  It wasn't quite as serious a clean up as some of the others because it was a neighborhood rather than a market.  But we still had a good 100 people show up, the arch bishop from the area and a few...other...bishops? came as well.  And I guess the mayor made an appearance, though I missed that one - busy hunting plastic out of the dirt.  

Anyway, we got LOADS of trash from this comparatively clean part of the city.  A few choice items I found:

1. The head of a spoon
2. A button
3. A tire sandal
4. Gold ribbon
5. A zillion bottle caps
6. One sock
7. So many gum and candy wrappers
8. Pen caps (several of these??)
9. Someone's phone number
10. AIRTIME

Cell phones out here are pay-as-you-go, which means you go to a little store, hand over a bit of money and get a small scratch card with a pin number to type into your phone and access airtime.  There were more of these dang little cards than any other item out there.  And they are little, so you couldn't see them until you paid attention.  But there were hundreds in the small area I was cleaning.  I wrote MTN (the largest phone provider out here) an email asking them what they were trying to do about reducing their waste and educate their customers on responsibly disposing of what waste had to be produced.  I have yet to hear back.....I'll let you know if I do.

Here's what really struck me though:  We are burying our world in a layer of plastic.  The 150-or-so Ugandans that set out to clean gutters and roads and fields picked up garbage all along the way.  But my meticulous personality forced me to lag a bit behind, go a bit slower, and pick up all that garbage the was missed.  It was hard to see unless you were really looking for it, but once you started, there was almost no end to it.  Just endless amounts of plastic bags being buried in the ground.  And the problem with that is, they don't biodegrade, but they start to photo-degrade - they get brittle and break down into thousands of little tiny pieces that become impossible to clean up.  So it just gets worked further into the earth where it will remain for the next.....no one knows how many hundreds of years.  So please folks, stop using plastic.  In every way possible.  It's not good for you, it's not good for the earth.  Use reusable bags, cups, cutlery, ink pens, bottles and jars, and anything that has an alternative to plastic.  Some people don't have a choice, some people aren't aware they need to make a choice, but if those of us who can, do, it will make it to those who can't much sooner.  Rant over.

This is what I'm talking about.  Impossible to remove, forever buried in our earth.  Sigh.  

I had two revelations of the day.  First:  I can do this same thing up here in Gulu.  It's totally going to be possible and it's going to be fun, and the District Chairman is in my corner and I have KCY on call.  I'm pretty pumped about it. I'm planning for late January - it would be pointless to try to get it in before Christmas, so January it is.  Second: I'm adopting a highway as soon as I get settled somewhere back in the US.  Picking up the garbage on Saturday was just a really wonderful way to connect me to earth and to the problems it's facing.  Here in Uganda it's really easy to see the waste and the seemingly insurmountable environmental issues it's posing.  In the US, we face many of the same problems, we've just gotten better at putting it out of our sight.  But going out to clean litter will bring it all back to forefront.  It will keep the problems real so I won't forget.  So you'll be able to catch me cleaning up the roadside monthly along with anyone who will come.  You're all invited.

Me and the directors of KCY - Grown up Limit X Isaac is the one in the red shirt :-)

Just a smattering of what we gathered - mine is the bag in the bottom right corner - several hours' worth of tiny pieces of garbage overlooked by everyone else....

The next morning I woke up at the awful hour of 5:00 am and went to run my first 10K.  It was kind of hard.....because, well, because there were hills, because I've never run that far before, and because there were TWENTY THOUSAND of us trying to run down the street together.  Literally.  I couldn't believe that many people came out.  It was nuts.  I finished at 1:17:10, which is not awesome, but not too terrible for my first race, right?  Particularly when I couldn't run because of the mass of people smooshed together for the first mile.  But I have to say, it was really just a lot of fun to be part of the sea of yellow crashing down the streets of Kampala.  I'd do it again.

I was in that mass somewhere.....

The victors!

Monday I ended up heading to a little paradise Island called The Hairy Lemon (I know, what a name, right?)   for a couple days.  This old South African hippie guy named Paul bought this island a few years ago and has turned it into a kayaker's haven.  It's right next to some spectacular waves and rapids, and all the water on the island is pumped by a water wheel in the river, the only electricity is solar powered, and the toilets were self-composting.  Plus the weather was perfect, the people were wonderful, and I had no internet or phone service.  It was, as I said, paradise.  I swung in the hammock and read my book, I ate three meals a day that just appeared before me, it's off-season for tourism, so I had the dorm all to myself, I played frisbee golf and got to kayak a little bit.  Oh and I swam through the rapids.  Yes, you read that right, I swam through these big, fat, kayak-competition-worthy rapids.  I went with someone who knows the river really well, but still, just as I was getting ready to push off into the river and swim to the middle so I could be carried down the rapids, I had this moment where I thought, "I'm about to voluntarily plunge myself into the middle of white-water rapids.  I think I've lost it."  But then I jumped in and it was AWESOME.  And scary.  And then I did it again.  What's paradise without a little awesome/scary?  Surely not paradise.

(Check out this video to see the waves I swam through: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkXRpBxxd9k)

OK, last thing before I hit publish:  My super-amazing, beautiful best friend Sarah has volunteered to do a jewelry sale for me.  I have about 20 pieces of jewelry that the women I worked with last year made and I'm putting them on sale.  All the proceeds are coming back to me for RFH.  At this point it looks like the funds will go towards the town clean up and an environmental class I'm going to be teaching to 4th graders starting in January.  So if you're looking for a beautiful, meaningful gift to buy for Christmas, this just might be the one for you!  Check out her etsy page at the least, and carry a piece of my favorite beautiful Ugandan women with you wherever you go!!

Just a sample of what could be yours!

Adoption

Meet my brother James and his beautiful wife, Erin:



And meet their four darling children:



They are very soon adding to this family; they're adopting two children out of the Congo.  I know, four children already and they're adopting TWO more?  Are they crazy?  Maybe.  But let me assure you, if anyone can handle it, it's this family right here.  They are incredible and have so much love to give.  So I'm all for them sharing that love with a couple children who so desperately need it.

