Martin Luther King

The Kenyan secondary school curriculum is standardized. The English book, for instance, goes so far as to dictate which lessons should be taught every week of the year. Any deviation from the prescribed national syllabus is strictly prohibited. But sometimes even within such a restricted educational regiment, kernels of creativity show up.

The Form 1 English book includes two lessons on Martin Luther King's most famous "I have a Dream" speech. There is an edited version of the text, a tedious fill in the blank exercise that requires little more than rewriting the text, and a discussion exercise to be done in groups of four. I could not stop myself from giving the students simple context for the Civil Rights era in America at the start of the first lesson. I drew a crude chalk map of the U.S. and pointed out where Georgia and Mississippi are, explained the term segregation and talked about its roots, and gave a brief history of slavery and the American Civil War. I read the speech to them, they read it to themselves, and I asked the classic questions, "Has Martin Luther King's dream been realized?" and "Is there equality between races now?" The responses were thoughtful and we had an engaging conversation before we forced our minds back into the cookie cutter curriculum. "Yes, there must be equality because you are here teaching Mr. James," one student sweetly said.

When the book exercise asked the class to discuss their own dreams for Kenya in groups, I had to go one step further and make them write their own speeches as well. And I will treasure the texts that came out of this deviant creative writing project and the video I took of some of the students delivering their orations. I even have hand written copies of twenty five speeches to bring home with me.

"I have a dream that one day girl's education would be looked at with great interest. Our young girls who are tomorrow's future are being married with older men. I do hope that some years to come this terrible ordeal will come to an end." - Rahab Wanjiru

"I have a dream that all Kenyans will live in harmony in houses such as bungalows, detached house and semi detached house. Its my dream that all the forty three tribes will come together and call each other brother and sisters and practice socialism as our neighbor Tanzanians do."- Josephat Kariuki

"I have a dream that some day coming Kenya's education will be free from secondary up to university. So people will be learned and some years coming all citizens will have knowledge and there will be no such things as female circumcision." - Lucy Gathere

"I have a dream that one day in our country Kenya corruption will come to an end and all people in high level will love people in low level and see them just like brothers and sisters and treat them fairly." -Miriam Ndinda

Shakespeare

The Merchant of Venice is full of touchy topics like anti semitism, that I knew, but teaching the play in a Kenyan village school brought out controversies to converse about that I am quite sure Shakespeare never imagined. Portia, the story's heroine, is beset with suitors who want to try their hand at winning her as a wife. She does not, however, have a choice over her future husband, rather she is forced to marry the man who solves the test her late father has left behind. It is an arbitrary challenge to select one of three caskets, like a contestant selecting what's behind door number three on a game show, that the men have to conquer in order to wed the richest girl in Venice.

Portia voices her discomfort, "O me, the word 'choose!' I may neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard that I cannot choose one nor refuse none?" And it occured to me, in the midst of prepping a lesson, how like Portia my young female students were. It is the common practice of both Maaisai and Kikuyu families to marry their daughters off at exceptionally young ages to older men, without giving the girl any voice in the selection or the timing. Often these girls are taken from school, kidnapped either figuratively or literally, and married at twelve and thirteen years of age to men twice their age. It rarely seems to occur to the men in the society that this tradition is stealing the best years of a child's educational life or that girls deserve a right to "choose whom they would or refuse whom they dislike." Even one of the teachers at Oloile, a funny and energetic man named Mr. Mirie, admitted to me that his wife of seven years is now 19 years old, a secondary school aged student herself with a child in primary school. And it is hard not to mention the lack of choice these same girls have in the ceremonial mutilation of their genitals as they come of age, in what has been dubiously named female circumcision, a sicekening practice still followed by most. So it was into this paradigm that I threw out a question to my class. "Do you think it is fair that Portia does not get to make a choice about who she will marry?" I tried with all my might not to steer the conversation toward my own cultural bias, but I did push the girls in particular to partake in the discussion. They said things like, "It's fair because her father knows what is best" or "It's not fair because she may not love the man she marries." It is, of course, hard to say from the simple opinions shared what conclusions we came to that day in class, but I pray the seeds planted will fuel more questions.

And I wonder if Big Bill ever knew his sex jokes would cause such a stir in this tiny place so far from Venice. Portia pokes fun at one of her suitors, the Neopolitan prince, for boasting about the size of his parts. "Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts, that he can shoe him himself. I am much afeard my lady his mother played false with a smith." Let me just say, the rolls of laughter were a great treat in the class when the students finally understood the dirty point of the pun.

There is one character in the play that I have never thought much of: The Prince of Morocco. He is pompous and his scenes are a bit wordy, maybe even boring to some. But when the only African character in the story entered the stage for the first time, and said his famous "Mislike me not for my complexion, the shadow’d livery of the burnish’d sun", my students sat up in a way that made me look at the Prince again. "Based on Shakespeare's characterization of the Prince of Morocco, what is being depicted about Africans?", I asked. And the answers poured in, observations like "Africans are scary to fight", "Africans brag a lot", and "Africans are not equal". Who knew how much relevance five hundred year old Elizabethan poetry and prose had to contemporary life in the African bush?

