A Crooked Mile

A Pause for Hope

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 02:03:00 +0000

Tuesday will be an interesting day. Another day creeps closer to the looming second block exams. More volleys of definitions, signs, symptoms, diagnoses, and numerous other facts will be flung at me from Power Point. My hands will be brought one step closer to being able to feel and heal the bodies I place them on. And Yoweri Museveni, the President of Uganda, will meet with George W. Bush to discuss a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Northern Uganda and the role that the US might play in that.

Wait. What?

It seems like I've been searching for a day like that for years, since I first heard the story of the Lord's Resistance Army. To go from there, to learning more about the children placed in harms way and the millions sequestered into devastation, to actually meeting children like Jacob in Uganda and continuously loosing at cards to him, to saying good-bye to all of my friends like Peter Paul and Abiyo Peter and leaving on a plane with their world so much closer to piece and yet still infinite steps away. Every tangible step since then, the renewed talks, the international pressure, the appointment of a State Department official to the conflict, and now to this meeting, strikes me with hope and fear.

Oddly, the fear comes first. First I remember hope that has bloomed before. That I have stood in front of crowds and told them that their actions would bring forward peace, that we were all a part of history. And also that my friends are more familiar with words and gestures of peace than they are with the actual living of it. And then I'm afraid. I fear that two men will sit in a room, comforted by the cushions beneath them, and talk of lofty things and vague, grand plans. That they will register the hope felt by everyone who understands the pinnacle of this time. That they will even voice their own hopes, and that will be all. Photos will be taken and politics will emerge the only winner available.

Then the smooth hope comes on. I remember the parade of white flags, how Jolly remarked that it was unlike anything she had seen. I remember Gulu blossoming. I remember two thousand people in Portland joined by tens of thousands everywhere. I remember talking with so many people who know that peace is the only option and who told their government so.

Then, I can pause and let the hope in. It's wild to think of what we've all been a part of. And it's far from over. Even after this talk, there will be more talks. Even after deals are signed, there will be reconstruction. Even with this looming before us, we still have to act. For those of you who read this before Tuesday is over, I'll provide a link to email President Bush, and help drive these talks towards the hope that we can all feel.

And then we sit and watch the news and listen for the echoes of all of our voices and our hope ringing out.

Email President Bush:
http://resolveuganda.org/node/416

A Reversed Recital: Delayed Reflections Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 04:22:00 +0000

What with the numerable occurrences in life recently, I’ve only just realized my silence since settling in to Vallejo. It was not intentional. Life, as I’ve said when describing my return from Africa, has a consumptive manner to it that doesn’t release sometimes. Something about this past weekend between the reunion, the 90’s flashback music on the radio, and countless other events have forced me into reflection on the past several months and realizing that I have written nothing about this American life. So, I’ll offer some formally written (in blog format, not sure how formal that is) promise to try to reflect, write, and respond to life.

I’ll begin with the easiest, something I’ve already written. Even before coming back to the States I knew I was heading up to Portland soon to revisit old friends and my favorite state. I had been invited to speak at the Love Rally there about my experiences in Uganda. This invitation, in fact, formed a good amount of how I forced myself to process the experiences as I was packing up and heading out. The result is this speech, the details of which I very well may discuss later, but for now, here it is, something vaguely similar to what I said in Pioneer Courthouse Square over Fall Break some weeks ago: (sorry it’s kind of long, trust me I tried to deliver it in ten minutes.)

Paving the Road to Heaven

Thank you for that introduction, and thank you all. One thing I learned in Uganda, you can never thank people enough, so for them and for myself, thank you. For stopping and listening, wether you are parked here for the whole day learning, loving, and dancing, or whether you are passing through and were stopped by a story about a child, or a genocide, or a health clinic, or a global crisis, thank you for responding to that impulse, the impetus that tells us the world can be better, that improves our intentions and how we live our lives.

Being back here in the Square reminds me of how powerful that impulse can be. About a year and a half ago, I stood here with two thousand other people who slept overnight in solidarity with the children of Northern Uganda. On the road to and from that night to here, I have been shown remarkable examples of how our best intentions can go dramatic distances to improving the world. There are people who will tell you that isn’t true, that the “road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” They will tell you, citing entrenched histories of violence and death in Africa and elsewhere, that for all the money spent, we have done no good. They will say that donations and efforts do little besides placating Western guilt and advancing vague capitalist causes.

I, of course, disagree with this perspective. I have seen, in myself and others, the power that this simple idea can have. When a story or a picture or a person inspires something in us that is better than ourselves, we are driven with this desire to do good, and our best intentions carry us. I can only tell you from what I’ve seen that when these intentions are carried through honestly and fully, while the results may not be what we imagine when we first start out, they can reap great Good. A Goodness of the capital “G” sort.

The story of my own inspiration is the only way I can think of to explain this. I started out on this road as a college student, some mild experiences in developing countries, mostly in Mexico. After watching Invisible Children for the second time, I began to imagine what real impact I might have in the world. For those of you who are not familiar with it, the documentary Invisible Children depicts a civil war that has raged and destroyed lives in Northern Uganda for over twenty years. The conflict has resulted in tens of thousands of children abducted –forced to become child soldiers and sex slaves, in around 1.8 million people displaced from their homes, and in innumerable secondary effects from a decimated educational system to heightened HIV/AIDS scenario. After watching the film I was griped by the desire to do something anything—my best intentions calling out for justice and repair. I could have dropped a dollar in the cup and called that enough, but luckily I was offered the opportunity to travel the country and raise awareness with Invisible Children. That route led me to numerous high schools, colleges, churches and other places where I was inspired by the profound good will of the youth of this country. The experience culminated in the event I mentioned, with bodies strewn in sleeping bags all over these bricks. And after that I felt good, like I had done something, we had all come together and we accomplished a small step towards peace in Northern Uganda. The opposing sides entered into peace talks shortly afterward and hope loomed heavy for the first time. I could have stopped there.

Just as my money was not enough, the fact that I raised my hand once with over 80,000 other people to cry out “Injustice” did not solve the problem. If I was going to follow through on my intentions fully, I would have to do more. Again, I was graced with an opportunity to travel to Uganda and help create a program called Schools for Schools with Invisible Children aimed at rebuilding the North. I had profound ideas of what I could accomplish after studying International Relations and scoffing at the history of folly that Americans and Europeans have reeked in Africa. But if I was going to provide any real assistance there, I was going to have to learn more. As I sat in meetings with government officials, headmasters, teachers, students, and anyone who would talk to me I learned more about what real needs were and what real solutions could be offered. I saw schools made out of slants of scrap wood that produced quality students while relatively resource-rich schools struggled. I learned about the deeper qualities that were needed for development.

One of the most profound of those was community. Out projects in the Internally Displaced Person’s camps always provided us with inspiration. To describe an IDP camp for the uninitiated, imagine the refugee camps that you have seen on tv and in photos. Now imagine something worse. Because of instability caused by the rebel army, the Ugandan government forced a majority of the people from Northern Uganda into these camps where there was no water, no sanitation, no schools, no farming. Now a great percentage of the population is dependant on foreign aid for medicine, food, education, and other essentials. The rates of death, rape, alcoholism, and other tragedies in these camps are staggering. We try to help how we can but it wasn’t until a fire destroyed hundreds of tightly packed mud huts that I learned about profound help. As these huts where struggling families kept their few possessions were destroyed, a group of our beneficiaries in neighboring camps came together to assist the affected families. These people who themselves had next to nothing, who we provided a small boost of income and hope, and they turned around and offered a large portion of that back to us to rebuild the burnt and destroyed huts and homes. Only after witnessing exchanges like that of real love and community did I come to a more profound understanding of aid these good intentions of mine would ask of me.

But this is a growing, living thing. This spark of initiative that I’m describing in these good intentions continues to grow in me as I meet and discuss with people here and everywhere. And if I can offer you one thing, in my gratitude for the fact that you stopped and listened to me it is the understanding that I have come to. We can pave the road to Heaven with our good intentions, we can create a better world, we can answer that call inside ourselves that says we must do something, anything. But to do so honestly and fully, we have to follow through. It was only by investing myself and learning about the situations and talking with people that I learned how to help even more. If you have heard a story today that inspires you, I ask that you don’t just give money and let your conscience by assuaged. Get involved, the only way to change the world is to allow yourself to first be changed. And I’m not saying we all have to run to Africa. I was lucky, and I am enormously grateful that I could do that. But so much could be done right here. A couple of months ago, Invisible Children held another event and tens of thousands showed up to call for an end to the war in Northern Uganda and an end to the Internally Displaced Persons camps. Since then, the State Department has taken strong steps to assist the peace process, and hope continues to grow in Uganda.

That is what I offer you. Do not just be inspired, be changed. Learn about the people and the cause that inspires you. Then let that change in you shine out into the world in a new song, yours combined with others. That is love, that is the fruit of good intentions, of honest inspiration and wanting to improve the world with the courage to see it through. The call that Ghandi made, to “be the change you want to see in the world,” is your soul’s inspiration, your good intentions calling out, offering the only real hope for change, one that starts and continues with you.

(By the way, if the topic interested you and you want to be truly angered, read Michal Maren's "The Road to Hell")

Answering the Shofar's Call

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 03:42:00 +0000

I never quite understood how the choice of an Observant Jewish-based institution would affect my life when I headed out to medical school. At first, I didn't even notice that Touro University in Vallejo, California was even Jewish. As it was explained to me, the whole thing dates back to early Jewish immigrants who have been participating in philanthropy for a considerable part of our country's history. Their latest efforts have been to bring health education to the West Coast. The first and most constant thing mentioned during orientation was the food. I realized quickly I would have to get used to BBQ's without cheeseburgers--an awkward thought. The fact that we observe all Jewish holidays including Shabbat (half-day every Friday) certainly adds a positive spin on everything.
Luckily, the differences do go more than superficial and calender-based as well. During orientation, the school's Rabbi came forward and gave a quick lesson out of the Talmud, which spoke of the benefits and necessities of community. Moments like that will hopefully continue throughout my education here. Already I am learning more, as we were inducted to our clinical lives in the White Coat ceremony through the blasting of a Shofar, a Jewish horn. At the ceremony, we received one of the most pronounced symbols of our new profession, medicine. The use of the instrument intended to loan some of its awe-inspiring blasts (the same sound that fell the walls of Jericho) and of introspection and release (through its sounding at Rosh Hoshanah and Yom Kippur). All of these meanings blasted towards us as we attempted to understand the depth of what we began. A four year task, which really just begins our journey, of intense learning and preparing to serve community and sacrifice ourselves.
I sat in my auditorium chair, looking up at our imported prints of Chagall's stained glass windows, and took in the perspective of at least the coming year. I've closed myself off to traveling now for a while. Locked into a home, building relationships as much as I can in my free time, I cannot even imagine what might happen. I know much of the time will be consumed by books, studying, discussing, practicing, worrying, and all of the food-and-sleep withdrawls that accompany these things. It's worth it. It's something I've been working towards for a while. I'm sure I can manage it, but I'm also sure it will be tough.
I also cannot promise much inspiration in these digital pages. Without travel to inspire, and with books and lectures pushing me down, I hope I can still manage enough inspiration to collect somethings worth communicating, but I will even miss writing about my adventures of the last years. Hope those who have read along have enjoyed the excursion. We'll see where it takes us now.

To see me in all my doctorly getups, go to www.lifetouchevents.com
Enter the password "Touro"
Click on "Touro White Coat"
Then select the last page and scroll near the bottom. You'll find a group picture and my own. Sorry I'm too cheap to have my own camera, but I hope that gives everyone an idea. Thank you all.

Over Continental Breakfasts

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 15:22:00 +0000

The terminals and the baggage claims have vanished, but the traveling has yet to cease. A few days more and I’ll actually have settled into home. For the past week, while in some respects I’ve had the easy luxury of returning to the leisure of the unemployed and spending the whole day playing with my nephew, I’ve been missing some of that real ease that begins with quiet. Even now as I push a few moments into my schedule, I’m a little lost at how to sort through the memories that sometimes run at me blindly while staring out the windows of moving cars.

The changes and revelations that I’ve seen over the past week have come in fits and flashes. While eating, pushing in the same favorite foods, the ones automatically ordered without even barely consulting the menu, I catch—usually somewhere in the middle of the meal—the idea that I really haven’t had this taste in quite some time. I try to recall all the sitting and wishing for that taste that have flooded me over the year.

It is mostly at these moments that I notice how the past year somehow seems like a bump of a skipped record. Life has continued so steadily, as it should, as it couldn’t have been expected to otherwise do. And not in the great leaps and bounds of the imagination. It is not the great advances that I oddly find myself looking for every time I return to my former homes. Old buildings should be ravaged or removed, new efforts stretching up skyward. Mostly, life plods on. Even advancement takes the same pace it always has—eating up the occasional empty field and replacing it with the pre-formed boxes and signs of an America ready for consumption. And its easy to find myself slipping into the groove I left a year ago, filling the time and space with movies and fast food, coffee and cold beer.

I’m still waiting for the chances to feel the differences more than I do now. They are there, impossible to confuse. When I look into a sky that I once might have thought was glorious and now I find the texture flat, when on the long car rides I fail to see huts disappearing beneath the green growth on the side of the road, when I’m going to bed and my friends are waking up facing a day I can’t help them with and experiencing things I’ll only know about if somehow we can both struggle against the tide of life and find the time to write each other.

Nothing seems as shocking, and also ghastly familiar, as the excesses. Walking through the nicer outdoor malls of San Diego, where people are quite as plentiful as in the camps back there, except that here their lack of covered skin is carefully placed and far from accidental or the result of natural feeding or tattered clothing. Something about the gatherings, especially in food courts and clothing stores unsettles. There was one mall, this one in Phoenix, with a constant vigil of three flame-topped pillars, each tall and blasting enough fire to cook decent meals. The worst, to me, wasn’t the waste or the fuel that spilled out burnt into the air as heat and pollution. The unease, I think, in retrospect, comes from the knowledge that in this world somebody always pays for the excess, that is isn’t just bits and pieces of flashery to amuse the citizens, but it always gets divided and placed on the bill and we pay it unheeding.

The comfort can set it off as well. After switching around with nights on couches and floors and sleeping in cars, I was lying in bed last night, a non-descript hotel room with their standard huge beds and slightly heavy blankets, including the one everyone knows they never clean. I kept thinking about how huge the bed seemed, especially when compared to my rocking bunk bed that swayed whenever Adam or I dared to roll over in our sleep. The luxury seemed fitting and not too indulgent: to spread out and feel the mattress underneath every inch of any direction I might sprawl out to. And I thought how odd it was to have this now, until I remembered that I actually had much more comfortable beds, like the soft mattress and blankets in Masindi when we went to visit Peter’s family, or in Zanzibar, or wherever, and Masindi’s night cost five dollars.

The whole experience amazes me in other ways as well. One night, I was invited to a gathering of friends at my grandmother’s house. A few of her acquaintances from church had their weekly meeting and they wanted me to come and share. Here was the entire thing that I was wrestling with condensed. How do you turn the experience into a speech or some slideshow presentation. It was easy when I set my laptop to display the many-foldered photos at the pizza shop and I sat around enjoying dinner with my friends and family, randomly telling stories whenever they surfaced in my head and the monitor at the same time. This was more like the days I stood in front of audiences, theaters and classrooms and tried to leave them with something about Uganda to dwell on that would hopefully grow someday into action. I was surprised when it felt warm and comforting to talk about everything again in this way. Even with people who didn’t know the exact circumstances, these men and women had lived through quite a bit themselves and drew from childhoods on farms and lives in wars and other struggles. They saw the folly of the world for what it was.

