Gumnus La

Nests

maggie_sheahan — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 06:15:00 GMT

There are mice that live between the walls, and when we sleep, they crawl out of their mouse holes, leave teeth marks in our bread, nibble on the soap, scratch away at the window sills. If you stay up late, you might hear them scamper or see their silk grey coats scurry through the kitchen, the living room, across the bedroom floor.

I spread Neosporin on his laceration, wipe it down with Band Aid brand anti-septic. The other American exams the white powdered penicillin and reacts with a judgment made through scoffs and tensed eyebrow muscles. His sad eyes look up at me as he laughs “You know, medicine here in Uganda is not so good.” That chest space swells again. How must it feel to believe your medicine is no good, your education system is fractured, and your infrastructures lag?

I am sad on this hot afternoon, induced by vino anoche and mid-day coffee. It wore my skin thin, so now when the world moves African my heart pulses right up to it, thumps against his $70 dollar a month salary, cracks open and spills out as the halo that crowns his dark eyes simmers tired and kind. That one glance, caught through Neosporin and cotton balls, lingers around. That glance, and the laugh that encases those eyes, snags my breath. He shouldn’t believe everything here is second rate. I crumple inside, because while I bring my good intentions, my road maps to prosperity and my educated perspective, I also bring a dichotomy that ranks him.

Sometimes the space between the lines nibbles its way into my heart, builds a nest that grows hairy and ripe, and claws away at my faith. Sometimes I fear that I swallow the pain and call it my own without truly knowing its underside. I feel the trail markers of oppression tickle until my heart pumps blood sticky and raw. I confuse who the pain belongs to. I am not oppressed but I live among it. Am I entitled to mourn it? Does the mourning reinforce it? The swell feels human, compassionate, as though it’s born out of love. But pity neither leads the mouse back to the field nor squashes her in her tracks. Pity breads oppression, irreverent of intent.

I go back inside. I lie on the floor and listen to music. I float home nostalgically. As the guitar rift rattles out of weathered speakers, I feel two worlds crashing against each other, a mouse clinging to the cradle she’s made in my heart, and a secret understanding that maybe I’d be happier if I’d never known this place. Maybe he’d be happier too.

Home

maggie_sheahan — Mon, 8 Mar 2010 20:24:00 GMT

I have come home.

Home shifts as every new experience unfolds before me. The word once hung so simply in my mind, its image undeniable: A four bedroom house on Eagle Crest Road. The fire place always burned warm as Dad led Thursday night spelling tests before Seinfeld. We had a red door, Mom put out two ceramic geese on either side in the summer. The basement belonged to the kids. As children it is where I lost in Monopoly, dodge ball, and the ultimate fight for the remote. It is where doors slammed and siblings learned how to fight. As an adolescent it is where I practiced piano and where Max showed me MTV. And as a teenager, it is where I’d where friends would read Cosmo and struggle over math homework. And sometimes, it is where Mom would venture down equipped with fresh made cookie dough to watch Carey Grant at his best.

Home. College catapulted me out of this place, only so that I’d land not so much in a home-like space, but among home-like people. Home became relationships worth leaning on in times of loneliness and stress. Home became midnight road trips with friends, it became my first language in a foreign land. It looked like summer crammed into Euro trains and hostels. When the world seemed to spin and jolt our lives every four months, home became Wednesday night wine night, or emergency trips to the beach. This is the home I still carry with me, no matter where I go. The one I draw from and turn back to when I feel most thankful for that second family.

Home. Since arriving in Uganda this word blurred, maybe even faded into the background for some time. I landed in the Entebbe airport with a six month expiration date stamped to my forehead. At first I noticed nothing of home here. Kampala starred at me from dark skinned faces and almost stunned my pale complexion. I listened hard for names and greetings, as my comfort zone spun with vertigo. But soon, streets started to pop out at me, signposts and directions etched their way into my recognition. Soon, I even learned what parts of the city smell likechicken coops, where I can find the best Indian food at the cheapest price, and how to say thank you in Luganda. The place settled around me, cautious though she might have been at first, eventually she began to reveal her finest wrinkles and best kept promises. Kampala now meets me friendly wherever I go:

“You’ve been lost.” The man behind the counter at the small shop near the taxi stand noticed my holiday absence.

