Pooping

I’ve spent the last 2 years of my life pooping into a hole in the ground, bathing out of a bucket, and boiling all of my drinking water; I’ve spent the last 2 years of my life serving in the Peace Corps in Uganda. Before coming here I had envisaged changing lives, curing diseases, and saving babies. Now that I’ve been here I can safely say that I’m capable, as it stands now, of doing none of these things. A little digression: studying abstruse math and physics in college makes you a little arrogant and entitled. I reasoned that devoting my life to purely theoretical work would be alright because in the end it would still be a contribution to some piece of the jigsaw puzzle that is science, and thereby contribute to the world. This started to change in my last year: I attended a colloquium about hypothetical universes as a function of tuning the fundamental constants, i.e. what kind of universe would we live in were the speed of light faster and the gravitational constant larger (answer: we wouldn’t because in such a universe atomic bonds wouldn’t form). Malarky! was the feeling I had at the end. This guy ate up valuable grant money to study a scenario that would never be possible, and even if it were it absolutely couldn’t be relevant (such a region of the universe would be causally disconnected from ours). So I joined the Peace Corps because I needed to re-evaluate whether I could contribute, to anything in THIS universe, and I’ve had 2 experiences that have shaped my perspective and will inform my future.

Uganda is a strange place. There are 2 cell phones per person in this country but most people don’t have access to clean drinking water. A suit and tie is mandatory attire for the office and the field. Everyone has a motorcycle but no one has a farm tractor, and there are zebu (cattle) aplenty but no yokes to put them in; people till acres and acres of land with plain hoes. Hence about 6 months in I had my first grandiose idea: jerry-rig one of the Bajaj motorcycles, which are cheap and ubiquitous, to pull a tiller. I thought it was going to be so easy; I’d worked on my own motorcycles since I was 15, so I knew how to throw a wrench and turn a hammer, and I had learned how to weld at a power-systems lab internship in college. Blustering with all the hubris that comes from 4 years of studying the secrets of the universe, and charming my way into cute college girls’ arms, I managed to convince my neighbor to let me experiment on his motorbike, and a local blacksmith to let me use his welder. What could go wrong? I completely winged it. I put together a frame for two hoes welded together for the trowel, that hitched to the motorbike by the rear-axle (making sure to add lots of triangles, because I had learned that one of the secrets of the universe was that triangles are super important), slapped some training wheels on it, and rode off into the sunset. The next day I called my entire neighborhood out to their communal farm, jumping out of my skin with anticipation of impressing them with good ‘ol American ingenuity, and rode the bike-tractor onto the field. They laughed a little, because that’s a cultural mannerism here, but I knew better! I was going to blow their minds. I started it up, made a big show of revving the engine, and took off at a light trot. Everything was going swimmingly… for about 10 meters. Then I got stuck. I looked around, didn’t see any rocks or serious obstructions, I figured I’d just hit a patch of really compacted soil, so I reasoned as all great minds reason: more throttle = always a good idea. The whine of the hamster wheel engine must have covered up the sound of the straining cross-members, because I totally didn’t expect that pop and I certainly didn’t expect for the bike to shoot off and leave me flat on my back. You want to talk about embarrassing? Let’s talk about 20 Ugandan villagers rolling in laughter at my slapstick routine. Anyway that was the end of that; the bike only had a dinged turn signal and I learned that I don’t know anything about designing machinery.

That was my first wakeup call that maybe I hadn’t learned, in college, how to do anything that was really going to be useful to anyone. Sure I could impress a clueless villager but I make couldn’t something that worked, that actually helped that clueless villager. The second wakeup call came in the shape of a pizza.