Sounds

I am sure I will never be able to describe the sounds of this place.There is a small hill above the house where I am living, a little clearing where I have spent hours of my time, not because it is special in any particular way, but because it is where I can get a decent phone signal, and it is as good a spot as any to listen to the sounds of the bush.

The trees on that hill are alive with noise. Tiny colorful creatures tooting, tweating, twerping. Call the sounds what you will, but Bird calls do not make for good words. You can try: "chew chew...chew chew", "weet, weet, weet", "pwoy pwoy...pwoy pwoy", "beeng beengbeeng", "kook kook...kooook", or "wawawawawa". However, birds do not whistle in vowels and consonants; rather they sing in natural melodies and surprising harmonies, and the lyrics are less important than the notes themselves. And, of course, the music of calls can not be recorded in prose anymore than the taste of wine can be represented in mathematics. Some calls are exotic, like noises from a Star Wars movie or sounds from a computer gone crazy. Others are familiar like the"caw caw" of crows and the "cock a doodle doo" of the rooster. (The cock on the farm here unfortunately has a hard time reading his watch though. The crazy thing sounds at 1 am most nights.) These birds of the bush make a constant chorus, and the beauty of it is hard to miss.

Other noises accompany the days as well. Flies, wasps, bees, and mosquitoes whiz in annoying tones. The buzz of their wings is as aggravating to the ear as the flapping of a bird wing in flight is pleasant.Sometimes I sit to read or write and am driven to flinch so often I feel epileptic. I had hoped that somehow I would grow accustomed, or at least less sensitive, to the bug noises and the tickles of their legs on my skin, and I guess I have a bit, but even today I went on a wasp killing spree using my notebook as a weapon to wipe out five in one sitting.

Then there are the farm sounds. Cows make that bellowing belly noise we call "moo". And goats make my ears laugh. One young female sounds so much like a woman crying and moaning I have mistaken it twice. The older male is aggressively horny, shaking his head, wagging his tongue grotesquely, and begging to mate. It seems like some joke of nature.There are the tin sounds of constantly dinging bells, the ones worn around the necks of animals as they go out to pasture. The farm also is home to a pack of scroungy mutts who constantly howl and fight for food, or maybe just for fun. They often slam each other against the walls and doors of the house so violently there is nothing to do but laugh in disbelief. I sometimes suspect the dirty dogs are mauling one another to death and the wood is so thin it seems like they are in the room with me.

Village Life

Traveling to Nairobi has made me think about returning to New York. Leaving the village a week ago for Kampala and now to come here has been odd. I have lavished in the companionship of close friends, the treats of electricity and running water, and the tastiness of good food. But at the same time I have felt the pangs of leaving Kimana and Oloile Secondary.

The school feels like a baby, who is hard to leave with a sitter, not so much because I don't trust the principal and faculty when I am away, but because I have begun to love the thing and feel responsible for its well being. It is young, easily influenced and easily taken advantage of. The new programs I have pushed are just starting to take toddler steps, so I am afraid they will falter in my absence. Maybe I am just trying to hard to control the place and for that reason my short trips out of town are a good prep for my leaving in a month. After all I couldn't leave for five days without writing a list of 15 to do's for the faculty to complete during the week. And I have fretted like a mother wondering: Is the new fence complete? Are the students who performed poorly on their midterms being attended to? Is registration proceeding? I will have to relinquish those day to day concerns soon enough. The school will need to fly on its own. But I am afraid that I will leave before the chick has full fledged wings.

I guess, my fear is that left to its own devices, the community will be satisfied with "good enough". And I have such high hopes, expectations really, that this small secondary school will be something special, set apart as unique in the country, an institute of excellence. I have practical ideas for specifically how it can become what I dream it could be. But seeing those hopes through requires a commitment beyond what I have promised, an agreement to stay past ten weeks and maybe even past ten years.

I suspect that even if I return in say six months the place will not have continued all that I have started. Or perhaps I am egotistically over estimating my own influence, and the school will roll along without worry. Something I will pray for. But in the meantime, in this next month while I am here, I don't want to miss anything, any chance to help navigate the course, any meeting where decisions are made, any class where students are captivated by curiosity for a new idea. I know that in the end my leaving will be too soon. I know I will be distracted in the time I have left. I know that all that can be accomplished, will not be accomplished. I know I will go back to New York feeling I have abandoned the child in its infancy.

These trips out of the village have reminded me too that I will soon be returning to a more modernized world, where conveniences are normal again. Surprisingly though, when I am away from Kimana, I miss village life. Yes it is tedious, predictable, provincial even, but the simplicity of it has captured me in a way I had not expected. It is not nights out on town that I am longing for, but early evenings with Tyson, Miriam, Eunice, Siente, Nasieku, and baby Rachel, the family, sitting around lanterns and eating ordinary food and laughing over the most everyday stories. It is this little home and the life inside its walls that is Kenya to me, and stepping away to visit cities like Nairobi and Kampala reminds me that I will soon have to give up the day to day coming and going, sleeping and waking, eating and laughing that I have grown attached to. I will miss these simple things dearly.