“Hey you have not come to see us.” Students welcome me into their world, grab my arms and hands, led me to their Educate! tree harvesting project.

“Happy New Year. How was your holiday?” These strangers somehow start to look like friends.

And how do I know I have arrived here, to this most sacred of places? It is more than familiar people or an understanding of short cuts. It is at its very best an inner sigh of relief. A feeling of comfort, as if the air learned how to cradle the body. A feeling of ease, as if the atmosphere grew accustomed to my nerve endings and rhythm. Home allows our selves to relax deeply, to cozy up next to time. Most importantly, home makes us feel taken care of despite all the dark corners and distant sounds of this world. At its most essential core, home is the underlying whisper that sings “This is where you belong.”

Passing

maggie_sheahan — Mon, 2 Nov 2009 01:35:00 GMT

Aunt Janie died today.

Heart breaks open. The news known and unknown. Heard and unheard.

Her spirit passed into… What? Into heaven. Into the clouds, the sun, the rainbow over the South Sister. Where did such a fiery and spunky spirit go? Perhaps it passes into each of us. Perhaps all the love she carried settles into our own essence, our own being, and becomes part of our human and spiritual selves. Perhaps she finds wings, allowing her to sore gracefully into Samadhi. Now she gets to enter the heart center of those sacred things, revealed only to the purely spirit, to the essence, to the part of us that is wholly and fully love. Or perhaps she stays for awhile. Cradles us as we sleep with our grief, whispers lullabies to us in our dreams, and wraps her arms tight around us as we ache in her absence. Perhaps she becomes the sun, her kisses the warmth that blankets us on summer days. Her thoughtful presence the wind that dances with snowflakes on crisp winter nights. Or she enters into some other piece of this world. A piece we aren’t able to see or touch, but can feel when cuddled next to our best friends, feel when cozy beside a fire place, taken care of by our family. Can she be all of it? Can she still be here with us, in an angel-way, so that it’s not loss, it’s a passing into love, a becoming, a release into a state of pure beautiful peace.

Heart aches and body feels heavy. Skin around the eyes tightens, eyes sting, tears roll town. I can do nothing more than be in this moment, this sadness, this ache in my chest.

Mind quiets, as if the only thing we need to know right now, we have been told. A peace settles around us for her own relief, her own sacred passing. No more pain, now. Just quiet. Body breathes in the news slowly. Carries it. And yet still cannot understand. It pushes the world for a different answer. Because the answer we’ve been given makes something well up inside, some sadness pulse. Words leave me now. All that can be done is sit in this miss for you. I grieve this missing, and for all who miss you. I grieve mostly for those who miss you most. She was so perfectly maternal, so loving in that unconditional motherly way. I grieve because to those I love, she was mom. Body heaves and tears roll down again.

Maybe this is the heart breaking open—this ache in my chest, this hollow beneath my rib cage. Maybe hearts break when love is needed most. When the need is for more than a love that illuminates. Instead it is calling for a love that flows as fierce as a river. A love that pours out, enough to fill the space that is left. That absence, that hollow. And the weakness that follows an acknowledgement that it can’t be filled. It can only be felt. Lived. Submitted to and known. And the sadness, that charcoal blue haze, is profoundly and deeply a craving to not know anymore. To still have her here with us. A craving for that spirit that we love so much.

Clarity

maggie_sheahan — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:21:00 GMT

Never tell someone they have a dirty glass of water. Instead, hold up your clean glass and let them see for themselves.

We raised our glasses in cheers. My beloved friends from home, two girls who had spent the last month kickin’ it in Kenya, ventured down for a visit. Their mugs were of the traveler’s variety, mine a more stationary sort. And the water, indeed, differed tremendously.