After about a year of eating nothing but rice and beans every meal you’ll do anything to get a little variety in your diet. For me and my friend, another pie-in-the-sky academic (of the biology type), that meant attempting to build a pizza oven. In the back of my mind I still had the sting of the failed bike-tractor project, but this was an oven, with no moving parts! There really wasn’t anything that could go wrong this time (except terrible, horrible, disappointment, as you’ll see). So my friend and I bought a bag of Portland cement, about 200 locally made clay bricks, and again, winged it. We thought we were so clever too: we poured a foundation, slowly built up the support structure (letting the cement cure before loading), made a dome-like form out of woven reeds for the oven itself, and then fired it for a thorough cure. Throughout all this I again learned something valuable about myself: I’m a terrible stonemason. I got more cement on my overalls than on the bricks. We also learned that curing at full flame the first time is a recipe for getting spit on by superheated geysers of cement (you’re supposed to do several firings, slowly raising the maximum temperature each time), and that not factoring in expansion rates of the bricks leads to cracking. Whoops. Oh well. The oven was finished, mostly in one piece. We were so excited, and proud of course, that we threw a pizza party for all the volunteers in our region. Picture 30 malnourished volunteers expectedly awaiting fresh, homemade pizza. Then the disappointment: we didn’t take into account the thermal conductivity of the local bricks (we couldn’t get the oven to a high enough temperature) and so instead of nicely-browned pizza we got something a little bit more done than raw dough, covered in cheese and tomato sauce. Don’t get me wrong: we, and they, still ate it, because anything with a heap of cheese on it beats a bowl of rice hands down, but the point is that again my theoretical skills had failed me.

It was probably then, that night while eating the cheesy clump of dough, that I understood that if I really wanted to help people, like destitute villagers, or even just some friends in need of a good pizza, that I needed to augment my skillset, learn how to be “an engine for change,” learn to be an engineer.

Ode to Karen

As we all know by now Karen Glucksberg was, to put it bluntly, summarily fired this past month. You can talk in formalities all you want, about nonrenewal of contracts, but she was out and out fired.  And for what?

I was at one of the supposedly many VAC meetings where she was discussed and the most resounding complaint was about her bedside manner. Say what? That’s really anyone’s concern here? Is it just me or is it not abundantly clear that in an environment like Uganda, where exigent and extenuating circumstances are the norm, the last thing anyone should ever expect from an urgent care provider is politesse? I ask you what’s more important: that your explosive diarrhea is brought under control or that you’re made to feel better, emotionally, about said explosive diarrhea? Apparently at other meetings there were also complaints about her negligence in returning calls, and inhospitality at the office.

Again I say: do you realize where we are?

Firstly, we have a direct line to a highly trained and capable medical staff 24 HOURS A DAY. That, in and of itself, merits consideration: what’s the value of a service like that? To put it into perspective think about how much attention (10-20 minute chat?) you get from a health professional in America, how long it usually takes to get it (appointments, delays, cancellations, waiting rooms), and how much you (or your health insurance company) pay for it. I’m not trying to make this about numbers but just put in terms that make comparison easy. Hell if your explosive diarrhea is of nuclear grade they, medical, will organize the means and manpower to chauffer your disgusting, literally, ass to Kampala. Suffice it to say, in my oh-so humble opinion, we get an incredible amount of value for our dollar, with respect to health services rendered.

Secondly, and more importantly, what kind of self-respecting-tree-hugging-for-the-betterment-of-the-world-luxury-sacrificing-out-of-the-generosity-of-their-bleeding-heart² volunteer doesn’t have a little empathy and compassion for someone on their own team of do-gooders? Karen is/was one of us. In form and in function:  she made the same sacrifice³ in coming here as we did, probably had similar reasons even, and by keeping us healthy is/was doing development work. We all should have cut her more slack. In fact we should have cut her infinite slack since, as far as I know, no one is dying or has died on her watch, which is the only measure of a health professional as far I’m concerned (kind of like how the only measure of a pilot is whether they land the plane). You do realize that the entire medical staff, of which Karen is/was an integral part, almost quite literally change our diapers? Just put yourself in her shoes (this is that empathy thing I was talking about) and imagine for a second how you would feel if day-in day-out you were shoveling (there are ~150 of us after all so ‘shovel’ is probably appropriate) the shit of a group of ungrateful (since apparently we’ve been complaining about her at every VAC meeting) irresponsible (ask yourself: have you gone rafting? do you bleach all of your food? do you boil and treat all of your water? do you eat anything and everything on a stick?), know-it-all⁴ 20-somethings (on average).