The perspectives of my grandmother and her friends grounded me for a while. They saw fear in the world, and hope in the youth and all of these things that I tried to bring out in them and myself. They enjoyed the pictures and the media and opening their eyes and telling stories that placed the events in their own considerable perspectives. I tried to see through their conversations and my still unformed thoughts to an idea of the world. It must be something more than people and places, but it is hard to see from hotel lobbies.

Flying Westward

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 19:28:00 +0000

I tried to take my time. The whole trip was set up with the goal of not only visiting some fancy locales, visiting some old friends, but also just to breath in time. Even the flights themselves promised me some relaxation. Sitting in Gulu I fantasized about sitting in the comfortable seats, slightly reclined as my small television screen played movies I hadn’t seen or maybe even heard of, kindly men and women passed by me at regular intervals dropping food and drinks in my laptop tray table, and I slept as much as I could watching land and sea and clouds carpet the world below me as swinging past and behind me. As I still sat in Gulu, trying to imagine the best way to return, a trip laden with layovers seemed like the best way to slow to a gradual progression what must surely shock. Of course, I didn’t exactly plan on the itinerary I received. Four days of travel spanning four continents (technically). But without any idea of what could be better, I set off on the plane last Friday.

Before that moment, of handing over passports for one last exit stamp and loading of bags in the hopes that fragiles wouldn’t be ruined, there were a series of good-byes. Perhaps over the next weeks, I’d like to detail a little bit more about the last month in Gulu, some retrospect covering the times that I couldn’t elaborate on while I was still there. It was hard enough to digest the experience while it was happening and even with the distance of days, I still have difficulty assessing everything. I’ll talk someday of the celebrations and the stories, the tearful good-byes, the longing looks for the last time around, wondering what was happened, what has been accomplished, how will I or the people I’ve met be remembered.

I made it down to Entebbe airport with Adam, each of us trying to get in our last thoughts about life and work and everything. I’m sure we could have talked more about deeper things and less about the same struggles of our lives and the same easy jokes we always through out, but there is something nice about enjoying the comfort of a friend’s conversation for the last time. It’s difficult to imagine if I will ever see these people again. One of the largest questions I was asked as I was leaving was, “When are you coming back?” I don’t know. I’m heading off to five years of school during which I hope to do some small amount of traveling and after which I would love to return to the developing world and begin work anew. But where will I go? Can I return to this place where I’ve built up relationships, see what has occurred in my absence, pick up some things again? Should I head off to some new adventure, take the lessons I’ve learned and try to apply them in new surroundings, spreading the influence around? The whole decision is too far away for me to make any real attempt at a decision.

On a side note, it is remarkable that this question continuously arises. The Acholi peoples’ contacts with Westerners have been so full of people coming for a period of their lives and then leaving. The times where these people actually return are not extensive. I’ve always feared that this is one of the reasons for how when the children run to greet me the roadside, they scream, “Muno Bye!” instead of a more welcoming salutation. They are used to seeing me leave. Perhaps we have made some changes in this. In our organization, it is common for people to return. Bobby, Laren, and Jason have all come back numerous times. Katie has come and gone with great regularity. Many of us have taken vacations to the States and returned. When I talked with people and they saw that I wasn’t making the return trip or at least didn’t know when I would do it, there was this additional level of shock. Some of my friends pleaded with their eyes and sometimes half laughing voices for this to be another joke of mine, that surely I would return. It broke me a little each time to say no, that I had responsibilities at home that I had to return to, investments that would keep me away. Regardless of how much I would love to continue to be involved in their lives, mine pulled me away.

And so I left, on these and other circumstances that still swim about in my memory, I boarded the plane. All of my dreaming about the comforts are air travel were realized on the first few trips. Good beer, pleantiful food (as long as you continue to ask for it), and comfortable seats. I enjoyed the silence and the room for reading, the ability to look out the window and watch my home fly away beneath me. I ran through my insane itinerary (Entebbe→Nairobi→Dubai (7 hours)→Amsterdam (22 hours)→Detroit→New York City (26 hours)→Detroit (again)→San Diego. Four days of travel, I had spread it out to delay the onset of jet lag, to meet up with friends in distant cities, and to attempt to enjoy the return voyage. It worked like a charm.

In Dubai, I got to remember what fast wireless internet was all about. With simple clicks I managed to check emails, download, at amazing speeds that I had forgotten was possible. When sleep finally started to push towards me around 3 in the morning, I found myself wandering the halls with numerous others in the same vain, many spread out on the floors under blankets they had stolen from their arriving flights. Luckily, I had done the same, and I found a comfortable spot and tried to push out the noise, lights, and brilliance of the duty free shops below me. The sheer extravagance of those stores had been hard to walk through. The selections and the prices and the throngs still striving to purchase at a time that could not yet even be called morning through me back into the consumptive world I had left behind. It was nice to close my eyes.

I had been to Amsterdam numerous times before (once even detailed in these passages) and always enjoyed the city. There was something even more enjoyable after the hassles of Kampala to sit at a café and have a cup of well-made coffee, to read just outside of a brasserie while sipping a dark ale, to push through the crowds at the only museum I braved and realize how my tastes in art might have changed. I now looked more towards Van Gogh’s pastorals as the source of genius. The lines spilled out from the fields and the colors of the sky that melded seamlessly with the trees and bounced in reds and greens and yellows that couldn’t help but remind me of Africa.

By the time I got to New York, I was anxious to see some friends that I have been missing for years. I met Meghan at the airport whom I hadn’t seen since UCSD and later in the city ran into Lance and ran over the years its been since we both went to Horizon and lived in that condo in La Jolla. Following an instinct that I should have acted on long ago, I pared the two and watched as they became great friends. Lance still finding his way in the city after a couple of years and Meghan just moving there, we all had an amazing time. Coffee in the village. The view from the Empire State Building as the sea buildings beneath me seemed to almost wash in the waves of people and vehicles and wind. The rooftop seating with live music barely making it from the bar below. We had set out for a quick trip—it wouldn’t be right to miss Manhattan at night. Somewhere around four in the morning we realized that we had probably done enough right by the place and turned in for some sleep only to try to push more into the day in the morning. I don’t think I could have done more in 24 hours, but the goal was far from whirlwind tourism, enjoying the city, taking it in with my friends was the real goal. I embraced all of that and all the while reeled from imaging how my Ugandan friends would have embraced the scene. How would Peter Paul have drunk in the heights of the buildings, and Peter Abiyo with the streets and the cars. Tony with the music and the crowds. The mixtures of love and awe and fear that would have pored out from my friends found some small expression in my own perceptions. Nothing significant, but at least a nod to the effect they’ve had in my life.

And then the doldrums. After New York was civil commuting. Layovers, crowded delays in airports, bad expensive food, no movies, worse than babies are the teenagers and barely older kids and their prattle. Soon enough, with the energy for the trip draining me, I landed in San Diego. Straight from the airport to burritos, carne asada fries, a nice beer, a friend’s house in which I’ve spent countless relaxing nights, and sleep. The morning held views of the ocean, the great Park, a breakfast burrito (technically a “Lunch Burrito”—the horribly misnamed conglomeration of eggs, cheese, bacon, hash browns, and beans.) I had reached the shores I had known for so long.

Searching for Home

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 04:59:00 +0000

(As a prelude, I seem to have included the wrong link in the last blog. Please check out Rubanga? at http://jamestravels.com/rubanga/issue_1.pdf.)

Driving away from Gulu the other day, I kept rotating my thoughts. Sometimes I would stare at a tree, a camp, a hut, a group of children playing, the Nile, all of these things that I see, and try to fix it permanently as some image I would see at every moment when I close my eyes. Sometimes I would try to joke around and talk with Peter Abiyo trying to confirm and explore the already considerable impression that he has made on me. Other moments were spent scanning back over the past year--images, ideas and actions all sprawling out and coming at me at random times. And of course, sometimes I just stared. Like when I looked at the clouds and marveled at the incomparable majesty that is an African sky at its highest. Echoes of people danced about in my ears and I attempted to understand how I would not see them and how they meant to me as I sorted through the words they gave me when I left about how I had affected them.

I've been preparing to leave almost ever since I got to Uganda. That's what you're supposed to do. If your work is temporary, you know that you must leave and in your space, ideally, you must leave a world better for your having been there and not suffering for your having left. This doesn't mean that you don't let the place affect you in real lasting ways , and it still fills my heart and it still makes me long, already, to return. Even as I sit in Kampala, not even on the plane, not even at the airport yet. My work here has been such that I have made it the focus of my time. I have built relationships and experiences alongside it, and considered both of those integral parts of my work, but I have been running since the word "go." As such, I kept the pace until "stop" could be also be heard.

I don't know that I've been able to prepare myself adequately for leaving Uganda. I even have some work to do today (I fly out at three) And it's hard to break the habit of that and let my mind attempt to digest everything. There are uncountable things I'd love to say to everyone I meet, but my head has not yet fully formed the words. I hope that everything comes out in the sentiments of what I do manage to say, and in my actions louder than anything. When I look at my friends and prepare to say goodbye, there eyes seem to shine that it does.

I'm going to try to still spill out a few stories here, things that I have neglected to tell. And I can't guess at what will happen on the way home. I can hardly even think of home adequately. I'll be there soon, or wherever it is that I call home when people ask where it is. It's a difficult location to imagine--one place holding the anchor to my life. I can't really say where home is, if I'm going there, or how I might be ready to see it again. I've left it and I'm going there. Even San Diego is in many ways simply a place where home used to be. I'll see, and try to tell, what it looks like when I find it.

Ask a Good Question

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 14:37:00 +0000

Not long ago a few friends of mine decided to ask everyone they knew in Northern Uganda and associated with our works here a simple question, "Does Rubanga mean 'God' or 'a Hunchback'?" To which they received not very many answers but a lot of awkward stares. Since that failure, they rephrased the question as a request, for people to submit whatever they wanted to a first-run attempt at a literary journal. Figuring on a slight retreat from just constantly considering money and contracts, I tried to fold some small part of the beauty and frustration (and even the beauty of that) into a small piece. Given more time, I would have polished it more, but as it is, I tried for a small reflection of Uganda in terms of my own exeriences and those of my closer friends. If you want some additional reading, feel free to look through the first issue. If you are fully inspired, there is a call for participation at the end.

http://jamestravels.com/rubanga/issue_1.pdf

Learning to Love French

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 14:34:00 +0000

Looking back it was one of the most fulfilling trips I’ve taken. Looking forward, I can sympathize with all of those who looked at us slanted and questioned. “Why the Congo? What do you hope to do or see there that might be worth the trip, and—of course—the ever-hyped danger?” Of course, these same questions rang considerably when I was first considering the move to Uganda. Then, I had a solid answer, a plan that—even if my eventual tasks here turned out to be completely different—at least I had something secure that I could offer as a reason for the trip. But at the beginning of this last excursion, I lacked anything so definite.
I knew we were neighbors, that these simultaneous and largely unlinked, though at times similar, conflicts raged beyond and sometimes across the borders of the two countries. I knew people suffered and longed and some people strove for peace. I knew a bit of the history, but nothing extensive. And I knew it seemed alright to go. This last art troubled me because I know how I have spoken and how I feel about people who travel to Gulu to see, first-hand, the suffering of the Internally Displaced Persons Camps. As if somehow the tragedy wouldn’t be real unless they stood as witness to it. People travel and let the tears brim up in their eyes and the wringing hands clench tight before returning down south. And partly, they are right. There is something about visiting the place and knowing the people that makes the reality of Gulu live. But I always question what they do, what they offer, and how they present themselves—ever wary of those loathsome words that have been regularly lobbed at our organization—conflict tourism.
We had the idea of going as investigators, not for any special purpose other than trying to gain a wider understanding of the area we lived in, having read too many books about how Africa is both more than and less then the political boundaries of formerly imperial borders and hoping to learn what linked and what differentiated. None of this was for formal research, and possibly we could have dove into JSTOR and other locations for similar information, but the vividness of experience called stronger than academic publications. And, to be perfectly honest, the slight amounts of danger, of walking into a country most people don’t go to for fear of rebels—numerous Congolese factions, the Interahamwe, other Rwandese groups—and other travesties. Anyway, we had a contact. Our friend Julia had been about a month before with a Congolese friend of hers from Kampala. I called him, and he happened to be in Goma at the time so I asked if I could join him. “Perfect.” So we left.
The two o’clock bus from Kampala to Kigali, Rwanda bursts through small towns, over darkened potholes and through the pre-dawn fog of the increasingly vegetation-filled countryside of southern Uganda with enough speed to rock us occasionally out of sleep for fear and to get us to the bus park by ten in the morning, plenty of time to push on to the border. The officials as we first entered the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the Goma crossing were friendly as people normally are when we are first friendly with them. We laughed about American tourists, very large passport stamps, and numerous other things (not so much about the $50 it cost to cross over) and met Petna’s friends. I had called Petna at the border, introduced myself again as Julia’s friend and he excitedly sent some people down to pick us up.
During the whole trip we struggled with language. In the Congo, they speak French and Kiswahili. I’ve learned about as much Kiswahili as I can from a song that runs through greetings. “Mambo, Jambo Sana, Habari Gani… Hakuna Mutata.” And as for French, honestly, I’ve never cared for the language. Too visceral, almost venereal, too many letters that aren’t actually pronounced and odd comas and hyphens thrown in for no reasons I can discern. Then there was the friend who offered to teach me but instead ridiculed my poor pronunciations at every step. But there are kids, and when beautiful kids speak, and wonderful people speak, I can listen and almost love it. And when our well-armed guard speaks (more to come) I can struggle to understand. I can imagine living in a place like this and learning more than I could hope for, more than when English and ease is such a simple recourse. I’d be forced to do what everyone we met did, struggle forward with a language they don’t quite grasp. But we met somewhere and still exchanged stories and laughed a bunch, right from the beginning when we met Petna’s friends.
The took us to Petna’s offices, a decent sized compound out of which he runs a film and television production studio, a music group, and other initiatives through which he tries to create Goma as a cultural center for the Congo. Having little to no idea what he did or who he was before we got there, we were amazed to meet musicians, cinematographers, and all kinds of folks as we entered the place, everyone friendly and promising a great time over the next week. They almost ushered us to a local hotel, until we ran into two of their mzungu friends who subsequently offered a spot at their guest house. They warned us as we drove over there, “It’s not what we expected when we came here, we live rather well.” Knowing how I am pampered in Gulu with a nice compound, a great cook, and other niceties, we tried to assuage them, “No, we understand.” But we didn’t. They work for HEAL-Africa, an organization that runs a hospital in Goma and numerous community programs in the surrounding areas.
The director is a former Member of Parliament and current orthopedic surgeon who runs the hospital and the organization and allows many of those involved to stay at a magnificent house he acquired right on the shores of Lake Kivu. While doing amazing work in the peripheral areas with local leadership, they seek out special cases for his orthopedic skills as well as for a group that works on the incredibly high rate of vaginal fistulas in the area (due a record setting number of unskilled deliveries in the rural areas and Goma’s tragic claim as the world leader in violent gang rape.) They opened their home to us, began explaining their programs, allowed us to jump off the rock outcrop of the garden into the lake, and fed us well. We took a small side trip up north about 80 kilometers (more than 100 km and it begins to get too dangerous due to the rebel groups, even the place we went is often off limits) with a group that was setting up a new operation to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV. (We also made a small trip to a dairy farm in the mountains that easily resemble Europe where we got what is easily the best cheese I’ve had in over a year.)
Tired, making it home and then swimming, we rejoined with Petna to celebrate the world premier of a film he made about the lives and thoughts of the children in the area, tying it in artistically to the hopes of the continent with the coming of the South African World Cup. After each film we saw, we enjoyed a spread of beers (not those small Ugandan beers, but serious, 720mL bottles) cheese, sausages, nuts, anything we could think of, and asked the various directors questions about their works in between rounds of applause. The evening offered us a homegrown film festival intimately celebrated and lovingly shared.
The next day was a big one for us, we had set up to climb to the top of ________, an active volcano. I thought I’d be ready, but the two years I’d taken off from backpacking apparently weakened my legs, which were about ready to quit when we finally reached the top. Everything seemed fine, though, as the sunset and the lake of fire and lava erupted below us in ever-changing patterns of continuous explosions. I could try to explain how the lava stands as one of the most amazing natural spectacles I’ve seen, but the words are dainty compared to the quite literal center of the Earth exploding below us. So, we sat and sometimes joked, but regularly watched in silence, then slept through our tired muscles easily and thoroughly.
The morning was cold and we rushed to get down the mountain without letting gravity push us too hard all of the time. Regularly we failed at that and everyone ended up with scrapes and torn clothing. (Each step made Adam and myself question the validity of making the entire trip in Chacos.) Half the decent lay in the path of a lava flow created by an eruption in 2002, making every step a struggle to keep your ankles intact on the rolling and crumbling igneous rocks. We pushed ahead and only slightly noticed as our ranger guide (adequately equipped with an AK-47) kept intently staring off to the right. Remember our conversation the other day about any dangerous animals in the area. “Non, non, les personne dangerouise.”) [I have no idea how to spell in French.] We became a little worried. Asking him what it was, we finally got the reply “Les Bandit,” and instructions to move quickly down the mountain. We started moving quickly then even quicker after a shot fired behind us. I tried to remember what I had learned, that a single shot is a warning shot, that people with AK-47s don’t tend to take single, well-aimed shots at their targets, and that the situation wasn’t as bad as it might seem, but that was difficult. So we ran down the hill. We kept running until advised and allowed to stop, rested, then continued down the hill until we found someone coming up. We explained to her in English and she translated a little French for us so we understood that two men with black barrettes and uniforms but no guns(?) were crossing up above. Probably Rwandan militia trying to make it home. The Congolese Army was called to scout the area and our photographer/translator friend who wanted to go up the hill waited until they were finished. We were close enough, so felt it best to go home.
That night was filled with lively retellings of the story to our mzungu friends, to Petna, the whole crew, through drinking and dancing and wishing we weren’t so tired and aching and that we didn’t have to leave the next day. I said I’d try to come back. And I will try. I don’t know. We here it all the time in Gulu, but I loved the place. Their was music, amazing food, amazing people, all of these aspects of African life that I loved. I wanted to stay and learn from the solid organization. I can see myself returning on a rotation in 3rd/4th year, or maybe once I start my MPH studies. I’m not sure, it’s hard to promise these things, but I want to.
The whole trip didn’t offer us much rest, the main cause for the vacation, so we took an extra couple of days at Lake Bunyoni on Bunyo-Amagara Island. The place is seriously the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in Uganda. Perfect lakes and islands, wonderful food and people, a rope swing to dive into the clear actually safe waters, canoes to paddle around in, everything that promises a great vacation. It took a couple of days, but we finally felt rested, completely rejuvenated, and hopefully ready.
I had about a month left. Since that time (about three weeks) I’ve encountered numerous struggles as I attempt to prepare to leave. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be ready or if my tasks will ever near completion, but more and more it looks like things will be fine. I trust in this as I try to trust that all the complications with money and school will work out, as I try to trust on every trip I take, leaving that silly book behind and knowing that I’ll meet great people and that things work out. If I can try to make something bigger out of it, that this is how God works, but I don’t feel like I have the distance from the occasions for that sort of philosophizing. I’m not yet good enough to fold it in like I should have learned from Garrison Keillor, but now I’ll spit out my quick experiences and ideas. For now, what I can offer is just trust, and more hope. But it seems to work.