Kenya.

Uganda.

As to be expected, their glasses were dry: I heard of droughts, rain ceremonies, starving cattle.

Mine overflowed: I showed them lush green trees, overgrown grass, and night-filled thunderstorms.

They drank with big eyes seeking SAFETY. They drank in hostile nighttime lullabies. I listened half-amazed to tales of racing the sun: “You had to be inside and safe before night fell. It was not an option to be out past dark.”

Here, I sip unconsciously as I stroll on dirt paths hours past dusk. I lead them into stranger taxis parked on side streets, without hesitation. My safety an afterthought, as if it is deserved or expected.

Is fear something you inherit from a place or a people? I decided that it must linger in the air. Or in my case, it must not. As they found themselves alert and scheming, attuned to their surroundings peripherally, I exhaled in peace. They wore focused-eyes, eyes of women, eyes constantly scanning for undertones of danger. I stumbled, half asleep, blinking slowly.

“Was it because you are white?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes it was because we were women. Sometimes it was because it was nearly dark.”

This threat— whether potential, expected, or known— has never weighted on me. I neither see it nor feel it… so far. Here, I pass trust from person to person freely. I look over my shoulder rarely and when I do, it is seldom accompanied by a racing heart. I never noticed the clarity in my water. Never had a glass to compare it to. As the week unfolded, I discovered a newfound love for green leaves and muddy roads. I remembered to be grateful for this sense of safety. And I reveled in my intimacy with moon light.

Window Pane

maggie_sheahan — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:15:00 GMT

She approaches the car window, marking no more than halfway up the glass pane. Dirty hands with palms upward beg. Her face is soft seeming, her eyes big and brown, they scream child. It is a piercing scream. It penetrates through the glass, cuts skin, and stabs directly into the heart. It is sharp and heavy as iron touches muscles. To contact those eyes, meet them gaze for gaze, saddens every part of me, settles something dark deep inside me. It calls on a marrow-aching depth. Sometimes the street children will speak, other times simply motion to their mouths. Today, she asks to go to school. She does not name directly what she wants, but it is insinuated, implied… money.

“If nobody gave them money, they wouldn’t be here.”

I want to pick up the child. Take her and her siblings home and bathe them, give them food, security, love. If heaven speaks, perhaps the first and only question she would ask is “What did you do for the children?” Here I sit, back seat passenger side. I can look away. I don’t have to answer back. But I feel the profound grief in this exchange. How did we all get here, to this place where children sleep on streets, beg for food from stopped car? And why have we all chosen to stay?

Poverty exposes herself to me every single day. Homes made out of plywood, clothes, newspapers. Newspapers feature clinics. Clinics without water. Water coated illness. Illness calling death. Death weaved in life. Life lived by children. Children calling pavement home.

Bypass

maggie_sheahan — Fri, 9 Oct 2009 23:26:00 GMT

It is becoming real life. And then not, again…

“We have to pay them for the food. You have to get the money.” I begin to walk up the dirt road, past the children playing, barefoot and giggling. I step over the puddle. The road is bumpy to the left. I step right. I step over trash, soggy clumps of paper and plastic bags patching, It is hot out, just past 2:00 pm. My third trips to Mbale awards me with a familiarity of roads, routes and enclaves. I’ve walked between town and school many times this week. I know the way. I get to pavement, turn left, and shuffle along the sidewalk. Sweat now dripping from my forehead, I walk past a store—cotton t-shirts and slinky dressing hanging between in and out—another—simple foods, biscuits, juice. The opposite side has tables, women selling candies, men cutting jack fruit. A cart with fried bread and Samosas. Blankets strewn on the ground scattered with purple onions and bright red tomatoes. It will take me ten minutes to walk back to the hotel, will I make the board meeting?

