Oh, and one more thing...

My dear British friend Laura offered this poem to me on my last day in Uganda. A friend had shared it with her, and now I want to share it with you with the hope that you can find solace in it as I have.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

-Mary Oliver

Back in the US of A.

So I've tried multiple times upon returning to the States to write a conclusion post for my Uganda trip (how trite it seems to even call it a trip, but oh well), to bring some closure to myself and to you guys who were Born To Be Alive, to tie things up in a nice little bow and say goodbye. But as you can see by a lack-of-post I have failed miserably.

First I tried writing something reflective. That lasted all of five minutes before I realized that, yet again, I couldn't even coherently reflect in my own head, let alone in writing.

Then I tried writing a "what I will miss about Uganda" post like Brynna wrote about the Czech Republic. But that too proved wayyyy too complicated to sort out.

Then I tried recounting my first 48 hours worth of American meals. This seemed promising because the euphoria I felt about eating was the one emotion I could put my finger on and identify. But then writing this kitschy food porn also felt weird and frankly kind of detestable when it struck me that the variety and quality of foods I indulged in during those first days back was greater than what most Ugandans will taste in their entire lives.

Then I gave up on writing anything altogether.

Now it's been almost a month back. It's my night off from camp (where I'm a counselor this summer) and I'm in Denver with a belly smiling from my first drive through Taco Bell since last year. My friends went to bed and so should I, but I can't fall asleep and now I'm up late with my own flashes of recollection about Uganda. So I thought what the hell, I'll post on the blog.

It's hard to say I've even had time to be back in America, because I'm not in the "real world" -- I'm at camp, where I'm arguably just as cut off from the "real world" as I was in Uganda (only I get "time off" to venture into civilization for one day and one night each week). Time off is so weird because it's like being thrown into an urban world that is so familiar and so distant all at the same time. I drive on highways and shop at grocery stores and go to movies and eat at restaurants and drink at water fountains and poop in public toilets and lounge at bookstores and talk in English and it's all so very odd in the most unexplainable way. Every day since I've been back I can never quite shake the feeling that I'm living in a dream, or that Uganda was all a dream... basically it's like I can't comprehend that life in Uganda and life in America are both happening at this very moment on the same planet, like I can't make these two realities compatible in my mind, like I can't juxtapose them alongside one another, like I can't seem to reconcile the me in Uganda with the me in America. I'm sorry that none of this makes any sense. Well, I'm not sorry. But I acknowledge that it doesn't make any sense, and that's okay, and I hope you too can realize that that's okay.

You see, I can't really tell you what I learned in Uganda other than that life is cloudy and complicated and ambiguous and murky and that sometimes you just can't make sense of it. And sometimes you shouldn't try to make sense of it because the more you try to force life into a straight line the further away you bring it from the truth. I've learned that more often than not the most honest answer to a question is "I don't know" and that that's okay. I've become so much more comfortable with the "not knowing" that is so prevalent in our lives and so much more wary of people who claim to "know the facts." I almost feel silly going back to school to learn about the world because you can only learn about the world by learning in the world, not in a lecture hall at an American university. This is no offense to the professors that get paid to teach us about the world, but let me explain:

Last week I led a "Uganda discussion" with a group of 13-16 year olds and I felt so incredibly awkward with the entire set-up. It was like I was supposed to be their window into what Uganda is like... and the truth was I could never be that window, no one could ever be that window, because to know a place you have to experience it for yourself at an intimate level. You have to walk the streets, befriend the people, learn the language, get lost, get drunk, get smacked in the face by your own poorly-formed preconceptions of "how things are in ____," and finally get filled up with the unquantifiable, inexplicable sense of understanding that comes with calling a place your "home," if only for a short while. That's what you have to do.

Unfortunately this truth doesn't resonate all that well with upper-middle-class American teenagers whose schools have probably pounded into them that every question has an answer and every answer can be obtained via asking a responsible adult like a teacher or, say, a camp counselor, so I had to piece together answers that were prefaced with "Well, I don't know, but..."

I guess I would've been best off writing a post that went something like this:

Hmm, Uganda. I don't know, but it was wonderful.

One thing every person needs to do at least once in a lifetime: birthday suit bungee!

You know how there are certain moments that you can clearly identify as life-changing? Not life-changing in that ambiguous happy-fuzzy-rosy I-feel-so-alive way but that distinct, transformative, I-will-never-be-the-same way? Well I had one of those moments this past Sunday. In a complete reversal of everything I've ever done or dreamed of doing, I got up the nerve to go bungee jumping... naked.

It all started when two friends-of-friends who were visiting from Masaka, Kathleen and Michelle, decided to go bungee jumping into the Nile. This had definitely been on my to-do list, but as of late my rapidly depleting stores of money made the $65 price tag seem decidedly out of my reach. So I spent my Saturday watching DVDs on my laptop and eating ice cream. But then Kathleen and Michelle returned, visibly glowing and bubbling over with the remnants of the experience, and said: "Yeah we got there to check in and they asked us how we would like to pay: cash, credit, or the free option?" So what is this free option? You guessed it: you go nude, you go free. Michelle had taken them up on the offer, and judging by her complete and total state of satisfaction, I thought to myself "I can do that too." Save $65 by putting on my birthday suit? That's not really comparable to being a stripper, is it?

So the next morning my roommate Kate and I saw Kathleen and Michelle off and pondered the prospect of actually going through with this. We stumbled upon the phone number for Adrift and called, making a tentative reservation for 5 pm. Now Kate and I were accountability partners in this whole gig: it takes two people for them to open up the tower and we had made the reservation together and we were going, so neither one of us could back out now. That being said, we spent the afternoon chugging down Nile Specials (one of the local beers that's brewed just a hop, skip, and a jump away) because we figured that it's all fine-and-dandy to say you're going to bungee jump naked, but -- more for the naked part than the bungee jumping part -- it probably takes a litre of Niles to actually do it.