So here's the thing - James and Erin have to take a total of ten international flights between them and the little Congo-kids before they're all together as a family, and that's not touching the cost of the actual adoption.  So I'm throwing them a little virtual baby shower - a shower where you think of a gift you would like to buy for each of these girls, and then instead of buying the gift, you donate the money to this YouCaring website we set up for the purpose.



I would sure be exceedingly grateful (as would my brother and family!) if I had some blog followers who would be willing to donate a few bucks.  It doesn't need to be much - a lot of little donations can go a long way, as I well learned earlier this year.  So if you have a special place in your heart for adoption, for The Congo, for me, please donate to this cause!



If you want to learn more about their family, feel free to visit their blog at http://neverlandfound.blogspot.com/  Also, I asked them some questions pertaining specifically to this adoption that I'll post below, so peruse that at your leisure.  And feel free to ask any questions of your own you might have!



Thanks all!!  (Oh, and here's their website you can donate to one more time!  Go there!!  http://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/Fly-the-Olsen-Girlies-Home-/29619)

You have four biological children of your own already, why are you choosing to adopt not just one, but two more children?

Erin was told when she was 15 that she would not be able to have children of her own body. So, we went into marriage excited about adoption down the road once we were done with our PhD’s, traveled the world a couple turns, and become published fantasy authors—a penning team with a brilliant pseudonym like Olsendore or Galadriolsen or St’Ols-en (we had chatted about combining our last names to form that final one. So much fun for bubble sheets that would have been).

Then, surprise, a few months into our marriage, Gaebriel was on his way. Who doesn't have a story of a doctor being wrong, ours just happens to be a very happy story of 4 miraculous children.

A lot of people who adopt say that they didn’t choose adoption, but adoption chose them. They say that they were “called” to adopt. We never really felt like that, we feel like adopting is simply something that we have known was coming. It was a commitment we made early on in our marriage, and we just wanted to, but didn’t know how it would ever be financially possible. We took this job in Qatar because we were promised a December travel fund (to go back to the US for Christmas) and we knew that those funds would cover part of the adoption if we would just stay here and holiday in the sand. We have been blessed with 4 healthy children and when you are given a gift like that you can’t just turn your back on the millions of other kids who have no option for health with the environment that they are placed in. It was time to make this adoption adventure happen.

And we feel our family is not complete. Looking around at dinnertime and it feels like people are missing. I guess it’s not really choosing adoption, it’s choosing to welcome in members of your family who are out there walking around on other points on the earth. They already feel like members, we’re just not going to leave them out in the cold (or the hot as it is here in Qatar and there in Kinshasa).

And as for adopting 2 instead of 1. Well, they’re sisters, maybe even twins. So you don’t consider separating them. But it also occurs to us that probably during teenage-dom, if not sooner, they will question their identity and yearn for something of their homeland. We hope that it will help them that they have one another and that they aren’t alone as the only adopted child in our family.

What are you naming your children and how did you come up with the names?

Tzyphorah is just a strange name (I wish I could hear all of you trying to say it just now). James has wanted to name a daughter this for years as she is such a powerful figure in the Bible. And it turns out that it is a common name in the DRC. Tzyphorah teaches Moses in the ways of the people of God while he is figuring out his difficult identity of part royalty and oppressor and part oppressed by birth. She leaves the comforts of her home to go and battle the Pharaoh and to rescue slaves of Egypt. It also means bird, which is such a symbol of freedom that it seems to fit a little girl starting a new life.

Shiloh is Erin’s choice. It was a place that she had a very powerful experience at when living in Jerusalem. Shiloh was the place that the wandering temple in the wilderness (the tabernacle of Moses and post-Pharaoh crowd) first came to rest in the Holy Land. Most people would probably guess that it was Jerusalem, but the Ark of the Covenant and everything else was there in the capital of Shiloh for a very long time while the temple in Jerusalem was built. So it is a place of rest, a place of peace, a place of spiritual gathering. Also, Shiloh is the only place Erin ever had stones chucked at her head.

What are you most excited to share with these children when you bring them into your home?

STARS! We hear in Kinshasa that people always burn their garbage and so the pollution is intense. We’re excited to take them out into the middle of our desert and show them the stars. And while we’re out there we might as well introduce them to roasted marshmallows.

Swings. We have 2 in our backyard, doubt that they have ever gone wheeeeeeeeee!

What are you most excited to learn from these children?

You know how children have this innocent way of seeing the world that makes them ask questions like, “Mommy, watch close, can you see me hovering?  It is from the rocket boosters in my feet?” And Gaebriel could really feel himself flying “just a tiny bit.” He had been reading a book about magic and flight. They see the world through a lens and their questions let you into the world in their head, and it is so much better than the world in my own head. Well, Tzyphorah and Shiloh will not only have that childhood element, but they will also come from a spot where there is no electricity, where their days have been filled with piles of other children who experience this life in a way we never have, where their minds have been filled with a million questions and concerns that our biological children have never had in their little spheres atop their necks. I’m so excited to hear of those questions and to come to understand how they perceive the world.

And songs. They sing often in the orphanage. We have a few lullaby CD’s from the DRC, and I’m thrilled to learn the songs that they love.

What did you think the first time you saw a picture of them?

We were laughing and laughing because Shiloh has our 5-year old, Myriam’s smile. Myri has this way of smiling where she opens up her mouth really wide and scrunches up her neck and her nose goes all wide and adorable (but she says, “don’t call me adorable!”). Well, Shiloh and Myri share that smile. They looked like they belonged in our family. James’ first thought was how beautiful they are.  A close second was, “Those girls are as skinny as sticks!” and Erin thought “They need to come home to us, to a home full of sisters who love them already and a brother who will be a fiercely devoted to them.”