Prayer in School 2/9/07

Thirty six American college students taking a wild life conservation course in Kimana came to Oloile Secondary to do a community service project. For two hours they worked hard at installing fence posts and painting building trim, and for two hours they played games and shared songs and sodas with our students. It was a success for both sides and I was proud of what I had worked hard to arrange. But at day's end as we all gathered for an assembly, I met one of my limitations. The Oloile students sang a gospel song to the Americans and Eve, the school's head teacher, thanked our visitors. Then she asked me to close our time together with prayer, an ordinary formality in a Kenyan school. Now, I have prayed enough in front of people for public prayer not to feel uncomfortable, but at a school, in front of my compatriots, I was affected by the oddness of the situation. Having grown up in public schools in the U.S., I expect all religious acts to be separate from educational settings. But in Kenya, at a private school, founded by a Christian charity like the vast majority of secondary schools in the country, prayer is an accepted part of the day. That day, however, as I lowered my head in the late afternoon sun, and started to speak, my mind and mouth failed me. I was more concerned with making sure I did not say anything that would make the American volunteers uncomfortable, than I was with thanking God, and so I stammered and spit out a stream of vague squishy words that amounted to nothing and worshipped no one in particular. Within moments I felt like a phony, and that night I decided that I would try to be more myself at the next opportunity and less available to the nagging need to please others. Little did I know that chance would come so soon.

Two days after the Americans came, a tall, hazlenut skinned student named James came to see me trailed by his shorter, darker classmate Mutio. They came to the faculty building with their exercise books in hand, in order to hide their real need: counsel. We strolled some twenty five yards to the nearest tree, where in the shade James explained that he and his friend suffered under the same burden. The taller boy went on to tell me a tough story. His mother is Kenyan, his father Scottish, an immediate explanation for his exotically lighter features and perfect English I thought. But the tale was far from romantic. James was born out of wedlock and this foreign father ran from the African affair to return to his richer roots when James was only a toddler. Through hard work, James' mother had supported her son, until in 1998, the eight year old boy came down with a case of Cerebral Malaria, the most deadly form of Africa's greatest killer. It brought the boy so close to death, literally, that to hear him tell it, he was taken to the mortuary before the doctor noticed the supposed corpse was urinating, and so still living. In her desperation, James' mother reached out to her son's far away father. Apparently after hearing that his bastard son was on his death bed, the old man simply hung up the phone. Two years later, James came to the simple and wrenching conclusion that his father "didn't want him".

As the other students at Oloile wandered around with their lunch plates in hand, Mutio quietly told a story similar to James’. His father had left his mother, a rare and stigmatizing event in Kenya, and remarried, leaving his family with little money and little means to make more. Two years ago, the man died and the new wife laid claim to every little thing left behind. When a year ago Mutio came down with a severe illness and needed support, he, like James, had to survive without it. The two boys had moist, glazed eyes as they related their life histories. They each had a slight pleading tone in what they revealed to me, a hope maybe for financial help or school sponsorship, but the truth of their tales was evident in their faces. They looked hard at me with expectation. I was in water over my head. Their circumstances seemed so wholly other than mine. There was no sunny side. And with my back up against this hopelessness, I tried to offer the comfort I had to give.

"The first thing I want you both to know," I said slowly, gently to make sure I was understood, "is that you are worthy and deserving of love...far more than your fathers have shown you. I am sad because you have lived hard lives, beyond what I can even understand. I hope here at school you know you are cared for... that you have friends and teachers who are here to hear you if you want to talk. And I hope you find men here who will guide you in some of the ways your fathers have failed to." What I was saying did little to assuage the boys, and I knew it, so I retreated to the language of faith. It was all I had and I was greatly relieved to have it. "What I want you to know most though, is that you are not fatherless. You have a greater father in heaven. And though you may feel like your dad doesn't want you or he has abandoned you, God wants to love and care for you. He has not abandoned you."

Even now putting those words down, they seem trite. But in the face of senseless hurt, I was left with no other answer to give these boys. The alternative is to say that the world is cruel beyond belief to some and that life may in the end be utterly meaningless, so it was only my belief in things unseen that I had to offer. And though most days I barely have faith enough to show up to a Sunday service, when I listened to the burdens these boys were bearing, I wanted to believe in a God who must be there for orphans and widows. The alternative is hopelessness.

So before we parted I prayed for my two students in specific words with my hands on their shoulders. I prayed a simple prayer that they would know they are loved and that the school would be a place where they are listened to. I thanked this unseen Father for Mutio and James, for their honesty and courage. And before I said, "amen", I could feel the boys shaking with tears. I opened my eyes to find two seventeen year old teenagers crying like little boys. I still felt ill equipped to care for them. Afterall, I had come to Kenya to teach and to build a school and what these children needed most was counseling, someone to listen to them and love them. The force of that need was to fierce to face alone, and I was thankful to have a greater father who was somehow, mysteriously in our midst.

Inequality 2/18/07

Though Kimana is abounding in beauty it is also a place littered with stinking trash that is never removed. A place where children are often damp with urine and dripping with snot and chase you with endless shouts of "how are you?" and their dirty fingers reach to touch your skin to see what it feels like. A place where young girls have their most precious and sensual parts cut off by crude knives in as a ceremonial welcome to an adulthood bereft of sexual pleasure. Where women are without rights Americans would consider inalienable, and men have the right to marry more than one wife.

