One more time I've done it.
I've ceased to kill my heart.
Smother it, though I try,
I find that it still beats within me.
How is it that one body part
Was intended for so much pain
And allowed yet to exist?
Does not evolution kill such things?
Is it so implausible
To keep your soul and not your heart?
--Anonymous
I'm 34 and single. This means one thing. It means that I receive a lot advice about finding a date. Everyone has an opinion...
"You're not looking in the right places."
"You have to stop looking. That's when it will happen for you."
"You have to be specific with what you're looking for."
"You're being too picky."
And on and on and on it goes. Mostly, this advice is unsolicited. My favorite is when someone looks at me and says, "Wow! You're great! Why are you still single?" I want to poke them in the eye with a sharp stick.
However, recently a different sort of unsolicited advice came my way. I was told by an Athonite monk, "...don't look around you look inside you...."
Of course, my big "yeah, but..." consists in the fact that the majority of people never looked inside of themselves of followed any other "formula" on their way to the alter. All of this lovely advice is for only the chronically single. Regardless, I find the monk's advice a nice change of pace. It's never a bad idea to look inside yourself. And at least he was being creative. I'll reserve my sharp stick for others.
This weekend I attended the 233rd U.S. Marine Ball Birthday Bash here in Kampala, Uganda. It was a fun affair with wine, tuxedos, and fancy dresses. The Marines were present and put on a wonderful display of culture and formality in customs. The ambassador gave a lovely speech, as did the guest speaker, a Lt. Col. in the Marines (I didn't catch his name, but he was funny). I was sitting at a table of 10 people, 3 of whom were British (one of whom was my date). Later, while relaxing after a dance, one of them, my friend Annabel (who is around my mother's age), approached me and said, "I found this evening to be a strange cultural revelation." I asked her to expound. "Well," she said, "we often think America to be a culture-less/custom-less society, but that simply isn't true." Then she went on, "I also found it to be very intriguing to know so many Americans in the room who are from different parts of the political spectrum, and yet, when the national anthem was played each stood in such a distinguished manner with their hand over their heart -- regardless of their political leanings they were united; and they each knew just how to stand and turn in deference to the flag as it passed. I found that to be extraordinary."
I guess we're not just a bunch of rednecks after all.
Ugandans love formality, at least from an observer's point of view they do. They make a big show of anyone with perceived importance (cult of the 'big man') -- they dress in their finest, they get on their knees to talk to them, and they do this funny little handshake that I haven't quite figured out. And if it's an occasion to remember then you can bet there will be streamers and balloons. Last Christmas I was shocked to see the hall decked out in streamers and balloons. Not exactly what I call Christmas decorations, but I suppose it got the point across well enough.
Now, having said that, formal wear here can look a little different than what Westerners may expect. The other day I was at a birthday party, an event for wearing nice clothes, and one woman came in her traditional Baganda dress (which I personally find very unflattering, but then again, I'm no fashionista, so to each his own I guess). To me those dresses look like a cross between a kimono and a gunny sack. But, I digress. This particular woman's dress was adorned with colorful balloons everywhere which made me smile from ear to ear! I was like, "You go grandma! Let's get this party started!" Anyway, this is a country where you CAN wear plaid and stripes, stripes and polka-dots, and mis-matched colors of red. You can wear white socks with black trousers, and you can wear brown shoes with a black belt. Men wear bunny rabbit sweat shirts without flinching an eye. I love it!
Today is Independence Day. This is an occasion for dressing up! So, I had to burst out laughing as I was driving home from the grocery store and I saw a man wearing this: a blue t-shirt, camouflage shorts, a red sweat band, and a brown-striped neck tie! Picture it! He was walking ever so proudly, and darn well he should be! He was stylin'!
One of my goals in living here is to gain the confidence of the Ugandans. More often than not it's completely off base and unfounded, but that's not stopping them, so why should it stop me?!
No man is an island. entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
-- John Donne
Just an update about my previous post... I found out this morning that the nameless man died.
We were sitting around the table at Miki's Pub enjoying drinks. Many of us were engaging in post-Goat Race partying, and others were just out enjoying the beautiful Saturday evening air. There was plenty of banter and laughter. The smiles were the perfect anesthesia to whatever poison was brought about during the course of the week. It was an easy night to be alive.
There are certain sounds that will cut through any moment no matter how happy, how sad, how distracted, or anything else you may be in that moment. Last night I discovered that one of those sounds is the sound of a car hitting a man.
We all heard the loud thud and our heads, in complete unison like we had choreographed it for months, jerked to attention. We ran toward the street and it didn't take long for our eyes to see the feet. People had already gathered around the man laying motionless, but his feet, oddly enough, were visible despite the crowd.
They were the feet of a poor man. They were covered in the red African soil and his toenails looked more like gnarled claws than human toes. If you live in a culture such as this one then you knew without question that these were the feet of a homeless man. These homeless feet were being enveloped in the blood pooling around them.