Pictures to come, hopefully.
(NB – While writing this, I attempted to relax outside in the shade and chose a spot next to the Kampala Golf Course, watching the players. The afternoon was pleasant as I enjoyed a sandwich and tried to put my thoughts together. However, after a little while, two men—introduced as Inspector William and Moses—came up to me and said I was frightening the golfers. I had selected a spot just on the edge of the course to stay out of people’s way but apparently, that was too obtrusive. At first, I thought of just apologizing and leaving, but instead I just asked if there was somewhere else I could sit. After a long talk and pleasantries, the two men offered me a bit of shade at the end of one green. This advised spot actually lay considerably further into the course than my first choice, but it seemed nice enough so I sat down and finished my sandwich.)

Qualifications

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Sat, 26 May 2007 10:24:00 +0000

It makes sense that a disproportionate amount of my time might be dedicated to work. It is, to address things in the most factual way, the reason why I am in Uganda. For many reasons, mostly to do with concerns of my own personal sanity, I like to suppose that I have this entire existence external to work that makes my life complete in a gestalt sense. And while there are things like traveling, friends, some small numbers of external events like the Gulu marathon or the Champions League finals, there is mostly, in my life, from just after working until around eight for dinner and even after that on occasions, little in my head except for work. I’ve tried a fair job of keeping my ramblings here only distantly related to the doldrums of my office life, omitting whole passages of my life consumed with the struggles for proper furniture, fair contracts, and accurate assessments. I suppose recent events, however, allow for a celebratory overview of my more corporate life.
(Be warned, a good part of what follows may sound like organizational propaganda or possibly even bragging. It just feels that since I seldom discuss what I’ve been up to, this could be a good forum to unleash all of this.)
This last week, the fundraising campaign for Schools for Schools completed. Over five hundred schools in the US (and one in Uganda) where gathered into ten clusters, each supporting one specific Northern Ugandan school. As we have issued in press releases and radio programs all over (and one full-page spread in the Daily Monitor to arrive later this next week) the sum total of their efforts for the last semester comes to 1.3 million US dollars. (This translates, impressively to around 2.1 billion Ugandan schilling.) The fact that this staggering figure has been raised by high school and college students, through bake sales and car washes, rock concerts, sporting events, hundreds of creative events and merchandise sales, raises numerous prideful considerations of the youth and their dedication to a cause.
As impressive as their efforts have been, the focus of my attentions is now drawn to how in the next two months, I have to finalize my efforts to plan the spending of this amount. For the past months, I have been talking with contractors, engineers, development specialists, teachers, headmasters, and anyone I could trying to come up with the best method for distributing the cash. With Sarah, the program coordinator spearheading these efforts, and my staff of Frederick—a indomitable engineer—and Peter Paul—my tireless procurement specialist—we have tried to create an outline. Long discussions with each of the participating schools have created a list of their priorities that we will follow and as many efforts as we can make to involve the schools, the students, the staff, teachers, and everyone in every possible aspect of the process.
Just the other day, we divided the schools into phases and selected the first projects to tackle (pending final approval from the schools, but seeing as it’s their list we are working from, that should not be difficult to obtain.) I’ve discussed the projects with a man who is introducing us to a compressed brick technology that will decrease the costs of all of our projects. In addition to the reduced cost, the compressed bricks remove the use of clay-burnt bricks which require firing and destroy vast acreages of forest in Uganda every year. And everything is going forward. In not much more time, we’ll have plans and bills of quantities and contracts for new classroom blocks, laboratories, libraries, and those are just the major construction projects.
At the same time, we have completed work on our pilot program. The ground floor of the girls’ dormitory at Gulu High School is finished and the people pouring through the site heap praises upon it. The 96 girls slotted to move into the building which is so vastly superior to not only their current housing but also to the huts of the Internally Displaced People’s camps where their family lives are over eager to bring in their small supplies. However, in great news, we are delaying their move in because we are securing most of the funding for the second story (“first floor” if you count by Uganda/British standards) from an external source. In similar news, we are awaiting final reports from another external agency that has accepted a proposal to provide all the costs for drilling the needed boreholes in our schools to provide adequate amounts of clean water to the students.
And that only begins to touch on the grant proposal I’m working on submitting to USAID. There is no way of knowing how they will react to it, but we have given hopeful indications. Combining the environmentally friendly brick making technology with efforts to move back schools that have been displaced by the war, we are hoping to engage a seriously large amount from the US government. The distressing situation occurred where a number of schools (three of the ones we have chosen included) have been forced to move from their original locations to city centers in flight from the violence. One school, Awere Secondary School, is celebrating its silver anniversary next year and has spent around twenty of those twenty-five years removed from its home. We are inching towards the possibility of moving them back. (For those not familiar with some aspects of development theory, this move not only accomplishes that great feat but also provides the drastically needed social service of education without which there is little incentive for the people to move away from the IDP camps and back to their homes.) We are currently working on combining those efforts with deals worked out with the Ugandan business community to further decrease the costs of constructing the buildings without which their will be no schools. I have already secured an offer from Tororo Cement for discounts and that combined with in-kind donations from Sadolin Paints.
Of course, there is more than construction as well. One program for an exchange of ideas between American and Ugandan teachers will begin next month. We are working on developing curriculum and psychosocial training for the staff. Soon we will have compiled the lists of books, supplies, and laboratory equipment that we will be providing. We have been in contact with technology experts who have designed low-power using computers that can do everything required by secondary schools including providing internet. We are conducting power assessments that will evaluate the benefits of solar power versus diesel-powered generators.
I have just started many of these projects. Before I leave, less than half of them will have even begun. As much as I would love to see the raising of the buildings, classes be conducted, students move in, books fill shelves, all of these things, my task was to begin. From the outlines we’ve sent off detailing the requirements for my replacement, that person should be able to do even more. Free from the constraints of starting everything, they should be able to develop the program, create new initiatives. It will be hard to let go of it all, hard to think about it expanding and being realized once I’m gone. But it will be great, assuming competent hands take over, to think about everything unfolding even while I sit in a classroom, to think about how schools moving home, education improving, and in some distinct levels, the quality of hope increasing.

The Island of Alone

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 06:28:00 +0000

The largest lake locked by land lies in Africa, or at least so purported one member of our boat. Alone, a French man I met some months ago at Backpackers Hostel in Kampala, quickly mentioned how it wasn’t the largest and how he thought it might be in Russia, or at least that one is the deepest. A Canadian girl then mentioned how it was, instead, Lake Superior between the US and Canada. The whole thing stood as little more than the recognition of the limitations of travelers, the sad and persistent need for the guidebook with all those little facts that attribute significances to locations. It could be enough, to sit in a boat with gentle waves lapping against it, feeling funny because the wet spray in the air lacked the salt that I was accustomed to—all this without the trivia debate, but these are the things we think about. I’m not sure how we learned this, if it was in the guidebooks, in National Geographic, on the Discovery Channel, but we come to places through facts, monuments, sites, and scenes. I am no different, except only if that I just wrote it down.
Alone scoffed for a short while about how Americans (the more holistic “Americans” which actually manage to include Canadians) felt the need to assert their superiority even in the size of their lakes before mentioning again that he was pretty sure it was in Russia. He tried to let the matter drop and return to his usual ambivalence to disputes between countries by explaining the reason why dropped out of school. Apparently in France they teach their students that there are five continents instead of the more English-accepted count of seven. At around fifteen, when Alone realized this discrepancy, he wondered how formal education could differ in such vast a category as that and deduced that the whole system was worthless.
The first time I met Alone, he was staying in a tent at the hostel I was at for a while. One of our first conversations was him remarking on how he hated it when people came to each other as citizens of a country first and people second. Apparently, he had been sitting on the couch in the hostel for a few months having the same conversation almost every night. Where are you from? How long have you been here? What are you doing? Few people seemed to listen to the actual responses and just nodded sometimes as if the other person was intensely interesting. After leaving school, he traveled the word for fifteen years, conducting himself in various ways, most of which I still haven’t heard about, but I know that at least he spent some time raising lions. At the time, he was stuck in Uganda, victim to some indigenous disease that kept him from traveling, but he was simultaneously prevented from seeing a doctor by a rather intense fear. Every day I would ask him if he had been to the clinic so he could leave. Every day he would respond, “Not yet, maybe tomorrow.”
By Easter weekend, I found Alone at the other end of the line when I was trying to see about space at a hostel on an island in the middle of Lake Victoria. After greeting me as we got on the boat, he explained that since the time I met him on the couches, after countless nights of similar conversations, he landed a job managing a once-defunct hostel on one of the Sese Islands. The stretch of land he now held was 40 acres, a considerable portion of the island stretching an entire tip of a peninsula jetting off the whole. On the trip, he pointed to a cliff and drew a line between a small set of rocky points. “That’s the equator. We found out one day when one guest had a GPS. A couple of weeks ago [April 1st], we drew a line in the sand about fifty feet from there and had people taking pictures in front of it.”
His section of the island represented a traveler’s paradise to Alone, who had definitely slept in enough hostels to conceive of one. His conceptions included vast plans for bungalows and a tree house with a bar and a pulley system for drinks and a series of pronouncements he wanted to write out and paste all over the place to explain his dreams. He wanted to write it all out when he was eloquent enough so that when every group came through he could convey himself even if the drinks and smoke, which were plentiful, inhibited his expression. In his dreams, the island was a sanctuary free from travelers’ squabbles between nationalities, missing the conflicts of backpackers and volunteers, and trying to accomplish what he could for the locals. (On one specific paper, Alone wanted to explain how he offered a nice house at the edge of his land to the staff, but they elect to stay in a shack because they don’t want to walk so far. He hated the idea that people would criticize him for racism, “It’s not that far, but they prefer the other. It’s not a black thing, it’s what they want.”)
Sitting on the small cliffs, the loft that allowed a view of both sides of the island, or even resting on the gravely beach, I could imagine it. Sometimes, it was infested somewhat with Alex Garland’s visions of a travelers’ utopia and other times with stories and dreams I’ve heard in the dorms of other hostels, but it was nice to imagine a small piece of it being acted out, that Alone had managed to secure for himself the exact thing that so many people have voiced their wishes for in the bunk beds of hostels around the world, “Man, I would create a small place, not like these resorts, but leave it untouched, people would only come if they had heard about it from friends, cheep beds, good food, nice drinks, yeah, and free weed!” After of couple of attempts I stopped trying to think what I would want from it and just enjoyed listening to Alone tell of the hopes he planned out in his head.
Part of the paradise came from the isolation of the place. Others I had talked with booked reservations for the holiday weekend. We happened to call Alone earlier in the day and slept that night with about ten other people. The second night, the only guests were Kevin and myself. Sometimes it was difficult to determine if Alone was hosting us or we were entertaining him in his isolation, but the breaks provided by solitude on the island were welcomed. (Of course, I also imagined the tedium of it, our young host sitting here on nights without guests singing to himself, “Je suis Alone. Tres, tres Alone.”) We had ample time to sit and imagine all the things we could do with time, lives spent appreciating Beauty and Joy, writing and making jokes all the time, without hours dedicated to reports and emails. I also planned the partial incorporation of these dreams; time dedicated to appreciation and reflection, set aside from work, but the fruition of those thoughts remains to be tested.
We were not completely isolated. As we walked through small paths on the island we passed fishermen and farmers that used these dirt throughways every day, I imagined the complexity of the island like a California roadmap, with branches and diversions that we tried to follow when the energy took us. It felt odd walking past the locals as they farmed and fished, struggled for a living, while we sought some sort of sanctuary. But this is the discussion I’ve had with James many times. What if the land next to the Internally Displaced Camps is beautiful? How can you go there and try to appreciate it? How can you strive for peaceful Joy while neighboring suffering? It must look odd to see pleasure-seekers strolling through your workplace.
The fish and farming offered by the island seemed bountiful enough, judging at least by the catches pulled from the waters in front of our small place. The island teemed with life, even wild hippos came by the shores and one crawled up the shore late at night despite the barking of dogs. Vast vegetation filled every inch of the island, which must have provided food and shelter to largest collection of insects I’ve ever seen. Every night we constantly swiped our arms and backs, killing four or five mosquitoes with every pass, putting that brave little tailor to shame. Despite the uncountable bites I suffered, the bugs offered another result—they fed the birds. The island not only sheltered us temporarily but also provided a temporary getaway for a ridiculous array of migratory and resident birds. Every tree filled to capacity with feathers and beaks with obvious hierarchies as eagles claimed the higher perches, several other species claimed the intermediate and kingfishers spread across the grass when they weren’t floating above and diving into the waters. The birds fought and, I would assume, mated with a tenacity that would have easily proved to be sheer delight for even moderate ornithologists. I almost felt guilty at the sheer childish joy that a birdwatcher would feel landing on the island, possibly an old man at the end of a life’s ambition, bearing dark green colors, high powered binoculars, and a notebook where he would make numerous checks and scribbles that day to the amazement and jealousy of his friends back home. And I took the island at a stroll, watching them dart in the air and hide in the bushes, swatting away their abundant food as it buzzed in my ears just as I brushed aside the deep foliage that barred my path. In the less dense bushes, I could watch as hundreds of frogs burst from the trail before my footsteps, spreading out like a living flower even as the dragonflies and other bugs floated beside me, following and accompanying the journey.
The island offered a distinctly pleasant place to pass Easter. It vastly differed from previous years spent with families gathered around tables. Even last year, I took up with an adopted family and was welcomed into a bounty of lamb and love. We had excellent food (Alone is French, after all) and solitude to match wherever our thoughts led. The beauty made it easy to celebrate the gifts of the holiday, the offering of hope amidst struggles—exactly what we were trying to seek in the vacation.
Never was it easier to appreciate the wonder and magnificence of God, with His intense juxtaposition of despair and hope, especially considering the historical context of the weekend, then into the beginning of Saturday morning as a storm rolled in. The day began, auspiciously enough, with Alone hoping that the sun would be out strong enough to lie on the beach but that his saying that would probably lead to a storm. We saw the clouds gathering over Entebbe just around breakfast, piling up heavy and dark while the sky above us still retained some aspect of blue. Soon in encroached, the sky growing and heaving and the dark storm twisting around and rolling towards us. As it approached, the clouds seemed inpatient with their burden the moisture inside them plummeting so quickly that they fell still as a cloud, a white whispering of rain that hung like a beard at the base of the darkness. The storm blew in ferociously casting water and wind over everything for an hour before passing over. The other guests left just after the storm, leaving the rest of the day to us as the sky cleared, the sun shown, and the heat grew enough to call for the coolness of the lake and a quick swim followed by lying about on the deck and thoroughly relaxing.
By the end of the weekend, we tried to tell ourselves we were rested, ready for work again, once more into the fray dear friends. We’ll see how prophetic that is, but every break, every chance to see something of this beautiful country reminds me of something deeper than the simple good I’m trying to do here. There was something selfish and universal that drew me to Africa in the first place, before I noticed the need and before I had some small idea that I might help. That’s something to hold onto as well.