It is a place where roads are often impassable because of rain, and dangerous because of disrepair. A place where four months ago a bus full of 26 women heading to a church conference met head on with a truck that took the lives of 14 people, leaving 5 area pastors instant widowers. A place where breaking down is so common it goes without mention. Where gas and kerosene are carried carelessly in plastic zip lock bags, and two years ago six people died in house fires when on one day the fluid meant for cars was accidentally sold for lanterns.

Kimana is a place where latrines are stinking holes in the ground covered in excrement and buzzing with flies and toilet paper is rarely found. Where hands of welcome are offered everywhere and are universally covered in God knows what, but must be shaken nonetheless, and those same hands prepare food tainted just enough some days to make you puke til you pass out. A place where drunkards wreaking of moonshine plaster your face with their breath as they babble. Where water can contain sickening elements and rivers are hop scotched by women with babies strapped to their backs and jugs in their arms.

A place where officials are ubiquitously bribed and favors are rarely done without expectations. It is a place where you sometimes feel inexplicably defensive and irritable. Where sob stories are contrived for listening white ears. Where everyone who approaches you seems to do so with a hidden hope: a child they want you to sponsor, a trip they want you to pay for, an item they want to overcharge you for. A place where cynicism is a daily sensation. Where it is only honest to admit to at some moments thinking the place is a shit hole. Or worse even: God forsaken. A place that forces the precarious conclusion that all men may be created equal, but all countries are not, all societies are not, and all communities are not.

Pole Pole 2/11/07

Pole pole is Kiswahili for "slowly by slowly", and I have often heard the phrase from my Kenyan friends as advice to me. It also describes well my learning curve here.

Each day I am growing, which, I suppose, is a typical observation from anyone in a foreign environment. Some days I grow a bit through small successes, and other days when I make adolescent mistakes the spurts are more severe. But little by little, day by day, I am learning how to move beyond the idealism of trying to affect the world, through the disillusionment that comes from smacking my nose repeatedly into the wall of disappointment, and into this quest to make a realistic impact on a community scale.

Ten days ago I devised a contract for the staff of Oloile Secondary to sign. Rushing back down the hills from Loitokitok to the school with the forms in hand, I failed to predict the obvious: the teachers would be apprehensive about signing an agreement because they are not used to such things. It was raining past the point of down pour when I arrived, and the sound of the water against the tin roof was deafening. The late afternoon sky had prematurely darkened, and I should have taken the sign that the timing was wrong. Anything I rush here backfires. Though the contract is written firmly in favor of the worker and was meant to give the faculty confidence in their job security, it was not until I made amends by holding a meeting the next afternoon just to explain the terms that I was able to abate the skepticism they felt. I can't blame them, given the corruption most here are accustomed to. Thankfully, after recognizing my mistakes, and slowing to a Kenyan pace, the entire teaching staff signed on for at least two years. Some even have guaranteed five. Most importantly, Eve, the head teacher, has committed herself to three, a decision I awaited all weekend and am delighted to have received. So through my mistakes, I am learning, pole pole, to slow down and to listen.

There are moments though that I am lucky, days filled with good work and fulfillment, hours when I imagine that I have accomplished something, nights when I go to sleep excited with the seeds I am seeing sprout. I hope that with greater experience, knowledge and insight those moments will become more frequent, but for now I cherish them when they arrive.

The teachers and I met on Monday night for our first Teaching Seminar, and I am excited about what will happen in the ten weeks to come. We are discussing practical ways of engaging the whole class. Our four rooms are stuffed with fifty students each and each lesson is manned by one teacher. I wish we could make for smaller class sizes, but the fact is we are now turning students away daily. By putting my first two week's time into observing each teacher in lessons and taking careful notes on ways we might improve the atmosphere in these overcrowded classes, I earned some trust from the faculty as someone who would listen before acting. And though I am proposing some ideas that seem outlandish to them- suggestions like team teaching and peer observations, I believe that slowly by slowly, the teachers will come along. I am learning to take the time to get faculty leaders on my side and to get others to also own my ideas, because when I have tried to take the lead by myself, I have eaten a full plate of dry resistance. But mostly I am learning to believe that good ideas can be implemented and made to work, when conditions are right. The programs I am devising will have life, as long as I don't fall prey to needing the approval of everyone, which I am prone to, and, at the same time, avoid monopolizing the arena of ideas by speaking too much. For now I am starting small, practically.

This week I encouraged the teachers to learn the students’ names by making seating charts for them to fill in, giving the students name tags, and offering a financial reward to any teacher who knows the names of 90% of the student body by month's end. Those suggestions sound so simple, but here they are new. We discussed ways to invite more participation in class- calling on students randomly, walking the aisles to involve the back rows, and welcoming wrong answers, so hesitant students do not fear ridicule. Next week I will set up partnerships between those who teach similar subjects and ask each partner to observe the other during one class a week in order to take notes on how the ideas we are discussing are affecting teaching methods. I am hoping that if this peer to peer evaluation works and real conversations happen between colleagues, then programs will take hold and a system of accountability, that does not depend on my input, will be in place.