I began to run toward the man, more on instinct than anything else. I'm not really sure what I thought I could do, but I ran anyway. Just as I reached the street my friend Michael, the owner of the pub, grabbed me and pulled me into a hug. "I don't want you over there" he said, so I stood motionless on the side of the road as the crowd swelled around me. A couple of friends came up beside me and we watched helpless. There was a woman giving first aid and a couple of cops began to arrive. Cops in this part of the world aren't usually much good for anything besides taking a bribe and causing traffic to back up. Last night was no exception to the rule.
I ventured across the street a few moments after Michael left my side and I knelt beside the motionless man and the unmercenary woman doing all she could until the ambulence arrive. I asked her if she was ok and if she needed a break. I think she was grateful for company, as she was a bit rattled. Ten minutes had passed and there was still no ambulence. The post-goat races traffic was thick and relentless. The unmercenary rattled off the details of the aid she'd administered and her techniques and then looked me in the face and said, "Do you think I'm ok? I did it all correctly, right?" Of course the fact that Uganda has a horribly high AIDS rate was flowing through both our minds. I assured her that she'd done everything correctly, but urged her to go to the clinic in the morning just to be sure.
We looked over the man who shuttered beneath our hands. His head was bleeding and so I began to call for a first aid kit or, at least, a pair of latex gloves. No one had anything -- not even the useless police. A man with a journalist's camera took a picture. "Toka!" I demanded in Swahili. Go away. He began to create a scene with my colleague Lloyd who was standing nearby and had requested dignity for the injured man. The paparrazzi man insisted that he was sick of white people in his country telling him what to do. I could hear the other Ugandans begin to yell at the man, too, letting him know that the request for dignity was mine and Lloyd's alone.
One man leaned down and asked my name. "Stacy," I said. He began to flirt with me and to ask me out on a date. My hand was wrapped in a plastic grocery sack pressing a wad of paper towels to a dying man's head in order to stop the bleeding, and I was being asked out on a date. Only in Uganda! I gave him the universal glare that means "Get away from me before I punch you." He disappeared into the crowd.
Another 20 minutes passed. There was still no ambulence. We covered the man with a flithy piece of cloth in case of shock. The police began to pick up pieces of the car that had hit the man. One piece was still attached to him, though. Somewhere out there today there is a car missing a large portion of its front, left fender. Of course the driver didn't stop. In Uganda mob justice rules. If the driver would have stopped there would have been 2 victims last night -- the man on the ground shuddering beneath my hand, and a dead driver beaten to death by onlookers.
Traffic in Kampala is full of rage. It's truly a dog fight -- no mercy! However, in defense of drivers who do accidently hit someone, it's not always easy to see the people walking on the side of the road. Road safety is not taught at home nor in schools. I can remember lessons and coloring sheets about how to look both ways before crossing a street, but here there is none of that. You probably don't realize that what you think is common sense is only common because it was taught to you in a concerted effort. There are also very few sidewalks in this country meaning that narrow roads with huge pot holes, large gaps on the shoulders, and 5 feet ditches on either side are being shared by motor vehicles going any number of speeds, bicycles carrying huge loads or several passenger, walkers, and barnyard animals. To make matters worse, at night, everyone drives with their bright headbeams on, effectively creating the situation wherein all drivers are being equally blinded. The street lights on major roads are rarely working. And finally, there are the walkers themselves. Let's face it. They're black and they don't often wear light clothing. They're hard to see and that's all there is to it. One Ugandan man told me in jest, "If Ugandans would smile when they walk there would be a lot less people killed on the roads at night." You might think it's funny, but it's only funny because there's truth to it. One night I was driving home and only saw a man on the side of the road when he turned to smile at his friend. My colleague Kim has lived in Uganda for 7 years. We ride together to work every day and almost every day we shake our heads in astonishment at the level of stupidity on the part of walkers and cyclists. They will walk right out in front of you as though they are on a Sunday stroll. My only way to make sense of this absurd behavior is with the thought that if you've never driven a car (which would be 95% of Ugandans) and you haven't ridden in very many then you probably don't have any idea what it takes to stop a vehicle or to maneauver it through traffic and people. I have to believe that its merely a complete ignorance, otherwise I can't fathom why someone would be so cavalier about a speeding block of metal coming directly toward them. Nonetheless, on this night, whether it was the speed of the driver or the inattention of the walker, a man was lying on the ground and somewhere out there is another man living with the knowledge that he's hit someone. It was no longer an easy night to be alive.
After nearly 40 minutes the ambulence arrived and took the nameless man away. The unmercenary and I went and scrubbed our hands until we irritated our skin.
I walked back into Miki's and Michael reached out and grabbed me once again. This time, when he pulled me near, I began to cry.
I'll probably never know if the man lived or died. May God have mercy.
One of the greatest feelings in the world has to be when you reach out to love someone and they let you.
My friend Alan took this photo. I've seen elephants but never this close. Remind me not to go out with Alan again.
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