Kisoboka: We go, we go! Uganda Cranes we go! (Google it.)

I'm sorry I've been so quiet lately. I have the best intentions, but every time I have a spare moment and sit down to write, I somehow end up waking from a nap an hour later. Blame it on the climate, the Malarone, and plain old laziness.

I've been traveling the past two weekends. I did not expect to travel so much before I left, but spur-of-the-moment trips are often the best kind. Uganda is a truly beautiful place with amazing cultural and environmental diversity. The week after Queen Elizabeth, we traveled to Jinja, a prosperous city in the east that attracts adventurers from around the world for white water rafting, bungee jumping, and kayaking. We met up with some other ND kids working around Uganda (there are quite a few of us) for rafting. It was fantastic--we floated, capsized, swam, rowed, drifted, and got pummeled by Class 5 rapids. The company, Nile River Explorers, was very professional, even though our guide Geoffrey liked to push me in the water when I wasn't paying attention. I'm pretty sure he also engineered our flips as well--some of them were just too perfect to be accidents.

My favorite part of the day: the pineapple. After climbing back into our raft, sodden and exhausted from a bout with the rapids, another raft drifted over to us. In the vessel was a huge sack of pineapple, a wooden cutting board, and a machete-wielding guide. We each received an entire half of a fruit. Pineapple is good most of the time, but this stuff was heavenly. Drifting along a calm and peaceful stretch of river while pineapple juice ran down our chins, we never wanted to leave. I wish I could bring the Nile home with me. It is enchanting. I've never seen a place so lush, so inviting to all types of life. In the middle of the wide river, islands drip with soft green leaves. Fruit bats swarm in flocks around the trees. Corn ("maize"), planted in neat rows, slopes to the very edge of the water. The water itself is cool but not cold, the perfect refreshing temperature. Everything is soft and sunny and beautiful.

The hostel we stayed in was nice, but definitely catered to muzungus. There's just something weird about walking through the village craft stalls while music from the hostel bar echoes down the road. These situations continue to make me uncomfortable--western culture takes over the most scenic parts of Uganda. Americans and Europeans spend money, obscene amounts by Ugandan standards, on daredevil stunts. How is this OK? The life crisis pervades. But I keep pushing it to the back of my mind, pretending that this is just the way things are. The balance between fighting for improvement and accepting imperfection is a sharp blade. Watch where you put your fingers.

Overall, it was a very good weekend--more of a vacation than anything. Back at UMU on Sunday night, I made up my lesson plans and collapsed into bed. Monday morning was a battle to coax my body under the cold water of the shower. The mornings are rather chilly here, so cold showers are really only appealing in the heat of the afternoon. Sometimes it's more desirable to just remain a little (or a lot) dirty. I never tell Ugandans about my bathing habits, however; in this country, cleanliness is a virtue above almost all others. Despite the dust, mud, and bugs, the people keep themselves and their front yards immaculate. If only I could say the same about my hair...

School continues to offer rewards and frustrations. Sister and I finally initiated "moral education," which is really an informal discussion group separated by gender. I've had a few meetings with the girls in Senior 3 and Senior 4. At first, everyone was reluctant to talk. I pulled out my best camp counselor skills and tried to start a game of roses and thorns (share one good thing and one bad thing that has happened today), but the girls were still shy. So I just started talking. I don't even know what I talked about. It felt like I rambled for hours... about boys, health, self-confidence, and every other standard teenage topic I could imagine. By some miracle, people started to talk. One thing that bothers me a lot, and that keeps coming up in discussion with the female students, is that they want to look like me. That is, they want to look white. I ask why, and they say because it's more beautiful. I say no, it is different, but that does not mean more beautiful. I tell them that they are beautiful (truly they are), that they must be happy with themselves, for that allows others to love them as well. (If only I could take my own advice sometimes.) It makes me so angry that the fake American image of beauty has permeated a Ugandan village. That image is not only unrealistic; I've come to realize that it's not even beautiful. Beauty is the secretary at school, pregnant and glowing, dressed in a long flowered dress. Beauty is Somaiah, one of my students, whose short cropped hair brings attention to her lovely eyes. Beauty is simple, natural, and real. In short, it is these young women.

Class, for the most part, has been going well. Lately, though, I've had trouble keeping the youngest students under control. There is a constant buzz of conversation that distracts from everything. I can't identify the source; the noise seems to ooze from the very walls. I tried sternly asking for silence; I tried sternly commanding silence; I tried falling silent myself and stabbing them with my scariest glare. Nothing worked. I should send the troublemakers outside, but I know that if I do, they will get caned. I will not be responsible for that. The majority of the students are motivated and attentive, if a bit rambunctious. But it's inevitable that in a class of 80 or more, kids will lose focus. I tried asking the math teacher how to instill discipline, since the class is always completely silent for him. He suggested the cane, which I declined. He ended up giving the class a talk (I wish he hadn't, as it makes me seem incompetent) and reported back that the students have been chattering in Luganda in my class because they know I can't understand them. That's probably why I haven't been able to identify the source--it all blends into a mumble of incomprehensible syllables. Oy vey. If anyone knows of a non-capital punishment that will instill the fear of God into rebellious teenagers, please let me know.