Slowly by slowly, I push through the wishful thinking of world scale reform, past the cynicism of corruption and broken systems, and into the work of practical grass roots programs. These small moments of satisfaction are like sips from the cup of hope. Pole pole, I believe that the community will be transformed.

Laughing is a survival skill 2/5/07

There are absurdities here so numerous I fail to keep track. Here are two.

The Range Rover that transports us to and fro is well past its prime. Built in the 70's as a military vehicle, some how the "Green Machine" keeps plugging along, though it would fail every step of an American inspection. In order to start the thing, it must be hotwired, for there is no key. And getting it going requires the pushing power of several men, because the truck can only start out of second gear. The gas tank is hilariously placed under the driver's seat and the only way to asses the fuel level is to put a finger in and look at the line the liquid leaves on your hand. The old thing broke down no fewer than seven times in the first seven days I was here in Kimana. One morning the truck lost power while we were switching to 4 wheel drive, which is normal. The only problem was we were in the middle of a small river. But this dilapidated vehicle is one of the best in the village, and the daily problems only make driving it a communal affair. Everyone chips in a push or a tow, and anyone is welcome to hitch a ride in the bed as you drive down the main road.

The bat living in the latrine is, however, a greater ridiculousness that I have had to incorporate into my life here. Not to be overly graphic, but the bathroom here is an outhouse with a hole in the floor, which one squats over in order to relieve himself. The hole leads to a deep pit of human waste. Last week I was using the place late at night and in the midst of my business, as I squatted there backside bare to the air, something flew out of the hole, grazing my ass. I stood up immediately, not sure what had hit me, only knowing it was more bird sized than bug sized. I tried to convince myself that the flying creature was only a moth or a figment of my American imagination. But a few days ago my worst fear was confirmed. Once again I heard the wings fluttering below me as I hunkered over the hole. Standing up with a jolt, I swung my head lamp toward the floor, and sure enough, flying around in the pit below my bottom was a bat, just waiting to scare the shit out of me.

Blessed are the Poor 2/4/07

A parable came to life as I was giving out pay at Oloile this past Tuesday evening. The teachers are paid between $185 and $225 a month here at the school, and those salaries are noticeably higher than many private schools around. But most of the staff had taken advances on their pay checks, which meant that as the remainders were given out at Month's end, the amounts were between $85 and $210. As we handed them each their cash and had them sign for it, the teachers counted quickly what they had been given and heartily thanked me. And though I took each occasion to thank them in turn, for the work was theirs not mine,I felt a bit sick at the picture I was painting: a white man handing out small salaries to a line of black workers. The image was a throw back to colonialism. I think, next month I will have the head teacher administer payroll instead.

The Biblical lesson came through at the end of the evening as the rain outside threatened flood, and we all worried we would not make it back across the river to town. David Kilelo, a middle aged Maasai warrior and the security guard here, sat down with his bow and arrow beside him to receive his monthly income. He, like the rest, had taken an advance on his 5000 shillings and the remainder was a mere 3200, which is about $50. That was his monthly pay. But the joy he took in receiving it and the pride he put into slowly sketching out his name in capital letters, brought a knot to my throat and that funny sensation in the stomach that comes before crying. "Blessed are thepoor", Jesus says, and at times I know what he means.

A New Head Teacher 1/30/07

Eve Yamoi Merin had just come from lecturing on Child Rights at an international forum when I met her in Nairobi, but she is as down to earth as anyone in Kenya. A round faced woman with a hearty smile and a knowing shine in her eye, Eve sat patiently waiting in the cafe where I was meant to meet her a half hour earlier than I actually did, a common occurence here. We were sitting down together because she was one of the few educated, Maasai women with school administrator experience I had even heard of. A District Education Officer named Lashao accompanied me to the interview and did most of the questioning that day. I took careful notes, mindful of butting my American head in to a local process. When we did speak I recognized her ease with ideas, gentle leadership skills, and heart for her people: the Maasai. Within a half hour of our conversation, I was certain I wanted to hire her as Oloile's head mistress. The other Staff of Hope folks had already given their blessing. This consensus was bolstered by Eve's own commitment to the school, which was made obvious in her willingness to move a couple hours away from her two sons and husband to take on the responsibilities of a budding school. On Sunday afternoon Tyson and I met Eve as she stepped off her Matatu, a small van used as public transport, and made our way to a local guest house. We talked over tea about our similar convictions about the educational needs of girls in the Maasai community. A few hours later we continued the conversation at the school grounds as she met some of the staff, who came by to say hi, eventhough it was a weekend afternoon. She shared a hope that we might build her a small living quarters so she might stay on the school premises. I agreed to the idea immediately. And yesterday I saw her skill with the parents as the first year students lined up all day to register for the new term at this new school. When she gathered the staff after the longday, she assured them she would treat them as equals and made thempromise to call her "Head Teacher" instead of Head Mistress, for she found the later old fashioned and too authoritarian.

Because of Eve and a thousand other reasons I have hope for Oloile.