And let me pre-empt all of you fascists who say that it’s acceptable to expect her, Karen, to behave a certain way because it’s in her job description: you’re a fascist. I mean that whole-heartedly and sincerely. If you refuse to see the fleshly and bloody being beneath the job title, with concomitant problems, misgivings, insecurities, stressors of their own, and refuse to concede that that is not only to be expected but completely okay (this is that compassion thing I was talking about), well then you’re a great fit for the Marine Corps not the Peace Corps. Incidentally there was an article written by Ashley Dunn in one of the previous ‘61s that had a list of Don’ts that said something like “don’t worry about things taking too long because in Africa goals take an order of magnitude longer to accomplish”. As I read that I’m pretty sure I heard a collective “amen” from all the volunteers around the country (weird that we were all reading it at the same time…) because it reaffirmed, and legitimized, what we all feel about how difficult it is to be efficacious here. Now don’t you think that Karen’s efforts are/were subject to the same mitigating forces?

Seriously guys/girls: infinite slack.

The last thing any one of us should have to worry about is offending another one of us with some offhand comment made under stress. I’m not saying abide assholes but I am saying being a little more patient. Especially with people who have to struggle to take care of themselves (everyone here) but then also have enough psychic reserves to be concerned with, for all intents and purposes, our wellbeing and homeostasis.

So here’s to you Karen. Thanks for putting up with my shit (figuratively and literally). Thanks for not pussyfooting around when I was dumb enough to accidently breed mosquito larvae in my drinking water. Thanks for gingerly shepherding me to The Surgery when I had Dengue⁵ fever during training. I hope your next ward appreciates you more.

1.  I know this isn’t actually an ode duh.

2. Sorry I’ve been reading Infinite Jest (good book btw).

3.  Don’t give me that shit that she lives/lived in Kampala and therefore she has/had it loads better. Kampala is a shit hole and further consider the salary (RN with how many decades of experience?) she forfeited in coming here. Even further don’t give me that “she chose to come here” bit. So did you so what’s your point?

4. During that VAC meeting I was in someone complained that maybe medical wasn’t referring to The Surgery often enough. Essentially questioning their medical expertise. Are you fucking high? As far as I know there aren’t any M.D.s in PC-UG so at best (if you’re an RN) your evaluation is just as credible as theirs and at worst you’re a know-it-all 20-something.

5. Not really, just suspected.

Hot shower

I'd like to describe the lengths I go to get a hot shower...

First I bike the 18km from my town to the nearest large town (Mbale)

which, before the sharp left north, is dirt road like this

and then from then on it's paved road that's full of potholes,

dust,

and general testicular discomfort. But finally I arrive in town and chain my bike up

in front of this hotel

.

 which I sneak into to make use of the showers which are meant for the guests. Sneak into doesn't amount to much since because I'm white no one questions anything I do. But the point is that I'm not paying anything for this hot shower!

The shower

is soooooo convenient with the toilet being in the same room :p . Anyway it's totally worth it because it transforms me from this

to this

Bleak bleakness and bleakitude

So I’m grading this S5 (11^th grade) math exam and it’s… it’s… fucking gibberish. In every sense of the word the work that this kid did on the exam is just gibberish. It’s as if he vomited any and every word, symbol, and concept that the given information on the test cued in his mind. It’s exactly the kind of thing you see when someone attempts to speak in a language that they understand very poorly; they blurt out whatever vaguely related words they can muster by way of association. This of course makes perfect sense when you discover that formally math is a language and so (I’m guessing) the way it’s encoded in memory is probably very similar to how a natural language would be.

Now I’ve graded in America before and you always get at least one paper like this, written by some poor soul who, while taking the test, is literally praying for god (me the grader) to have mercy on him, so on the face of it there’s nothing remarkable about this one kid. Why I am remarking is because every single paper I graded today was like that. Bear in mind that I grade leniently, to say the least. A correct answer by any means, even cheating, gets full points and absolutely anything remotely related gets half. Yet still no one got over a 70%. And my school is supposedly good! Inductively extrapolating that to the state of education in this country is what impelled me to “blog” about this particular grading session (and drove me to drink).

What do I conjecture on why it is the case that every S5 math student in my school doesn’t even begin to understand basic math? Well there are the perennial favorites such as bad teachers, no textbooks, malnutrition, and no light by which to study. But I have a personal favorite: the English language.