Then we thought together, “how in the world are we gonna do this???”

Having chosen to adopt internationally, why did you choose the Democratic Republic of Congo? And why aren’t you adopting domestically?

James has felt a huge connection with DRC ever since he began study for international affairs a decade ago. He learned of the horrific multi-state war, a war many call WWIII although it is rarely noticed in anything more than the periphery. Every index for measuring a country’s well-being puts the DRC down at the bottom, often the very bottom of the list. It is a massive, beautiful, gushing with natural resources place, all of which serves as a foil for the incredible human tragedy that takes place there. There just isn’t a place of greater need. Most social and family scientists will tell you nowadays that the 12 million plus children who are classified as orphans throughout the world don’t need to be adopted out of country, they simply need their parents to be given a hand pulling them up out of a terrible situation. It is estimated that if only true orphans (having lost both parents to death) were numbered it would be more like 30,000 and not millions upon millions. Too many families simply can’t feed their children and so they put them in orphanages so they won’t die of hunger.

When experts talk about this they will give you a few regions that are an exception to this idea of “keep the kids in their own country and support the individual families.” (through things like microloans and agricultural development) The DRC is one of these exceptions. There are so very many orphans and such a shortage of food that the world at large needs to help through both adoption and significant aid to the millions who will never get a ticket out.

We don’t just want to adopt our children and run. We want to unite our family in solidarity and serve this region of the world as a lifelong endeavor for lifting up those who are suffering knowing that we are all in a position of being the beggar at some point in our lives.

The other thing to say here is that we don’t see orphans with nationalities carved into their foreheads. There are children suffering and children not suffering, there is not a greater moral obligation to children of your own nationality. That said, many people feel drawn to adopt from certain places. They feel that they are meant to be foster parents for their local section of child and family services or they feel that they should adopt from the country of their grandparents’ ethnic origin. We simply felt drawn here. It was a lot like when we were deciding which languages to study at university. We just went with our gut and the knowledge that we had. Unfortunately you can’t adopt Hebrew or Arabic speaking children, that would have been nice to use some language skills in building our family.

Obviously much of this can’t be predicted, but how do you plan to deal with having a multi-cultural and multi-racial family? 

We have lived all over the world because we wanted to learn from other cultures. And in so doing incorporated practices from those regions as part of our own unique family culture, not to mimic or to tote with us as a stolen souvenir, but as real aspects of what makes the word “us” that we learned and in turn became during those segments in life. Religiously every faith other than Sikhism and Hinduism is represented in our families—OK a little exaggeration, my uncle actually stopped practicing the Baha’i faith a few years back. Our extended families already include multiple races. So, we don’t really see the word “multi” as all that intimidating.

That’s not to say that race isn’t a very real thing that is important to identity and even biological development. Most people see it as a real problem and a real roadblock to a close relationship when races don’t match whereas we see it as contributing to the richness of our family’s experience. I feel I am more of the person I want to be through my relationships with friends of different races and from different regions of the world who have opened my eyes to new possibilities. So why would adding that dimension to our family be anything other than extraordinarily enriching? We are immersing ourselves in the food, art, languages, dress, music, history and perspectives through local popular publications of the DRC, so we’re not all that concerned about us not being sensitive to cultural considerations and being radically flexible in coming to understand their different viewpoints. Most of our concerns about being mismatched culturally have nothing to do with race and everything to do with the depravity that they have experienced for the last years and the instant material wealth that they will be brought into. Almost every Westerner lives opulently compared to an orphan in Kinshasa. That’s gonna be a really hard adjustment for them and we haven’t figured out all of the ways to support them through that yet.

What has been the hardest thing during this adoption process?

Well, losing Dieu, the first little boy that we were matched with. That took our breath away. Still does to type it. Myri just asked for a locket so she could put his picture along with hers, “so I will always have him with me a little bit.”

Two other things hop right into our minds, too. The first is the paperwork. The bureaucracy and the difficulty of following all the steps just right so you can bring your children home. They are tedious steps (but I have to say not as bad as I imagined. Complaining about adoption paperwork is so universal; I figured it would be much worse.) But the second thing that comes to our mind is the adverse reactions of those around us when they hear we are adopting; from fears that the adopted children will injure our biological children to disapproval of a larger family or comments of neocolonialism and perpetuating white paternalism. No one wants to hear anything other than trumpets and drums from a parade band when they are having a new baby, it is the same for parents preparing to adopt. Just as when we had biological children, we were fully aware of the many things that could go wrong in conception, gestation, delivery, and afterward. Our eyes are wide open in this process as well and we know the difficulties that will surely lie ahead, but a little joy at a new life (or lives!) is surely just as important. Thanks be to all of you who have and will continue to celebrate these two brave beautiful little girls.

Cricket Invasion

See, this is what happens.  I give myself an inch and I take a mile.  Rather, I give myself a week, and I take a month.  I remember I made a scrap book when I was in middle school.  I would get together with my friend Marianne, and we would cut pictures, and color borders and glue mementos.  I was rather proud of it when I was finished.  And for the next four-ish years I saved everything for my *next* scrapbook.  Only I never even started that next scrap book.  Didn't even cut one photo.  But I felt guilty all. the. time. for not doing it.  Until one day I declared, "I am not a scrap booker!  I don't want to do this anymore!  I'm no longer saving napkins and ticket stubs! Forget it!"  And it was like this weight was lifted, and I was free.  Glorious.

I've thought about doing that with my blog.  Except, truth be told, I actually really like blogging.  It's fun for me to record what I'm doing, share it with other people, and it's really fun to look back on old posts and see the personal progress I've made (which probably isn't visible to anyone but me.)  So I'm going to try really hard not to make that same I-hate-scrap-booking declaration.  (Man, now I'm kind of excited to go home and dig out that old scrap book that I haven't looked at in over a decade.....)