Kimana by night 1/23/07

Kilimanjaro watches over the Oloile Secondary school and the village of Kimana, but she is unnoticed like a housewife whose beauty has been forgotten. But when I first saw the mountain this morning, with its flat white capped top, she stole my breath like a first kiss. In the afternoon the peak hides behind cloud cover and at night she disappears, replaced by the other wonder of this place: the stars.

Traveling the rough road two nights ago on the trek from Nairobi to Kimana, we bottomed out in the van, pounding the dark dirt with a jolt. A few miles later we stopped to find the engine spewing oil like afaucet that had been left on at full force. Needless to mention, there is no AAA in Kenya. We called and waited for local help to arrive. Two hours later, we were rescued by our friends in Kimana, who towed us with a large truck and a jerry rigged hitch. But as I waited in the bush with my companions, the star filled sky held my attention without distraction. It was as if I had never really seen the nights sky before. I mean to say that what passes for stars anywhere else I have been is a cheap imitation, as close to the real thing as a plastic statue of liberty is to the actual structure. The detail and multitude of light available to the naked eye...is...ineffable.

After the four hour tow, we arrived in Kimana at about 3am. My first impressions of the village would have to wait til morning. In truth they are barely forming even now, but I can share one.

Each morning I wake up to roosters, dogs, goats, and cows all making their favorite morning noises. Water is warmed for me and I bathe in awood enclosure similar to a fitting room at a retail store, except of course it is outside and under an African sky. That warm wash is a great gift and so is the fresh chai made of cows milk that is given tome three times daily with plates of home made food. All of these treats come by the hard working hands of women. Mama Nasieku, the wife and mother of the house I am living in, her sisterRahab, and mother in law Eunice, serve me in ways that I do not deserve. In fact, I wouldn't survive here without what they provide me: food, water, and clean clothes. It is hard as an American man to receive. In fact most of what is done for me as an American is challenging to take in. I am here at a post office at the expense of friends who drove me. The midnight tow took the help of seven village men. Each journey I take to the school requires a ride in the family's only car, indeed one of the few in the community.

At the same time, I feel like I am surprisingly able to contribute here. I am learning the great value of listening and have taken notes on each person I have met and the important school related conversations I have had. Progress is being made in the beauracratic process entailed in creating a school. I am learning the system rapidly, partaking in official meetings and seeing things happen.

Return from Uganda 12/5/06

Spending a Tuesday night sunset on a hammock made of tree branches and listening to the sounds of Lake Victoria, of Uganda, of Africa was one of the sweetest moments of my life. The sounds were a cacophony of bugs, birds, and frogs.Three lively dogs were my company. Our abode this last week in Kampala was a cozy luxury, a retreat for sure. Our friend Leslie was hosting us in her guest cottage, something out of a fairytale- two small bedrooms, lots of light, wooden and wicker furniture and an outlook over the lake. The main house had a screened in veranda on the second floor with a view like I have never seen. For our last three days, we lived like the privileged Westerners we are.

As a kid I collected Adventure Men, plastic action figures like GI Joes, who wore adventure clothes and came with kayaks, tents and backpacks. I wanted to be one of them. Pretended it. When we went camping as a family I would jump into shorts with extra pockets, hooks, Velcro, and snaps to be an adventurer myself. Night and day during the last two weeks in Uganda I got to dress like an adventure man again. I wore hiking pants and packable shoes, durable, lived in button downs, and a head lamp around my neck. I smelled of unwashed clothes and deepwoods bug spray, but I felt more fresh and alive than I do most days here in New York.

Though it takes more work to make it through a day, and simple things like running water and electricity, things we take for granted, are often missing, days in Uganda are experienced in hyper reality. Every sense is heightened. Life is a bit more on the edge and ordinary comings and goings felt like adventures. Riding the back of a boda boda forty five minutes on a dirt road into the bush, eating rice and beans at a table full of men who were dipping meat in broth with their bare hands, or trekking in the dark to meet the night commuting kids, ordinary events in our time there, were intensified by the senses, made overwhelmingly extraordinary. Walking between huts in IDP camps with cameras in hand and dozens of children tailing us, we saw and heard horrors we were incapable of taking in. You step back emotionally, unable to process what is coming at you. It is all too much. But that onslaught of experiences is also so full that one cannot help but want to live everyday so deeply.

I realize that two weeks in a place is a honeymoon not real life. Over time, the amazement would rub thin and the annoyances of corrupt government and dangerous roads would frustrate like flies in your food. But nonetheless, Chris and I spoke endlessly about ways to stay and places to come back to. And I think we will return, sooner rather than later and remain past the easy days.

We were white outsiders in Uganda, and I have to mention white because that was all most people knew of us when they stared. We were constantly on display. Our every step, glance, and word were watched as if entertainment. They laughed at us, asked money of us, wanted to meet us, and sometimes looked to take advantage of us. Whatever the scenario, we were very much aware at all times that we were the"Mzungo". Things are not equal in the world. We are by virtue of birth and nationality rich; they are, upon the same merits, poor. The realization is stunning. Returning to New York City, in the midst of the holiday hub-bub, the African world we just came from feels totally other, separate. Coming out onto Park Avenue from the subway, I am reminded of something I read while on the trip, Mountains Beyond Mountains, the biography ofPaul Farmer, a doctor to the poor in Haiti. Upon returning to the U.S., Farmer is asked the same question by a friend, "Doesn't this feel likea different world?" He responds somewhat sarcastically, "The polite thing to say would be, 'You're right. It's a parallel universe. There really is no relation between the massive accumulation of wealth in one part of the world and the abject misery of another.'"