***

Before I could return to Gulu, I had to negotiate Kampala. This can challenge me enough with the traffic, the smog, and the expenses, but as we were leaving this time a new obstacle was placed before us—riots. It seems the government here is set on giving away a significant portion of the remaining rain forests, Mabira Forest, here to a sugar company. Another unknowable natural resource will be sacrificed in the name of Gross Domestic Product. The inspiring portion of this story is that the entire country seems to be rising up in protests, in editorials, in conversations, and even from the pulpit on Easter Sunday. The disheartening part is that this protest is having no effect on policy. This last weekend a number of people staged a protest and delivered a petition to parliament, only to see their peaceful display dissolve into chaos as police shot tear gas and the wild mob attacked Indians because an Indian corporation owns the sugar company. Three Indians were killed in the chaos and the point of the demonstration was lost by the time the news hit reels that night, blood took the place of ecology easily enough. Something has to be done but it’s hard to see what. Mostly it comes down to a vast majority of the world being uninformed about the actions of governments with no accountability. The administration seems content to plow ahead hoping the electorate will forget within the next four years before elections—not a difficult supposition considering the previous actions that have gone ignored. Boycotts and protests seem ineffective and if the international community ignores millions of people starving in camps than it seems difficult to imagine them rallying behind trees. There’s hope somewhere, and that should be a more appropriate focus for especially this weekend, the embodiment of hope in my religion, where hope left us and then returned for good. But it’s difficult to find at times.

All Work and No Play

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 10:35:00 +0000

In addition to the late blog I'm just now posting (see "A Spot of Drought" below) I thought I'd throw on this lighter note as well.

Taking advantage of the amazing technology brought to you by none other than Steve Jobs himself--or more accurately, a sales associate located several thousand rungs on the corporate ladder below Herr Jobs, I thought I would bust out my new MacBook and share some of the pictures I've gathered with people. If you're looking for stunning physical beauty and all of the wonder that Africa can offer, than I can suggest a couple of other webpages because you'll find nothing like it here. Instead, just a couple of shots of me and my friends goofing off, and then one video preview of the short film we're making. So, prepare yourselves for Rent To Own IV and keep hopes in store for actually spiritually uplifting material to come at some foreign date...

I'm trying to upload the video to here, but if that fails, just check out the youtube site, and the showering photo should be in my album. Have fun and Happy Easter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0jAgQGED5c

A Spot of Drought

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 10:08:00 +0000

(originally written April 1st, 2007 - Gulu, Uganda)

One thing is to break my mind out of the regular system of spring, summer, winter, and fall. One thing out of many, but something that should be easier than the others. Then to replace those things with rainy, dry, rainy, and dry. We're just coming up on another transition here. The relatively wide and flat skies of the dry season that leave the country exposed to the drastic sun and contribute to the vast build up of dust everywhere is being replaced. The dust that gathered on shelves, windows, clothes, in huge dangerous rivers on the sides of the roads where I feared to take my motorcycle in case I lost control in the almost zero traction will still be there, but it will be diminished and will occasionally turn into flowing rivers than sitting pools of mud without warning. The skies are changing now. They're going back to those impossible canvases that greeted and amazed me when I first arrived where the clouds seemed to bend so low and yet reach up stretching to God in layers unimaginable outside of Renaissance paintings or maybe those educational sketches that describe every type of nimbus in one panorama of instruction. The return of that awesome sky offers a distinct pleasure where any time I'm caught up with some form of mendacity in my work, I can sometimes catch a glimpse of something completely beyond me by simply looking up. The world offers an easy reward and distraction.

This reward didn't come easily. Not that I hated the dry season. I did constantly wonder what possessed the insane minds of several guide book writers who warned against travel in any period except the months I lived through and called dry. They seemed to infer that scorching heat, dust that choked like pneumonia and seemed to carry an infectious allergen on every gust of wind, and endless painting of every surface with a dull red was preferable to occasional vast down-pouring that never seemed to last more than a half an hour and refreshed as much as any quick shower. Sure, I wasn't a huge fan of wading through pools and mud to get to work, but there is something remarkable about the storms rushing in and leaving with equal ferocity. I suppose both seasons have their benefits, but I'm glad to see water again.

Maybe it is something about growing up in the desert. I've always been entranced by water. Driving over the smallest river, I feel I have to watch it pass out the window, letting my eyes drink. When I lived by the sea, mostly I couldn't fathom the entirety of the ocean, and could never claim a native's attachment and kinship with it all, but who couldn't love watching it float there in its immensity or watching it consume the sun in a fiery spectacle. I like to think in more poetic moments that the prolonged drought (although don't believe me too much—the dry season over here just means it rains less, we still caught the refreshment of a few wettings on occasion, and this thought carries on to what I had started…) served as part of the reason for simultaneous drought of communication. Sure, there were vastly busy times as I expanded my work into two full time positions, both of which predominately included a need for abilities at bargaining and currency evaluation that I don't naturally posses. The times were also filled with emotional stress of decisions to be made at home, evaluations of life, and the typical Big Questions. And it all was combined in a time frame that precluded much escape for silent evaluation, prayer, or even just contemplation of Life, Beauty, and Joy. But it's more cohesive to join them all into this idea of the dryness, of life perpetuating its surroundings, something similar to globally natural scale of ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny. And aren't those ideas, even of only partially true, more beautiful if you just accept them as such?

And so, for stories:

Along with a considerable drought that ate up our skies, we also suffered through a local energy crises that darkened our nights, or at least the bulbs and such, and also prevented the national water pumps from supplying our tanks. On one occasion, after about a week of finding methods of hygiene that didn't involve showers and then one ill-advised game of ultimate that left a group of us sweaty and in need of some cleaning, we were blessed with a brief drizzle. Inspired to take full advantage, I followed James and Kevin's lead and stood as those two, Adam, Jesse, and myself enjoyed a slightly more natural shower catching the runoff from the roof. We could toss the whole adventure into cleanliness or at least group bonding, but whatever the explanations, it did offer some interesting pictures that somehow found there way to all the San Diego office desktop backgrounds.

Seeking as much reprieve as possible, we thought that a nice break from the drought and work up North would be a large group retreat to Jinja. This works in part because a place in Jinja offered some teambuilding techniques similar to what I worked with at Outback Adventures at UCSD. Also comes in handy as we all seemed a little dry of sorts and Jinja offered to quench us with the source of the Nile River. Pouring out of Lake Victoria in inspiring amounts, and rushing below cliffs on which perched the dorms and cabins we relaxed in, the River gave us some extra relief and promised to fulfill any desires for water as it tried its best to drown us. After a series of meetings and initiatives, a few of us climbed into rafts and set off down the rapids some have called Grade Five and others just called big enough. For a half day trip, we managed to dump four times, and out guide was sufficiently proud of making us swim down a considerable portion of the river as he laughed down on us from the raft. It was a good time flying through the air, and coupled with moments of just watching the waters fly past or a few of my friends fall from considerable heights, dunking their heads into the water before bungee cords sprung them back up provided for enough additional entertainment. That and we found a Mexican restaurant, so all in all, not a bad time.

Apparently I was quite sated, however, as a few weeks afterward, I took advantage of Kevin's quick trip with a visiting friend and rushed off to Sipi Falls. I felt relieved at finally being able to see a bit of this country besides just the journey between Gulu and Kampala, a few jaunts to Pader, and the one trip to Tanzania. There's something about nature, especially—as I've noted to friends in the precious few personal emails I've sent out—something about looking down at water from a great height. One of the sad things missing from Gulu is honest terrain. It must have been something in our trips with my father, but despite basically growing up in a cityscape (even if it was placed in valley surrounded on all sides) I feel like I've grown more into the temperament of the mountains. I don't want to claim to much wild-man mountain wilderness or anything of the sort, but when I can scramble to the top of something and look down, there is something refreshing about that perspective that can set life in order. I have a friend who I feel gathers a similar emotion from the sea, and I'm sure people hold these things dear. Missing the mountains, I felt the return at the foothills of Mount Elgon and as I watched the waters cascade off one cliff and then another. Of course, this was all accentuated when we tied in and dropped a hundred meters, repelling ten feet from the crashing water to the base, but somehow it was the view from the top that stayed with me.

There are other stories, about people and accomplishments, and hopefully someday I will gather together enough of myself to tell them. Sometime after it all or after a good break, I can even launch into some descriptions of the work here, how it has offered challenges and fulfillment and struggles in so many different ways. Until then, I'm sorry that my correspondence drought has been so severe. I drastically love hearing from everyone and it's hard to not return love in kind. But there can sometimes be something exhausting about staring at a blank screen, like staring at a dry field. But, well, the rain is coming. And after hacking severely at the dry field beside our house for hours, I'm severely glad to feel the rain loosen and nourish the soil. Some foretelling of pride springs up when I think that soon, after our efforts, food might grow there. It was a lot of sweat that broke the ground when it was hard and dry, and blisters that rose, and dirt that caked, and all of these things. Not that the hard work is over, but this softer earth is exciting in its fertility and its newness.

As a side note, I'm sorry that I don't have many pictures to offer. My new computer should be coming soon and then I will try to gather photos from all of my friends to share. I'll try to put up some photos soon, at least the one of all of us getting clean.

Happy Holliday

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 11:19:00 +0000

The trip mostly began and almost ended with me sitting in a bus wondering as my knees pushed into the seat in front of how I could sleep and how I managed to be sick at exactly this moment. But don’t let that paint anywhere near a picture that the journey wasn’t amazing beyond belief. The goodness of it all started when I learned I didn’t actually have malaria, just some random infection that we treated with medicine and I hoped would wear off as the bus tore down the road. Somewhere into the 36 hour trip from Kampala to Dar es Salaam, I guess it did—or at least I stopped paying attention to it. And even those hours weren’t horrible. We rode in relative comfort compared to the people we passed walking to their destination or those crammed into matatus or even shabbier busses. Each time the bus lurched I tried to look sidewise and if everyone else seemed unconcerned and peacefully trying to sleep in the limited space, not concerned that the only thing available to eat in the past day and a half was biscuits (cookies), chips (fries), and hard boiled eggs, then I tried to hold the similar lack of concern and enjoyed switching between reading, talking to my friends, sleeping, and staring out the window as the scenery grew more and more amazing as we passed through Kenya and Tanzania to the coast.

Somewhere in the chaos of arriving in Dar at two in the morning and scrambling around for some local money so we could buy anything (somehow Uganda had tricked me out of the idea of traveling with mainly American money, a useful trick traveling anywhere except the country I live in) I left the Lonely Planet in the cab. So, we didn’t really have a plan, except that we wanted to get to Zanzibar, spend some time on some beaches, and make it back to Arusha at some point to hit up a safari. We could have had the whole trip planned out easy, clean, and comfortable, but somehow Kevin and I convinced Kerri and Tiffany that it would be more fun taking the bus. That, combined with the notion that neither Kevin nor I could afford the flight and package deal options, we embarked and ended up on the coast without a guide book. As you might guess, everything turned out fine—better than fine, silly books.

At some point in time there will be pictures attached to this so that everyone can understand the brilliance of this place. Stowntown in Zanzibar presents a beautiful city on the coast that somehow even managed to awake in the recesses of my struggling mind the stories of Portuguese imperialism that stretched out from a few random classes. Whitewashed buildings crammed in close with alleys barely allowing walking passengers to pass by the ornate and imposing doors fill the streets. We set about enjoying the grand coffee, fresh seafood, and everything that the town offered for a short while before renting some motorcycles and heading off to the east coast, where we heard there were less tourists crowding the hotels and beaches. Being Christmas Eve, we followed the traditions of Kevin’s family and enjoyed a nice Italian meal at this place that held a wonderful collection of African art setting the background against Christmas Tree. Filled with pasta, we found a nice lapping beach and stuck our feet in salt water for the first time since months ago in San Diego and listened to lapping waves and sang carols as our feet squished in sand, laughing about how mostly anyone only knows the first verse of almost any carol and trying to figure out which is the best one. (“O, Holy Night” by most peoples’ reckoning, just to inform everyone, just that it gets to high and I can’t really sing it, but Lordie, the beauty of it is severe, “Fall on your knees, Hear the Angels’ voices, oh night divine)

The next day (Christmas Day) we tried to finish organizing and begin the vacation proper. On some points, we were not well informed, and after cruising across the island and pulling up on the east coast just as the sun went down behind us, we found all the guest houses were full, and most of them were so expensive we couldn’t afford them anyway. Somehow, we stumbled, as we often did throughout the trip, on some helpful friends who directed us towards a restaurant. We met our new friend, Aziz, there whose favorite pastime was helping tourists. He set us up in what I’m pretty sure was his room, led us to a Christmas feast filled with fresh caught marlin, vast quantities of fruit and sides and everything delicious while traditional dancers performed in front us and Aziz managed the whole thing for us for half price and basically we ate our full and danced a little bit, then retired for a quick night swim in the ridiculous water, off for “one-one” at a nice local spot with very few mzungus, and then to bed.

