KokoMo Betta

Arusha, Jamaica ooooh I wanna take ya // Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama! Wait a minute, she said Arusha, not Aruba. That's right beach boys. I am going to Arusha, Tanzania.

Trade show coming up June 8th, and guess who wiggled herself onto a flight in that direction? Me, that's who.  Stone-cold proof that it doesn't hurt to speak up. When I heard another coworker get invited to go to Tanzania for this show weeks ago, I cringed... why did my boss invite her!? She barely smiles. It took me 2.5 months to get her to warm up to me, and I only succeeded by the sparkling magic of lip gloss. Sure, she's worked for Volcanoes for six years, in comparison to my amazing performance of four months, but I can at least pretend to be charming! I have nice teeth! Good posture! I am great at faking elaborate knowledge of things which at best I possess a rudimentary understanding of! Like, forming passive sentences ending with exclamation points!! (Great sales points, right?)

Well against all odds, I made a point of requesting a special meeting with my boss and explaining that I really enjoyed many things about my job with Volcanoes, but I wanted to work more on marketing, more journalism: writing stories, interviewing participants in our non-profit sector, creating deliverables to share with the public, experiencing the product, LEAVETHEOFFICEBEFOREIPULLOUTALLOFMYHAIR-type stuff. That, and it's really hard to work a sales job as an underpaid peon, making no commission, having no sales incentives, while literally funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into the company.

I thought she didn't hear me. She kind of faded away after that meeting, supposedly met with the big London boss about the many things the sales team had shared with her... but didn't bat an eyelash for over a week after he left, and I never got any feedback to the many things I had suggested and shared.

Then the logistics manager who was supposed to accompany the sales consultant couldn't go anymore. He is instead somewhere between Rwanda and Nairobi, I think. So V (boss lady) asked me if I would like to accompany the other girl. To which I waited .04 seconds to emphatically accept.

Granted, I will be in some sort of business center no doubt, shmoozing and yawning for most of the 4 day show. I will also hilariously be dressed in traditional Rwandan attire.  Hands will be shook. Smiles will be plastered into place. Pictures will be had. But it will be in Tanzania. And you gotta love an excuse to get one more stamp into that passport.

And for Kate—who hopefully still reads this from time-to-time—I envision saying, "Mooore pictures!" (In a cookie monster growl)

I present, Kilimanjaro:

Then, thanks to the wonders of the interwebs, I happened upon this bizarre story/site...which started so sweetly I though it was an African fable for children... then it literally headed south. 

I just lost 15 minutes that I will never get back... but it was kind of fun. 

Gnuts n Pepper

Who are we really? Not only who are we, inside, but who are we to other people? Because I’m starting to think what we mean to others matters more than what we mean to ourselves. I could be a garbage collector, (no offense, if you or someone you love labors within this noble profession) but if my good friends and family see me as a source of strength, as someone they can count on and care about, someone of integrity and “moral fiber,” what does it matter what I do? Or my own, pissy, self image?

This argument may sound a bit pedestrian, but I just randomly selected “A Serious Man” to watch tonight, alone in my African room, which ended unceremoniously after (spoiler alert) the main guy receives a phone call from his doctor to come in to talk about his x-ray results in person (bad news) and his son is waiting for his Hebrew school teacher to unlock the school’s basement door so all the kids can take shelter from the ominous dark cloud of a tornado approaching (dramatic, yet unavoidable, potential bad news.)

It was confusing. Disappointing, perhaps, as one expects some sort of end to a story after committing 100-something minutes trying to absorb its message. But then I picked up my Zadie Smith novel and tried to finish it—realizing that everything tonight is Jewish themed—and as I’m glossing over the words of this novel, trying to decipher its meaning, I realize my brain is going independently—which is incredibly frustrating considering that I’m 10 pages away from being done with this 400 page novel—and the thought I am thinking is something akin to where I fit with my three girlfriends back home. Who am I to them? They say they miss me via the occasional Facebook post, email or Skype session…. like my absence there has created some sort of loss. I matter. And I feel juvenile because for some reason I picture the four of us as characters from Sex and the City, and I am asking myself privately, “which character would I be?” Realizing that I don’t think we are really characters, or even similar in character, to these fictional women, but realizing that my hackneyed thought process is trying to tell me that I may not see myself clearly, or even understand how that may be possible.  Meanwhile I’m having my Fear and Loathing in Kampala, only much more quietly because I don’t have access to any hard drugs, and I feel a little too much social responsibility to dive completely off the deep end. That, and I have to start another week of work in the morning.

