Kamp town girls won't blow you away...

i'm in kampala, getting some things done. it's been a while since my last post, so i'll give some updates. firstly, the bat situation is more or less (more less) handled. eh, i've had roommates that i didn't like before.

i've started working, so you can quit asking me if i'm just here for a two year vacation. so far, my job consists pretty much of going to schools, watching teachers teach a class, and afterwards i talk to them about my evaluation. i'm not a big fan of chewing people out all day, so i'm going to try to see if i can find other ways to help out my counterpart.

other than that, i visit schools a lot, look around, meet people, see what needs done, that sort of thing. i'm still trying to figure out what i should try to do here.

big thanks on the packages!!! (annie, mom, katy/ross, bhaiya, zach). they make my life worth living. also, in case this hasn't been made completely clear, everyone on the planet is invited to visit me any time they would like. don't worry about the details, i'll figure it out.

i've been logging quite a few miles on the bike. it's holding in there okay, but the front suspension's coil and oil so i lose a lot of pedal power. i'll just have to get stronger.

the soccer team's doing all right. we had our first match last weekend, and we tied 1-1. i played winger, which isn't quite my strong spot, but i ended up drifting up a lot. the problem is that despite the fact that in practice everyone seems to be able to pass directly and spread out a bit, once we're on the open field everyone just kicks as hard as they can, then it's needlessly headed into nowhere where it's kicked/headed again. it was pretty frustrating.

i miss home sometimes. it's kind of depressing to think about the cubs or wvu football, or the fact that a lot of the people i know are going through pivotal times in their lives and i'm not around to share it. but hey, i'm there in spirit. and if my friends would quit fucking getting engaged, i'd appreciate it.

okay, ususally i'd insert some fun anecdotes, but i'm pretty well exhausted, so i'll cop out by posting the speech from our swearing-in ceremony.

Some 5, 6, 10, 20 months ago, we all picked the road less traveled. It started out pretty easy. Tick a box, ask your old boss for a reference, spend a few hours online. We had an interview, got nominated, pushed through a lot of red tape, got nominated for something entirely different, cursed our forgetful doctors, checked “mytoolkit” like a stockticker, and eventually, reached into our mailbox to find a beaten white envelope that had the words “invitation kit” splashed across its front. We started peeling through Ugandan blogs, wikipedia articles, guidebooks, and packing lists. We found ourselves asking odd questions, like “should I bring a shoehorn, or my Spanish wine botas?”

And we showed up in philadelphia, where we stopped signing up, and started doing something. And there we were, 50 strangers, wild-eyed and giddy, thrown into a hodge-podge amalgam that could be nothing short of a family.

When we arrived in Philadelphia, we were happy that the people around us no longer needed us to justify our joining the peace corps. We simply glided past the issue into more pressing matters of mall talk.

Today, that road less traveled has taken us to a precipice, and in a few hours we’ll be jumping. Tomorrow morning we will wake up alone, quietly, and inside yet another new home and we will again have to justify our decision to come to Uganda. But this time, it’s not to the tall guy from payroll, or your best friend, or the girl at the bar in the green shirt, or your brother-in-law. This time we have to justify it to ourselves.

Why are we here? Boredom, ambition, faith? Escape, ennui, adventure? Altruism, spirituality, guilt, curiosity, conscience? Why are we here, and why will we stay?

We’ve all got talent. We all have skills. We have abilities and experience that can land us cushy jobs, evenings in tacky Irish pubs, and summertime weekend barbecues. But even though we love bloody steaks and reality television as much as anyone, we don’t need them. Maybe that’s what brings us together. We need something else, and maybe we’ll find it here.

I’ve never been privileged to be part of such an amazing group of people, and am astounded at how easily we’ve meshed.

10 weeks ago, we all got along immediately. At the time, it was because we missed real cheese, Grey’s Anatomy, and competent journalism. Now, we’re brought together because we really care about each other.

There was a ridiculous Ugandan saying that came up at the counterparts’ workshop. “People who travel together, live together.” I have no idea what that means. But I think a better saying is “people who travel together take care of each other.” The way we look after one another is closer to familial obligation than “friend-in-deed,” and we’re all better for it.

I’m not sure exactly what I expected from the group when I arrived. I suppose I had images of tie-dyed bush-bashing hippies, proselytizing about love and karma. But somehow, everyong here seems to be one of the most interesting people alive. And we stand here together, strong, prepared.

But where will we stand tomorrow? When T.J. isn’t around to liven up our sessions, and Derek isn’t posing intellectual questions concerning ninjas, and we can’t take comfort in communal groans when people ask inane questions at the end of already far too long workshops?

What do we do when the music stops and we’re faced with a community whose needs, aspirations, and problems rest squarely on our shoulders?