But at around 6:30 pm just as the sun was beginning to fall, we did it. Kate and I hiked up the tower, met the gorgeous Australian man and his Ugandan sidekick with whom we were entrusting our very lives, and after watching a few other brave souls take the plunge (clothed), we stepped right up, took a deep breath, and stripped. This is where the Big Life Change began.

The change was almost instantaneous: it was like for as long as I could remember I had this tumor of fear lodged in my stomach that would flare up and cripple me every time I thought about doing something "risky," like quitting my crappy job or standing up to my parents or calling a guy back, and the moment I stripped down in front of that sexy Australian bungee guy the tumor unlodged itself from my gut. Then, when I hopped over to the edge of the tower (they tie you in at your ankles... haha no harness or anything just your feet!), stood tall and proud in front of a crowd of squealing Ugandans and hollering muzungus, and 3...2...1... lept into the open sky with the Nile river waiting 44 metres below to break my fall, that knot of fear that had bound me all my life dissipated into nothing more than an unwelcome memory. As the air whooshed in my ears and the world enveloped my eyes, I was free. And when I reached the water and dunked into the Nile for just long enough to realize that I'd made it, I was flooded with ectasy.

The waves of joy and power and energy and liberation surged through my body as I bounced up and down above the water like a floppy fish. There was no was my smile could contain my joy nor could my body contain my energy -- I was seeping out the edges of my skin and into this beautiful world. The landscape spun around me as I tumbled through it freely, absorbing a stunning kaleidoscope of silver water, green mountains, and barely-broken sunset. Mind you I'm upside down this whole time, so the sights were so alien and disorienting and beautiful -- especially the sweeping upside-down sunset!

Once the bounces gradually became less and less high, out rowed the two guys who would raft me back to land. As they reached out to me with a paddle and cradled my naked body into the raft, little did they know that they were the first individuals on this earth to touch the new, fearless me. It was so adorable when they asked if it was "very much fun," to which I gave a resounding yes. Then one of them told me assuredly, as if to squash whatever anxiety a white woman might be experiencing when rowing naked in a raft with two strange Ugandan men, "We are all born naked easily."

We are all born naked easily. So what happens from that point forward, when trust and freedom become replaced by apprehension and shame? We spend an indefinite number of years losing sight of our innate perfection, learning to look-both-ways and be-a-good-girl/boy, walling ourselves off from our true nature and the true nature of our life on this planet: love. We are all born naked easily. And when I -- surprisingly easily -- reclaimed my nakedness, it was like something new was born inside of me. Something that, I hope, will guide me to a life of more joy and adventure and discovery and growth. The truth of the shift materialized when I stepped back on solid ground, my heart pumping hot blood and adrenalin: I knew that never again could fear limit what I might dare to attempt. That's a line from the Lady of the Bracelet definition that I'd always struggled to imagine for myself, but that very line is what spoke to me as I floated back towards the tower to retrieve my clothes.

Coming down from the tower, Kate and I gasped and giggled and stumbled around with big gestures and big remarks -- "Can you believe we just did that?!?!" "Ohmygod that was the greatest thing ever!" -- all because, in that moment, we were truly soaring on top of the world. When we reached the bar to order a pair of Nile Specials, never had the brand slogan seemed so fitting:

You've earned it.

One month to go...

So I woke up this morning after a way-too-short night of sleep (Cinco De Mayo and Man U v. Arsenal, y'all), sludged my way over to the office on my bike, and found myself bombarded with a calendar that prompted the thought "Today is May 6."

Today is May 6. My flight home is booked for June 6. One month left of Africa and then it's back to the States.

I've been getting the sinking feeling lately that my mental/physical/psychological/emotional transition back to American life is going to be way more difficult than I bargained for. [The food transition, however, will not!] As challenging as it is to live in Uganda, I'm starting to suspect that it may be more challenging to leave Uganda. It's strange, but I can't imagine leaving here and being plopped back into my "normal" life.

Soooo... Today is May 6. I have one month. Here's to making it all it can be :)

Part 1: Top 11, 12, and 13 Signs That You've Assimilated to Uganda; Part 2: Why I Can't Write a "Real" Blog Post

11. Your ATM card gets declined at Barclays. Yep, I got declined by a bank in Uganda... it doesn't get any more humiliating than that. Haha OOPS.
12. You see that ants have raided your box of cereal, and you don't even blink. Instead, you consider it a positive thing that you are probably consuming enough ants on a daily basis to count them as a significant source of protein. Ants as a health food? You betcha.
13. Your brain stem has finally, once-and-for-all detached from your cerebrum. This is made evident when you wake up to find that you have left a pot of water boiling on the gas stove ALL NIGHT and that both the gas and the water have run out. OOPS AGAIN. As my roommate Kate pointed out, we are very lucky that my lack of brain activity didn't cost us our lives via gas poisoning or fire!

So this weekend when I was up in Gulu in northern Uganda (more on that later! and more on all the other random trips I've taken and haven't even mentioned...), I was up late talking with Kate about the usual potpurri of topics, most of them revolving around that wild-and-crazy, impossible-to-understand knot of contradictions and complications we call "development." In the middle of the conversation, in which I was finally able to release many of the loopy, tangled bits and pieces of thoughts and feelings that have been bouncing around in my mind like Mexican jumping beans, I realized that the reason why I haven't been able to write a real blog post, one that delves below the surface and addresses some of those tricky, sticky questions about international affairs and development, is because I can't. Seriously.