So I've had a few exciting things happen since I last wrote.  Not as much as I would have liked.  Honestly, this last six months of my life have just been one big lesson in "You Don't Get Your Own Way."  Even when all signs lead to it going my way, it just kind of hasn't.  BUT, things have happened.  Just not as much or as fast as I would like.

First, I had a great meeting with Sister Rosemary - the director of St. Monica's (where they make the water-bottle houses.)  They really do seem to want just as many water bottles as possible.  They're building a gas station halfway between here and Juba (there isn't one currently) and they would like to use as many water bottle bricks as possible.  We talked a lot about needing consistent pick-up efforts on their part in order for this to work.  She agreed, and we worked out a way - they have a nursery school, and they have a driver and a van that goes around to pick up the kids every morning, and then the driver and the van often don't have anything to do until he takes the kids home.  So Wednesday mornings, after he safely gets the kids to school, he's safely going to get a bunch of bottles to the compound as well.  Brilliant.  Before, we were counting on the St Monica's driver and van - which often had prior engagements or things that would take precedence.   Then Sister Rosemary came out with me to pick up some loads of bottles.  She was amazed at how many bottles we got in just a few places.

Next, I had a very exciting meeting with Gulu's District Chairman, Martin Mapenduzi.  I don't know what the equivalent is back home....maybe the governor?  Anyway, I told him what I wanted to do, what I'd been trying to do, and how I was feeling a bit frustrated by it.  Once I finished my spiel he said, "Let me encourage you not to give up.  Gulu needs this right now."  He told me what I was trying to do, my efforts, were actually someone's job in Gulu, and that it just wasn't being done.  He wants me to meet with the municipal council and talk to them about my project, about ideas for what the city can do.  I'm a bit intimidated and nervous about such a meeting, but I'm excited by it.  I think the first thing I'm going to pitch is a town-center clean up.  The idea for which I got from Kampala City Yange (KCY.)

I stole this photo from KCY's facebook page....hope they won't mind!  

KCY is this awesome organization down in Kampala that I got to meet with last week.  Every last Saturday of the month they go to a different part of the city and do a massive clean up.  They get local celebrities and politicians, they hand out free t-shirts and play loud music to get the locals out, excited and ready to work.  Then they provide shovels and rakes and wheelbarrows and trucks to overhaul the garbage problem in that area and haul all the trash away to the landfill.  I want to try this in Gulu.  And I think it can be done.  Gulu doesn't have a landfill - but that's OK.  I'm going to try to convince the government to loan me a small patch of land.  We'll sort the garbage and recycle what we can, compost what we can, and then find a way to dispose of the rest as responsibly as we can.  Oh man, I'm excited about this.  Probably more excited than I should be, given that I have yet to talk to the local government about it.  So keep your fingers crossed for me, will you?

I'm heading back down to Kampala on Friday to participate in one of KCY's cleanups and experience just how it's all done.  Oh, and I'm going to run a 10K while I'm there.  I kind of hate running, but doing races is a lot more fun than just running, so why not?  So I'm making the promise right now that next week I'll post cleanup and race pictures.  PROMISE.

In other news, it has been attack of the crickets lately.  Thankfully it's getting much better, but for a while there, they came in droves.  They are big, they are black (so creepily spider-looking) and they are UGLY.  And they fly.  How does it get worse?  They try to get anywhere where there is light at nighttime.  And they fly aroung the room, circling like mad, jumping, flying at my head (they really like my hair for some reason.)    I will sit on my bed, under the mosquito net with the lights off and I can hear them flinging themselves into my windows.  The faint glow of my computer light is driving them mad.  I killed several before bed one night, killed about eight more in my room when I woke up the next morning, and then went into the bathroom and saw this.....Awesome.    

Walking to Kitgum

If you are a faithful blog follower of mine, you know I've taken a bit of an unannounced hiatus from blogging. This was somewhat unintentional, but I guess it was somewhat intentional as well.

Here's the thing: I feel like people reading my blog about my time in Uganda or my attempts to set up my own project want to hear about the sweeping progress I've made and my wonderful adventures in this land that is so vastly different from my home.  And to be honest, I have nothing to write about when it comes to those things, so I'm a bit scared to write.  I'm scared that if I write about how frustratingly slow things have been, all the wonderful and generous souls who donated their money will automatically assume I am squandering their money.  I'm afraid if I write about my frustrations and homesickness, people will tune out.  I'm afraid that if I write about being homesick or frustrated, people will mistake that for my being depressed or unhappy or not loving Uganda as much as I do.  

And maybe that's just what will happen, but I promised to blog, and I think facing my fears is important, so today I'm blogging honestly about my project and my frustrations. 

Recycling for Hope is limping along for a few reasons - first, I can't manage to get stencils made.  I'm now on to trying with my fourth business - and this time I'm trying to stay out of the process entirely until it comes to approving the quality.  I'm letting Lenox do all the work, hoping that my favorite Ugandan will have more success in dealing with his fellow Ugandans.  At this moment I'm not holding my breath as past experience has led me to accept that this just isn't a quick process.  And yes, I think the stencils are vital to the success of the project - if you want to know more, I'll happily explain why, but that would be an entire blog post itself.  Second, Living Hope is the organization that has been successfully making sanitary pads out of recycled paper and distributing them to school girls for about two years now.  I found out Thursday afternoon - just before heading out of town - they are no longer making them.  Haven't been for about a month, though no one told me and I've been dropping off loads of paper intermittently.  So I emailed the director to figure out why and haven't heard back.  I just got back to town and will be venturing that way in just a few hours to figure out just what the deal is.  From what I can gather, I was unaware of this, but Living Hope is the facilitator but not actually the owner of the project and there is a dispute over whose name goes on what.  Hopefully this is just a temporary problem, but as we're fond of saying here in Uganda, there's just no way of knowing.  Third, two of the largest NGOs out here - one under the UN and one under USAID - were both highly interested in participating in my project.  They were both supposed to be around for at least another year, and both have recently had major unexpected funding cuts and are soon going to be nearly nonexistent  While that isn't make or break for RFH by any means, it does feel like yet another chink in my armor.  They were great clout for getting other organizations to join, and I was counting on them sponsoring several schools' environmental programs.  Last, my website is down and I can't figure out why or how to fix it.   Again, not make or break, but severely annoying.   

