Oli kutuundaki? (what are you selling?)

     "Yes, uh, neendha kutudna ebintu leero mu kataale.  Ngya kworgeera ni ani?" (What I'm trying to say: Yes, uh, I want to sell things in the market today.  I'm going to talk to who?)
     Three men stared back at me.  Their clothes, slacks and button-up shirts, were at one time business-smart, but are now beaten, faded and a bit tattered.  Their shoes were a cheap, foamy-rubber type that one can purchase in the market for less than a dollar.  One of the men, missing four teeth in the front, looked up at me, squinting into the sun and asked, in English, "Are you having a husband?"      
     I took a deep breath, then walked away.  I marched into the market with my mat, bag of pads and purse, looking for anyone else to talk to, preferably a woman who would not be interested in my marital status.  I found some women, and pulled out one of my fliers, and tried again to explain that I wanted to sell.  It seemed that they thought I was walking around and selling, when what I really wanted was a spot to sit.  Lazy me.  Eventually I found the woman that people recognized as the market chair lady.  I explained the product to her, and she sighed and said, "ah but me I have no money."
      "Oh, that's OK, I am just wanting a place to sell from."  This phrase makes perfect sense in Uganda.
     "Ah, you sit anywhere."  There was no discussion of sitting fee or anything--lovely!  I tried to scope out a good spot--there were several women in a row, all selling bunches of green matooke.  They brought umbrellas to shade them from the sun, and enough rice sacks so they wouldn't be sitting in the mud.  Despite it being the "dry season," it rained all day yesterday, turning the ground in the market to a sticky, thick, mud.  I wove around the cassava, g-nuts, sweet potatoes and, of course, more matooke.  I found a spot next to a woman selling sweet potatoes.
     "May I sit here?"  She was thoroughly confused.  "Neendha kutyama wano." (Again, what I'm trying to say: I want to sit here).  She was even more confused, based on her facial expression.  I gave up and just unrolled my mat next to her.  Within two minutes I had a crowd.  Eeeeeexcellent...
I let my brochure do the talking.  Some women were understanding immediately, explaining it to each other.  For the rest, I mimed out how to use the re-usable menstrual pads.
     The re-usable menstrual pad idea is a popular one amongst Peace Corps volunteers.  For those who want to take on the project, they prepare all of the materials, then go into schools and teach both students and teachers about the menstrual cycle as well as how to make re-usable pads.  It's quite simple, and very cheap, especially if you're making them from old fabric.  "Always" brand pads are available here in Uganda, but they fill up latrines quite quickly.  Also, if the dollar-pack is perceived as a financial burden by the typical Ugandan family, especially for a product that you throw away, a girl will then try to use the product to the maximum, resulting in an unhygienic condition.  Again, the idea is to teach how to make a product that will last and not fill up the latrines, and once the girl has the idea and the skill to sew it, she can make her own!  The pads I was selling can last for an entire year.  However, this wasn't my project.  My friend Rashida did this project where she went around to schools, taught, sold the pad kits at a very cheap price and answered questions.  It was a great program!  Unfortunately, she had something like 100 or so left over.  She gave me the leftovers.  Instead of going into a school (for two reasons; one, she had already hit every school in my area and two, limited amount of kits) I instead decided to take some time out of my school break to sit and sell in the market.  I was hoping to reach mothers and aunties, so they may also teach their daughters.
     My first attempt at the market selling was actually on Tuesday, in my own trading center in Wanyange.  I set up, optimistically at about 9 AM.  It was HOT, even with my structure I was renting.  I made it all pretty and brought several scholastic references in case anyone had anatomical questions.  For about the first hour and a half I had about 8 kids, in a semi-circle, wordlessly staring at me.  Mzungu TV.  To pass the time, I sewed a couple sample kits.  It was interesting that the passers-by didn't even want the free flyer.  They would take it, look at it, then hand it back to me.  I took a break in the middle of the day to sit around in as little clothes as possible (in my house) and eat lunch (did I mention it was hot?) then returned to the trading center around six.  All day I had a grand total of one customer.  ONE.