Critical Thinking 11/27/06

Critical thinking is not a part of the curriculum here I am told, and though I have not been to enough schools to report on teaching first hand, I trust what I have heard because I see it play itself out.Teachers ask a question and students respond as if reciting a catechism. You answer the question asked, nothing beyond. When you ask someone on the street if he knows how to get to Roma restaurant, for instance, he will likely reply, "yes", and it is not until you ask,"how do you get to Roma restaurant?" that you will get anything resembling directions. Sometimes, we joke, you have to ask the same question in six or seven different ways.

Thinking creatively, outside of the box, is not valued. When we asked kids at a Sunday afternoon HIV program to play with us on camera by acting like different kinds of animals, they simply mimicked one another. It did not matter that the first child was asked to be an elephant the second child, who was asked to be a grass hopper, would act just like the first. I can assume that it stems from a number of causes, but one of them I am sure is colonialism. Under British rule, it was advantageous for the white people in power to create an educational system based on call and response, recitation, and wrote memory. Critical thinking would lead to questioning authority, and that could shake the empire's tight grip. The problem arises when the satellite colony gains its freedom.The children who were taught not to question become leaders, businessmen, and farmers who are not skilled at problem solving. They know what to answer when asked, but are not sure what to ask on their own.

Thanksgiving in Gulu

When it rains in Gulu, and it does rain everyday, the red clay roads turn to gush. Your shoes slip, sink, and stick to the stuff. When the mud dries on your clothes they are speckled in bright brown dots. Shoes are caked with clay.

When the sun shines in Gulu, and it does shine everyday, everything is in hyper color. The whites of walls glare back like the albedo of snow. Leaves, grasses and palms are aggressively green. The purple, orange, pink, red, turquoise, and yellow uniforms of school children light up like neon under the sun's gaze. Each school yard is its own hue in the spectrum, because every school has a different colored uniform; the brighter the better it seems. The sun intensifies the darkness of skin and the sparkle of sweat. And it burns my fair face and neck.

In a five hour period yesterday I was both scorched and soaked. The paradoxes of Uganda are plentiful.

Thanksgiving rushed up on us. In the preceding three days we had run from place to place at a fast clip, what they call "rebel speed" here.We visited a house for former child prostitutes, made dinner with our new friends in Kampala, rode the rough road to Gulu, stopping at aschool twenty miles down a dirt road and our first IDP camp, sat with a high court judge in her chambers, documented a woman's adoption hopes at an orphanage, played theatre games with former street children, met the family of a former Prime Minister who are now displaced in their own country, interviewed the administrator of a child soldier rehabilitation center, and everywhere filmed kids eating, singing, and gathering water. Getting from place to place is also a part of the story. Boda Bodas, motor scooter taxis, are the way around here. Riding on the back of them is a hoot, and haggling over whether you are going to pay the driver 500 shillings (27 cents) or 700 shillings (35 cents) can be feirce. Not getting riped off as a Mzungo (foreigner) is quite a challenge, especially since trickery is a prided cultural skill here. On the fifteen kilometer trip to an IDP camp yesterday with our contact Francis, we rode the backs of boda bodas, but because the drivers left instead of waiting for us there, on the way home we rode the backs of bicycles, the poor man's taxi. The entire return was uphill.

In the whirlwind of running around the most apparent constant has been the generosity of the Ugandan people. As tis ever common away from wealth, what people lack in tangibles like housing, electricity, paved roads, and running water, they compensate for in intangibles, time with family, religious devotion, and good conversation.

Though Ugandans are resilient, constantly smiling people, they unfortunately have to cope daily with dirty, disease infested water, malaria spreading mosquitoes, poor schools, life stealing roads, and the threat of continued violence from a messy, goalless rebellion. No one has been able to explain the war, and everyone has tried, but I thank God the conflict is at rest for now. The more questions we ask about it the more we know that we simply do not know. Every confident explanation someone posits is spiced with a bias, and the conflicting points of view we have heard make having a solid opinion nearly impossible. Everyone is praying though that the peace talks stick and the displaced people may return home.

The work at hand is preparing for that return, which with the structures that are in place now, could be disastrous. After living for 15 years in a hut with three square feet of yard squished next to 30,000 other IDP residents, it is hard to imagine that starting life again, with the building, planting, and animal raising that that involves, will be simple. Now put more than a million people in that scenario and send them home at once and you can begin to guess where the complications are. How will they get there? What materials will they build new homes with? Will they have safe water when they get there? Seed to plant? Schools to attend? Police forces to provide security? And the hopeful answers to any of those questions require funding, good implementation, and reliable governance.