I bet the most shocking thing you could tell an average American about Uganda is that English is the official language¹. This means all government work is done in English and more pertinently education from 3^rd grade and above is in English. But no one speaks English GOD DAMN IT! The Ugandan English dialect is the most bastardized form of British English I’ve ever heard. Probably 1% of speakers have ever interacted with a native speaker (of English) and even less speak it at home. They also don’t read anything but newspapers written by Ugandans and don’t watch anything on tv but NTV (Ugandan network). So what you get is a bunch of terrible speakers teaching the unwilling. It’s like the movie Multiplicity with Michael Keaton where the clones clone one of themselves and he comes out retarded. I’d have a lot of fun citing particular turns of phrase that are ridiculous but suffice it to say that graduates from the best university (Makarere) still don’t understand most of what I’m saying even when I’m trying really hard to make myself understood. I haven’t done a rigorous study but I’m going to guess² that the average university graduate has a working vocabulary of about 2000 words and the average secondary school student has one of about 1000.

Dealing with this is really annoying when trying to fruitfully interact with other teachers and community members but with patience some rapport can be built so it’s not a big deal. It is an overwhelming “deal” when I’m trying to explain mathematical concepts to students. A really good and really ironic example is the gradient of a line. Mathematically, gradient is British for slope. But I bet $50 you could have guessed that if you come from somewhere in America where we have posted road grades. That ability to guess is a product of you being a native English speaker. It also informs why if you don’t remember gradient, or never learned in the first place, you’d pick it up quickly; it’s very easy for your brain to associate “rise over run” with graded roads because you have a visceral understanding of that word, thanks to the sign writers at DOT, and that association helps encode the concept in your memory. Here they don’t have signs advertising the grades of roads nor do they use the word gradient for anything other than “rise over run”. The irony is that they do use slope to mean a road that slopes down and so the sensible thing would be to teach "gradient" in terms of "slope". There are many other language faculties you posses that prepare you for learning mathematics in English that Ugandans do not (another timely example I just thought is that even if you live in a flat part of America you’ve been given “grades” your entire life and so intuitively understand that gradient has something to do with changes per unit) so of course it makes perfect sense that you would have been taught math in English. It does not make any sense whatsoever that Ugandans are taught math in English.

Math being taught in English is just one of the many deleterious effects of English being the official language. I have to admit this is easily my favorite gripe about the state of Uganda. One of the other effects, In my opinion, is that as it is now there is class stratification due to educated elites having access to government services and most avenues of commerce (literally and figuratively) and almost everyone else not (having access). It’s much like it is in Haiti where official French and de facto Creole induce class stratification.

I’ve aired this gripe to lukewarm responses before. Some people think that it’s advantageous for Ugandans to be conversant in the international lingua franca. Other people think there needs to be a unifying language in Uganda and it has to be different from one of the widely spoken Bantu or Nilotic languages so as to not insult tribal allegiances. A few people don’t see anything wrong with the English spoken here. Those few people need to have their heads examined. Those some people and those other people aren't considering that Swahili could play exactly the same role that English does now and it would be much easier for Bantu speakers to learn (probably Nilotic speakers as well since phonemes in both language families are similar). Swahili is spoken widely and is a lingua franca in eastern Africa. They’re also not considering that just like most Americans most Ugandans don’t trade with anyone outside of their local economy! Forcing Ugandans to learn English in an effort to avail them of the global economy is as ridiculous as forcing Americans to learn Chinese to avail them of the burgeoning business opportunities in China. It should be done just like anywhere else; if someone intends to do international business then they take the necessary steps but otherwise they’re not unduly distressed. 

Would adopting Swahili as the national language solve the problems incurred, as a result of English being the national language, in math class? In fact probably not. I don’t think Swahili, or any other Bantu language, is sufficiently precise to express mathematical ideas. But if English hadn’t been adopted in the first place Swahili or Luganda (or my local Lunyole) might have evolved to be precise enough. This is another of my polemical gripes: if English culture, government, and education hadn’t been adopted wholesale then Uganda might have evolved to be sufficiently equipped to develop.