It's one thing to have a totally unstructured and laughter-filled conversation with someone who has been living through the same experience as you and facing the same toxic mix of confusion and bewilderment, but a whooooooole other challenge to write down and express what is brewing inside you to an ambiguous audience of people who aren't here living and breathing it with you. After four months of getting really comfortable with living and working in Uganda -- and having a wonderful time doing it! -- it is still way easier for me to tell fragmented little stories or list out some of the superficial, humorous bits about life than to put into words what Uganda has really taught me. Hell, most of the time I don't even KNOW what Uganda has really taught me!

This gives me such a huge respect for authors and journalists whose job it is to travel to a foreign place, absorb all they can about a given topic there, and then barf it back up in the form of a book or blog post or article or news story. There are obviously people who are brilliant at taking something as full-out INSANE as development (or any one of the smaller sub-issues therewithin) and processing it into a form that the average American reader can understand and appreciate. Unfortunately, as you've probably noticed by now, I am not one of them. So here's hoping that with time I'll be able to sharpen up my conclusions about what works in development and what doesn't (in case you were wondering, as of yet I've got a much firmer grasp on what doesn't) and be able to share it with you via the written word. I'm nowhere close to being at that point, but when I get there, you'll be the first to know :)

Top 10 Signs That You've [Finally!] Assimilated to Uganda

So I could update you on what on earth I've been up to since I last posted over a month ago, but I have zero idea where to begin! Sorry if you were hoping for something substantive, but my brain is waaaay too scrambled. But one running thread that has characterized the past few weeks is the steadiness and comfort that goes along with feeling more and more "at home" here in Uganda (not that this is my home... no one freak out that I'm staying here for good!). So, in case you were planning on dropping everything and spending an extended period of time in good ol' Uganda, here are the top ten signals that you've been here long enough to make the "tourist" status on your visa seem so misrepresentative of your real life...

1. Your English skills have noticably declined. Well, I take that back. Your American English skills have noticably declined, but your Ugandan English skills have sharpened remarkably. This becomes apparent when you catch yourself saying "You first come," "Sorry please," and "Good day please" (if only I could type that with the accent!!) but you can't remember common American words and phrases to save your life. I wish you could understand how difficult it is for me to write a coherent blog post, because my vocabulary has plummetted by at least 40%. I use a dramatically lower number and variety of words over the course of the day, which actually has made me realize how few words you need to really get by.

2. You get unduly exited by a hot shower. And by unduly excited, I mean over-the-moon, orgasmically ecstatic. This past weekend a series of random circumstances led me to spending the night in the beautiful, luxurious home of a couple working for the U.S. Foreign Service, and this meant having access to a hot, steamy shower that put me in a good mood for at least the next 48 hours. I swear I thanked the couple Sarah and Dan at least fifty times and offered to buy them a goat for their generosity or something absurd like that.

3. You have a mile-long stretch of children that, rather than yelling out "mzungu!! mzungu!! mzungu how are you? mzungu byeee!" when they see you, yell out your Ugandan name and call you over to them in Lusoga. This is my favorite thing, because it makes me feel like I'm part of a community rather than just a mere outsider. Of course no matter how long you live here you'll always be a mzungu, but to the people of Budondo I at least have a name of my own. And as small as that seems, it makes me oh-so-happy.

4. You have developed a wide array of creative excuses for NOT giving out your phone number to random Ugandan men who ask for your number before asking your name. The most ingenious and multi-purpose of these I have courtesy of my friend Kate: "Sorry, this is a work phone that belongs to my work and I can only use it for work." Direct, polite, and gets the point across!

5. You have slipped up on your evasion tactics and given your number to at least one strange man who has then called you multiple times a day for over a month even though you never once pick up. I do not understand the mindless persistence.

6. You haven't shaved your legs for four months. For real. But don't take this one as a general rule -- it's probably just me and my lack of motivation to do anything unnecessarily extravagant with regards to my appearance.

7. You have a questionable "tan" that may or may not be a combination of dirt and sunburn. My money's on may.

8. You have a network of free-avocado hook-ups that shower you with dozens of avocadoes at every chance they get. This isn't exactly a problem, but it can become one when the two dozen avocadoes you have in your kitchen decide to go rotten before you get a chance to eat them...

9. You litter. So much for responsible environmental behavior...

10. You have come to view toilet paper as a luxury item.

Kale bannange nmaze okuwandika. Njaa okuwumula kati. Sula bulungi ate weekend enungi! Bye!!

Miraculous

Just thinking about how these little guys came from a fruit

that we smashed to bits a couple weeks ago blows my mind.

I had never stopped to think about how amazing seeds are until I went out to Budondo this week and saw the thousands upon thousands of tiny little germinated seedlings speckled across our nursery beds. A little nondescript seed gets planted in the right mix of manure and soil. Then you water it with care every morning and every night and some magical process happens below the ground (I really really want to take a plant biology class now so I know precisely how this magical process works!). And then up springs a baby tree that will grow into a big tree that will supply one of the women in our group with a sustainable source of income and nutrition.

Miraculous.

The more time I spend around seeds and trees and such, the more I soak in their lessons. And the biggest lesson of all is trust. We always seem to trick ourselves into believing that we're in control, that if we only push hard enough, strive far enough, press long enough then we'll be able to force life to go our way. We subconsciously believe that if we don't push against the tide and assert ourselves against the "battles" life throws our way, our needs will not be met and our lives will not be right. I'm noticing in my own life that this all comes down to trust: if you fully, completely trust that everything will turn out all right regardless and that you have everything you need inside of you, then you no longer fear letting go. You no longer feel the need to worry or to stress or to overwork yourself towards a narrow goal. And while I have moments of openness and acceptance that remind me that yes, every little thing will be all right, I have yet to reach this complete level of trust.