This past weekend, I traveled to Gulu with Curtis and Eddie, another ND student based in the north who had been working at UMU for a couple of weeks. I am so glad I went. Gulu is a lovely place, an up-and-coming town with an unbelievable, tragic history. From the 1980s until 2007, northern Uganda was war-torn. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), led by self-proclaimed prophet Joseph Kony, scourged the region with violence and abducted children to use as soldiers and sex slaves. It was a terrifying time. Children from the surrounding villages were forced to walk to Gulu each night, a trek of up to 20 kilometers, in order to find a safe place to sleep. Abduction from small, unprotected villages was almost inevitable. In the morning, they walked back home, went to school, and repeated the evening journey. During this period, almost all children lost touch with their families. They either spent all their time seeking refuge, or were stolen by the LRA and forced to become rebels. Until the war, there was no word for "orphan" in Acholi, the northern dialect. Today, orphans are common by name and by status.

Now, Gulu is one of the more developed towns in Uganda due to an influx of money from NGOs ("guilt money," as some bitterly call it). Our bus trip took several hours longer than anticipated, due to the fact that we sat in the parking lot in Kampala for 3 hours waiting for it to fill to way over capacity. We rolled into town around midnight, and luckily found one hotel that was still open. Hotel Roma is located on a street with several other accommodations, including the "Florida Magnificent Hotel" and another one with a name involving an elephant. Curtis and I got a room with two full beds and a self-contained bathroom (big deal!) for about $10 a night. Not bad at all. Due to a slight miscommunication with the concierge, we accidentally ended up drinking unboiled water, but so far no major resulting catastrophes (knock on wood). We woke up early on Saturday and enjoyed our free breakfast of eggs and coffee-hot chocolate while reading about Southern Sudan's independence in the paper. Inside, there were many messages, strongly resembling high school graduation notices, from various governmental departments congratulating the Southern Sudanese president. One word: hat. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Salva_Kiir_Mayardit.jpg

After breakfast, we met up with Eddie and our friend Teresa and headed to the market. I bought a nice dress from a seamstress. I knew it was legit when an elderly Ugandan lady bought one right before me; no hidden "made in Taiwan" tags this time. We then walked to one of the many IDP (internally displaced person) camps that ring the city, remnants from the civil war. Many have vacated the camps and moved back to their villages, but some families still occupy the government-built huts on the compound. I expected to find a ghost town, but the camp was bursting with life. Colorful laundry was strung between huts, and children darted out to catch a glance of the strangers with funny skin. Curtis found a beautiful, perfectly climbable fig tree and immediately proceeded to ascend. The curious children, emboldened by his antics, followed him up the branches, and soon it was a regular party of swinging, hanging, and jumping. I stayed earthbound with the smaller children. One little boy was particularly snuggly. He had chubby cheeks and responded to everything with a soft, obliging "yeahhhh." I was smitten.

Curtis and Eddie disappeared for a few minutes to buy a soccer ball, which made them heroes among men. The rest of the morning passed in a happy blur of games, laughter, and blurry photos that the children insisted on taking. It was difficult to leave, but I was so glad to have met the kids. They have many playmates, but not many guardians. If they have parents, they are often too preoccupied tending to infants or fulfilling necessary tasks like washing and cooking. The IDP children longed for hugs, and I was certainly happy to oblige (I was rather starved for them myself). I wish I could go back now.

In the afternoon, we played volleyball with some locals, who took the game very seriously but humored my poor form anyway. It was a blast. After darkness fell, we went to the Catechist Training Center, where Eddie and Teresa work, for dinner with Father Joe, one of the chaplains. Someone had described him before as a teddy bear, and this was a very accurate description; I almost called him Fr. Teddy several times by accident. Dinner was quite good-- chapati, greens (!), potatoes, beef (I'm an even more flawed vegetarian in Uganda) and pineapple. Everything had flavor, and there was no matooke to speak of. Dessert consisted of coke and whiskey, provided by Fr. Joe himself. Relaxing evening indeed.

To finish off the night, we went to a bar called the Blue Mango for a drink. Turns out Gulu is a town with a pretty decent nightlife. The bar down the street from our hotel blasted thumping bass until the wee hours of the morning. The Blue Mango was nice and laid back; my only complaint was the strange movie playing on a giant screen on the wall, in which Nicholas Cage and John Travolta seemed to surgically switch faces. Odd.

Sunday involved mass, breakfast at the CTC, and a very long bus ride back to UMU. It was a lot of traveling for one weekend, but I'm so glad I went. Playing with those kids was one of my favorite memories in Uganda so far. The people were wonderful, the food was good, and the shower was lukewarm. These are among life's dearest blessings.