1. Swahili wasn’t reinstituted, after its removal in 1995, as the official language until 2005.

2. The average English speaker's (e.g. mine) working vocabulary is 10,000 and Ugandans understand about 20% of what I say.

Pithy Advice

1. If you’re unhappy with some aspect of your life then change. Don’t do it (change) to be better than someone else but just to be better. On that note: if something doesn’t work don’t keep doing it over and over hoping that it will eventually work. Change something and observe. is there any improvement? Yes? You win a prize. No? Change something else. Repeat this process until you win the prize. See number 12.

2. Have the courage to commit to the long road ahead when you set a goal for yourself. that confidence is one of the two things that distinguish mediocrity from greatness. A good work ethic is the other thing. but setting intermediary goals helps.

3. There’s nothing that differentiates an arbitrary successful person from you but a good work ethic and time. They’ve just put more hours into it, that which they’re successful in. it is most definitely not some amorphous ill-conceived concept like IQ, which is apparently defined for you at age 10 and doesn’t change until the day you die; that’s just an excuse to be lazy.

4. You are only as good as how many (and which) problems you’ve solved, poems you’ve written, routes you’ve run, or opponents you’ve bested. This doesn’t mean you’re bad if you haven’t written “the great American novel”, it means go write more and eventually you’ll be good.

5. Practice really does make perfect but it has to be efficient practice. If you can’t do something then build up to it by practicing approximations of that thing e.g. if you can’t run 10 miles then run 1 mile until it’s easy, then 2, then 3, and so on. The lack of this strategy is the reason why most people fail at anything they attempt. now that you have it in your toolkit you can be awesome at anything.

6. Schedule your practice sessions. Literally take a piece of paper, divide up each waking day, block out the time, and then post it somewhere prominent in your home . At first it will take honest discipline and willpower to start the sessions but eventually you’ll be trained like the Pavlovian dog you are and you’ll automatically practice. the routine will keep you committed.

7. Six only works if you keep regular sleeping hours so fucking keep regular sleeping hours! You know how you can’t remember ever needing a stimulant like coffee to make you clear and sharp when you were a kid? That’s because going to school every day forced you to sleep regularly. 

8. Don’t look up to, or look down on, people. because there’s no metric against which we’re all being judged. your only duty in life is to be happy and you’re accountable, for that, only to yourself.

9. Don’t be insecure. there are countless reasons why not to be but the most salient is that it’s utterly pointless.

10. Words like smart and dumb only serve to discriminate. if you call someone smart the only thing it means is that by juxtaposition you’re dumb, and therefore different. moreover smart implies some unalterable innate quality on which one can have no effect. hence not only are you different but forever so. bullshit. see 3.

11. If you have a revelation but don’t implement it in your life then you’re willfully ignorant. so never say something like “i know should ____ but...”. this statement only assuages your guilt about not doing ____.

12. Do experiments; they’ll teach you shit about life.

13. Make it through enough fuck ups and you come to understand that life persists despite almost anything. People tend worry too much about what they eat and how many carcinogens they’re breathing in. It’s true that all these things might, in aggregate, be deleterious but you’re certainly happier having faith (that you'll survive). I’ve had diarrhea for a month but now it’s passing (I hope) and I’m stronger for not taking a palliative; my constitution is stronger.

14. The hardest thing about being alive and emoting is being unable to make someone relate to you in whatever it is you’re feeling. Maybe that’s a fault of my own in that I’m a terrible writer and orator but still it seems like it’s a hopeless cause. The words will never adequately describe or convey what I feel. Maybe that’s what relationships are for. Maybe that’s what sex is for. Maybe that’s what love is for. I doubt it. If I had the power to share poignant emotions with people and to make them as poignant for others as they are for me I’d be a god. This is the secret to charm.

Tropes

Tropes aren’t clichés. Tropes are phrases used in ways different from literal for a rhetorical purpose. What I’m concerned with here is clichés and people sure do love them a cliché:

 “Carrots improve your eyesight”

“Math is hard”

“Everything grows in Uganda”

“Ugandans don’t keep time”

“Foreign aid creates a dependency culture”

Sometimes indulging in cliché when the circumstances require insight is harmless laziness. The worst thing that happens if someone actually comes to believe that carrots have a positive influence on eyesight is they turn a pretty orange tinge. Other times it’s not so clear what the repercussions are; does bitching about mathematics being difficult do anything but discourage you and those around you?