Trees are the perfect teachers of trust. They don't try to be strong and beautiful and giving and serene, they just are. It reminds me of a lovely afternoon walk with Sabrina Ward Harrison (http://www.sabrinawardharrison.com/ee/) when our workshop group paused in front of a gorgeous tree and Sabrina said, "Look at this tree. It didn't work to become itself, it didn't try, it didn't think, it just did." Spend even one minute of quiet time with a tree and you'll begin to feel its peace permeate your skin and work its way into your soul. You'll realize, even for a moment, that you have nothing to worry about in this world. That if you let go and let yourself grow untethered by ego and pressure and self-imposed expectations, you will become your own miracle too.

Another reason why I should drop out of school and take a job with an organic agriculture NGO here? Just kidding (well, sort of...)

Much love and happy weekend :)

An open letter...

UPDATE: Okay, sorry this update is really delayed on my part, but here goes: We outraised our fundraising goal of $500 in just one week. The grand total came to $800, which meant we were able to loan the group 6 sewing machines instead of 5 (which works out much better because the group divided up into two smaller training groups that train at sites in two different villages, thus lessening the time it takes for the women to walk to their lessons) and pay for more quality materials (scissors, etc.). The group started training last week and are progressing so so well! I will post more info and some photos as soon as I can get ahold of a darn camera cord. Once again, thank you thank you thank you thank you to those of you who opened up your heart and followed the little spark inside you that compelled you to give up some of your own money for the benefit of complete strangers: you have made a WORLD of a difference already, I can tell. And those of you who tried to donate after the fundraising campaign was already closed, sorry that was totally my fault and I deeply appreciate your willingness to give. Okay more later.

Remember learning about potential energy in 11^th grade physics?
How energy is never created nor destroyed, only transformed?
(Or something like that... I hated physics and it was my worst subject.)

Well, every dollar in your bank account is endowed with potential energy,
and with every act of spending you are choosing what form that energy will take in the world.

Most of us, in the hustle and bustle of our daily lives,
forget to become conscious when we make that choice.

We are busy, we are tired, and we don't think twice before handing over
another $2 here for a soda, $5 there for a coffee, $10 there for a dinner out.

Just think back for a second:
what did you purchase with the last $10 you spent?

For me, it was two sodas, credit for my cell phone,
and a brownie (a damn good brownie at that!)

Now ask yourself:
were these conscious purchases charged with the intent to contribute to sustainable good in the world?

My answer: not one bit.
My brownie's pleasure rating? 10 out of 10!

Sustainability rating? Umm... zero.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with buying these little things for ourselves,
but when we rarely look past satisfying our short-term wants,
it sure doesn't make us feel right.

We feel small and forget that we are powerful.
We feel separate and forget that we are part of
an interconnected human organism that needs each and every one of us.
We feel empty and forget that we have big hearts
that light up and do cartwheels when we spread joy to others.

In short,

But when we wake up to the power each of us has to translate the energy of our money
– and our time, and our skills, and our actions –
into good for not only ourselves but for others,
we can begin to integrate little conscious acts
of empowered giving into our day-to-day lives.

Little acts of giving that fill you up way more than a brownie ever could.

I am bringing this to your attention because you

yes, you!


have the power to make the conscious choice
right now to contribute to something greater
than the temporary personal satisfaction of a caffeine fix or beer buzz,
something in line with the life-changing empowerment
of marginalized women a-half-a-world away.

A group of my friends in Budondo, Uganda
- 30 women living with AIDS while raising large families without a source of income –
have mobilized to start a small sewing and tailoring enterprise
that will put them on a path towards economic stability and self-reliance,
empowering them to gradually expand their livelihoods
and thereby reclaim control over their own lives.

• 
  

They don't have the financial capital to kick-start this venture,
and they're afraid to secure a microfinance loan locally because they were screwed over in the past
(think pay-day lending – by the time they could pay back their loan, it had tripled in size with interest and they lost everything).

Help fund an interest-free loan for these women to get started.

We need to raise $500 for 5 sewing machines and training materials.

The money you give – whatever amount – will multiply itself over and over as a contribution to the development of sustainable livelihoods that will not only strengthen the future prospects of these women,
but their children and communities as well.

Now,
I am not blind to the fact that we're all strapped for cash right now.
I don't even want to look at the balance of my bank account
because I know it won't be grounds for celebration.

But you know what is?

We are alive, we are breathing, and we do have everything we really need to get by.

One thing that being here in Uganda has taught me is that as “broke” as I am at any given moment,
I can always stock my refrigerator and put gas in my car and get a job at McDonald's to keep a roof over my head.

And that is worth celebrating.

In celebrating all that we have,
we can stop feeling lacking or worried about our finances
and start fostering gratitude,
recognizing the actual abundance in our lives.

And there's no stronger and truer way to
manifest our gratitude and express our abundance
than by giving –
giving a little, knowing that together we can do a lot.

I'm sure you've heard Margaret Mead's famous quote:

Well this isn't just about believing this,

it's about proving it.

And together we can.

We can be the small group
that really will change the worlds of these women in ways we can't even begin to imagine.

I can't come up with $500 on my own,
you can't come up with $500 on your own,
and these women sure as the sky is blue can't come up with $500 – let alone $5 – on their own.

But together we can.

I know this with every ounce of my being.
(And with all the brownies I've been eating lately, that's A LOT of ounces!!)

Okay, if that hasn't made you excited about parting with five or ten or twenty or [gasp] fifty tax-deductible dollars
to release positive energy into the world, I don't know what could!

Oh yeah... the women are committed to paying back this loan,
so in time if you so choose you will get your money back
(or you can choose to recycle it to another project).

How's that for painless?

So please consider being a part of this movement,

and thank you thank you thank you...

Come on... it's as easy as clicking this little button and typing in your credit/debit card number...

Thank you!