This is an exceptional group of Americans, and the best sort at that. Much of the world sees our country as spoiled, ignorant, loud, arrogant imbeciles. It is our fortunate, and monumental task to show them the rest of it. The majority of it.

We join a proud history of American international aid. Though the world seems to judge our foreign policy on our military follies, it forgets the dedication of the individuals that rush into every natural disaster, every refugee crisis, and every major health epidemic. It’s easy to apologize for our shortcomings, but it takes courage and constitution to let our actions be our answers

So stretch out, pony up, and get your business socks on. We’ve got two years to do something good, and 48 brothers and sisters to do it with.

I love you guys and am proud to be your colleague. Good luck, take care of yourselves, and congratulations all around.

no funny anecdotes this time. i guess this is when the quirks of the country give way to the reasons why i'm here. although i assure you, i'll find the funny somewhere.

-rishi

New Wish List

okay, okay, i promised myself that i wouldn't look at metacritic as long as i was in uganda.



but....



how could this possibly have happened?! how could all of these albums become available so quickly after i have left the country (except elvis perkins which i just didn't know about)



Modest Mouse - We were dead before the ship even sank

rufus wainwright - release the stars

the national - boxer

Frog eyes - tears of the validictorian

arctic monkeys - favorite worst nightmare

wilco - sky blue sky

elvis perkins - ash wednesday

the field - from here we go sublime

battles - mirrored

panda bear - person pitch





also, the following books:

The floating opera, and the end of the road - john barth

the steep approach to garbadale - ian banks

v - thomas pynchon

inheritance of loss - kiran desai

the ground beneath her feet - salman rushdie



you are the greatest people ever to have lived. i am eternally grateful for any and all things sent my way. i know it isn't easy for you to send any of these things, since you mostly have student loans and what not, but this would be so amazing. anyways, if you plan on sending any of them, email me and let me know what's on the way so that i can take the stuff off the list that i've already gotten.

thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

all kinds of time...

okay, so i've finally got a bit of time on a computer, so i can talk about whatever i wish to share.

this does not mean that i have anything important, or of substance to share, so please, keep your expectations low.

i've added a bunch of new links to the right hand side of the page, so please check them out.

also, i've noticed that despite the fact that i'm getting a lot of hits on my page, i'm hardly getting any comments. come on now folks. i'm lonely.

there's a strange phenomenon that occurs with people here from the states. it's called uganglish. we take on this wierd ugandish sounding english accent for no real reason whatsoever, probably because we think it sounds like what everyone else is saying. i think i tend to talk like whoever i am talking to regardless, so i think that may carry over to other people as well. so, when you come to visit me, don't be surprised when i talk all funny around ugandans.

my ateso is getting better, but i'm not really learning much new stuff. i'm just getting better at using what i already know. i'm looking for a tutor right now, so hopefully that'll take care of itself soon enough.

my bats have been eradicated. i haven't been back to my house since the carnage, so we'll see what kind of hideous smell their dead bodies may have brought upon my residence since then. it's possible that i won't be sleeping at home for a few days. the unofficial final count was somewhere around sixty.

i'm at a conference in soroti right now, and it'll be over shortly. luckily, after many days of trying, the internet is finally up here, and i can puruse useless information on imdb and wikipedia at a liesurely pace. ah, the joy of knowing derek lee's batting average...

the bike ride took a lot more out of me than i expected. i'm going to have to start training a bit more heavily before i start doing these long trips. i'm only now feeling 100% again. i don't think the diet here is all too condusive to major physical activity. still, i think i'll be able to make longer trips once i start putting some effort into preparing for them.

i've lost some weight. i'll wait until the number gets a bit more impressive before saying how much, but it isn't too hard to lose weight when some evenings you're just not in the mood to spend two hours cooking by headlamp in order to eat an omelette.

champions league final last night went pretty well, but watching soccer really just makes me want to play. i'm finally going to inflate my ball when i get back to site, and begin training for the 2014 world cup.

i really need to spend some money on cooking materials. my camping mess kit is pretty limited. at the same time, i'd rather spend my money on daytrips to mbale, so it's going to be a tough call. i can always just buy rolexes...

the people in my village are still far too interested in me. it's a wierd task to try and make myself as mundane as possible, but i think i can do it.

i hope i'm doing a pretty good job of keeping everyone updated with what's going on over here, but my resources are kind of limited, so sorry if i'm not sending out enough e-mails. i send out what i can whenever i get a chance.

okay, i'm starving. time to go forage for food. thanks to everyone who has e-mailed me, sent me letters, and most of all, sent me packages.

godspeed

CUBS WIN!!!