Morning showed us how dramatically beautiful the beach could be, with the finest white sand you could ever imagine coating your feet in beautiful powder on the beach and providing squishy, almost gooey cushioning as we walked out into the water, where you could swim at high tide, or walk out almost a mile with water up to barely your knees past seaweed farms and moored boats and other things stretching out to the horizon at low tide. It was amazing to stand several hundred feet off the shore and look back and around, out to the waves crashing on reef in the distance and back to the beach and to the water to either side occasionally dotted with people standing almost out of the water, the bright colors of the local clothing making almost miraculous imaged of women walking on water in the low tide. One of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, and all of that with warm sun and cool breezes. Just a short distance down the beach from Paje, we found a smaller town of Jambiani almost neglected by the crowds and a great guest house right on the ocean where put up for a while with another new friend, Mumba, who seemed to only know Kevin’s name, but at least he sang it out with the most enthusiasm each time he came close to us.

We spent a couple of days on the beach before heading back to Stonetown for a boat ride, snorkeling through the coral reef with the brilliantly colored fish, up to the island with a hundred giant turtles, more scenic beaches, history spreading everywhere, and beauty beyond understanding. Sadly, thought we had to leave, although it was almost too easy to console ourselves with the idea that we were heading to Arusha. Once more past Kilimanjaro, and the bus ride made me think of a couple of months from now when I will try to organize a force of my friends to attempt the summit.
We were picked up in Arusha by Halidi, our guide, found a great place to sleep and in the mourning set off for Ngorongoro Crater our chef, Booga. Through broken communication, we tried to learn as much as we could about the animals, but more often than not just stood in awe. The combination of the joy of standing with your body perched outside of a Land Rover much like you must have always wanted to do as a child and then coming across patches of wildebeest, flamingoes, water buffalo, gazelles, elephant, lions, hippos, and all sorts of birds and other creatures while you are nestled inside a huge crater that once blew forth from a volcano but now filled with stretches of green and salt water lakes offered just about everything we could ask for in a safari. Once we moved on the Serengeti, I sometimes allowed myself to be lulled into the regularity of everything. Of course, there are hundreds of zebras and wildebeest migrating just to my left and right, of course there are patches of giraffe, and once barely a leopard’s head poking out from the tall grass. I’ve seen this all before in zoos, just never to this extent, all concentrated and free. But that human tendancy, to minimize and rationalize, comes crushing down in some moments, like when we rounded the corner and found a small pride of lions feasting upon the fresh kill of a hippo. This is certainly something the San Diego Zoological Society would not coordinate or even condone. This is reality happening just outside the brief confines of the vehicle, and I traveled through it only, bringing my society and preconceptions with me, not this other way around which I am used to. We are visitors in life and the world, here to observe and hopefully learn a little, but more so just to see and experience joy, to taste and see that God has created something good and shows us that He is somehow Good Himself, better than we could hope.

New Years came in a campsite on the savannah. For some reason, the different camps couldn’t break through social barriers to come together until just before midnight, when, thankfully, the discussion of the correct time brought everyone together. (With some small pride, I can say that it was our party that convinced people to bring their lanterns near ours for at least the simulation of a campfire in the center of our small gathering.) Most people had come somewhat equipped with beer and wine, so we all gathered together, guides and participants, raising bottles, cans, and glasses together and toasting the celebration of newness and life in the middle of one of the prime examples of both that we could hope to find on the planet. Then we went to bed, because everyone wanted to get up early with the sun and with the animals around us to catch them as they caught their breakfast and as the world woke to stretch and show us what it could of how it has lived since the beginning.

Sadly though, every adventure, even if it is just a small subset of a larger adventure seems to come to an end, and while we had probably spent too much money and nowhere near enough time in these wonderful places, we had to set home. Of course, this is Africa and nothing is easy. The bus we were told would be there was not only not there, but was also full beyond capacity (two things that I think can only simultaneously happen in Africa). Not having any idea how we would get home, we scrambled about, found a cheep place to stay, heard about a shuttle to Nairobi and that we might have better chances there to we went to sleep and then Kenya. I have heard all kinds of stories about Nairobi, so I knew to walk around always with enough of my mind conscious so that I could feel my pockets and the backpack to notice the slight change of weight caused by thieves and all these other horrible things. In the face of this, I have this to say. Nairobi was fantastic. There were great bookshops and coffee, a wonderful place, Uhuru Park, in the middle of town, some of the most interesting architecture I’ve seen, helpful people, and almost anything one could hope for, including decent food that isn’t too terribly expensive. Kevin and I became quite happy the bus mishap caused the delay so that we could enjoy the town for at least six hours instead of whipping through it as we would have originally done. But soon, even that time was finished, and we had to make it home.

It still seems odd to call Uganda home, to feel comfortable once I saw the buildings and banana trees and black red and yellow flags, once my phone started working again. Stranger still to breath easy in Kampala. I’m excited to feel Gulu again, the comfortable small town, but for now I am in the capital, waiting and working a little, enjoying, of course, coffee and wireless and trying to think of all of the small parts of the holiday that would make for interesting reading. I’m sure I’ve missed some pieces that would have been fun to read, or at least to write. While it’s sad to have missed some of the parties, all of the family gatherings with overstuffed tables, floors littered with torn paper, sleepy-eyed children, and all of those hallmark examples of holidays, this was a great one. I miss of course beyond description my family and friends, but still, the world is wide, and this is one more stretch of it I’ve seen. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Snapshots

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 10:48:00 +0000

(written December 21st, 2006 in Kampala, Uganda)

Even as I write this, I can't think of the last time I sat down to communicate something that wasn't directly involved with work. Maybe it hasn't been that long. A month or so, something along those lines and I shouldn't worry so much. The absence of my thoughts and recollections for the recent time doesn't necessarily mean that people where questioning the worth of the internet or anything—if it can't bring updates from Uganda, then what good is it. But still, as I haven't written hardly one personal letter in a considerable amount of time, I do feel slightly like I'm abandoning certain friends, people who I wish knew what was going on in my life, if just because when I can't see them and talk to them, then at least if they share second hand in these adventures then it's in some small way like still sharing life with them. After this, I have the daunting task of sending out the entire backlog of emails, but for now, I will attempt this concise abbreviation of the past month. As I can't accurately describe everything, and also as a tribute to the fact that I am finally admitting that my camera is gone, I've decided to try to represent the month in a series of images and brief descriptions. Hope it's fun.

The First Holiday

Thanksgiving in Gulu consisted of a farm-reared turkey given to us by our friend Tony, cranberry sauce and stuffing smuggled in from the States, plenty of sweet potatoes and whatever other approximations to traditional fare that we could make out with local ingredients. I had to work the first half of the day so I didn't get a chance to try my hand at preparing something close to pumpkin pie, but I did swing by the craft store on the way home to pick up several bottles of wine. At the time, the volunteer house held about twenty people, and we all gathered around, blessed my Margie as she visited Uganda for the first time and brought her amazing ability to cook with her. We tried to convince our own cook, Doreen, that she had to stay and take dinner with us, but she still doesn't think it is proper. We will keep trying. It's impressive the thanks people poor out when they are surrounded by need. At the traditional round of thanksgiving people tried to convey the mixture of gratitude, hurt, joy, and awe that the country brings out. The moments presented a mixture of sympathy and nostalgia where we tried to understand the position we stood in contrasting the world outside our gates. (This became comically poignant as I tried to explain the holiday to Ugandans. "Well, we pretty much gather together as a family, give thanks for our blessings, and then eat ourselves silly.") But the evening held a number of nice moments in our makeshift family. Tears were shed, food was eaten, wine was drunk, and thanks were definitely given.

Excursion – Finally, a Break

Shortly after Thanksgiving, I moved my weekend to accommodate a trip two new friends were making for Rwanda. In the midst of the hectic schedule that continued to consume me at the office, I tried to search for some sanity in a respite. These girls were heading off to visit the new Partners in Health hospital (of Paul Farmer and Mountains Beyond Mountains fame) and I decided it sounded like a nice difference from computer staring and price negotiating. That and they thought it would be much safer to actually travel with a guy who could hopefully ward off some undesirables with his mere (and might I say, incredibly masculine) presence. So I packed off with my two new wives (easiest way to explain the situation and get cheaper hotel rooms) for Rwanda.

Before we left though, there was a short stay in Kampala, at a tourist hostel, Backpackers. I had stayed their for about a week the last time and the comfort and relaxed atmosphere seemed more promising than traveling back and forth to Jolly's house all the time. The staff actually remembered me, which is a great feeling when you walk into a place and everyone exclaims, "Chris! You have been lost!" But the lodgers also add to the experience. Such as I am with names, I'll dish out the descriptions. The Australian couple who just barely managed to beat me at bottle cap poker. The Dutch guy whose been living there for months trying to do some research except that it's taken almost his entire allotted time to just get the paperwork finished—he had two weeks left when he could finally start conducting the work. The French guy who felt he had stayed too long, but couldn't leave because he was pretty sure he picked up a local parasite but couldn't actually bring himself to see a doctor so he spent every day agonizing over the decision. Add those to all the other randoms, and it doesn't even bother me so much to have the same conversation every day (Where are you from? How long have you been here? What are you doing?)

After a rollercoaster inspired bus ride, we finally reached Rwanda. At first I was worried because my visa had expired and I shouldn't technically have been allowed to leave the country. When the first guard spent most of the time looking at the cover of passport, however, I felt better. The third guard, however, actually noticed and I thought was going to make me bribe him, but he just chastised me for a little while and I was on my way. The country itself was amazing. The verdant hills everywhere covered with agriculture that stretched up into the air and met with the always impressive African sky struck me right away. The clouds even on the distant horizon seemed to be a part of the landscape and awed in a way that I've only found the sky here to be able to do. Everywhere was green and beauty. Add that to the fact that the roads were decent, better than decent, good even, and Rwanda becomes an amazing country. The people we met on buses were equally beautiful and kind (although those we met in town, especially taxi drivers were, well, lets just say harmless would be an improvement—although I'm sure some small part of that was our miserable abilities at French, but still, when the guy couldn't figure out how to go back to where he picked us up, we were worried.)

It's difficult to think about this country. I don't want to characterize it by a tragedy. If I lived there, if I called it home, I wouldn't want people automatically associating my home with genocide. At one point, you can't help but think of it as you pass people on the road and wonder what had happened, how it could have passed, and what they are doing now with that history living behind them. We didn't see the genocide memorial, and I had no interest in visiting the school that still held hundreds of bodies piled, dusted in lime, and skulls organized uniformly. It's not that I didn't want to think about it, but I wanted to have more to say about Rwanda than death. The place seemed so alive to me, with farms and people living and laughing everywhere that I was wary of it. Maybe I should have allowed more of the reality of the history to enter my thoughts about the place, maybe I distanced myself from it. It could be obvious to say, but I find it hard to know what to do when faced with something beyond comprehension. So, I just go and see.

The hospital was located in a small town down a number of different dirt roads. We got there by bringing along a paper with the name written on it and just pointing. We would get out of one taxi (for those who don't know them, they are small vans designed to pack 14 people, but we did cap out at 23 one time) and point to the paper. The taxi drivers would then indicate a different taxi and we'd climb in, just pointing all the way. After most of the day, we stopped and realized we were there, a nice decorated building with a huge sign baring the symbol of hands joining and the words Partners in Health. Someday years from now, when I have actually finished school, to obtain some small version of the success of Paul Farmer, to have created an institution that not only provides quality care, but to the most needy, and in a way that enables them to continue the provisions to others so that entire regions are revitalized and healthy, to leave in your wake beautiful clinics and hospitals (this one even had a koi pond) and the smiling, vibrant faces of ones malnourished children near death, just to work in a place like that, to provide quality care, seems like a dream. They staff of the hospital took some time out of their obviously hectic schedules to show us around, seeming surprised that we managed to show up, and even outfitted us with bread, cheese, and raisins before we found another taxi and made our way back home.

Work

After this was a long period of typing, talking, and other things. Less interesting than some activities. Let's just leave it at that. But this is part of the reason why nobody has heard much from me.

The Second Holiday

As the Christmas season approaches in Gulu, it's drastically different from what I am used to. This much should be obvious, but the forms the differences took surprised me. The first thing was that they have Christmas trees, but they are simply green deciduous bushes that are all over. The most drastic is that Christmas represents a period of high crime. In the weekly security report, the last sentence read something like, "We must remember to be specifically on our guard as we go through this festive period." But we are enjoying it. At the staff Christmas party, we introduced the white elephant gift concept, although calling it Pick and Pass, and watched as our staff struggled vigorously over stealing tea cups and other small niceties from each other, laughing all the way. For us, the actual holiday will be spent somewhere, we're still not sure where, but are considering Tanzania.

Side Out

Just before most of the NGOs broke for the holiday, War Child decided to hold a huge volleyball tournament and BBQ. This was slightly annoying at first, because we wanted to hold a BBQ, but couldn't do so now as it would be copying. But the staff was so excited at the prospect of the tournament that everything was consumed by practicing and preparing. We even had t-shirts made for the team and they debated the actual rules for considerable stretches. In the end, we performed well, but I think War Child had a head start on us. We took fourth place, which actually turned out to be the best, because while first through third received nice trophies, we got a goat, which we will roast in the new year. You can't eat a trophy.

The End of Planning

Months now have been spent in debate, discussion, and hours typing and retyping. When I first started at Schools for Schools we were handed a vision. There were only the first steps made towards making this vision a reality, and many of those I have taken back in the ensuing months. In December, the Roadies for the next Invisible Children National Tour came through Gulu and we were told to have a project for them. This would be the first thing Schools for Schools has actually done. Suddenly we went from talking to doing, I had been negotiating with contractors, suppliers, politicians, business men, guards, and anyone else who knew more about my job than I did (which in various capacities could include most of the population of Gulu) trying to put all those specific pieces of knowledge into one comprehensive plan. Then, one day, it all came together, I had a gathering of workers one side, some fresh-faced mzungu girls on the other, and Jolly standing in front of all of us with a huge sledgehammer, made all the more humorous as she carried both the hammer and her nine months of pregnancy with equal determination. We filmed as she swung the hammer leaving small dents in a laboratory wall and Katie sang out, "Jolly swung the hammer, and the wall came tumbling down." The building should have been condemned but students have been working in the laboratory long after the mortar shells had cracked the wall, the windows had been broken and removed, and termites had all but destroyed the windows and doors. With the swing of the hammer, we began. By lunchtime, the wall was down and reconstruction had begun. By the end of the week, new windows, doors, and cabinets were being installed. In the new year, when the students return, they will find to their surprise, and almost new building. As we move forward, we will install plumbing, central gas, and enough chemicals and science apparatus to allow for the practical knowledge that science demands to avail itself.

Sometimes it's hard to think that you're going anywhere. Especially in Africa, when the first through tenth attempts usually bring with them some degree of failure. I was trying to grow accustomed to this, that things don't work smoothly. It's hard to work when you know what you're planning will not happen, that in the morning, something will occur that will make you change everything, call in reinforcements, change strategies, and force contracts to be fulfilled. I had been practicing at this for months, and I was nervous how it would play out in action, and how I could do that and finish my final assessments of ten schools at the same time. As it happens, things slowly work themselves to some form of a conclusion. It probably takes more trust and faith than I can generally muster. Something else to work on, I suppose.