All ready to sell!  Thank you, my one customer...

My very pretty, albeit ignored, stand in the
Wanyange trading center

     Wednesday was a bust--it rained all day long.  If I had attempted the Bugembe market, it would have been one bit mud pit, and with, I'm guessing, very few customers willing to trek through the mud.  I didn't open my door, except to go fetch some food, and watched two seasons of The Big Bang Theory.
     Today, I was determined.  I didn't want to get my hopes too high, so I only packed about 20 kits to sell, just to see how it would go.  My first customer was actually a man--while the women were sheepishly reading over the material and waiting for someone to buy first, a gentleman handed me 600 shillings and asked for two right away.  He came back again five minutes later and bought two more.  I'm assuming he had daughters.  After he left with his purchase, business was on.  I had maybe eight customers right away, and within thirty minutes, I had maybe four kits left.  The ladies around me were so nice, with every customer that would come to them, they would explain that I was indeed selling something, and then they'd go on to explain what it was exactly.  I literally could have sat there mute, because the other sellers did all the talking for me.  I would just intermittently mime out how to use the pad with my sample.  Once I sold my last one, I started to pack.
     "Ah, Mary, omaze?!"  You're finished?
     "Yii." Yes.
     With the continued interest and requests for more pads, I promised I'd return next Tuesday.  I sat there for MAYBE an hour.  It was phenomenal.  I'm looking forward to Tuesday!  

Part of the brochure in Lusoga.  My fantastic supervisor
sat with me all of Monday and helped me translate words like
"uterus," "semen,""menstruation," and the like. 

  

I found time to take a picture finally when I had three kits left to sell.

        
       

I didn't want to explain in Lusoga to someone how to use my camera, so I attempted a selfie. 
Me, sitting, selling away!

Making a mosquito

     “Mary, okolaki?”
    “I’m making a mosquito.  Ndi kola ensidi.”
    “Ensidi! Eh, eh!” (giggles).  “Ogya kusomesa n’ensidi?”
    “Yes.” (As in yes, I’m going to teach with the mosquito).
    I took my scissors away from baby Shamila and tried to distract her with pieces of cardboard.  I couldn’t work inside because, in my very limited kitchen/sitting room space my neighbor was checking her facebook. I moved my paper-mache operation outside, just one problem-- unending curiosity from neighbor children.  I saw this as an annoyance at first, I even tried to bribe them to go find something else to do with stickers, but with the language barrier they didn’t understand the concept and just took the stickers and continue to stare.
    “Mugye, muzaana.” (Go you guys, go play something).
    “Ah, tuli kubonaku.” (Naw, we’re watching you). 
    Shakira flipped through my biology book and started asking what the names of everything in Lusoga was, including things like amoebas and diagrams of mitosis.  Meddy was already whining about something, and appealing to me like I knew what he was saying.  A bit frazzled but not wanting to chase them all away, I figured they could at least rip paper.  I showed them how to do one sheet, and they all happily helped tear up paper strips.  “What are we doing?” I would ask, and they would answer, in English, “we are tearing paper!”  
    Once I had the frame of the mosquito together, I figured well, kids like to get dirty, why not let them join me with the messy part.  I brought my pot of glue out and started working, asking the kids to first wait.  They watched me do a couple of strips of paper, then demanded to try it themselves.  Surprisingly there weren’t any fights or major 
glue-tastrophies.  Most of the sticky flour-water concoction managed to stay on the paper, in the pot or on the work of art with only a small portion getting on legs and faces.    
      Immaculate had recently told me about something on TV that had really impressed her--there were children (she said with much amazement) in South Korea doing the paper-mache project like I did for the college students, specifically the model volcano.  Oh?  Yes, she was saying, children like ten years old.  They were doing it in school.  Ah.  Can you remember doing paper mache in fourth grade, in school for a project?  I sure can.  I thought about that, as I was sitting out with the neighbor kids making a model mosquito, that kids don’t get to experience this art process in school here, because ‘school’ here means sitting on an uncomfortable chair, or on the dirt floor, and listening to a teacher talk for eight hours with no chance for hands-on experience or any other genuine learning activity.  I took a breath and reminded myself not to be a grouch and always allow the kids in on a learning activity.
    “Mary, see the monkey!”  Hadijah pointed to the right of my house.  What?!  Sure enough, a man was running by with a small monkey close behind.  The monkey had a rope tied to him but the man wasn’t holding on to the rope, the monkey just followed.  Apparently Wanyange knows him as the guy with the monkey.  I was later washing out the paper-mache mess in my back yard and he ran by again, with his little monkey following.  I shouldn’t encourage the domestication of monkeys, but gosh darnit the little thing was so cute!  So strange.  All I could think was that I missed taking a picture.  To fix that, I had Hadijah (the only one not participating in the sticky project) to run in and get my camera.  This was the first time I let the kids play with my camera, and I was a bit nervous.  To my surprise, Hadijah took some pretty neat pictures!     