For more information, check out http://www.fsdinternational.org/donate/projects/4
Any questions can be sent to heidi.tenpas@gmail.com

TREES = LOVE

So I'm pretty tired from an action-packed weekend in Budondo (a.k.a. land of the trees) but I just wanted to quickly give a tree update. This past week has been so exciting, because our group has completed two trainings: on Thursday we (and by we I mean the group) planted 110 trees (well, not all 110 have been planted quite yet, but most of them have!)and on Sunday we constructed a full-out nursery bed and planted mango, passion fruit, and papaya seeds that will now start to grow!!!! Somehow that doesn't all sound as exciting in writing as it is in reality, but trust me, it has been SO SO SO SO SO exciting to watch it all unfold. Seriously, these women are so strongly motivated to plant these trees and it is the most -- dare I say it -- heart-warming and inspiring thing in the world to see them out there in the sun, in the dirt, barefoot, digging the earth from which their trees will grow. And yesterday, oh my goodness, it blew my mind to see this flat barren plot of land turn into a nursery bed where little baby trees are germinating right now as I write this! Yesterday was a long day -- for the women especially, many of whom are older ladies -- and even without lunch, we all stuck around from the morning until 5 in the evening to lay that nursery bed and let me tell you, I have never been prouder of anyone than I was of the women who worked tirelessly all day and completed that training and laid that bed. One of the things I've been noticing is that while Patrick and his buddy Kabi are absolutely extraordinary and humble leaders for the group, the women themselves (who form 97% of the group's membership) aren't in big leadership roles the majority of the time. So after completing this really intensive training, the women are going to serve as the trainers for the big group nursery training this week. They are so devoted to this, and it's going to be really imperative to cultivate their leadership within the project in order for our whole initiative to succeed. Anyway, it meant so much to be able to hug them at the end of the day yesterday and know that they were IN this with me FOR REAL. We are in this crazy tree thing together now, and I am ecstatic at how it's going. On a more personal level, I have felt this incredible convergence of openness and energy and love this past week as I've been doing all this tree stuff with my group. It struck me that when I was actually excited to wake up on a Saturday and Sunday morning and bike for two hours in the sun to go do this work, that means this really is good work. I'm realizing that when your work is good and fills you up and sparks something in you, you are so much more motivated to actually DO it. I even finished my draft for my grant proposal now, so we'll be in good shape to proceed (that is if the grant is granted... yikes...). Haha now if only I could feel this good about writing papers for school!

Alright, good night! Stay tuned for more updates, and for pictures when I get ahold of a darn camera cord. Lots and lots of love.

Trees, bicycles, and other things I really really should leave to the pros

My life now revolves completely around trees and how to grow them. When I spoke briefly with Gabi last night on Skype, she brought it to my attention how absolutely random this whole thing is: I came to Uganda to work with an HIV/AIDS organization and gain experience in public health work, and now the entirety of my existence is devoted to planting trees and starting up nurseries. The randomness of all this is further amplified by the fact that I am probably the most unqualified individual on the face of the planet to be running a tree project (I'm not sure what else to call it... but I'll have to think of a catchier name than “tree project” if I'm going to secure any grant funding!). I don't know a darn thing about planting or growing trees, not to mention grafting them, breeding them, transplanting them, and whatever else you're supposed to do with trees... ummm.... and here I am starting up a tree project with a group of people living in poverty with HIV/AIDS in rural Uganda! Random, right? Yes, but I love it.

Now, the more I think about it (i.e. the more I attempt to organize my so-called thoughts into coherent paragraphs for my grant proposal), the more I am coming to see that planting trees actually is public health work, believe it or not! To put it in a daisy-chain kind of way, trees = dependable source of fresh fruits, dependable source of fresh fruits = sustainable source of income and food security, sustainable source of income and food security = improved nutrition, improved nutrition = improved health and wellness, improved health and wellness = improved adherence to ART regime (due to increased ability to manage side effects) and reduced susceptibility to opportunistic infections, improved adherence to ART regime and reduced susceptibility to opportunistic infections = longer, healthier, better life with HIV/AIDS among the group members! Thus, trees = improved health and quality of life for people living with HIV/AIDS.

And here's another daisy-chain for you: trees = source of fruits/seedlings/wood to sell, source of fruits/seedlings/wood to sell = income generation, income generation = economic empowerment, economic empowerment = ability to make and enforce key personal decisions without the constraints of economic dependency and financial insecurity, ability to make and enforce key personal decisions without the constraints of economic dependency and financial insecurity = increased agency, increased agency = ability to choose and negotiate safe sexual practices, ability to choose and negotiate safe sexual practices = reduced spread of HIV among the group members' families and communities! Thus, trees = reduced spread of HIV.

I have a couple more sequences like that, but I think you get the picture. Trees are very powerful public health tools. But public health is a marathon, not a sprint. You should probably know that the work that we're doing really is comparable to planting a seed, because the trees themselves will take about two years to start producing fruits and thus all these desired beneficial health outcomes will take another few years to really materialize. Change is slow, and big change is even slower, so we're just starting with the trees and putting the process in motion. This is a little difficult for me to stomach sometimes because I can get impatient in the scope of it all, and I have to listen to Nancy's voice in my head: “Patience is not time, it's trust.” And I trust that we're doing a really good thing. A slow, frustrating, maddening, confusing, arduous thing, but a really good thing nonetheless. Thereby I love trees and I couldn't be more excited about, energized by, and immersed in my work. Yes, it is probably the most random work I've ever done (even more random than Food Avenue). But if all the randomness I've encountered over the course of my life has taught me anything, it's that random things always end up being the best things anyway!