EAT IT SOX!

hot shower!

so, as most, if not all of you know, i'm not a girl. still, the pleasure of a hot shower is far from lost on me, and this morning was luscious. i'm in mbale again, and a whole lot has happened since my last post.

firstly, i'm a PCV now. i'm no longer a trainee, but a real volunteer. i think it's a silly distinction, and i think that trainee is a bit of a belittling name. regardless, it's nice to be at site, and living la dolce vita.

someone mentioned to me that they only just figured out what my blog's title meant. for those who haven't, my last name is desai, the title is not a horrific error in spelling.

the last couple of weeks of training were tedious, tumultous, sad, and anxious. we all wanted to get to site, but i'm pretty sure we didn't want to leave one another. yeah, i know, sappy as hell. anyways, it hasn't been so lonely yet, but i've only spent a few nights at site.

but rishi, you ask, didn't you guys swear in over a week ago? shouldn't you have been at site for nine days now?

well, i'm glad you asked. swearing in went great, brett and i gave speeches, both of which seemed to go over well. unfortunately, our college had car trouble, and couldn't pick us up that night. they picked us up the next day (free night in kampala = nothing to complain about), and started dropping the six of us associated with the college off at our respective sites. unfortunatley, we ran late, so i ended up sleeping at the college that night. the following night, i slept at my site finally! pictures to come later. then, i needed to buy a mattress, so i went to mbale with my college's truck (don't worry peace corps, i wasn't driving) and picked up a bunch of stuff. as fate once again came between my lovely new home and my lovely old self, we got caught in a massive thunderstorm, and i just crashed at the college again. the following night, i finally got to sleep at my place again, this time with a mattress!!!

[mom and dad, stop reading here]
sadly, i wasn't the only one with such a plan. yes, that's right, i have somewhere between 20 and 40 roommates. they live in the rafters. i call them 'the boys', but you would probably know them better as bats. now, i don't mind bats. they're loud as hell, but i can sleep through the noise. they stay up in the roof, i stay down below, everything's kosher. except that they shit all over the place. i can't keep anything against my walls, because every morning there's a pound of bat guano lining the corners. i mean seriously fellas, if you want to live with me, have the courtesy to shit outside. so all of my things in my bedroom and kitchen are being stored in island formation in the middle of the rooms. hopefully i can get my place fumigated, but that would mean not staying at my place for another few weeks. and i like my place. oh uganda.

[you can come back now]

i got a sweet bike. it's a y-frame full sus mountain bike with shimano parts. pretty slick if i say so myself. i rode it to soroti the other day, which is about 35k from my house. it wouldn't have been so hard if the last 10 weren't through a thunderstorm. man, i bitch way too much. okay, enough complaining.

so, just as my friends and family seem to be reading all of the other uganda pcv blogs, it seems that some of the other pcv friends and family are reading mine. firstly, i would like to tell you that your friends/spouses/children/sibblings/tap-dancing instructors are some of the best people i've ever met. hats off to you for making them that way, then conveniently sending them to me. feel free to drop me a line sometime, human contact is a wonderful thing.

i made contact with the mysterious dutch cheese maker. it's gonna be game time soon enough.

i'm in the process of writing letters to the people who have sent me mail recently. thanks to annie and zach for the latest batch. and thanks to everyone who said that there is mail on the way, i assure you that the mail system here is far less efficient than they told you when you sent it out.

peace out folks, i just realized that i forgot to check out of my hotel.

awanyunos bobo!

mbale lady ladia ooohoooooh

so, i'm in mbale right now, a city in the eastern part of uganda. this is about an hour south of my future site (which i can't name for security purposes). i do have a new address though, which i can name!

rishi desai
p.o.box 400
kumi, uganda

and that'll get right to my site.

the site is sweet. according to peace corps policy, i'm not allowed to write any funny anecdotes that might in any way be critical of ugandan culture, so i can't really talk about the quirky things that strangers say to me. this sucks, but at the same time, it makes sense. i think ugandans have a great sense of humor though, so the policy is kind of lame.

i joined the local soccer team i think. i tried to tell my counterpart that i'm not very good, but he didn't seem to think that would be an issue.

my counterpart is good people. we get along well, and he laughs at all of my jokes. or maybe we get along well because he laughs at all my jokes.

the college i'm going to work at kicks ass. when i had asked my trainers to tell me about the Teso region, specifically if they had mountains or not, they told me that it's flat, and there's a bunch of rocks. i was pretty disappointed, expecting a wasteland. instead, by rocks, they didn't mean a few small rocks, or even a few small boulders, they meant beginning-of-lion-king-hold-simba-up-to-the-light type rocks. massive rock piles that you can scale. at the top of these you can see for miles. it's gorgeous. also, out east there's a few mountains, the king of which is the towering mount elgon. i'm going to try to climb it this winter.

i added amy's blog to the list on the right (http://www.amy-olson.blogspot.com/) check all of them out, and leave them comments. in fact, if you want to send them letters in stead of me, i won't take offense. they're all good people. mostly.

if you get a letter from me, let me know. i'm not sure if the ones i'm sending are actually going through. at the same time, i don't want to take away from the surprise of getting mail, so i don't want to ask anyone specifically.

if you want to call me, call me in the afternoon wherever you live. except ben, you need to figure something else out.

okay, i've gotta peace out. thanks for the comments, and i'll try and post again soon.