Hadijah, appointed photographer, figuring out the camera.

Our mosquito body

Probably the most attractive photo of me.

Meddy and Lazia, taking a break to pose

Me, Lazia, Shakira and Sandra, pasting

This made me happy, Meddy kept pointing to this picture and
saying "dinosaur!" :)  It's pretty interesting the lack of knowledge about
dinosaurs in Uganda. 

This was actually taken while my sister was visiting--the luggage we bought for her
was cheaply made, so I solved the problem
by doing the Ugandan thing and just carried it
on my head.

A Peace-Corpsy Day.

    It’s strange to think that it was this morning that I was in Kampala, addressing the new Education Trainees, matching my counterpart in our green kitende dresses.  I was so nervous before hand, I’m pretty sure I gave myself a fever.  When we got up there, we were (of course) behind schedule, which just perpetuated my problem of talking fast whilst nervous (oh we’re behind schedule? Whydon’tIjusttalkfaster?)  I told Immy before hand, between cold sweats, that if I started talking to fast she should just put her hand on my shoulder so I know to slow down.  I know she did at one point, but I can’t remember what happened because it was all a blur, as it always is when I speak in front  of a large crowd of strangers, or familiar faces.  (I sat there afterwards and wondered how in the world I imagined to teach at all).  The new trainees avoided talking to me throughout (no surprise, I guess my nervous facial twitch wasn’t very charming) but the Ugandans kept coming up to Immaculate and I to say how much they appreciated having us come in.  Even though I’m sure they couldn’t understand a word I had said, I was still very grateful for their appreciation. 
    The creepy thing about being back at the Lweza Training and Conference Center was everywhere I looked were holographic memories of when we (Ed. group 2011) lived there for two weeks during “Election Lockdown.”  I glanced over at the steps and saw Josh playing his guitar, to my left were Sara and Dave washing laundry, behind the dorms we all gathered to see Allie’s hair get shaved, Tom and Ilse were looking at the monkeys in the breakfast den, Galen was racing by the trees to win capture the flag, Kirk was making everyone in his language group crack up, Erik was running into the conference room as Captain Volunteer-- it was bizarre.  Maybe it was my panic fever, but it was as if I could reach out and touch the ghostly apparitions.  It happens in movies, where people can’t bear to be somewhere because everywhere they look they just keep seeing faces and memories; I always thought it only happened in films, especially ones about crazy people, but here I was, strangely emotional looking around and reliving my training all over again.  It was shell shock.  When I did actually look around, I realized there was a new era of Education in Uganda, and perhaps I’m a tiny blip on their memory radar as the panicky girl who wore matching clothes with her counterpart.
    Immaculate and I were asked to come in and share about how we work together as counterparts, our successes and challenges, and some good stories.  We literally were on the schedule for 20 minutes, but it turned into about 15 minutes, and most of that was my incoherent-light-speed speech.  Completing that very small obligation had the same feeling of relief (I imagine) as finishing an Iron-(wo)man competition.  Thank goodness getting a taxi out of Kampala was pretty chill.  We even got to sit “three-three” (meaning three people to a bench instead of four--the benches are only meant to seat three.  I’ve sat five-five before).  In my relaxed haze, Immaculate and I were able to pick up on the way: 1 loaf of bread, 2 bags of eggs, 3 mangoes, 1 kilo of passionfruit, 3 oranges, 1 kilo of sugar, 1 box of crackers, 3 DVDs and 2 milkshakes.  It’s funny how that happens in Uganda, which brings me to thing number ONE that I will miss about Uganda:
    -You can do your produce shopping and travel at the same time.
Our taxi driver lied to us and wasn’t going to Iganga, so we ended up in Jinja town, but neither of us were ticked off.  We tried going to an internet cafe, but the internet was so slow, it would have been quicker for me to actually call my friends and chat with them than stalk them on facebook.  That’s right friends, I stalk you.  A bit defeated, yet laden with fruits, we boarded the Wanyange taxi home.  Number two thing I’ll miss about Uganda:
    -Home.
People in my group keep talking about how we get to go home soon--how exciting!  I’m not denying it, it is pretty exciting, but this idea of “home” has really shifted for me.  A really cliche way of putting it is “home is where the heart is,” and I hate using that, but it’s so true.  At some point in the last year, my heart has settled in here pretty comfortably.  The idea of going back to America doesn’t feel like going “home” anymore.  It feels like going to another country, where I’ll have to adapt and settle-in all over again.  Not to mention, as my sister kept pointing out, I’ll have to re-learn American English.  Immy and I walked up the very oddly placed dirt stairs, (randomly on the side of the road, which looks like they’re in the middle of nowhere but which actually lead you to a whole bustling intersection between a school and a bar--something that IS like home, haha).   The steps are all uneven so they take strange bursts of energy to conquer.  A group of kids that I couldn’t recognize greeted me right away,
    “Mary! How are you?”  I smiled instantly, I was home. 
    Down the dirt road I trudged, just happy to be out of a moving vehicle.  I veered to the right to dodge a silent motorcycle approaching (he was just coasting without gas--anything to save money) and instantly he called, “Mary! Isukayo!” (Welcome home!) 
    I took a left at Stephen’s furniture stand.  I looked over to my left where Anita and Priscilla always sit, in front of their mother’s beauty shop.  They were sitting on a water meter, pretending, I was assuming, to be riding some type of animal.  Priscilla, who couldn’t be older than three, starts tapping her elder sister to get her attention and half heartedly said, “mzungu! Mzungu...” She forgot me?  That was sad...but not for long--to my right was another gaggle of kids, “Ma-wy!  Osiibyotyeyo?”  (Mary, how have you spent the day?)
    One turned to another in disbelief, “Ah- aidhi Lusoga? Mary-Okobachi?!” (Ah, she knows Lusoga? Mary-what’s up!?)  I gave them a smile, but was beckoned by Joan, the vegetable lady. 
    “Mary, you see these ovacadoes (avocadoes), you take this one, four hundred.”  I thought about all of the produce I had already somehow accumulated, but caved anyway.  I need more avocadoes in my diet.  The sun was at the point in the sky that is the worst for driving, right in the eye line, but it cast such a pretty light over Wanyange.  The road now is so dry and dusty that it looks like a big sand dune-- with every passing vehicle, a cloud of light brown dust covers the area for what seems like a solid minute.  Right next to Joan is the airtime booth.  I was just informed that the proprietor had just lost his wife.  I greeted him, drawing out all of the questions, asking him how home is, how is business, etc., and eventually getting to the somewhat dreaded, “nga kitalo.”  (I’m sorry for your loss).  He looked down for a moment when he responded with the automatic Lusoga response, and I could tell that he had all kinds of emotions running through his head.  I can’t imagine what that feels like, to lose a spouse, and at such a young age too.  I remember when I was really young, I would throw fits and scream at my mom--THAT’S NOT FAIR! (sorry again mom) and she’d just matter-of-factly say back to me, “well LIFE’S not fair!”  It sure isn’t.