Okay, so now that my life revolves around planting trees with Patrick and friends, I have to travel from town to the Budondo sub-county multiple times a week. After trekking out there first by motorcycle and then by matatu (the taxis/buses “licensed to hold 14 passengers” that carry like 25+ people), both of which involved a lot of waiting around on other people and being reliant upon other people to secure my transport, I decided I needed to get a more reliable and independent source of transport. Enter my new bicycle, which my friend Tristan and his host organization hooked me up with for a mere 140,000 shillings (which is about $73 but hopefully worth it!). When I first got it, I headed off in the direction of the FSD office and somehow ended up on a highway to the west of town, biking through the green, green hillside under the umbrella of the late-afternoon sun. I didn't quite know where I was or where I was going but I didn't care. And there was something very liberating about the simple physical act of pedaling the bike and feeling the wind in my face and bumping through the rough spots and potholes, all the while being completely free of thoughts and worries. As an added bonus, I didn't crash on the highway or get hit by a giant truck and die.

So with this thoroughly pleasant biking experience under my belt, yesterday I got all ambitious and decided that I would indeed bike myself to Budondo to talk trees with with Patrick and Kabi and whoever else was around. Now, the bus/motorcycle ride to Budondo is about 20 minutes or so and involves using motorized technology to tackle the series of very large hills. So between my gear-less bike and my muscle-less body, I had to walk up the hills and the same ride took me about an hour-and-a-half. An hour-and-a-half in the big hard sun being pelted by dust and dirt from the motorized vehicles zooming by and wishing with every ounce of my being that I had five gallons of ice water to pour over and into myself. It was pretty strenuous, but the scenery was straight-up breathtaking and every person I passed was totally amused by me (you don't see many women or mzungus riding bikes around here, thus a mzungu woman on a bike is quite the anomaly) and greeting/laughing with these amused strangers kept my mood light. And when I finally reached Budondo, I was the most exhausted and most proud I've been in a very long time.

After spending an awesome day in the field in which I witnessed the formation of an entire vegetable garden due to the hard work of Patrick, Kabi, Peter, a bunch of really awesome women whom I'm meeting again on Thursday, and a couple of awesome mzungus from this NGO called Development in Gardening, the time came to embark on the journey back to Jinja. Because I'd ran out of my half-filled water bottle about halfway through the ride there and was thereby miserably thirsty for the remainder of the day, I decided I would pull over to buy a bottle of water before I got going. So I bought a nice little bottle of water. And by nice little bottle of water I mean to say a nice little bottle of water and a litre of Fanta (because in my state of dire thirst I simply couldn't help myself, and I even paid the deposit on the bottle). The ride back took me yet another hour-and-a-half in the beating sun and it was all kind of one long, drawn-out blur of heat and exhaustion and eyes stinging from the dirt. At one point, after I'd been going for like an hour and felt like I was going to collapse, I remember seeing this massive steep hill ahead of me and the only word I could think of was “_____” (go ahead and use your imagination to figure out what that one was...). So I was pushing my bike up this hill thinking “___, ___, ___, but I made it! And I arrived home and took one look in the mirror and it was not a pretty sight: picture me, except soaked in sweat and with skin the color of terra cotta, with blisters all over my hands and a really really sore butt, and with an extra dark mustache where sweat has accumulated. Not one of my better looks. But needless to say, never has a cold bucket shower felt so so so so so good.

Well, tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn I'll be headed back out to Budondo, just me and my bike. I guess most days from now on will include three-plus hours out biking in the sun, burning off all those matooke calories and turning into a red-dirt-sweat-creature. All for the sake of the trees. Fun times DEFINITELY accomplished!

Bye for now! Sula bulungi! (Have a good evening!)

Help me pleeeease!

So I finally have a direction for my work here: promoting income generation (and thus economic empowerment, food security, and educational opportunity) through sustainable livelihoods approaches and asset-based community-driven development. This entails assessing the multiple components of people's livelihoods, identifying and mobilizing individual and community assets -- which probably won't be physical or financial assets but more in the vein of human, cultural, natural, and social capital -- and channeling collective action to stimulate positive social and economic benefits for all the individuals involved (as well as the community at large).

I think this essentially amounts to being a community organizer for poor rural people. Unfortunately, I know very very little about A.) sustainable livelihoods B.) rural poverty reduction or C.) community organizing.
Oh, and because collective action is always more productive than what an individual (especially a resource-strapped individual) can achieve alone -- and I'm assuming this principle extends to income generation and community development -- I'm also exploring the possibilities of forming/joining a cooperative, something else about which I know nothing about but I am definitely interested in learning more!

So this is an open call to anyone and everyone who knows even the tiniest bit or has even the most limited experience in co-ops, small-scale agriculture, small business development, or community organizing. I want to hear all your advice, stories, lessons learned, and crazy ideas. Seriously, I know you're brilliant people, please help me out here! I'm begging you and you would be an unbelievable help to my work.

Leave a comment or drop me an e-mail at heidi.tenpas@gmail.com (which is, by the way, my new Uganda e-mail address because apparently Heidimail has an adverse reaction to Ugandan computers). I can't promise you I'll reply, because 85% of the time the internet fails when I'm in the process of using it, but just know in your heart of hearts that you are helping me out like nobody's business and who knows maybe one day I'll give you a "personal favor" in return (just kidding). Also you all need to get skype because it's the coolest thing on the planet and, strangely enough, functions way better than the internet. Yeah the internet has biiiig issues which is why I haven't posted pictures yet. But stay tuned they're on their way!

Thanks a ton xoxo
Haha I should get back to work -- yeah I'm sneaking a post on the blog at work. Which I think is okay because I actually don't have anything to do until Thursday when the real fun begins. So right now I will either go 1.) take 4 pills each out of hundreds upon hundreds of containers of ARVs or 2.) play with really adorable kids in the childcare center. I think I choose #2, though counting drugs all day is quite fun. Alrighty goodbye for now!

Take a thousand different feelings, put them in a blender for five minutes, and that's about how I feel right now!

