Good news abounds. First my foot and mobility have improved to the point that I can move to a location where I have to fend for myself. Now how is this good news…. The care I have received at the hands of Nurse Betsy has surpassed any care I have received anywhere. She is a treasure and has prepared lovely meals presented with a flourish of artistry and certainly love. She has washed clothes and ironed things that have never seen an iron (no mango flies on her watch). She has pampered and set up a shower in a way that keeps my foot elevated! She is every one’s perfect mother away from home.
So, I am moving and will miss Betsy and her care, but will have more freedom and access to getting around. One has to be a genie to find Betsy’s and the fiasco of transportation to and from dinner on Saturday night was all I needed to let me know “not to try this alone.” Also, there are frequently other PCV’s staying at the Bukoto Guest House, so it won’t be as isolating.
One PVC came in today with a jigger in her foot. No no, don’t get excited – not like a jigger of tequila. a little worm than can get in when you walk with open toed sandals through the grass. It’s a nasty little beast that literally worms its way in and sets up housekeeping until you cut it out. Another came in yesterday looking like death warmed over – probably Malaria. So it’s busy there even if all that happened was medical. There are 175 of us in country and something is always happening for someone. Then there are workshops and meetings and lost passports… So one can be “entertained” a bit while here. But I am getting proposals for my NGO written, studying Acholi and doing other PC assignments.
They try to make sure new PCVs are not having too much fun and keep us on a short leash. Not so much fun and much of it seems like busy work, if you’ve already lived a life and know how to get out there and get busy. But some folks are at sites with too much going on and others are stationed where they are feeling like they’ve been dropped on the dark side of the moon.
The latest hoopla has been over the lack of a Christmas Break. Washington D.C. has mandated that new PCV’s are forbidden to leave their sites during the first 90 days of service. This might work if we had not come at a time than when that 90 days spanned two important holidays: Thanksgiving and Christmas. For some of the younger PCVs, it’s the first time every that they have spent away from friends and family and this is tough. For the older ones who may have had some exposure to that, we have at least had the freedom to find ways to make the holidays fun or avoid feeling emotionally adrift or downright abandoned. It’s been a HUGE controversy with boat loads of discontent and today there was some give by HQ. At first we had NO days for Christmas. That was changed to give us two days – the 24th and 25th away from site, but ya’ can’t get anywhere in Uganda in a couple of hours and no one in his right mind travels at night. So today, there was a compromise made and we how have essentially four days, two of which are travel days but we have to take annual leave… This is where I need a bad word.
Wow – ya think that you leave some of this behind, but the bottom line is – this #!* is everywhere and there is no escape. Still – PCVs are people who color outside the lines, and the more you try to constrain us the more hostile we get. So now, the hostility meter is out of the danger zone and some normalcy has returned, meaning that we don’t have to become totally subversive. We will always be mildly so, because straight-arrows rarely sign onto spend two years with pit latrines, disease and daily uncertainty. So how do you handle 175 mildy-subversive personalities? Carefully and with a sense of humor, a large dose of flexibility and tact. These traits are not always in supply but sometimes they appear and pour oil on troubles waters.
So that’s today’s report from the Pearl of Africa, boring tho it may be.