All of this has left me frustrated and homesick.  I just often feel like I'm running in circles or on the other extreme - sitting stagnant.  I do have this dream of Recycling for Hope, and I think it's a really good dream, and I hope it comes into fruition, but I regularly fear that it won't.  I feel overwhelmed and second guess myself and wonder what in heaven's name I was thinking trying to do this on my own and with other people's money.  Consequently, I came to a conclusion a few weeks ago - I'm staying until March.  I determined to give it six more months and at that time I will go home.  By then, the project will either be ready to have Lenox running things full time, or it will be time to cut my losses and move on with my life.  I need a light at the end of the tunnel, and I need something to keep me going, so going home in March is playing that role.  

Let me transition to a quick story; one of my closets friends out here is Charity Watson.  She's a wild card - you just never know what she's going to do or what is about to come out of her mouth.  Last month when we were travelling on the bus to go kayaking, she started telling me about her plan to walk to a town called Kitgum.  I'm fairly certain I laughed out loud and said she was nuts when she told me.  I've been to Kitgum, and let me tell you, it is not paradise.  And it is over two hours away by car - so if one is going to walk that far for the fun of it, you better be walking somewhere like Zanzibar.  Elizabeth and I and everyone else she told gave her loads of crap for wanting to do this.  But she is a determined woman - one of the many qualities I admire about her.  So the Sunday after we got home, she set out.  Charity is a yoga instructor here in town, and I went to her class Monday, expecting a substitute instructor as I figured she would be nearing Kitgum right about then - but there she was, sitting on her yoga mat in front of the door.  "What are you doing here?" I asked in disbelief and she just laughed.  She told me she'd made it 55 kilometers (nearly 35 miles) the first day when she realized she wouldn't be able to wake up and do the same thing again the next day.  So at dusk she hitched a ride on the back of some kid's bike, who was also pumping his sister on the front bars to the next town.  From there she paid a boda to take her to the next big-ish town where she got into a mutatu (15-passenger taxi van) that took her the rest of the way into Kitgum.  She slept there that night and then rode the bus back to Gulu in the morning.  Before class started she talked a bit about the experience to everyone; as she walked it was an incredibly meditative experience.  She learned amazing things about herself, about the earth, about Uganda, and about the people - and none of it had to do with actually reaching Kitgum.  Things didn't turn out the way she planned, but in reality the experience wasn't about the plan, it was about the process - and the process was wildly successful.  

So what I really hope is that in this process of building RFH, I (and those interested in its success) can realize it's also about my life and the lives of those I'm hoping to affect.  And while things may not ever look quite like I want them to in the end, the road there has been amazing.  I wouldn't trade it for the world.   I'm not done yet, I still have faith that Recycling for Hope will pick up and become something wonderful.  But I feel like it won't be quite what I imagined and that it will take longer than I expected, so I may not be around for much of it.  But in the process, my life has changed.  I've learned so much about the environment and my responsibility as a citizen of the world.  I've learned untold amounts about accepting different cultures, about developing nations, about being committed to helping others.  I've learned where the limits of my patience lie, and I've seen those limits expand.  I've had my faith challenged by myself and others and come to terms with not having all the answers - and in fact feeling as though that is healthy.  I've read great books and gotten better at the guitar.  I've learned to cook crazy Ugandan foods and have embarked on endless DIY projects and made life-long friends.  Externally, I've helped get Patrisia's school fees paid for, I've helped Lenox start his own business, I've tried to teach 30+ girls on a weekly basis about how great their potential is, and I've saved several thousand bottles and loads of paper from being burned.  And by extension - you helped do all that as well.  I couldn't have done it with out help and support - financially and morally - both of which I've been incredibly blessed to receive.  It's certainly not all about quantifiable experiences, but sometimes it helps to recognize those things.  

I suppose the moral of this story is stay tuned.  It's not over yet, and I will try to be honest about what's going on and hope that you'll stick around for the good and the bad.  The next six months are sure to bring plenty of both.  

Happy Birthday to Me

I have arrived.  I am solidly 30 years old.  I honestly can't believe it's been a full decade since my twentieth birthday, but there you have it.  My week off was wonderful, I got so much done.  I got those curtains hung, I fixed and organized my closet,  I got Ivy's ear mites problem taken care of (hopefully!), I painted my toes and finished Modern Family Season 2.  I read another of the Anne books (finally reading Anne of Green Gables.  Still dreaming of my very own Gilbert Blythe.)  I had some capris mended and played plenty of guitar.  And I got really close to finishing knitting that baby sweater!  The whole week was full of doing those things that should be done, but never get done.  They're almost all done now!  Lovely.

My friends Charity, Elizabeth and I decided we should do my celebrate-Morgan's-twenties dinner the night before my birthday at KSP - it's a hotel here in town - one of the few four-story buildings in town - and they have a a rooftop restaurant.  It's not a popular restaurant for one reason only - notoriously slow service.  And if you are abandoning a place here in Gulu because of slow service, you know it's bad.  Fast food is a completely foreign concept in every way.  You just figure they really ARE killing the chicken out back.  But the rooftop has great atmosphere and the food at KSP really is quite good.  So I went in a few days in advance and asked them to prepare a few dishes for 12 people to eat, and really, they didn't do a bad job!  It was no slower than any other Gulu restaurant.  (No faster either, but we're not lookin' for a miracle here people.)  And the coconut curry chicken was delicious!!

Friends at dinner - Grace, Me, Elizabeth, Sarah, Hilary, Tom, Jon, Paul, Chris, and Charity.  

We headed to the pub for trivia night afterwards, and happy birthday to me!  We won!  First place team gets a crate of beer....which isn't all that exciting for me, but winning is always fun!