So since I can't compose my own words to encompass my thoughts, I'll steal some of Michael Franti's: "It seems like everywhere I go, the more I see the less I know." I never really got that line (what? see more, know less? huh?) but now it pretty much sums up my mental state as I take in all the absolutely incomprehensible sights around me. Every day I go somewhere different, meet new people, encounter new realities, and every new experience just diminishes my sense of order and cohesion and "knowledge." It's not a good thing or a bad thing, just a strange thing, because I'm used to being able to comprehend and interpret the sensory input around me and draw some marginally legitimate conclusions from it, but I pretty much gave that all up my first night here! I've completely let go of the need to interpret or find cohesion in the rampant contradictions. Instead I'm just taking it all in, moment by moment, and accepting that I know nothing.

Yes indeed I feel like I know absolutely nothing these days, which makes it that much harder to try to identify a specific need in my "community" (which is not one specific place or one specific group of people as far as I can tell) and design a participatory, sustainable project to help people empower themselves towards better lives. That's what I'm supposed to be doing (key word: supposed), but I'm having trouble getting anywhere close. Because I know absolutely 100% nothing. Haha, at least I have a blank slate to work with!!

On a completely unrelated note, today I worked all day in the children's care center at TASO (for children in the pediatric ART program and the children of TASO clients) and witnessed something I just wanted to share: All through day, amidst the chaotic atmosphere of boisterous kids and fussy babies and tired mamas and busy TASO staff, a woman is coming and going with a tiny tiny baby strapped to her back. Sometimes the baby is asleep, but mostly the baby is weakly crying and coughing with this horrible cough that makes you wince when you hear it back it sounds very painful. When the mama takes her baby off her back to sit and eat you see the baby's flaky skin and skinny limbs and little ribs and distended belly. All day the two of them are around, and I wave and smile and greet them (which is the extent of my communication abilities with Lusoga speakers) but I can't actually have a conversation or ask what's up with them. So at the end of the afternoon, they're the last to leave. Dorothy and Solome give the woman a bag full of nutrition supplements and milk powder and send them on their way. Once they're gone, I ask how the baby was doing, and I learn that she wasn't a baby at all but a two-and-a-half year old girl. I was shocked. This tiny body appeared to be that of a 4 month old baby and really belonged to a 2 1/2 year old girl -- a very malnourished, very sick little girl about to start an ART regimen because she is not doing very well. I don't even know what to say, what to tell you. That's AIDS for you. I guess. It breaks your heart into a million pieces and makes you question how such suffering even begins. But TASO is a wonderful wonderful wonderful treatment provider and if anyone can boost that little girl back into good health, it's TASO.

So there you go. I don't even know what to think or how to feel about that or anything else for that matter but there it is. Just one little story out of a billion unexpressed stories that are unfolding in front of my eyes minute by minute. I hope you can take something away from it, because I'm still grasping at nothingness, trying to make sense of it myself. Which probably won't happen, because I'm pretty sure that nothing actually "makes sense" in the end anyway.

Have you ever seen things that make you question everything? That don't fit in the framework of how you process the world? That steal your thoughts and words and leave you just sitting there? I feel like we all have those moments, especially when we're in unfamiliar settings. The world is brimming with nonsense and contradictions and sights of soaring joy holding hands with gnawing sorrow. So if you wouldn't mind, I would love to hear about your dumbfounded times too.

Much much love!

Top Ten Reasons Why Uganda Is Fabulous

Well I've officially spent two weeks in Uganda and so much has happened I don't even know where to begin. So let's just start with the top ten amusing themes that have characterized my experience thus far:

1. So much for losing weight on the Africa diet! I am eating an absurd amount of food here, and I'm estimating that approximately 96% of it consists of pure carbs. Good thing I walk everywhere because I'm pretty sure that otherwise I wouldn't be able to digest the 10 zillion pounds of matooke I consume on a daily basis.
2. Speaking of matooke, I'm getting used to it. I even actually like it when it's drenched in the ground nut and entula sauce that we have a lot of the time, so that is a positive development. Also I'm almost getting used to eating dinner at close to 10 at night with my family (even though I'm still half-asleep as I shovel down my matooke). What I'm not quite used to yet is the paw-paw we have for dessert most days of the week, which it very clearly a fruit but to me tastes like something halfway between a very strong cheese and a load of garbage. And yet I still attempt to eat it out of politeness to my family, at least most days...
3. Speaking of my family, my new best friends at home are under the age of ten. I'm gradually connecting with my host family but because the other adults at the house pretty much do their own thing most of the time (either conversing with eachother in Luganda or doing housework which they will not let me help out with), it's kind of awkward to just linger around them so instead I hang out with my host mother's niece's two little girls, Faith who is 3 and Gloria who is 9. They absolutely love to color with my art supplies, teach me Luganda words, play with my camera and cell phone, and just dance around and be silly with me. They are my constant companions and are super adorable! Faith actually walked here with me to the office so I could make this post so she says hello. At least I think she would if she spoke English.
4. Puppies here are not pets. :( I wish you could hear the sound of my heart breaking. There are tons of dogs all over the place and they are so cute and I just want to go cuddle with them but alas they are wild animals. Wild animals with rabies. Because of this, all of us in my program got the rabies vaccine, which is probably a good thing for me because one of these days I swear I'm going to stop thinking and go pet a cute little puppy that turns out to be a rabid beast that will try to eat my hand off.
5. My skin is finally reacting to the climate change, and not in a good way. I am breaking out like nobody's business, and the other day my host mother asked me why I was getting so many mosquito bites on my face! Ouch.
6. I thoroughly embarrass myself on pretty much a five minute basis. If I make it longer than fifteen or twenty minutes without butchering the language, doing something culturally inappropriate, or simply acting a fool, I consider this a grand accomplishment!
7. My encounters with the male population (well not the men I actually know but random men on the street) consist mainly of turning down marriage proposals and/or stating very emphatically that no, I really, really can't get you a green card. This happens numerous times a day, and I have gotten very used to telling people I have a husband back in America.
8. To my pleasant surprise, bucket showers are very enjoyable. It's a nice little ritual every night to crouch down with the bucket and rinse away the layer of red dirt that accumulates on my skin over the course of the day.
9. Television is hilarious here. My family watches television every evening and thus I watch it with them. The UTV (one of I think two channels we have) lineup is American music videos (both of the current and late '90s variety) and the evening news, followed by a fabulous daily rotation of programs that include the British version of Deal or No Deal (very low budget and dreadfully unexciting yet somehow really funny), second-string American crime drama shows like Criminal Minds, and – my personal favorites – a pair of telenovelas, Second Chance and Two Sides of Ana. Second Chance is the best. It is so, so bad that it's reached the point of being absolutely hilarious and almost addictive. It is still so comical to me that I am in Uganda watching Mexican soap operas dubbed over in English. Seriously, life is too funny.
10. When I am not working, eating, coloring, exploring, or watching TV, I am most likely dancing (and concurrently being laughed at by whoever I'm dancing with). The Ugandan music on the radio is pretty awesome. Unfortunately I have no idea what any of the songs are called or who sings them, but they sure are great to dance to. Oh, also on TV there is a Ugandan show called Hotsteppers that's like a low-budget American idol for hip hop dancers. Needless to say, I LOVE watching it, especially because me and the two little girls dance along and try to imitate the dancers. And the live finale is in Kampala today – it only costs 5000 shillings to get in (like $2.40) but I can't go. Boo.