I wonder if I ask myself about the meaning of life more than the average person. It seems others make decisions, accept them, then move on with their lives. This is a behavior I observe in my ex-boyfriends.  This lack of self-deprecation and doubt. This ability to "forgive and forget" or just plain forget.

(My mom being an exception in her grave contemplation and second-guessings at life decisions; myself, genetically and/or observantly, following suit.)

What do I want in life? The same boring things really. A partner-in-crime. Maybe some kids at some point. A satisfying career, enough money to live off of, play amply with, and go on vacation frequently by. True, reliable friends. Good relationships with my parents. An idea that I am in someway contributing to making the world, or my little corner of it, a better place. Being continuously challenged and pleasantly surprised by the world and its bits.

I don’t know if I should post this stuff to the blog. I kind of feel like the blog is over, I’m over it all here. But I can’t just sit here and watch movies and rot for two months, waiting for my return flight to arrive....

Its just so strange to feel so strongly what you want and at the same time have no idea—No idea how to actually achieve really much of anything, instead seemingly blindly flailing about. Most people probably don’t end up typing about this alone on a bed in the middle of East Africa. Maybe they take a Xanex and go to bed. Or eat some cake and watch TV.

I have cotton mouth. 

I feel puffy. 

Dogs are barking outside, and the only other noise is the hum of the fluorescent lightbulb in my room.

I skipped over my whereabouts during and since the fam trip to the lodges. I am now relocated to a somewhat normal house, with a mostly normal bed, shared living area and kitchen. 

Shopping is all weird again, mainly because I’ve had to readjust from my once nearby Namuwongo market routine selections of cabbage, onion, tomato and garlic, served at least 4x/week over pasta… occasionally with some edam cheese if I’ve planned in advance. Now I’m in Kololo, a much fancier (said with accent and mimed quotations) part of town, nearby embassies and government offices, where people speed past me in their SUVs over the infrequent (in comparison) potholes to get to their offices where they can make a disgusting comparative wage for living in Uganda. I’m paying almost 3x the rent I was paying in VietNamuwongo, and it’s entirely worth it because my roommates are nice to me. Really, it’s the simple things that are most important.

That, and there’s a garden. 

 

And dogs. 

The dogs’ names are Gnut (a local abbreviation for grounduts, similar to peanuts and usually roasted in oil) and Pepper, and I like to sit at their level on the front step  and mess with their gnarled teeth, tugging on their loose skin, until I get them all riled up, and they can’t help but go nuts on each other for 15 minutes straight, as young, puppyish dogs will do. It makes me miss having Benny, but happy I have someone to pet.

When I do Ashtanga on the porch, Gnut stretches next to me and can hardly control herself, occasionally whining in excited exasperation, as I am clearly bending in all sorts of ways in some prolonged strange performance/homage to dogdom. She shoes me her downward dog in return, then flops down, bored. They both walk over my mat and when my feet are extended straight in front of me, I get licks on my toes, or paws on my legs in the manner of an old Jewish grandmother patting you after a good joke, “Oy! my dear, stop, you’re killing me!”  Pepper barks nonstop in total terror of anyone new within the compound, myself included for four days upon my arrival, and then once she loves you, won’t leave you alone, wiggling up next to you and rolling over in submission half-on top of you or in your lap if she can manage. This afternoon, I got battering-rammed in the sternum with her nose by a flying acrobatic leap—that’s how glad she was to see me again.

I ate dinner tonight on the porch alone, a very creative meal: diced potatoes, tofu, marinated in soy sauce and garlic, chopped tomato, gnuts and rehydrated, once-dried mushrooms, all pan-fried together into this sort of crazy stir-fry… (I've always been really good at using all my leftovers, often in strange new ways, and I realize I would do quite well on one of those cooking shows or where they make you come up with a meal based on five random ingredients.... baking is a bit trickier...)

I watch the light begin to fade behind the hills, admired the palm trees and tropical flowers in the yard, and for a moment, felt peaceful and proud that even though I don’t know what I’m doing, at least I do something.  And then comes the day when I will just have to do something else.

Some Sort of Sunday

A panic attack, 7am phone call to the US, two-hour yoga session, 8 person ladies' brunch complete with facials, makeovers and mimosas, and an hour-long massage. It's been quite a day already, and it's only 6pm.