Something in the air breaks. Can’t tell what prompted it. Some sort of sense, perhaps, we have not yet named or defined? And I hear inner voice aha to herself— “I’m in Africa.” Suddenly , everything becomes just a little more vivid, focused, sharper. I picture a map, the continent V-shaped and massive. The country, small and eastward. The spelling U G A N D A. I picture the distance from above: zoomed over Denver, New York, London, Morocco, Kenya. Zoomed closer past Kampala, Jinja, Mbale. Closer still with pink clock tower, woman balancing a load on her head, van driveing shakily on pot-holed road. Closer still, zooms right to me. I feel hidden in this world. Far far away. And exposed, open in this space. I feel out of context and loving the absurdity of it all. The distance, both cultural and physical, settles into me. The newness becomes striking. This experience defines itself by place and people. It is step by step, faces passing, East African pop songs— sounds like rap, sounds like drumming, sounds fast tempo-ed and high pitched.

I feel independent, because I chose to come here. I feel proud. I know this place, as if it belongs to me, familiar and kind. I know where the sidewalk ends.

I am privileged, engulfed in a community that gives me purpose and inspiration. I am circumstanced, awarded passport and dollars. Soul-fed, for the break in the air cracks open the mundane, washes over my eyes to make everything brightshiny. The moment echoes back in honking horns and foreign tongues. I have crawled into another world, another paradigm, another way to experience this breath. Time passes in rhythmic off beat rotation of spheres.

I lighten. Suddenly the money, the board meeting, the heat, all of it falls away, leaving me with pure movement, that mystical flittering now. Boda drivers holler out, and this time I answer them laughing as I mock myself. They reciprocate the mood. And for this instant I have gotten past the difference, past the questions and finally fall into awe.

Undertow

maggie_sheahan — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 07:14:00 GMT

In Nepali there is no word for hello. Instead, they asked what you were doing. Sometimes, when out walking, I would reply “Gumnus.” This translates as to roam. It does not mean to walk or to wander. It means to roam. I always liked this. Perhaps because roaming has no defined point, and yet it still sounds dignified, intentioned, purposeful. This word left me feeling content, as it so often captured exactly what I was doing.

In American Sign Language an open faced palm while wiggling one’s fingers communicates the idea of waiting. I would often flash this sign to Dev as we stood in line at the rec center or library. “We’re waiting,” I would say. He would understand and stop. His ears often struggled to comprehend my words, but his eyes almost always succeeded in reading my signs. A daily life saver.

Here, English is certified official. And yet, I am constantly craving translation. American accent aside, this need manifests itself in an urge to answer with my hands, a reaction to reply in Nepali, an uncanny revert into Spanish. I am fluent in but one language-- a language Kampala shares-- and still my brain disgruntledly needs to put in check her leftbrainded-foreignspeak instinct. Whoever convinced me that translation parallels understanding never came to East Africa.

Understanding lives deep beneath the surface of words. You know him well, no doubt. At home, he often reveals himself in cued off eye contact, folded arms, or a nod of the head. He lives in short glances and tones of voice. A smile. A fiddling hand. A gazed down forehead.

These days, though, he has become a bit mystical. He laughs, as he watches me drown in the unspoken. He is a surname backed with heritage and tribalism, of which I am ignorant. He is a simple greeting, to whom I stare half startled at. He is a phone call ended abruptly, as I am still saying goodbye.

But he lives deeper still.

She grabs my hand and rubs her fingers against the undersides of mine. With laugher in her voice she says, "Oh your hands are so soft. A nice life.” I tease her back-- "Let me see!" I grab her palm as I touch her skin, "Yours are no different!,” I say as I drop it.

But there is a difference here, because in the most obvious way, I would never even think to check. Nor do I know exactly what it is I am feeling for. I am in need of translation. What does this mean? A familiar question that is becoming second nature.

I come from a place far away. I work, without pay, for a company that has money, but no product to sell. What does this mean?