Yeah!  Free....beer?  Oh well.  

The next morning (my actual birthday) Charity, Elizabeth and I woke up early and headed down to Kampala via the Post Bus.  Correction, Elizabeth overslept and didn't make it to the Post Bus.  So she took another random bus down and met us in the city a few hours later.  First we got massages (full-body, hour-long massages for about $10.  Sometimes I do love Kampala) and then headed to a new Thai restaurant that had opened in town.  It was super nice, and the food was incredible.  Honestly, I felt like I could have been in any city anywhere in the world that evening.  Which is kind of exactly what I needed.

Me and Charity in all our morning glory.  Elizabeth is conspicuously missing....  

At the Thai restaurant - post massage, sauna and food.  We are glowing!  

We woke up early again the next morning (Elizabeth in tow this time) and took the shuttle to Jinja - one of the towns located right on the Nile - for our kayaking extravaganza!!  You see, last year I went white-water rafting with some friends.  It was a perfect day on the river.  The rapids were a blast, there were long stretches of calm water where we could hop out and swim through the Nile - swimming in the Nile! - I felt like the coolest person alive.  Until I looked over and saw the kayakers, and I realized they were just a little bit cooler than me.  So this year I was not to be outdone.

We spent the morning learning how to wield our own personal kayaks, and then in the afternoon we hit the rapids.  Truthfully, it was just an amazing day.  Again, the weather was awesome, the water was so warm, we were all bad at kayaking but got better, we all managed to stay upright on some rapids and flipped on a few, and we just laughed and laughed and laughed.  I was so exhausted at the end of the day though that I literally almost face planted in my dinner.  I was back in my room ready for bed with lights out at 9:50pm.  For those who know me well, you know that has got to be some kind of personal early-to-bed record.

Yep, I got the purple kayak!  Don't we look so hardcore in our super-cool skirts?  

Charity is a yoga instructor, and a few weeks before she had been talking about wanting to do a grand mala - 108 Sun Salutations.  I didn't even really know what a Sun Salutation was, but I've been taking Charity's yoga classes the last few months and have really enjoyed it, so I decided Sunday morning was the perfect time to try doing this short series of poses 108 times in a row.  On the banks of the Nile.  Sounds murderous, I know, but in reality it was amazing.  I thought it took me just over an hour, but when we looked at the clock once we were done, we realize it was nearly three hours.  It was just medatative and relaxing with an incredible view and I had an awesome playlist on my iPod.  I just felt so settled about my age and my life (both of which I've suffered through more than one panic attack over in the last few months) and so grateful for that moment.

Starting the Sun Salutation together.  

The view we looked out on.  How could you not enjoy that?  

108 paper beads - made by the lovely women I worked with last year - so I could keep track of how may salutations I had done.  

All finished!  

All in all it was a perfect week.  Great friends, good food, beautiful surroundings and so much laughter.  If being 30 allows me to still have that much fun, I'll take it.

On the way back to Kampala from Jinja we hopped in a mutatu taxi - I got the front seat, but Charity and Elizabeth were squished in the back.  

The Final Stretch

Sometimes things just don't turn out.  Last year when my friend Pilgrim was here helping me get things started with Recycling for Hope, he brought our prototype boxes to this John guy at a friend's recommendation to get the stenciling/printing done.  John made it happen in a couple days, and they looked fantastic, with the promise that they would look even better when we were ready to make the real thing for a large amount of boxes.  It was such a relief to know when I got back here and was trying to get everything set in motion that I already knew who I could use for the stencils.  He was good at what he did, he was the friend of a friend, he worked quickly.  Only he doesn't work quickly.  He did once.  He doesn't now.  It's been two and a half months.  He's telling me this chemical he needs isn't around, he can't get it sent to him, blah blah blah.  I have a hard time believing NO one in Uganda has it.  And John (stencil guy) has just been SO unreliable.  He'll tell me he'll have my stuff tomorrow, and he doesn't have it.  He'll tell me he'll call me on Wedensday and I won't hear from him.  He'll say to meet at his shop and he won't be there.  So finally I got sick of it.  I gave him an ultimatum last Wednesday.

"John, I want you to tell me what day you can have this stuff ready for me.  And this is your last chance.  If it's not ready, I will go find someone else to make these stencils for me."

"Please madam, it's different cultures, I had to be in the village."

"I understand you had to be in the village, but you should have at least called.  So tell me what day I will hear from you."

"Let it be Monday."

"OK, Monday.  I will talk to you Monday.  And if I don't hear from you, I will take my business elsewhere."

"No, no.  You will hear from me."

But I didn't.  So Monday evening I called Tom (the friend that introduced Pilgrim to John last year) and asked for advice.  He said he would go to John's office and talk to him and see what the deal was.  He got back to me yesterday and told me I should just move on.  John was being stubborn and a bad business man and I should teach him a lesson.  But I decided to give him one more chance.  I went to his office yesterday afternoon and he was less than excited to see me.

"John, why didn't I hear from you on Monday?"

"Because I didn't have everything ready."

"But I told you if I didn't hear from you on Monday I would take my business elsewhere.  So when I didn't hear from you it sent a clear message that you didn't care about my business and that you want me to go somewhere else.  Is that the case?"

He didn't say much, and when I pressed him for an answer he told me I should probably go someplace else. So I walked away.

And now I'm tired of fighting, I'm tired of waiting.  I just want to get it done.  So I'm heading to Kampala to get it done.