Elsewise

I'm sure I've neglected things, nice moments like finally getting a full fleet of motorcycles and driving around town with freedom and wind blowing past me. The rains in the dry season. The coming and going of various new friends. The joys of parasites. A wonderful night spent coaxing a roaring fire in the middle of a hand-made pottery kiln. More than a couple of truly nice conversations. Seeing a movie, the new Bond, after numerous months, in a theater, with popcorn and everything, although feeling horribly ill and sweating and sleeping throughout. But I suppose there has been enough for now. Life is full, if tiring, frustrating, and confusing at times. But for now, that will do nicely, I suppose.

A Week of Taking Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 08:47:00 +0000

Oddly enough, as I write this, I'm sitting back in Kampala at Cafe Pap's having a mocha and eating forced bites of a friends chocolate cake as it is actually quite bigger than expected when ordered. But this is just one cake, one of many in an odd week of confections and surprises.

The first one perhaps should have been expected. It was my birthday after all, and there were hints and rumors of something happening that night as word leaked out throughout the office what the day signified for me. This mostly accompanied raised eyebrows and surprised expressions when they realized the extent of the number of these celebrations I'd seen behind me. Well, that and one completely unveiled threat of a caning from Jolly who felt she was informed of the holiday far too late for her own tastes. But that's good office humor, threats of beatings, being forced to walk back to America and other jovial signs of love. In another display, my young friend Tony (for those of you keeping track of our various Tony's, this one is the boy from the film who happens to be celebrating his own birthday tomorrow) walked in to my office, head bowed in deep respect as he addressed me with the traditional title of an elder, "Happy Birthday, Mzee." Of course he backed up immediately as the girls in the office laughed and he apologized unable to carry through with a good joke without laughing and apologizing, but the whole thing was quite entertaining. And the culprits behind the joke were immediately evident.

Back at home, the celebrations were less subtle, as I walked in to see the white board decorated with a decrepit old man and another Happy Birthday sign. To my complete surprise, as I have seen nothing of the sort since arriving in Gulu, Adam walks around the corner after dinner with a proper cake. Frosting and all, the thing glew with candles and pink inscription that read, wittily, "Happy Birthday Mzee!" Great minds. Several other nice surprises followed, as one girl gifted me with a hand-drawn birthday card with cartoon representations of everyone in the house. We had a grand time trying to figure out who was who and then I remembered that the truck came up from Kampala and had been laden down with a large box from my sister (sever other well-timed boxes would arrive over the next few days convincing everyone involved that I was actually quite well-loved back in the States.) We opened up dispersed some of the candy and gum, gooed over the picture of my young nephew playing the bass and his grossly misspelled accounting of an adventure in Mexico, and laughed about whether the pink backpacks were really for me or for the kids. (Of course, for those more revelry minded, we did retire to the best (only) pub in town for a couple (five or six) drinks that night and some sorts of celebrations—luckily the place was nearly empty that night so we didn't exactly mind our manners as much as we normally do when we're pretending to be the good Mzungus that we are.)

But this is the beginning. Two days later, another party, this one a bittersweet celebration of a much appreciated member of our team who was going home. Her boyfriend Tony (the one with the cows for those of you keeping track) held a grand celebration on the roof of his apartment with some of the best meat I've had in Gulu, plenty of refreshments and never ending hospitality. There was no cake there, but just before we left, we celebrated the birthday of one our great Danes (Julie, a girl from Denmark) with a cake that read, "Grow up Julie!" Apparently, it was her first store-bought birthday cake celebration which I'm not sure is a proud mark of distinction, but we took it as such. This one was actually considerably less dry and almost tasty as compared to the previous.

And of course it doesn't end there. Some short days later, we moved over to a local lady Betty's house. Betty is pretty much everyone's friend who we get to wave "Apwoyo" to as we come and leave from work. She invited us over for her birthday celebration. To be honest, I went bracing myself for a meal of posho (bland mashed maize bread) and maybe some rough, stringy chicken. Ashamedly, I was surprised by a wonderful meal of meaty, juicy chicken with a delicious sauce, tasty potatoes and pasta, with some of the largest bananas I've seen. After our feast, we brought out another cake and she declared it one of the happiest days she's had in some time. She saved half the cake to bring in to work the next day and share with her coworkers to display how grand a time she had the night previous and we all joked about when her next birthday would be (hopefully next week…)

The next cake, is really more one of those, "well doesn't that just take the cake" lame jokes, but I finished up the week by checking off one of the long-awaited African experiences off my list… Malaria. I knew I was in trouble when I woke up in the middle of the night really cold and noticed I had wrapped by sheet around me like a shroud. That can never be a good sign. After most of a day of work and a really ill-conceived half mile walk home I collapsed on the couch and hoped the boda driver I paid would actually return with water. A couple of days of sweating and watching the DVDs my friend had just sent for me, and I was starting to feel better. I had seriously considered trying to write a blog during the experience but then I decided even if it made any sense, it would just sound whiny.

So, no real profound revelations. I suppose there was some in there somewhere, but sadly they are buried by my sad attempts at humor and trying to get this thing out so I can get down to work. Sometime soon I'll talk about what I'm doing in Kamapala this weekend besides enjoying wireless internet and drinking mochas (and taking a few bites of cake).

A Pastoral Song

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 19:10:00 +0000

Monday, October 16, 2006

This weekend forced me to break from reports and resumes, filling the vacancies that I'd created through my lofty planning to find some refuge at the end of a boda ride to farm. My friend Tony, actually the boyfriend of a collegue, but we're all friends here, has been inviting me out to his farm to see his cows for weeks now and I finally gave way. I thought I was going out alone and woke up early, showered with the joy of finding the water cold, and when I came back my roomate was gearing up as well. So we took off, this time on the back of a motorcycle driven by Tony through small footpaths to avoid the pounding dust left by the lories on the main road. The tall grass smacked my legs and arms as wove around holes and people in the typical boda fashion. We spun through fields and even a eucalyptus grove with trees rushing past each side and drove into the country a while.
Tony's farm started at a small gathering of huts where a couple of women were savagly beetings dried stalks, gleening the rice from the stems and gathering them on the ground. The first cow Tony showed, with such emmense pride, was his newly purchased milk cow. I'm not sure how polite it would be to state the price, so suffice to say that it cost considerably more than I have spent on anything out here, and Tony touched it and cared for it, giving her medicine and talking about his plans for the shed he'd built for her. When I ask Tony about his cows, if he is worried about them, or anything else he almost always responds, "So I love them so much." I couldn't imagine investing that, the money into something alive like that for my future. As I picture it, I would worry considerably about the wellbeing of these creatures whom I depended on for my own livelihood. The slightest sickness, a drought, anything like that would not only hurt them but threaten me as well.
I was thinking about all of that as we walked past a couple of corrals to find where the cows had gathered. Tony walked up to the heardsman, an elderly man with his boy standing a few paces behind, quietly waiting for something that I couldn't imagine happening soon. The man was watching a cow who had seperated some from the others. Tony explained it had given birth several months early the previous night. The result, a crumpled head of bones and fur that must have at one time been a calf, lay in the grass next to a spot matted down showing that the cow had probably slept there the night before.
The brown cow, still a mother by her own description occiasionally walked up to the folded body and licked it on occaision, seemingly attempting to clean it or provoke it out of sleep. When she wasn't tending her calf, she walked around in what Tony would describe as pain. The sad birth had also failed to force the entire placenta from the cow and resulted in her walking around with only half of it expunged from her body. I tried not to imagine the pain or the sadness of the event as I watched her attempt to relieve the situation. Thankfully, a process of water and salt eventually caused the mass to be pushed out and some respite was offered her.
The salvation of all of this was that Tony was not a destitute rancher with only one or two cows to subsist on. He and his uncle had quite a herd and many of them were healthy and walking around the hills above us. The terror of what would be meant if that were not the case would have been so much worse, if all hope had been staked on that calf being born in January or December, on a new life providing new revenue. Instead, we were lucky, Tony and ourselves. We got to rest from that sight by walking up to the other cows and playing with one called coocoo ("chew chew"). Coocoo is a distinct favorite of another friend and for obvious reasons. She offers herself in quite a friendly disposition, eager to be pet, and eager to lick the hands and pants of anyone who wants to enjoy her company. The thick roughness of her tounge, almost sharp, made everyone laugh and almost forget. She allowed us to return to the huts and play a couple of rounds of convoy before heading off further down the road to enjoy a nice ride past the fading green at the end of the wet season. I was glad for her because I didn't have to think so much about life and death and pain, and I could just enjoy the ride and the rest for a while, even coughing through the dirt and the bumps in the road.

All of us at Tony's farm

The heardsman and his boy

Tony

Me and Coocoo

Prayers and Sausages

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 19:08:00 +0000

Monday, October 09, 2006

Honored Readers, "Top" Friends, Guests and Subscription Holders, thank you for coming to this blog, all protocols observed.

Okay, that first bit may only be funny if you've ever sat through the incredulously formal beginnings to a Ugandan meeting of almost any sorts (including, for a while, until we explained the differences, the weekly staff wrap-ups we held in the office.) This last Sunday gave me the opportunity for a gathering where even that type of formality, however, might have seemed appropriate. Some of the staff and I took advantage of a trip down to Kampala to meet with the Boys to go to the Ugandan Parliament's National Prayer Breakfast. This is the mirrored occasion that happens in other countries where some of the religious elite gather with selected other guests and pray God's guidance in the ruling of a country. Also in attendance, and of far more importance than ourselves, was HE (His Excellency) Yoweri Museveni (the president of Uganda), Janet Museveni (first lady, Member of Parliament, and abstinence activist), the President of Burundi and several others. We arrived a little late and walked quickly past a considerable spread of food to learn that the main room was full and we would be ushered into an overflow area. Undeterred, we simply entered the main room anyway, and plopped down in the sparse empty seats we could find. Bobby, Tiffany, and myself were even lucky enough to find chairs all the same table, in the back corner with the artistes—singers, musicians and other accompanists for the celebration.

To my immediate left and right were two brothers from Fort Portal, nephews to the Minister of Ethics, who were invited (almost entirely through the strength of that connection, I would imagine) to the reception to sing various songs. The two brothers combined to form an amazing duo, one mostly played guitar and sang some form of harmony while the other sounded off in a nice deep voice at times, but at other times slipped into one of his on-stage personas as the African Elvis. (I would have dearly loved to see the Elvis bit, but sadly it's not being performed anywhere in Kampala The highlight, in some ways, of the morning, came when these two got up to pay tribute to their illustrious leader by singing a ballad they composed for him called The Revolutionary. I tried to remain as respectful as I could throughout the proceedings, but when the warbling came in announcing the dates of various conquests from the revolutionary days and the Elvis voice rang out, hardly anyone who was paying attention (at least among the tables I was near in the back) could avoid some small laughter. It was an amazing situation where if I were to create a parody song for the event, I could think of nothing funnier than what actually happened. All of that of course was compunded by the fact that we couldn't actually go procure the food we walked past until about an hour into the ceremony when our table was finally allowed to serve ourselves. At this point, the eggs looked tired, the bacon cooked too fast, and the sausage generally unappatizing.
currently.)

But for all the moments of comedy, confusion, and even boredom at the incredibly long speaches that to my Western-adjusted ears seemed to go nowhere and be about less than what occured to some of the speakers earlier that day, it was an amazing event. If just for the simple fact of looking at the paper the next day that reads "Museveni says Prayer Works" and I would think, that's right, he did, I was there. For more reasons than that, though, I was glad I was there. Listening to the speaches offered some insight into the thoughts of these leaders. Hearing presidents discuss their personal prayer life with seeming honesty and candor opened up the hopes that God had some hand in guiding their decisions and reminds me that if these men take time to seek answers from higher sources than themselves, I should dedicate more of my own time to the same.

The most inspiring parts came whenever anyone would touch on the theme of the morning, Peace and Reconciliation. Although many people danced around the issue in their speeches, it could be infered that at the base of these thoughts were grave concerns about the north. If peace is to occur, it will require forgiveness, if the country will move on, they will need to have the these thoughts forefront in their minds. The attentions that the people of this country must pay to ideas like what is expressed in Matthew, in the Sermon on the Mount, where we are called to forgive others before we ourselves are forgiven. This concept takes on so much more when you considered the weight of how others have tresspassed against them. In the context of debates circling the International Criminal Courts, amnesty for war crimes, and the inspiringly forgiving nature of Acholi reintroduction rituals.

In my typically American nature, I can take all of this in through slef-reflection and comparison. What do I forgive people for, not writing, sending packages, being mean, stealing, selfishness, all of these things which plague us in our basic levels and which we let ekk out of oursleves because we are so consumed with preventing the larger sins that we can neglect these smaller ones. Of all the things I have to forgive others for, most are small examples of the trials I fail at any given moment of the day. Compared to the litany of sins committed against these people it is staggering what these speakers are saying, what can and should be forgiven for real peace to occur. Even without the egocentric comparisons, it is a vast thing to hear that prayer and forgiveness are central to a nation, or should be at least. These sentiments are said, and how often meant, I'm not sure, but offered at least, and I tried to hear them through the cultural dissonance and pray in my own fashion that it was real.

developing

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 19:07:00 +0000

Saturday, October 07, 2006

So this last night I finished a 36 page report on the implementation of the Schools for Schools program in Uganda. Sometimes I am still reeling from moving out here, other times still adjusting to not working for the volunteer program, and then I am often sitting and contemplating the enormity of the task I have--to coordinate the logistics for spending somewhere around 2 million dollars that we will receive from donors in the next year. Even now, kids in high schools around the US are gearing up to build this link. They are preparing fund-raising activities and we are building the infrastructure that will join them, hopefully utilizing technology to allow the students to see what their money is building, from even such distances, to meet in some small fashion, the thankful kids who receive thier help.
If this sounds too much like propoganda or some sort of descriptive material, I'm sorry. I've been writing exactly such stuff for too long, staying up into the night and talking to many people during the day, trying to learn the finances of development, the logistics of construction, and even the opperations of electronics. Sometimes it seems like too much, but there is part of me, when I sit and look at the document I created, that thinks I might just pull it off. I don't really know how I'll do it, probably by hiring people that are actually well-qualified to the tasks and having them do all the grunt work, or some other such plan, but it will get done I think. In time, these schools will have clean water, better teaching ooportunities, adequate supplies, new buildings, and updated technology.
Still seems odd to say it. And to think about it. I was reading before I came out here, and remembering back to the studies I've made until now, and it always amazes me that I'm applying some of those concepts, struggling for sustainability, appropriate development strategies and everything else.
I don't really know what to say about it all, and my battery is dying anyway. Just wanted to let people know why I've been so busy lately.

The Sense of Others (an interpretive dance)

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 05:01:00 +0000

It's disconcerting how comfortable I can get in a shell. Moving from home to the volunteer house to the office and back, riding through the town on my bike, stopping to talk to friends, conduct some small business, and being halted by particularly cute or persistent kids turns into an easy way to spend the days out here. I can rush from my fortresses of walls and guards through the busy streets protected by the exoticness of my appearances. These defenses can keep out real interaction at times. I notice all this, even as I speed down the road in my newly tuned-up bike with actual working gears so that every rut in the road becomes and exciting obstacle that must be overcome and dodging people, bikes, cares, bodas, and any other possible impediment rises a challenge that makes the morning ride to work an exhilarating affair. Through it all though, as I try to wave at the children who immerge from huts, bushes, houses, and crowds to wave at me and cry, "Muno, bye!" I notice the distance rising.