Bear with my judgmental ass while I posit a theory about why it is that people do indulge: it makes them appear savvier than they really are. The rhetorical purpose of “Everything grows in Uganda” is to say to the reader/listener that one has traveled Uganda and sampled its bounty. I heard this repeated so many times while I was still in training by volunteers who hadn’t gone past the grounds of the training center. The irony is that once you do actually travel in Uganda you realize that there are like 10 things that grow here and 7 of them are a species of banana. 

I also humbly submit that the love apportioned a cliché is directly related to its ugliness. This serves to cast the pontificator as discriminating and keen; the best kinds of savvy. Yea right. So often I hear “Ugandans don’t keep time” (how often do you say it?). This screams “I’ve worked closely with Ugandans since the beginning of time and they’re just not up to the standards of my super duper precise Swiss-made cesium synchronized watch”.

Alright now I’m just being mean. I’ll stop.

By the way who cares if they in fact don’t keep time! You do realize that this is essentially an agrarian society right? Something like 80% of the population participates in low intensity subsistence agriculture. They rise by the sun, work the field until they’re hungry, break for lunch, and then continue working until past dusk to get as much use out of daylight as possible. No atomic clocks necessary. This is also why they eat, by our standards, a late dinner (to exploit as much daylight as possible). “My students / coworkers don’t work the land so I expect them to keep time”. Well they’re at most the second generation who doesn’t so cut them some slack; it’s a deeply entrenched cultural meme. And they probably do actually work the land, on weekends and during vacation. Quite appropriately, I think, clocks are an absolutely unnecessary concept for some Ugandans and still merely symbolic for the rest. I’d even say getting a watch is a waste of money that would be better spent on food or something. So why are we harping on it? Like with most things Uganda has adopted from the West they’ve missed the point with this as well and we shouldn’t perpetuate the conflation! Germany, for example, didn’t grow to be a paragon of time keeping for the sake of making lots of watches but because they had a burgeoning industrial economy that necessitated strict adherence to schedule. When Ugandans needs to keep time they will. Until then they’re just being pretentious and we’re being smug.

Anyway my school keeps time perfectly well and I’m sure you can point to many instances where your institution does too. Sure sometimes a few students saunter into class after the bell (or hubcap as it may be) rings and sometimes teachers run late but that happens in America too. And yea it’s true people were consistently showing up 20 minutes late to my five o’clock review session. But don’t you see that’s keeping time just 20 minutes staggered! I started coming in at 5:20. So let’s not exaggerate the phenomenon (or at least qualify ourselves when we bring it up).

As conscientious people we should be circumspect and hold ourselves accountable. It’s this irresponsibility that I’m raging against here. Unqualified repetition of these catchphrases is pernicious. If you haven’t rigorously researched something and there’s potential for harm then don’t fucking repeat it. If the only evidence you have for the claim that “Foreign aid creates a dependency culture” is your blithe reading of ‘Dead Aid’ or some other conservative tract then you need to do more research¹. In general popular (or unpopular) nonfiction is a terrible place to get information from because it’s not critically reviewed. The plaudits on the inside of the dust jacket don’t count. I’m not saying all knowledge claims need to be corroborated by peer-reviewed research (e.g. I don’t care if you do a literature review about carrots) but this one does. The reason is that you’re, cavalierly, playing with ideas that inform how an entire nation functions. The amount of research should be commensurate with the gravity of the claim.

I haven’t done the research and this is my explicit warning that I haven’t but I have an opinion:

There are lots of people going hungry here, some starving, and not for lack of will to hoe dirt all day, carefully sow seeds, and reap a harvest. Something like 20% of the population has stunted growth. For example, giving them money for better seeds, pesticides, or even equipment won’t convince them they’re dependent on you for those things; it’ll enable them to eat. I’m addressing this cliché with the most invective because I usually get it thrown at me for giving money to beggars. Firstly it’s my god damn money and secondly it’s very easy to tell the difference between a professional beggar and an authentic one (hint: one is emaciated and consistently unwashed and the other is not). Is the authentic one starving and soiling himself/herself for fun? They’re probably doing it just to prove the cliché true, to rub it in my foreign-aid-giving face right? There’s a beggar in Mbale who has no arms and no legs. Please tell me what it is he’s capable of doing for himself that I’m robbing him the opportunity of discovering?