The biggest challenge is that the real change must come from withinUganda. I mean that NGO's and foreign donors may assist in setting up the resources and the security, and they must, but the people here will need at some point to own their own futures. Ugandans will be the farmers, teachers, doctors, law makers, police officers, and soldiers of Uganda and the fate of the country relies more on their ownership than anything else. The charity of wealthy nations is essential, more than is known, but the true welfare of the future here will be in the hands of its people. Thankfully I meet local folks everyday who are giving every bit of themselves to that end. I doubt that all the sweat and heart they put into their neighbors will ever transform all that needs to be renewed in this place. Good, motivated, educated Ugandans are trying though, and that is what we were thankful for at the table set with fresh turkey, mashed potatoes and apple crisp yesterday.

First Morning Impressions 11/20/06

Through the cracked open bamboo gate of our ex-pat filled hostel, I see cars pushing along the rainy road, people riding bicycles, walking with wheel barrels or standing under umbrellas to stay dry during this rainy morning of Uganda's rainy season. The mud parking lot that stretches out between me and the fence is packed red clay, the same hue of all the dirty cars. But everything around me is fantastically green, thriving, smelling of life.

On the road last night from Entebe Airport to Kampala the story was of another kind. Twenty minutes into our drive, the wild stream of cars slowed then stopped. Denis, our new acquaintance and Taxi driver, looked over at me and said, "oh what's this?...an accident." We crawled along with the rest of the traffic rubber necking its way around the scene. The crowd near the mangled vehicles was frenetic. On the ground a man laid bloody and dead, arms splayed left and right, his face and body spotted in bright red. "Oh he is way dead," chuckledDenis, not in a mean way, just in a Ugandan way. I have never seen a body crushed under a car before, but the loss of life seemed ordinary to our driver. "He was probably drinking. They come to Entebe on their motorcycles, get drunk and ride home." The explanation didn't make it easier to understand the crumpled steel of the van meshed with flesh and motorcycle metal.

The road wound on toward the capital, light after light sliding across our misted wind shield. We sped past motor scooters and countless walkers making their way in the dark along the small shoulder of the busy road. It felt dangerous to drive so fast with unlit bicycles and pedestrians so close by. And it is. We made our way through a sobriety check point, manned by police with Ak-47's slung over their shoulders.They tow the car and jail the driver if he is found to be drunk here. But the attempts at deterrence did not prevent the other death we saw further up the road, a teenage boy presumably hit my a passing car,"knocked" as Denis called it. His family, or the people I imagined to be his family, was gathered over him. The responsible vehicle was nowhere in sight and neither were the police. Loss of life must be familiar on that road. "People don't value life here'" admitted Denis in a sad tone. But the deaths on the road from the airport didn't seem to affect him either.

I have only been here a day, not even 24 hours, and yet I can tell that this is a place where the grotesque and the lovely, the horrific and the wonderful coexist. How else can I explain the warm feelings I have this morning surrounded by smiling people in the rain. Or the obvious vibrancy of the natural world here coupled with the life stealing road from Entebe.

One Month since

It has been one month since I flew out from Nairobi- one month to the date. I haven't written since, but I feel prodded this morning. I've got a slight cold and just want to sit and read and write.

Returning, wading through the days of nebulous "where am I's?", wondering what is next, vacillating between wanting to engage old friends and my career here in New York and being terrified of letting that life become normal again, hanging on to the village and my friends there because fondness and romanticism are first cousins of absence, perceiving the world daily in a different way than I did 3 months ago, a year ago, or ten years ago, and knowing that my view ten years from now will be just as transformed.... And even though these gerund thoughts are not all the result of my 10 weeks in Kimana (my mind has been shifting in spurts for years), the trip has been a catalyst for some sort of redirection. God alone knows the bearing.

This post cross cultural experience I am having is in no way unique. Anyone who has immersed himself in another land, wanders back in a daze of questions. I know that. And maybe in some way it is why I went. I am certainly a sucker for intense situations, because they foster thought, gear shifts, a new way of seeing. I like being shaken up. But a month on the return side, I am still gathering myself, bit by bit, putting the parts back in place to see where I am now that the dust is settling, though my bags and shoes are literally still covered in it.

I feel a bit tossed about, tugged at and torn, not in a sad or even conflicted way, but in the sense that my mind and heart have been expanded to make room for another community in a place far away. I think about them, dream about them, worry about them, and generally miss them. So I am tugged at by a longing to hang out with these new friends, torn because I know I have to reengage here, and tossed about because life here is different now in some ways.

My activity this last month has mirrored these feelings. I have yet to watch TV, see a movie, or a play. I have not said hi to everyone I should be saying hello to. Instead, I have retreated mostly to friends, both here and on the phone, who have also worked in Africa and know the story without being told. I have spent hours, lots of hours, editing footage to create a short film following the day of one Oloile student named Damaris. And even though it is imperfect, less than great even, I have loved the creative outlet and the story it tells. I have been on the phone weekly with the school to take its pulse and monitor its well being, and have been raising money to stock a library. So my actions are still pointed toward East Africa. But I am also teaching a neat course at a school in East Harlem, planning for a summer class in North Carolina, tutoring some students for the SAT's this weekend, and thinking about projects to audition for. So I am looking both ways. And mostly looking for vehicles to connect both continents in my vocation.