The distance can be defeated. It takes some effort, and even when I'm traveling around with a good friend and he is opening his life to me and I'm trying not to stare too wide-eyed or ask too many questions but to just be "friend" and not "mzungu," I still wonder how much that distance persists. But still I try.

This weekend offered some grand opportunities. First was a wicked boda ride through mud sloshing side streets and villages buried in the bush around town, off to the new location of my friend Simon's church, the Miracle Center of Gulu. The church had just moved from a location in town to a spot of land on the other side of what was sometimes a river (and it was such that day, causing some difficulty for parishioners coming from town.) The whole area was a tent erected on poles, a number of huts, and a small baking area in the back. As we got there, people were just moving in the generator and a few keyboards, preparing for the morning service. I tried so hard to not be awkward as I stood there with a number of people drastically aware that I was the only white person there early enough to witness the set-up. In truly overtly Christian and overtly conspicuous manner, I took advantage of opportunities for personal prayer to draw inside myself amid the growing crowd. But soon I could even in my shy self talk to some other people when Simon wasn't there, and before too long the service started, filled with amazing amounts of dancing and singing.

My old, good, possibly best friend Torben and I used to listen to music in junior high and I noticed an odd difference between us. Whenever we didn't know the words to a song, Torben would always try to make something up, hopefully something that made some small amount of sense—which wasn't too hard as many of the lyricists we listened too seemed to pride themselves on obscurity. His lyrics were even sometimes better than the original and I think somewhere in the recesses of memory I may sing them today in deference to the originals. As for myself, I genuinely tried to get at the words by just making noises approximating what I heard. To my ears it sounded close enough to the mumbling, screening, or whining coming out of the speakers and made about as much sense, even if it didn't have Torben's inspired genius of improvisation. Well, that little practice and ability served me well on Sunday. As the Acholi praise songs started blasting our of the speakers and the congregation, I could grasp only the basic sounds of the choruses and tried my best to accompany them, hoping at some similarity. I closely watched the gathered performers at the front of the tent, scanning them for every action and expression, each one giving a small understanding to the intents of the words I never quite heard and certainly failed to understand and repeat properly. I just hoped the sentiment would be there, that when I saw joy in front of me portrayed by the mixing numbers of singers and dancers, that I could bring forth some equal joy in my singing, or at least my intonations.

And then there was dancing. I began in with the same approach I normally throw at such movements during worship. There are those whose hands are held high above their heads, swaying to and fro, and those who favor, well, more subtle movements. Arguments can be made over shyness or even lack of spirituality but for whatever reasons, that's how it tends to go. In this arena I was conspicuous enough standing in front of the still filling crowd, and as the movements of the children and everyone else filled the tent, well, there's this point where the small movements I make to not stand out too much in stillness graduate to slight awkward mimicking of the motions around me, which then itself gives way to dancing. Then I remember that it's simple, that it's movement accompanied by music and meaning and that praise, if anything, is also embodied in this. All the actions that seem so standard to the dancing, jumping congregation try to coarse through me as well, and for the most part, from my limited perspective of myself, I seemed to be doing well enough. Enjoyed it at least.

Once the music ceased, a series of speakers led to a pastor who introduced a guest speaker. This week also accompanied a large missions group from Germany and other locations, being led by a pastor from the capital city of Kampala. He explained to the church how he had not been traveling to the north before and how he had not really known his country until he saw this part. "To the people who have survived this war, soon the world will come to you to see how it is that you have survived. In Kampala, there are many who do not know of the IDP camps. They fear Gulu, that if you are going to Gulu you are going to Kony and the rebels. They do not know of the singing and the dancing here. They do not sing and dance like that, it is they who are in camps."

That night held more speeches. I had to leave the service early, after only three or four hours, to run home, shower, and prepare for the first anniversary of Invisible Children in Gulu. We were holding a grand soiree at one of the nicer hotels in town where we had invited those who had helped us in all that we had accomplished. After a series of speeches where people announced our accomplishments including around 400 kids on scholarship and plans including the Schools for Schools program that I'm working on (more on that later), and even some smaller ones where my friend Katie was promoted Gulu District Chairperson for the evening to allow the actual LC5 to enjoy the evening more, we launched into dinner and dancing.

With the day bookending well, music and dancing to speeches to speeches to music and dancing, I had somehow returned to the consciousness of myself, and sat making conversation comfortably in the tables with a few others while the dancing ensued. All this until a number of persistent women forced my polite hand and brought me to grass serving as a dance floor. Whether through wine or simple good luck, the dances remained on levels of complications that even I could handle. Again, the lyrics could hide some of the meanings behind the song if it weren't for all the other signs. Some of them, dancing in circles and moving with specific, yet cryptic movements were beyond my discerning, but others offered easier targets. I figure that at one point, were I was lined up with all the other men, facing the women and pumping fists to the ground with considerable vigor as one or two of them shook their ways towards us, enticed one to follow them almost back to their line before releasing him back to his fellows offered a fairly obvious, even to those without any real training, a courtship dance. In which case, I'm told I performed quite well as I was escorted over a few times myself—all the while attempting on some levels to believe that the compliment was due to my amazing dancing abilities or at least my charm and not the novelty of the situation. Either way, after each time the music died, we all gathered around and laughed, clapping hands ourselves and with each other, glad to be there and dancing together.

The Beauty and the Mess of it All

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 05:52:00 +0000

Details and Beauty of the Whole Mess

I get a quiet moment here this weekend. Finally putting the porch on our house to good use, the fact that "power is here" lets me type, listen to music, and sit in the shade on an otherwise heated day. Not exactly a scorcher, but hot enough to make you glad for the shade and possibly a nice bottle of water. The light fills up the green yard and the red dust of the roads and the brick walls of our compound, just beyond which the traffic and people make just enough to fit in through the headphones and have that constant notice of where we are. The women practice singing somewhere near, perhaps the school across the street in a broken staccato of their various parts. I have heard this before. Once the fragments are placed together, the cohesive whole of the song has a specific beauty, but alone there are just these punctuated notes that may comprise of words, but all I hear are progressions, repeated and practiced, an unnatural and not entirely soothing but pleasant and fine accompaniment to the afternoon.

The previous night was busier. The weekend, as originally conceived, was calm, filled with cards with the boys and other pastimes. However the filming planned for earlier in the week was delayed following the typical Ugandan and IC-related inconveniences, mostly relating to power, proper equipment and other hiccups of the developing world. We started Saturday afternoon, rearranged a local library to fit the esthetics of the plans and began filming in our reconstructed library, smaller, brighter, more pronounced than the original with details melting away to inspire the students of the States to partner with students their own age, half a world away. We try to link them through the compassions to their struggles and the pronounced humanity of the Ugandan children we have met. We filmed progressions of empty rooms, tables, and shelves to fulfilled images of education as candlesticks melted away into computers.

Filming comprises a considerably detailed and cumbersome process. As the hours of the night passed away, the furniture maneuvered through numerous stages and rooms, the lights moved from one concentrated area to the next, the children came and went with the scenes, sitting in the corners and amusing themselves and us through the moments of waiting boredom. At one point, they all joined in singing Acholi praise songs, clapping and each performing the requisite motions to the songs. As I talked with them, taking a break from moving or lighting one thing or another, their stories flew out at me. Through everything they struggle against, we tell ourselves that schools offer the best chance. Through hunger and disease, violent histories and a lack of support, the idea is that education offers the mystical key to the ability to improve one's own lot. As a rule, you should be immediately suspicious of anything that smacks of a panacea. I wondered occasionally through the songs if the four to five hundred kids we put through school, taught in the new libraries and labs we plan to build, could grow into the leaders we hope can save their playmates that we left behind, unable to help them all. Still, though, you have to try.

The next day offered another program. After sleeping past the scheduled time to meet a friend and head off to his church, I woke to learn that Jan Egeland was in town and some people were heading off to hear the UN's Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs—among other flashy titles—speak. We sat in a room crowded with other development workers, enjoying tea and biscuits and watching the man field questions about the direction of humanitarian efforts in the area. Questions ranging from interesting perspectives on the influence of the Karamajong in the conflict to the ubiquitous pondering of the appropriate course of action for the International Criminal Courts, and the possibilities of amnesty or justice for Joseph Kony and the direct link of that question to the entire prospects of the peace process. Sometimes seemingly unanswerable questions were deflected, other times acknowledgements were made, plans discussed, organizations of multilateral work, combining efforts, all the hopes of humanitarianism struggling to shine brightly through the discourse amid the chaos of international politics.

I hold onto some basic understanding of the history of this conflict. I can hold my own in discussions of causes and repercussions, bending through the dialogue not with great ease or impressive fortitude, but still with some small ability. I imagined today the aspects of that impressive title and the myriad of complications that lay underneath it. This one corner of history represents only "the most neglected humanitarian crises in the world," and yet there are others today. All the background minutia of this conflict represents information most of the world doesn't know, as a great portion of the world couldn't acknowledge even awareness of it. Among all the crises of our lives, like a hallway in our minds leading to troubled thoughts and awareness, each one only opens to another hallway with many doors closed and locked off due the information and understanding that we'll never have, limited as our perspectives are to ourselves. And these are just the crises of our lives, not even considering those of the rest of the population. Each little paragraph summary in the world news section of the paper represents not only an entire history behind the events, but also uncounted other conflicts that didn't even make the news cycle that night.

The depth of the issues we face should almost fill our thoughts and could almost paralyze our intentions. And what do you say after that. I'm here. I found something that speaks to me for whatever reasons—many of which are possibly chance or Fate, depending on the perspective. There's no real lesson for the great masses waiting to be inspired. Uganda itself, Africa as a whole, and the world in general are filled with stories crying out for action. The bleeding heart could perish from fluid loss at even a brief evaluation of it all in its entirety. But beyond all of that pessimism, a certain beauty arises when looking at the panorama of issues, representing as it stands more of a mosaic, completed with images of actual people each possessing their personal stories that cannot be composed in a wide angle lens. It sounds trite to say that the beauty of the conflict in northern Uganda lies in Tony and Boni as they sit around a card table calling each "Godzilla" and "Baboon." It seems overly spiritualized to infer that this is the view that God must have, viewing a crisis as a mingling of actual people each with their own histories as complex as the national one occurring around them. But I suppose the simplicity of the sentimentality behind those statements doesn't make them untrue. I just wonder how often Jan Egeland is afforded the vantage of that view in the brief days he spends in each surmounting crisis. I, myself, hardly take advantage of it enough, passing by numerous kids each walk to the house, but still I'm there, slapping down cards and trying to earn a place in the lives of a few of the kids.

Banners, Night, and Peace

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 10:07:00 +0000

A friend of mine just gathered with the uncounted masses right in the same square where I spent the Global Night Commute. The last time I spent any serious time on the red bricks of Portlands Pioneer Courthouse Square, I gathered with two thousand of my closest friends as we banded together with some large number of other cities, some large number of other cities and people numbering around seventy thousand in all in attempts to call attention to this conflict in northern Uganda and in hopes of ending the war. Even as I said it each night leading up to the event, desperately trying to talking to crowds of students, emboldening myself to inspire the youth, it sank in those overly self-aware recesses of awareness that, what the crap was I talking about, did I really think we could, anyone could, especially so far away and young, actually make such a difference in a war older than half the people gathering there. Did I? And so I thought about it, and I did, and formed the rhetoric to lay it out, to hopefully inspire people to greater things then they might try to do on their own, and I hoped that I was right and that five years from that day, everyone wouldnt look back ashamed at the dreams they were tricked into believing. But that, I guess, is what you do when you try to change the world, believe and ask others to do the same.

Believing in that brought me here, to Gulu. Here I get to try to affect the lives of these children, do all these things, make some difference, but now as I open the paper each day, as I talk with the people all around, I realize that I might be here at the opportune time to witness the beginning of this peace that we asked for. The headlines each day broadcast the latest developments in the peace talks. Some offer hesitant critiques of all the ways that the process could disintegrate before us while others offer hopeful pronouncements of the eventual end to the misery.

And those are just the more official aspects, not really reflecting the life we see every day. Each night as I walk out from the volunteer house or even making my way home from town, the beauty of the night impacts me. Brief shining moments of fireflies plant green glowing blips on the ground. The stretching, dancing fields in the wind stretch out barely perceptible beyond the edges of the black dark road. Above, brilliant stars and the hazy streak of the galaxy push through the occasional yet tall and luminous clouds that punctuate the night sky. And all of this is perceptible and enjoyable along the roads we walk without great fear. Just a year before, these streets were abandoned at night except by those beyond fear. Heading out just at dusk, we still meet a few night commuters, but the numbers of children fleeing that dark night seem minimal now. I take my steps home without wondering what lies in each dark crevice of the world. This is how peace can feel.

Just some days ago, streaming through the streets of Gulu, bicycles, boda-bodas, cars, and even people carried behind them large waving white flags. After the declared cease-fire where both government and rebels agreed on the platform of peace, and both pledged to set down weapons for the duration of the talks, the people of Gulu celebrated the best sign of the peace theyve been hoping for by waving these flags all over. Some were huge and trailing behind cars. On one bike, I couldnt even imagine how the person could see beyond the large flapping whiteness in front of him. Some were simple matters strapped on as sign that they believed in the peace process and were hopeful for finally an end to the horror theyve been living. We here at Invisible Children were granted a great honor by being asked by the Gulu government to supply the flags and be a part of the ceremony where they where handed out. Jolly, who some of you may remember from the film, kept remarking how this was the greatest thing she had seen in Gulu and how happy she was. I couldnt come close to her emotion as she saw the beginnings of what she has strived for years to see, her people brought to peace.

There are still those who flood gossip and headlines with dour outlooks. Every day we can encounter the numerous reasons why this, too, might fail. The ICC still holds the indictment against the LRA leaders. Those leaders refuse to leave the bush until amnesty is given. The international community is at odds as to how to proceed from here. But each day that we get to enjoy the scenery of Gulu at night, each time I can tell the people I meet in Kampala that I do not fear walking the streets, each time I see children who do not cower with the idea of abduction, rape, and other violence, it seems like a small victory and enough for today. I hope we can see this continue, that a real, lasting peace will come. Until then, I am trying to stay hopeful. All of you who have been involved until now, thank you for giving this vision to me and this hope to the people here. Please continue doing everything youve done.

Anf Finally A Home

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 19:28:00 +0000

(originally written Aug 29, 2006)

In case nobody's been keeping track, my vagabondry has left me homeless for neigh on nine months now. Ever since mid December when I loaded all my stuff into my car and headed out for Arizona (what a destination to have begun all of this) from San Diego, I've been borrowing the place I sleep every night. Of course, in more philosophical terms, we are none of us owners of our space, despite whatever deeds we hold. But still something in us longs for permanancy. And that stability was one of the things I was looking forward to about Africa. Finally, I would have a home, a place to rest my head and bed to call my own.

Sometime last week I rolled into Gulu. For those who have only seen visions of the town through a certain film, I could try to flush it out for you, but doing so may also take a year. It is a small town though, I can walk to every place within it and have been getting around mostly by that and a bike that I acquired from Jared. The most common conveyance for most people are "boda bodas," small 50cc motorcycles that jet through small holes in the traffic, taxiing people around for anywhere from 25 to 50 cents. Despite all the warning and training I've had, I do take these on occaision, wisping about the town even in shorts and Reefs, imagening my father cringe as I remember his warnings about motorcycles and flip-flops, and almost each time imagening impending doom as we might collide with a bicycle, a large truck, a woman carefully balancing large loads on her head, or any number of obstacles, including large muddy holes in the ground. But it's a good time and away we go. Most of the locals are used to seeing us honkeys ("muzungo" in swahili or "muno" in the local language as it's screamed by the children I pass) being carted around either in these bodas or secure in white Land Cruisers. They think it's great to see white people walking, quite funny to see me on my bike, and they found it downright hilarious when I borrowed a boda on my own and set off through town. (Of course, the hilarity was greatly increased as I slowed in front of a popular hang-out for local boda drivers and proceded to stall the bike, having to kick it several times to get it going again, red faced, sweaty, and fully embarrassed.)