I barter for a ride. The driver keeps a stern face. I know not to walk away too soon. He is charging me 1 dollar too much, but the price is already tripled that of standard rate. I can afford it or it’s absurd? What does this mean?

I dance to Jay-Z and M.J in pubs and bambooed bars. I talk to ex-pats and upper class Ugandans. We sip on beer, cocktails and wine. People stay anywhere from 1 month to life. These answers flow in undertones and currents of an unspoken identity. What does it mean?

It means I am foreign and I come from a nation perceived as Aesop’s pot of gold. It means I speak English, only. My hands are soft, my skin is white, I am thinking I am doing something special... but hasn't everyone always? It means I don’t understand what I represent. My object/person is layered with unfulfilled expectation, memories of colonial/post-colonial history, po-mo politics of aid and international development, a US Passport, the city of sin, the city of angles, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Peace Corps , still can’t quite explain skiing, lost in translation doesn’t quite translate, I am Muzungu, I am female, I am a female Muzungu, I have forgotten my name, it’s not yours to know, I am helping, I am harming, I am working, I am wondering, I am wondering, I am wondering about it all.

After a day on the bus, I find myself sitting next to a woman and her child. Best estimate puts the babe at one year. He reaches out for my hair. He pulls on the long brown curls. He grabs for my finger and rests his head against my arm. Child, I think, beautiful beautiful child. I make eye contact with his mother, searching her eyes for an indication towards approval or dismay. She adjusts and looks away. I pull out my book. She holds her person. We share a bus. Simplicity not even in form.

Impressions

maggie_sheahan — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 04:10:00 GMT

I arrived how many days ago? Perhaps 7 or 9, 30 or 10... Each day bleeds with the one to precede it. Instead I mark time with lessons learned. Day 1: Uganda in the flesh Day 2: Food 101, matoke, beans and rice, Fanta if its extra hot Day 3: Old taxi park? New taxi park? I want to go to Bu-zi-ga...Day 5: There might be friends for me here yet.

I have stepped out of home and covered my eyes with foreignness. I left a deep sense of home, one that grants language, culture, food, and sound, second nature if not first. I exchanged it for a place which is acontextual and coupled with confusion. Slowly, like a babe, I am attaching memory markers to things that once represented only colors or sounds. Streets, faces, greetings, spices (okay, spices are a bit rare, I mean, I'm not exactly in India). Taxis you pay no more than 1,000 sh and water from a plastic bottle. Details you cannot imagine until it becomes part of how you live. This is what my first steps look like. And as I move forward, I have so soon forgotten the rest of what I thought I'd miss. Well... except for cake, I still miss cake.

As I climb this latter of newness, I must admit, there is an underlying consistency that has defined my fist week. Though each day is different, all thus far carry certain qualities: The clear pronunciation that seeps from every English word spoken with Ugandan tongues, the heat that blankets the body with a sticky sweat and the way it smells sweet and earthy when scrunched against bodies in a taxi, the constant gasoline coated air that flows black out of trucks and vans, and finally, the ever present knowledge that I am not only white, I am Muzungu-- a foreigner in simple translation, though the intricacies of its meaning still revealing themselves to me. No doubt, as I walk down the street I hear this from scooter drivers, "Muzungu, Muzungu." A song of sirens, perhaps not. But just as inescapable in nature.

I arrived in Uganda to work for Educate! Official intern as writer, webmaster, and Changemaker Association organizer. In fact, this is but one of two blogs for which I will contribute, the second can be found at www.experienceeducate.org. In addition to all I have mapped above, Educate! is what Uganda has been to me so far. My social network is the mentors who teach our curriculum, the girls who run the office, the French intern living at the house. My activities revolve around the students we work with, the schools they attend, and the community members we find so inspiring. To understand Educate! is an instant ticket to my heart-space and eagerly welcomed with every part of me. I invite you all to explore our work, ask questions, critique us, support us, I think about Educate-things always, so the more you know the easy our convo's and insights will flow.

Okay all you nameless cyber world readers. I love you all!