----I am all for sustainability, but when a male secondary school student wears a female condom as a wristband, it is time to forget the 'reduce, reuse, recycle' mantra.
----In the first church service I attended here, they used traditional drums instead of the piano. The entire Catholic service was in Lugandan, but the priest welcomed us in English by saying "I see that we have visitors here and I welcome you, it reminds me of how Jesus must have felt about the universality of religion when he met the Greeks." I did not bother to tell him I was not religious, but just happy to be there for a cultural experience.
----Last Sunday I was out for a walk on a sunny mountain path with Leandrea, the other intern. We came across a group of primary school aged children walking home from school. They congregated on the side of the road to watch us silently and immediately following 4 inches behind us. I stopped walking and held out both hands to them. Two girls quickly grabbed on, and we made our way along the path with me singing an edited version of 'The Ants go Marching on.'
"The ants go marching four by four hurrah, hurrah, the ants go marching four by four, hurrah, hurrah, the ants go marching four by four, the little one stopped to let out a snore, and they all go marching down...on the ground...to get out of the rain...." I'ld twirl the little girls like little ballerinas and they would yell out "Hurrah! Hurrah!" at the appropriate time.
I looked over at Leandrea who was walking silently with us, hands by her side and realised, I was acting like a weirdo. In Canada I would probably be questioned for holding young children's hands. "You're walking them home from school?" The police officer would ask, "...and you don't know them?" Still, it seems perfectly normal here and we wave them off when we get to their house and say hello to their mothers and fathers that we pass in the street.
----Standing naked in the shower I screamed at the top of my lungs for everyone in the house to hear "Don't buy Ugandan hair conditioner!" Earlier I had chosen from among 400 bottles of conditioner and 1 (one) bottle of shampoo. Hmmm, I mused in my head as I read the ingredients label: joba oil, sunscreen, vitamin A and E and aloe vera...it has to be good! Little did I know that this industrial strength conditioner is meant for women who relax their hair and dye it constantly, not unknowing muzungu women like me. Moral of the story? I am 6 days in and after washing my hair 26 times precisely, the conditioner STILL has not come out. Live and learn my friends.
----Since 150 hangings of suspected homosexual men in Uganda last year I was curious about the current social situation. Apparently according to two staff members at my organization, the Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, two spirited and queer (LGBTTQ) community is very rich. International founders have been sending money to build outreach initiatives, safety and gathering places like a members only gold-card nightclub in Kampala. I could not be happier about this financing because I know the golden rule: whoever has the gold, makes the rules.
At breakfast this morning I was asked what I thought of homosexual people. The first question was "Would you ever want to watch them have sex though?" "I wouldn't want to watch anyone have sex, especially my parents," I replied, "...but I believe everyone has the right to love and to have sex with anyone they want."
"But what would you say if your son was gay?" Was the next question. "I would say, that's cool: girl or boy, black or blue, silk or Cotton. What do you want for supper? Their eyes went huge and they sat back, not angry or judgemental of me, just surprised. I continued on, "Imagine the pain He would feel, the pain of being scared to tell his own mother something like that. He would never be able to have a relationship,to keep it hidden, the powerlessness he would feel, what a terrible way to live."
Now these are highly educated people, and more importantly my friends, that I was discussing this with, and I honestly feel like I gave them an idea to mull over, but if they can at least shift towards more liberal thinking on this topic over time, maybe not all at once, I will be satisfied.
----"He eats all the time, but he is so lazy and small for his age," the mother said. I looked at her son, his body looked more like a four year old than a ten year old, his skin was dry and cracking and his hair tinged with orange and red. His belly popped out between the buttons on his shirt. The nurse Jane and I looked at each other and looking back at the woman she said," You need to give this child some good nutrition, seriously."
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