The point is that as an American blanket generalizations shouldn’t be in your repertoire. Aren’t we here to share culture with Uganda? Don’t we supposedly prize diversity? If we do but simultaneously generalize then we must have some serious psychological dissonance going on. Whether you realize it or not the two sentiments are antithetical. Nor should you blindly eat up whatever’s on the intellectual plate in front of you.  

1. http://blogs.cgdev.org/globaldevelopment/2009/03/dambisa-moyo-discovers-key-to-ending-poverty.php . Yes I just went to Wikipedia.

War of Attrition

Fall semester of my last year in college I did something pretty dumb; I "took" two classes, on top of five I was already taking, for a roommate, whom I'd just moved in with and was a random. By "took" two classes I mean I sat in the classes, raised my hand when his name was called for attendance, did the homework, and took all the exams. The classes were supposed to be easy and one of my scholarships had run out so I thought it was a great idea. Fast forward to end of that semester and I've got a B in one of the classes and a D in the other. Understandably the dude was pissed and I felt quite sheepish. Anyway I refunded the money he paid me for taking the class and even the money that he paid for the credits. Net profit for a whole semester of 2 classes worth of work: $100. Lessons learned all around and the end.

At least so I thought. The next semester the same roommate decided he wanted to develop a coke habit. To that end he eventually also decided to extort, from me, the money for the class I passed with a B. It was, in my opinion, very poor form on his part considering that, in good faith, I'd even paid him back for the credits of the failed class. So I decided I would adopt the policy of Les Grossman (of Tropic Thunder fame) and not negotiate. He was smaller than me, unintimidating, and, I thought, blustering. I believed I could easily ignore him for the next three months and then be on my merry way. 

So began a war of attrition.

He started out simply enough; he sent text messages, left notes, and made passive-aggressive comments. He then graduated to throwing my food away and hiding my things that were in the common area. Eventually he started making overt threats (on my life) and even went as far as injecting glue into the lock in my door. Still, really, this was pretty petty stuff and the rational part of me was steadfast; I believed that since I was no worse for the wear (the death threats were impotent) I should grit my teeth, concentrate on my work, and continue living there instead of incurring further expense in finding another apartment on such short notice. That was the rational part of me. My limbic system on the other hand was going nuts. I was developing a serious anxiety disorder because I would constantly check my phone for text messages from him. I was becoming agoraphobic because I would come home, lock myself in my room, and listen to music through headphones so I couldn't hear anything he was doing in the apartment. It was even making me anti-social because I was always unnerved around friends.

All this "warring" precipitated something I'm not only ashamed of but truly concerned about, because of what it implies about me and my ability to control myself: I assaulted him. On some night as I was settling into my room he was huffing and puffing at my door and I had had enough. I opened the door, tackled him, and we wrestled/fought/scuffled. I eventually pinned him and made him concede to stop harassing me. Nothing was seriously hurt except for his pride and I felt like I had reclaimed something (not sure what). Of course immediately afterward I was deathly afraid that he was going to call the police and I was going to be put in jail, kicked out of school in my last semester, etc. Nothing like that happened; he just became more belligerent. Shortly thereafter I moved out, slept in my friend's laundry room, and lost the large deposit on the room. Lessons learned all around and the end. Really.

The salient feature is that he slowly wore and wore on me and did concrete (thankfully short-term) damage to my psyche because I couldn't escape him (until I decided to move). Whether how I reacted is tenable or not is something I'm, obviously, not objective enough to comment on but it's something you should consider for a second; was I pushed beyond reason?

Alright wtf does this have to do with Uganda (why else would it be on this blog and not in my my-little-pony diary) ?