BUT.  I am changing decades next week.  Yes, it is time for me to hit the big three-oh.  Wow, wow, wow.  How did that happen?  Where did the last five years go?  Anyway, I'm planning a trip to Kampala for the weekend to celebrate anyway, and I really don't want to spoil my birthday with arguing with people in Kampala, (it's always an argument in Kampala,) so I have decided to work on the stenciling the week after my birthday.  So what am I going to do the rest of next week?  Well, I will tell you.  I am going to take the week off.  The whole week.  I am going to celebrate the last week of my twenties and prepare to usher in my thirties.  I am going to get my curtains hung properly in my bedroom.  I am going to finish knitting the baby sweater for my friend.  I am going to go to the pool and lounge rather than just exercise and run away.   I'm going to finish reading my book.  And I don't know what else, but other great things.  And I'm going to do it all guilt free.  So anyone who thinks I am being lazy or unnecessarily indulgent, keep it to yourself please.  I am going to do this.  You probably won't hear from me on the blog until it's over.  So the next time I post, I will be a real adult who is 30 and ready to work hard and face challenges and have no more fun.  Because people who are 30 don't have fun, right?

Now since I have had a rather frustrating week, I have no pictures of progress to show.  But I organized an awesome sleepover with the teenage girls at my church last weekend, so I'll show you photos of that instead.

We started out with a swim party.  

Most the girls had never been in a pool before.  

They were all brave, they all got in, and they ALL had a blast.  

We came back to the church, ate pizza for dinner (a first for many as well,) and watched  my personal favorite Disney movie  - Aladdin.

Aladdin was also a first for all of them.  They chowed down on candy, popcorn , chips and soda as well.  I figured since they have an American handy, they might as well have a bit of an American experience.  That means unhealthy food, all around!  

Lights out at midnight.  They were pretty good and all fell asleep by 1:00am.  

I made them a pancake breakfast in the morning, complete with yummy Canadian maple syrup!

We ended things with a testimony meeting outside.  

18 of my all-time favorite girls, right here!  Such a fun weekend!

Backwards and Forwards

Hey folks, just a quick one today - I'm feeling slightly deflated and buoyed up at the same time.....

First attempts.

I finally convinced Mr. Stencil Man to meet me on Saturday (after he'd stood me up three times already) to teach me how to print logos on boxes.  But he didn't bring the rest of supplies I needed, so I'm still missing one ink color and two large stencils.  And then as we started the printing process, we realized three of the smaller stencils he'd made me didn't work properly.  So he took them with him at the end of the day, promising me that by Tuesday he would call me and would give me everything else I needed.  Well, it's nearly 5:00 on Tuesday and he hasn't called.  And his phone is off when I try to call.  So I stopped by his shop, prepared to give him a piece of my mind.  Lucky for him he wasn't around.  So I told his co-worker, Steven, what that "piece of my mind" was, and Steven said, "I will tell him.  It's as though I've recorded it and when John comes back I will hit play."  Haha, awesome.  Let's hope the playback is effective....

Good news though, I've hired my first employee!  His name is Lenox - you've seen photos of him on here before.  He's supposed to be working for my roommate, but she's gone all the time and he doesn't have enough to do to keep him occupied.  He's chomping at the bit wanting to do more, so I am giving him more! Only ten hours a week to start - that's all either of us can afford at this moment....but I have high hopes for Lenox.  He's truthfully one of the smartest and most honest Ugandans I've met.  Fingers crossed over time he'll be able to start doing more for Recycling for Hope.

Lenox Ojok!!

Crappy photo taken at night, but you get the idea.

Lastly, this town is growing.  Relatively soon (20-50 years) it will be a small city and then a city.  And while the town officials are beginning to think about garbage removal a bit more, it's still on way too small a scale.  Currently, the city has only two skips - the really large garbage bins commonly found outside large buildings in western countries.  But they don't have a truck to hook the skips up to and haul the garbage away.  And they don't have anywhere to haul the garbage to, even if they had a truck.  I've heard rumor the town plans to invest in a few more skips and trucks in the next few years.  Let's hope they're also coming up with something to do with all the garbage.  This isn't nearly enough, but I suppose it's a start.  I've had conversations with many Ugandans lately about garbage and the environment.  They want thier country clean, they have a lot of pride in Acholiland.  They need to be provided with a way to do so.  I feel as though RfH may have landed in this town at just the right time.  Keep your fingers crossed for me....  In the meantime, these little green garbage bins have sprung up all over the town center.  I've seen them in Kampala before, but they're new here in Gulu.  They seem to be actually being used.  I'm trying to track down who is responsible for these little bins so I can learn a bit more about the up and coming waste removal system.

Who thinks about garbage this much??

Blue Ivy and Me

Miracle of all miracles has occurred!!  My boxes have arrived!  They actually made it up to Gulu last Sunday, and as predicted, I got my brochures printed and the stencils completed in the same week.  How exciting!!  Of course there's a snag and I'm not off and running yet...but more about that in a minute.  First!

Ebola and al-Shabab update: Ebola seems to be under control.  People are still a bit wary, lots of jokes are being made about it, but for the most part we all feel mostly relieved.  There have been a few more deaths, but those were people known to already have the disease.  There haven't been any new confirmed cases or outbreaks, so while we are still in the middle of a ridiculously long 28-day incubation period - we all feel quite hopeful the worst is behind us.  And there have been no terrorist scares in the last few weeks.  So all has mostly returned to normal in this town - which includes a fair amount of craziness without help from fatal diseases and bomb scares.

500 boxes, lids and trays.  That's a lot of boxes!