-rishi

Que onda luwero

okay, usual prepost apologies: internet is slow, i don't have much time, i'm not exactly at my most eloquent, etc.

things here are awesome. right now at least. i know where my site is, i met my counterpart, and i had macaroni and cheese on tuesday. i'm pretty krafty.

my site's near a town called kumi in the kumi district in eastern uganda. i'm right off the main road, so transport shouldn't be too big of a problem.

language is stalling a bit, since i feel like i'm reaching my capacity for learning ateso words and not getting a chance to use them. next week when i'm visiting my site i'll get a chance to practice.

ah yes, i'll get to see my site next week. oh blissful release. i finally see where i will live. i've already seen a picture, and it looks lovely. no electricity or running water, and it's not done being built, but it's brand new, so it'll be clean and nice.

i talked about how things are going awesome, and they are, but they are right now. a lot of volunteers and i have talked about this, and emotions fluxuate instantaneously here. i think the reason is that we all only have one thing going on: peace corps. at home, there's family, school, work, friends at home, friends in chicago, friends abroad, camp, etc. even when some things are going tough, the rest are okay, so they temper each other. here, it's all or nothing: either peace corps is going well, or it's not.

i realize that my last post contained a lot of complaining. i don't want it to sound like i was criticizing ugandan culture, or the way that they do things. it's just really different, and it takes some getting used to. i'm pretty sure i've figured out the whole pit latrine thing, and i've more or less found a way around the matooke issue (it's called a rolex - an omelette rolled in a chapati. sweet baby ray's it's delicious.)

thanks to all who have sent letters (zach (2), george, and parents), and thanks to those of you who have send some and i have yet to receive them (the rest of you i'm sure). it's hard to describe how great it is to hear from everyone back at home.

to touch on that fact, despite the fact that i really like it here, it's hard to maintain an identity. i'm constantly an american in the peace corps training in uganda. there's so much to deal with there, that other parts of who i am get obscured, and i don't get to visit them. i haven't drawn so much as a smiley face since i've been here. so when i get to reconnect with who i am (playing guitar, listening to my ipod, talking about movies, writing), it's exhilerrating(sp?). this isn't embellishment, exhillerating is the only way to describe it. thus, getting a letter is more than just pleasant. it's one of the few moments when i get to reconnect with the most defining aspect of my personality: my friends and family.

okay, enough of this lovie-dubie shit (cursing for extra man points). on to the anecdotes:

i am now completely immune to the sound of crying children. i have 8 host sibblings, and chances are, someone is crying at any given moment. at first i was concerned, and wanted to know why they were crying, then i started faking concern, and trying to awkwardly get back to what i was doing. now i don't even bother, since no one else really does. and it isn't cold hearted either. they're really never crying about anything important, and if no one pays attention, they stop. i think we might spoon-feed our kids too much.

we visited this awesome organization last saturday called Aidchild. it was started by an american 6 years ago and provides care for orphaned children with AIDS. there are two aidchild centers, one of which is self-funded by an income generating activity (a cool cafe on the equator), and each one houses 35 kids. it was unbelievable. i can't talk about it too much without being cheezy, and that would cheapen the whole enterprise. i'm sure they have a website, and if the internet was a bit faster, i'd direct you to it.

a pcv in country (who i won't name for his/her security) was kind enough to give me a half-bottle of tobasco sauce a couple of weeks ago. being quite resourceful, i've been able to stretch it for quite some time. last night, for the first time, i broke it out in front of my host family. my brothers and sisters were curious, so i told them they could each have one drop, only one. i dilligently obliged them, and they each took a tiny bit. for my host-mom and i, it was comedy gold. i have never seen such writhing demolition of hubris. spicy food isn't exactly common in these parts.

to those who are concerned about what happened in kampala a few days ago, don't worry, i'm fine, and i'll continue to be fine. it was an isolated incident, and i've got a strong head on my shoulders. you may remember me as someone who often does risky things, but i hope you don't remember me as someone who does stupid things.

okay, i'm out of time. please send packages/letters, and e-mails as well (although the first two are much more gratifying). i'll have extended access to the internet sometime next week, so i'll make another post, and i'll respond to the e-mails that people have sent me with long gratifying treatises on life, the universe, and everything in between.

until then, keep it classy rest of the world.