But to get to my new home--it's a nice place. Sometime I will have to post pictures. There are several actually, one for us staff, meagerly equiped in which we rarely spend time beyond sleeping, and one for the volunteers. The volunteer house is occaisionally packed with travelers using it as a hostel, and holds the service of most meals, so that's where we hang out. In the off hours, we can be found on the back patio sitting around kerosene lanterns or candles, or even when the electricity is abundant, occaisionally we crowd around a lone laptop and watch a smuggled DVD. The best hours are outside, especially as dusk arises and the sun releases its assault. We sit there just as the mosquitos start to bite, talking and playing cards. (The current favorite game is one imparted by Tony and Boni called "Convoy" the only card game the locals play. Since learning it I have tried to see if I would be invited to play by local boda drivers, but haven't been successful yet. I'm sure I'd loose, but wouldn't it be grand to just win one hand?)

And we have a monkey. I believe there's a line in a song. Haven't you always wanted a monkey? (Actually I know it's a line, it's from Barenaked Ladies, "If I had a Million Dollars" and we actually have two monkeys. We just don't like one of them, so we often refer to them by only describing the one we like.)

There's a million other facts and stories that I'd love to relate, but they come slowly to me now. I will try to fill these pages with them throughout the next span of time. Until then, I'll consider myself somewhat caught up. Assuming I get regular internet access soon, this will try to be, shall we say, regular.

As a side note, for those of you bent on spending lots of cash, I do have a cell phone now and while I'm far too poor to call the States with it, receiving calls is free, so if you're interested, ask away. My secretary will screen the requests based on a ten point system and hopefully you'll then be granted acess.

6:09 AM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

They Call Me Lokon, or something like that

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 19:27:00 +0000

(originally written Aug 25, 2006)

Stepping off the plane back into Africa was amazing. You get those stair style exits, and not the encompassing tubes that bring you from the plane to the terminal in an effort to keep you from the outside world and lock you into the airport as its own state and entity. Right off the plane, I'm standing there on the tarmac, in Africa, in Uganda. It looks, feels, and smells like Africa, even in the dark, from what I remember of being here years ago. I walked to the terminal with considerable excitement, queued up for my visa, and nervously wlaked out of the airport to meet Emmy, the man who was to meet me there. I've never really met this man before, but I've watched his wife, Jolly, on the film many times so I was hoping that I would somehow recognize him, or that maybe he would be holding one of those papers with my name on it to make me feel official. I had originally thought I would be easy to pick out from the crown in Entebbe Airport, but most of my flight consisted of Europeans and Americans in a way that almost felt odd until I learned that the next week was the first day of classes in the American school.
To add a fun bit of adventure, it took several minutes of walking around the airport for me to fully realize that Emmy was not going to be meeting me. Luckily, I had the phone number of another girl in country and I just had to figure out how to get change when all the exchange places were closed for the night. I was helped with directions from a friendly cab driver who eventually just let me borrow his phone as I tried to tell everyone that, no, I was comming in today, right now in fact, and not tommorrow. Eventually, we just decided to let the cab driver take me into Kampala to Emmy's house. Now, I've heard about these drivers. I've been warned about the speeds they drive on shabby roads, the tendancy to pass on a two lane road in the face of oncomming traffic barely missing the madly honking truck headed straight for them. So, I was braced somewhat for all of that (but I forgot I'd be sitting on the left side of the car and we'd be driving on the left as well) and just tried to enjoy the experience. We flew past people in the crazy dark night, telling them fervently with the horn, I'm passing you, stay out of the way. The driver edged the taxi into spaces between large vans and oncomming cars pulling similar maneuvers heading the other way, with a calm ease that actually allowed me to trust him and simply attempt to enjoy the ride and talk with him about life in Uganda. But we made it safely to the amazing house where Emmy proved one of the most hospitable hosts I've ever had, to the point were I could not refuse him taking tea despite the fact that I was sure that I should probably sleep soon and try to adjust being almost on the exact other side of the world.
I had a great few days in Kampala. I would head out in the day sometimes with Jason, Bobby, Laren, and Katie as they gathered some more shots for upcomming projects and tried to learn as much about the area as possible. When hanging around the house, I would play with Emmy's two boys who have an incredible love for fake punching while supplying sound effects with a quick fist to your own chest. While we were out at a place called Life in Africa, the original site for making the Invisible Children bracelets, doing some filming, the kind folks there--largely a group of Acholi from the north who moved down to Kampala--decided it was wrong that I should be moving to Gulu without an Acholi name, and so one man thought about it for a while and came back with "Lokwon" or possibly "Lokon" or even possibly "Lakon" (I had not yet learned the trick of carrying a book to right down the new words I learned in Lwo, the Acholi language.) The name means "helper," and I'm pretty sure comes from the image of me holding ladders, film equipment, and other things for the boys throughout the day, but it also I think works nicely for what I want to do here. All I really want to do is help, to help the people in the States make it over here and have them provide help for efforts of the Ugandan people here. So, I'll stick with it. I've seen some people shop around for names, and it's trully hillarious how the Acholi people give them out, it can sometimes be the most flippant occurance. I've seen boys named "Michael Jackson" and it is not an irregular occurance to have a pregnant woman ask one of us what to name her child. A few of my friends here have children in the town and around named after them. And so (despite the probable improper spelling) for some purposes, my name here is Lokwon Chris.
One day, I was sitting in the house in Kampala, talking with Okello Forever, a young man who helps around the house in the daytime and watches the gate of the compound at night as I waited for Seth and Ryan to come in so we would all head up to Gulu. We were having a fun conversation about any number of random things and he starts telling me about his home. His two brothers up in Gulu whom he tries to support with work in Kampala to pay their school fees. His parents who are gone. His time in school up there, as he tended goats and pigs to pay the fees until one day theives took his goats, and another day the rebels stole his pigs. At this point, I was shocked to find myself wishing we could return to the fun casual talking we were having earlier. I had watched the film so many times that these stories were familiar to me, they were the reason I was here, and yet I knew that, so did I need to here more of them, or couldn't we just be friends and friendly. I saw where it was going. Another day, the rebels came back to his town and he was abducted. Luckily, his journey in the bush only lasted one week before a UPDF (Ugandan military) force ambushed the rebels and he ran away, escaping by diving into a rushing a river and being carried downstream. Everything in his story was told so perfectly, in the same tone as any other tale, and I was reminded that it wasn't just about fun and interesting people and adventure. There was so much pain in this country that pain didn't even register as such any more, it came more as just something that happened in life.
And so we talked for a while more as I fumbled with what you could possibly ever say to something like that, and the next day we left, or tried to. It actually took quite some time of manuevering through the crowded bus park, Seth, Ryan, and myself waiting for the bus to Gulu which never came with everyone thinking it was quite the sight (especially Ryan who towers over most people), returning home, back the next day, and then up north. But we got to see Forever again, and Emmy and the boys, and hope that until we could provide any real susbtantial help, that friendship and talking was enough, and playing, and being there and trying to show something that looks like love.

A Brief European Stint

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 19:23:00 +0000

(originally written Aug 22, 2006)

While some of you might be scanning this fro great tales of daring and wonder in the African realms, I have to warn you that, as of now, we're not there yet. While I am defintely here in Gulu, safe and getting acquainted with the amazing people and the town, I have for some reason chosen to publish these thoughts in serial format, opening with, appropriately, chapter one.

It having been quite some time since I stuffed myself into the tin box of a transatlantic flight, I was quite eager to get off the ground, enjoy the free drinks, nearly endless peanuts, in-flight entertainment, and discussions with fellow world travellers. And for about four or five hours, that little box in the seat in front of me suited nicely. Then bordem sets in. Maybe there is something about being a guy my age that makes people uneasy about opening up in conversation, or maybe it was because I was rutenely sat next to men even older than myself who occupied their own flights quickly with books and earphones, but I never really got the chance to talk with my fellow travellers. I sat there, occaisionally bursting with the realization of my new adventure, eager to share it with people and hear their own adventures. (Some of this might have been aimed at the fact that I could say, "Well, yes, a couple of weeks in Paris sounds trully exciting, have I mentioned I'm moving to Africa?" but who can tell.) But no, they were quite absorbed by trying to determine if Tom Cruise would accomplish this impossible mission of his (not quite sure how that turned out as I fell asleep each of the three times I watched that particular film on that long day.) I even had complimentary DVDs that would accompany my stories, but sadly few were interested.

I had talked with a friend earlier amidst all the travelling chaos and wondered that maybe not being allowed any carry on bags might not be such a bad thing. Perhaps then we might be forced to interact. I would overcome my desire to not interupt people who seemed quite content not talking to me, and they would be forced, through boredom, to find something interesting to do, even if it meant listening to the unkempt guy next to them and his silly African exploits. Oh well, even London will soon return to normal, if it hasn't already and people with have their books and iPods and everything safe.

But all of that aside, I soon (well, not soon, really, but after some time) made it to Amsterdam and was allowed a few hours of roaming about the city before the next flight. Sure, it was six in the morning and the main activity was street cleaners washing away evidence of reveleries of the previous night, and sure I had made the poor choice of shorts and Reefs as travelling clothes. (In my defense, I was going from sunny San Diego, to intensly sunny Uganda, and besides the Spanish tourists on the same train to the city with the same mistake had to suffer through the decision of chanclas as travel gear, making jokes and complaining all the way.) A little cold and wet, I still got to walk around a European ciy again. I remembered for a while the great squares with towering buildings, which--on a day that wasn't blanketed in gloom--would have made great pictures. There was also those European girls, so attractive and yet serious in their long dark colored coats as they sped by on bicycles. But good coffee from one of the few open bakeries, and breif talks with people before I headed back would have to satisfy.

The oddest moment came as I walked through the old Dutch buildings built by the imperialistic arm of the old country. Shops proudly displayed the rich assortment of diamonds and wealth. Perhaps it was the dark sky, but my destination made me dwell on the misery these shops had casued through the years. The lives wasted as diamonds were ripped from the earth in the mines of Africa. Disturbed, I wandered through the streets carrying a fresh dose of caucasian guilt to propell me along. My time ended and I had to hurry back. Showing the grace of the situation, those notions are easily swept away by the humanity of the place here. As I entered Africa and was greated by the people there, as the days came by and I saw everyone working, there are better impulses to be driven by that bury the guilt. Europeans, Africans, Americans, and everyone strive towards something great here. But all that will have to wait.

Tune in tommorrow for the next dose. Well, actually, given the situation here with internet and even electricity proving quite elusive companions, it will most likely be quite beyond tommorrow before we in our story even get to Kampala, much less Gulu. But soon and sometime, if not then.

Off to Africa

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kargel) — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 09:04:00 +0000

Only several hours remain, and theoretically I will fill some of them with sleep. The days been grand--running off to Flood, selling a bit of merchandise and screaming across a parking lot to Ryan "I'll see you in Africa!" then simply hanging out and enjoying my temporary home here before paddling over to the Ben Harper concert and paddling back to the remnants of music and the sky lit up by fireworks from Sea World on warm, flat water of San Diego Bay. All I have left is laundry, packing, a brief respite, and then a plane ride that will take about 40 hours, all told.

People ask me all the time, aren't you excited to be going to Africa? And I am. I'll be there for a year, living in Gulu, Uganda, trying to do some small good in an area that's been torn apart by war for twenty years and is only currently getting a small breath of peace which may vanish at any moment. So, yes there's a lot of excitement there, but also quite a large number of other things. A friend of mine who leaves the day after me described it as, "every emotion to an exaggerated degree." It seems like people want me to respond as if I've won some dream vacation and almost explode in jubilation as if Bob Barker had just called my name (I know this is more what seems than anything else, but still) but I can't react like that. I'm going to see heartache and struggle, to work insanely hard, to live in a way I can't find here, and to try to make a difference. So, before I head out, I wanted to offer everyone something, especially those of you who have supported me in so many ways. I'm not sure how well I've explained what I'm doing, so I'll try to do that, and any number of other things.

A brief explanation of my next year. This plan is much more of a rough draft. It runs the distinct risk of changing drastically once I actually get to Uganda, talk to people there, and see what the situation is. But it began simply. When I was traveling around the country showing the film Invisible Children, one of the most frustrating questions for me was, "How can I go there and help?" I had no answer other than, "There are a lot of organizations doing great work, go google them." This frustrating answer collided with some ideas I had been mulling about regarding mission trips and how people respond when providing aid in developing nations. Too often, it seemed like groups from the United States would roll into somewhere, drop whatever grand scheme they had concocted (building clinics, churches, whatever, or holding clinics, talking to people, any number of solutions which sound amazing initially) and then leave. The people in the country are left with a solution they didn't create which is often a temporary fix, and an idea that all help comes from the foreign locales. So, I tried to think of what I can do, and I'm still trying. I'm reading as much as I can (thank you for some of the great book suggestions) and trying to wrap my head around a relational solution. So here's what I've got now. In Uganda, there are a ton of small organizations, many of them completely ran by Ugandans that are doing amazing work trying to build up the country in the wake of violence, disease, and poverty. I want to go to these places and help them--figure out what they need, what they would do if only they had more people and money, and then find resources from our support base in the US and fill those needs. Through this, I will find short term jobs for those who want to come to Uganda, and hopefully build serious lasting relationships between small groups here that can send out a couple of folks a year and the small groups there that desperately need some help. It's a simple idea and I'm not sure how it will work exactly or how it might change some of the problems I've witnessed, but it's something that I have the chance to try, and that--given the history of the conflict--is amazing enough that I'll gladly give a year for it.

Of course, all this could change drastically once I get on the ground and see how things are going there, talk with the doctors working hard in the clinics, watch the children playing, and all of those things that happen in real life and not in the trappings of my theories. And also, who knows how my abilities and knowledge will stack up against the challenge. I can honestly that without even exerting the first effort towards doing something like assessing the AIDS situation in Gulu, I am intimidated and humbled by the task. I can read all I get my hands, talk to experts, and pray but we will see just what I am actually able to accomplish in a year. And so we get the whole "rough draft" qualifier of my plans.

I should probably let these thoughts continue as I sleep but I just want to quickly thank everyone who helped me get here, ready to go. All those who drove me, prayed for me, bought things, and gave money, I hope I can make your efforts worth it. Now, if you're feeling like you'd just like to do even more, I can help with that. I still need about $1,000 to recover from the plain ticket. Once I get to Uganda, everything is taken care of by Invisible Children, but part of the deal is that I cover the trip. I want to send as much money as possible to the kids who need the help, so if anyone can help out, or knows people who can, or just wants to put a can on their desk at work, I would really appreciate it. Any donations are tax deductible if you send them to the IC office with my name on the memo:

Invisible Children
1810 Gillespie Way, Ste. 205
El Cajon, CA
92020

And one last thought. I know my publicist/sister will forward this on to anyone I missed, but please everyone else do the same.
I should have internet in the house in Gulu, Uganda, so I'll try to keep up with all of you if I can. Please be patient but respond as often as you can, I'll miss everyone quite a bit. If for whatever reason, the internet is too fancy for you, you can also send things to the house at this address:

Invisible Children
PO Box 1123
Gulu, Uganda

Thanks again everyone.