In my cohort of Peace Corps volunteers there are two black girls who at the beginning of our training expressed disappointment that they weren't receiving the welcome from Uganda that they had expected, that they were invisible. Then, when I was still reveling in being a celebrity, I pitied them. All the smiles I was getting from little kids, all the curiosity about who I was and why I was here, and even people staring was incredibly charming. 5 months later I envy them to no end.

I live 6-8km from a paved road in what I would consider the deep village (i.e. surrounding community is mostly mud huts with straw roofs). Riding my bike along that short featureless road I get easily over 100 cat-calls; I get called mzungu (moo-zoo-n-goo, meaning white person {don't worry it's not derogatory}) by children from literally miles away (I live in a plain and my bike makes lots of noise on the bumpy unpaved road). Once I get to a town I get taxi drivers constantly propositioning me. Often I'll meet someone asking for money and occasionally even demanding.  And of course absolutely everyone absolutely always stares. Most of the time it's a blank stare, sometimes it's a look of bewilderment or suspicion, but occasionally it's a smile. I appreciate the smiles. Don't misunderstand me: all of this is innocuous. Just as in the beginning with my roommate I feel like rationally it shouldn't perturb me in the least.

But it's slowly wearing on me and luckily, in having senior volunteers around, I can envisage where it leads. One volunteer likes to tease and bait the taxi drivers; he'll respond when they proposition and then not board the taxi. That's pretty harmless but I don't, yet, understand why he wouldn't just ignore them. When the jabs are sharper the responses from the worn out volunteers are commensurately sharper (at least in the forthcoming instance). I was walking with a volunteer when we were cat-called to and then asked for money by a teenager carrying a board. The volunteer charged at the boy in an effort to frighten him, caused him to drop his board, picked up that piece of wood, and then marched off with it. The kid gave chase and was made to apologize for yelling "mzungu", by the volunteer, but got his board back. I was aghast. More than anything I questioned why anyone would waste so much time and so much effort trying to evoke an apology. His position was that he had taught that boy a lesson about objectifying white people. Doubtful. Most likely he was gratified by having won a small battle in the grander war for privacy. I don't fault him for expressing his frustration with being constantly pricked at. The sentiment that informs this behavior is one I've been warned about; they all came here bleary eyed and naive and now one year later they are hardened development workers because foreign aid creates a dependency culture. But I digress. Suffice it to say they don't give money to beggars and they brook no heckling.

But alright no one in the Peace Corps is that distraught over this and nothing so terrible comes of any of it. In the end if it becomes so onerous we can always terminate our term of service early and I could never imagine a volunteer reacting more severely than mentioned (and that kid was only embarrassed). So what's really the meaning of all of this?

Around the same time as it became apparent to my two black friends that they were invisible I got the bright idea that I now knew what it was like to be black in America. I was wholly wrong and preposterous; black people in America are treated with suspicion and covert hostility much more oft than occasionally. If you'll permit me here I'm Santa Claus and in the US black people are pariahs. If that's becoming less so the case I'm infinitely gladdened but regardless it was certainly case for most the history of the US.

Being white here in an African country and conversations with black friends about being black inspiring a revelation about race relations in the US strikes me as quite ironic.

Recall my slow transformation into someone who was capable of assaulting another person and jeopardizing my future. Recall the senior volunteers' transformation from optimistics to cynics. And we’re not even truly oppressed! My roommate was harmless and so are Ugandans. Now imagine you're black in America in the 19^th century. You have to deal with Jim Crow laws and you're jabbed not with well-wishes or even supplication but the vilest rancor (e.g. "nigger" and other lovely racial epithets). I'm sure I'd lose my shit right quickly. I know that says a lot about me but, I claim, less than it says about being under terrible duress for long periods of time. So consider again whether outbursts would be tenable. A lot of people decry the Watts and King riots but fuck sometimes you decide you’ve been patient enough, with no result, and you want to make an explicit statement. So you start and win a small battle.

Let me be very very clear: I have no real sense of what it was/is like to be black¹ in America. I do allow myself the conceit that I can now empathize a little better.

1. This same line of reasoning enables one to empathize with the Roma in France, the Jews in the Weimar Republic, the Palestinians in Israel today, etc. just as well.