Such is life in Kampala; it mirrors the weather. One moment it's sunny and bright, you're standing in front of some strange tropical plant bearing giant fruit, a butterfly lands on your nose.... ok maybe I'm getting carried away, but you get the point.... Then the wind picks up, you realize there are dark clouds funneling your way, thunder rumbles and you happen to be in the middle of a muddy overcrowded street with boda-bodas and matatus trying to run you over, the rain coming sideways and upside down,  you have no umbrella to speak of, and your feet are orange-brown in clay mud and god-knows-what-else until you can figure out a way to get home.

Home.

I am ready to come home.

I admit it.

Unless something magical happens in the next couple months, I'm just tired of being here.

It's homesickness in a way, but it's more than that. I don't feel like it's unbearable to live here--just not ideal, or even mostly ideal. It seems the experience should by now offer more rewards than drawbacks. I'm just thinking it's not a very good fit. I'm having a very disparate experience to what I had while living in Ecuador.

I miss my friends. I miss IPA. I miss my dog. I miss normal grocery stores with options of food inside. I miss things operating somewhat efficiently. I miss concerts.  I miss driving--oh god, I miss driving my car like _________(insert fitting clever simale here). I miss a bicycle with gears that shift, and a chain that stays on at least most of the time.

But more than the missing, I feel like I am missing the mark. Maybe there are more opportunities to be had here, but it doesn't seem to be falling into place. The job is blah. My exercise routine is difficult to maintain, sporadic at best. My diet is ridiculously overloaded with starchy carbs. My dating life is non-existant. My social life only slightly better, and only sometimes, because I happen to enjoy dancing, and eating... two things you can usually find other people to wrangle into participation.

The funny thing is that I don't really know what I'm going home to. My mom is moving to Arizona... it will be the first time living in Oregon with both parents in different states. I have friends, but not a set idea of who will be around to spend time with me, or what we will find. I'm not sure if I will do Mary Kay and some other part-time job, or if I need to get a full-time job, or even relocate. All of these unknowns are a bit overwhelming (hence the 7am panic attack) and part of me is still excited. I'm excited to see Portland with new eyes. I'm excited to plan the next step and have something to look forward to, knowing I came here and tried.  Even if it didn't fit, I learned a bit more about myself. Maybe I travelled a few steps toward knowing what it is that makes me happy, and complete. I have a strong urge to fly home, settle back into a new routine that involves travelling into the beautiful wild places throughout the country, I haven't seen enough of Eastern Oregon, I'd like to get tickets for some outdoor music festivals, plan epic hikes... I'm excited to go home and re-explore what I grew to take for granted. My complacency, the devilish inner critic disguised as intelligent, objective, self-loathing seems to pull a dark cloud over much of what I've accomplished thus far in my life. That, paired with the actual dark clouds that hang over Portland for months on end can be draining.

I'm looking forward to going home for the most beautiful part of the year, to recharge, reconnect with friends, recount my toes, and pick a new dot on the globe to think about calling home. 

What is true

I am delirious. I'll start by throwing that little waiver out there. I am trying to figure out how to start a blog, what should be interesting enough to go into a blog, and how I can lure my unsuspecting acquaintances, friends, family,  and pets into reading said blog.  The hardest part was trying to figure out a title to get this party started. "What is true" seems fitting, because, really, that's all I'm ever trying to elucidate. I can't guarantee that "what is true"will necessarily be true to you, but that's why it's my blog! If I'm ever wondering what to share, I can ask myself, "What is true?" and go from there.

I warn you, this may start out kind of rough. My prose is suffering from years of neglect. I tend to write like I talk, and me not always talk pretty.

So-- why am I delirious? I'll get to that eventually. But I am realizing more and more that it's a bit tricky to say goodbye, or 'farewell-for-a-while' to a lot of people I love. I am starting to see that a lot of people love me back. It makes me happy, and sad, and happy. And sad. I am looking forward to the next 6 months and/or year of adventures in Uganda, but wistfully glancing around at the life I am leaving behind. I think most of the loose ends have been tied, or at least knotted, and nothing's going to spontaneously combust in my absence.... but I still have to let go of all those threads.

For those of you who are still wondering what all this fuss is about, I am moving to Kampala for a sales consultant job with Volcanoes Safaris, a company specializing in great apes tours and safaris by way of luxury eco-lodges located within natural expanses along western Uganda and Rwanda, such as Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Even that park name sounds cool, like some fairy-tale forest that is impossible to enter.

I am going to try and post weekly... if not more.... I kind of need to see what life is like there, and if my electrical converter will allow me to literally get plugged in. Soon there will be concrete divulgences of my new Ugandan life. At some point thereafter there will probably be painful admittance of complete naiveté. Eventually there will be pictures. And there will most definitely be emoticons... sorry.
Stay tuned :.)