OK, so much to my surprise, my boxes were finished last Saturday.  And then the manager told me I needed  to get them out of their warehouse that day.  Right.  They took a good month longer to finish the things than they told me they would, and the second the boxes are done they expect me to have a truck pick them up?  Do they live in this country?  But, amazingly, Philip (Mr. Boxes Manager) found someone to put them on a truck that very evening.  Of course they didn't communicate that to me (dead phone batteries are a serious problem here....) until about 8:00pm that night and they were coming in the next morning at 7:00.  Oy.  So I called the place I'll be storing them and they arranged to have their security guard come in five hours earlier than his normal shift, and it seemed all would be well.  Until it was 8:00am Sunday morning and I still hadn't heard from the truck driver.  I tracked down his number and had several frustrating conversations with the man, but finally thought we'd come to an understanding.  So I headed to the storage place at about 9:00am to wait for them, and Lenox went to town to find the truck and show the drivers where they were going.  Two hours later, Lenox still can't find the truck and now they aren't answering their phone.  Just before noon he calls to tell me he has found my boxes....they are sitting on the ground, the truck has left for Kampala and they are saying I'm going to have to pay another truck to get them to storage.  You know, I can keep my cool waiting for two months for boxes to be made, I can keep my cool waiting five hours for the truck to arrive, but finding out they lied to me and dumped my boxes on the side of the road?  I lost it.  I flew over to where Lenox said he was, got off my boda and promptly started berating people who were telling me I should just be happy the boxes were in Gulu.  Lenox, bless his heart, pulled me aside and told me to cool down, which I did, and he said he would talk to these people.  The next thing I know, calm patient Lenox is yelling at the truck driver (who has magically reappeared with his truck) "YOU ARE A STUPID, STUPID MAN!  STUPID!"  And then I started laughing.  If dear Lenox looses his temper, you know we are wading in ridiculousness.  Long story longer - they all knew I was American (and therefore made of money) and figured they could somehow squeeze another 100 thousand shillings or so out me.  So they had just dumped $2,500 worth of boxes on the muddy ground expecting me to pay an off-loading fee, another on-loading fee, a new truck fee, transportation costs, and yet another off-loading fee once we actually got to the storage area.  Thanks to Lenox (and my stubbornness,) they didn't get anymore money from me than what they were owed, and now my boxes are safely in Gulu, and stored at a Living Hope compound.  Whew.

Also of note - I found a place in Gulu to print my stuff.  They were more expensive than I would have liked, but they did an awesome job.  And I think it was worth it to support Gulu's economy and save myself the trip and expense of Kampala.  I'm sure I'll use them again.

Kind of a dark photo - power was out and the sun was setting.  But they turned out nicely, don't you think?  

And!  Most excitingly!  This is a photo of the first payment Recycling for Hope has received:

It's 200 Ugandan Shillings, which is equivalent to about $.08.  But it represents a whole lot more.  And the most exciting part to me is that it didn't come from pickup fees, paper or plastic - it came from a couple tin cans (purchased during my processed-food-only Ebola scare.)  There is a place in town that turns old tin cans into kerosene lamps or other small metal objects.  When I brought my cans by I was hoping to just be able to donate them, but he told me he'd pay me for them - 100 Shillings a piece - and asked why I didn't have more?  So I said I would love to bring more - how many could he handle?

"As many as you bring."
"What if I bring you 100 cans?"
"Great, no problem, I will pay you for them."
"What if I bring you 1,000 cans?"
"You bring 1,000 or 2,000 it doesn't matter, I will take them all."

So guess what is being added to my list of household recyclables??  You better believe it!  Tin cans!  Now I just have to get a household on board....  But since I finally have boxes to give a household, that will be a lot easier!  I'm now just waiting on the stencil guy to get me the rest of the printing supplies and come show me how to do the painting on the boxes.  He insisted this last Sunday was the only day he could do it, but of course he hasn't answered his phone for three days now....  Sigh.  Soon though, I really think it's all happening soon.

Lovely little stack of stencils.  

A few other fun things this week - there is a restaurant here called Sankofa that is a western-ish restaurant, run by an American guy, and place a lot of expats hang out. Sankofa was forced to move locations and business hasn't been great since it moved.  A friend of mine asked if I'd be willing to participate in a little acoustic concert to bring people out and put it back on the map.  A chance to sing?  Of course I agreed.  So I got together with a couple guys out here - Coy, an awesome guitarist, and Ben, a classically trained cellist - and we put together a couple hours worth of music.  We had a little local group do a few numbers as well - they were fantastic - and Sankofa served an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet for a cover charge.  It was a hit!  About 75 people showed up.  The biggest problem was, we musicians didn't think we'd have more than a dozen or so in our audience, so we chose not to be amplified.  With that many people's usual dinner chatter it was a bit hard to hear.  But still a load of fun, and we decided we need to do it again soon.  We're hoping to  start monthly or bi-monthly acoustic evenings.  Fun, right??  (And a perfect place to put in a little plug for RfH....) Oh I do miss performing.

(Photos coming soon....check back!)

And lastly - I got a dog!  Some irresponsible expat thought it would be neat to have a puppy for a few months while she was here - but then she left and never really arranged for the dog to be taken care of.  My friend Kathleen has been looking after her - and doing a great job for having had the dog unwillingly dumped in her lap - but she's leaving next week.  So I decided I'd take her on.  Her name is Ivy (actually it's Blue Ivy, like Beyonce and Jay-Z's baby - but "Blue" is promptly being dropped - and yes I am making harsh judgments about the caliber of person her first owner was based on that fact....)  She's super gentle and submissive, completely untrained, but quite smart, has only been allowed to live outside for the last few months so is flea bitten everywhere, and is an unknown number of months old.  I think about nine or ten months.  So I've bathed her with flea shampoo (though I'm not sure yet whether it's actually worked,) and let her sleep on the floor next to my bed and have been watching innumerable training videos on YouTube (my pay-as-you-go internet is suffering dearly....)  But she's learning fairly quickly for an older puppy, and she's just so darn cute.  The biggest problem is that she chases the turkeys.  I wouldn't really mind letting her have one for dinner one night - I hate those noisy things - but my roommate would be quite put out.  So I am keeping her inside a lot and trying desperately to convince her she doesn't actually want that turkey.  But she's been quite successful in de-feathering the tail-ends of a few, and the way she sits and chews on those feathers....I'm not sure I'm not fighting a losing battle.  But I'll keep fighting.  I'm determined she will become a well-trained dog.  It's been enjoyable having her around, and thankfully all my roommates like dogs as well.    I will try very hard not to become the annoying pet owner who posts obscene amounts of photos....but most certainly you'll get a few in the future.