Well, I hope that gives you a general picture of what I do here. Hopefully I can soon give more substantial and coherent insight into what I'll be working on (but I honestly don't know yet) and what life here is actually like (but I honestly can't put it into words). Honestly I can't describe what I'm experiencing, and as the queen of overly wordy explanations for things, that rarely happens to me. So be patient as I try to find words for the crazy conglomeration of sights, smells, tastes, people, places, animals, ideas, thoughts, feelings, and contradictions that is Uganda.

So much love from Jinja and if you have any particular questions about what I'm up to, shoot them my way! Tunalabagana edda! (See you later!)

-- Heidi – Oh, except my name is no longer Heidi. I now go by any combination of the following three names: Irene, muzungu, and Kitimbo (which I was officially named by the village I visited last weekend... I have no idea what it means but oh well). Oh and one of the guys I work with calls me Tempatt (some variation of my last name I suppose).

Taking my freedom, pulling it off the shelf, putting it on my chain...

So I leave for the airport in like three hours and I just finished packing (phewf!) but now of course I can't sleep...

Actually, I probably could sleep if I tried, but I'm afraid of the nightmares from the malaria pills (no joke). You see, I put off taking the malaria pills this week because I was afraid of the nightmares which are a side effect of the pills, then I realized that I need to take the pills because otherwise I'll get malaria, and then after I took the pills tonight I realized I'm really screwed because I took them too late and now I'll probably get nightmares AND malaria. Oh joy!

But the other reason I can't sleep is that I don't know what to think or feel at this point. I am past excitement and am now totally and utterly blank with awe. I really don't even think it hit me that I was leaving until this afternoon when I was driving around town, running last-minute errands (because I am an idiot and never learn any better and do absolutely everything last minute every time...), getting Route 44 slushies during happy hour at sonic... yep I actually think it was the lemonberry slush that finally did it for me. I'm sipping my slush and then I think, "Damn this is the last slush I'll be having in a looooooong time..." and that's what set off this strange feeling of finality that's been hanging over me ever since.

Today made me realize I have a lot of attachments. I don't know if you've heard of the whole nonattachment thing that's in Buddhist philosophy, but it's pretty self-explanatory (don't be attached to anything) and I am in love with the concept. I am also absolutely terrible at it. Just when I think I'm all ready to live all rough and greasy in Uganda, I get really, really, really attached to the comforting, familiar staples of Our Modern American World. Staples like slushies. Ice cream. Cheesy gordita crunches with-no-beef-beans-instead. McDonald's. MSNBC. Late night reruns on TNT. Hot showers. Doritos. Laundry machines. Heating and air conditioning. Toilet paper. Water that you don't have to boil and/or treat with iodine before you drink it.

But this is what I love about the situation I've thrust myself into: I will be forced to unattach myself from all these fluffy empty "comfort foods" and open up wide spaces for greater, fuller, much much more exciting and real things to unfold. I don't have to work at it, I don't have to try, I just have to go with it, trust in the good, let go and let it all happen. Really, that's all we ever need to do. It's so darn simple! Why do we (and by we I mean I) always manage to make it all so darn complicated?

Simplicity is something I've been after for a loooong time. I think part of the curse of being an artist and being in love with the world is that to me everything is precious, everything is a treasure, and I end up snatching up and holding on to every little glimpse of magic I catch out of the corner of my eye while walking down the street from one moment to the next and over time what was once simple and magical in that one moment evolves into a heaping pile of clutter. Because the magic was never supposed to be held onto in the first place. And yet it's so hard to let go and realize that in the end nothing is precious, nothing is a treasure. You don't need to hold on; you don't ever need to do, have, or be anything. And while I can think that and believe that, I have never been able to live that. I still want my slushie, please.

Nonattachment. It's a bitch.

So here's to letting go. Letting go of the knots in my stomach, the expectations in my head, the money in my pocket, the books in my bag. Something truly truly magical is about to unfold. I don't know what will happen. But I'm already in love with it.

Much much love and please let yourself have a day of freedom. Give yourself permission. Go on, live you life like it's golden!! (Oh, Jill Scott's "Golden" is my anthem for the next 48 hours).

And stay tuned for the first pictures/musings from UGANDA!!!! OH MY GOSH!!