Kazakhstan Story #1: At Least She Laughed

If stepping off the plane on to the tarmac in Almaty, Kazakhstan wasn't strange enough with the militaristic guards all over the place and an entourage of vehicles waiting at the base of the stairs, the brief but ever-so embarassing interaction with the lovely airline transfer agent, Laura, made the 5 hour layover memorable enough. Stepping up to the transfer agent in order to be approved to enter the international terminal, I kindly greeted the lovely Laura with a smile and "Hello" and the rest of the dialogue went like this:

Laura: "Dehli?" (indiscernible to me)
Daniel: "Huh?" (so absolutely confused what she just said)
Laura: "Dehli?" (indiscernible...still)
Daniel: "Daniel?" (was she just saying my name?)
Laura: (laughs) "Dehli?" (gah I am an idiot...did I not get it right?)
Daniel: "OH! Day! Yes, today." (crickets.......)
Laura: "Luggage?" (are you serious? not again...)
Daniel: "Lunch?" (please tell me I am right this time...fingers crossed)
Laura: (begins to laugh out loud and puts her head and hands to the desk and just looks up and smiles) "Luggage?"
Daniel: "OH! Luggage! Ha! Oh I am so sorry. No. I don't have any luggage." (I really am losing it aren't I)
Laura: (laughs) "Here's your ticket. Just wait over there until we call you."

...15 minutes later they call the passengers for Dehli. I had still not understood that she had been saying Dehli until she and the security guard look at our tickets and say that we are going to Bangkok; as we defeatedly begin to walk away they must have deemed this embarassment enough for us as they let us enter the international terminal.

So as the journey continues, and now in Thailand, there are sure to be so many more moments of complete and utter confusion, but I guess that is part of makes all of this worth it yeah?

Remembering Uganda #1: My Son

One dim incandescent light reflecting off decades old asbestos roofing panels was nowhere near enough illumination to prevent the flashes from the 9” screen blinding me from fifteen feet away. While the intoxicatingly humid air of boiled meat and mingled maize filled the room with nowhere to exhaust and as the house girl filled the knee high table in front of me with bowls and plates—I could not imagine being anywhere else. I had been invited to my next-door neighbor’s house—more of a Siamese abode as we shared a wall—to have supper and to watch a film featuring Nigerian militants, but this evening took one of the most embarrassing turns I have ever experienced in my life.

As James, my neighbor, and I absent-mindedly sucked at our 110 millimeters of cheap vodka from plastic sachets; we switched off the videos of the late Lucky Dube to view the film featuring what was said to have been Nigerian militants. Now don’t get me wrong, when I say, “what said to have been…” I am not complaining, but I just had to have an internal when I found myself watching Leonardo DiCaprio, playing a Rhodesian, struggle in a country distraught and stuck in war between government and rebel forces. Of course, I chose to say nothing. That first sachet was beginning to hit me now. Two shots of vodka nearly inhaled through that tiny hole torn off with my teeth. This was going to be a good evening. The bowls and plates numbered enough to serve a family of 20 at an American Thanksgiving (exaggerating…slightly), and being only two, this might seem a bit unnecessary to most, but to me this meant that I was in for a feast!

Being rather dark and partially blinded by the brutal catastrophes occurring on the screen across from me, I could barely see what foods and sauces were in front of me exactly. In this situation, I was provided with a bowl that had a heaping portion of posho (think a corn version of mashed potatoes with little flavor and very dense) and I was left to my disposable to add any meats, soups or vegetables that lay in front of me. I began to reach across the table to every meal complement to add to my now literally four pounds of edibles and using a few little fingers on my hand began to scoop and shovel food in to my mouth while chatting about the atrocities occurring on the TV. James meanwhile proceeded to bring around, this time, two sachets of coffee flavored alcohol and we were set off to round two of sucking up this harsh liquid. As I began to finish off most of the soup, meat and vegetables that were in my bowl but still remaining with posho, I began to glance at the table and was noticing that there was a plate that I had yet to try! Excitingly I began to extend my arm across the table in order to pick some of this mystery delicacy that I had missed the first time around. After helping myself to a large portion, I happily began to exhaust what would be the last food I should have probably eaten in days; but then my stomach began to drop. I took a swig of the coffee liquor. I blinked my eyes more times than I could remember. As a camera opening its aperture for an extended period of time, I widened my eyes looking to the right at James, and then suddenly down to his hands. My mouth dropped and I looked up to the TV without an ounce of comprehension about what was happening in the TV Sierra Leone Leonardo DiCaprio Rhodesian Man Rebels Diamonds Awfulness stuff going on. I…uhh. I spoke.

“James, I am so sorry. I was completely confused. I…I am so sorry.”

“My son!? No! No! No,” exclaimed James.

Astonished at my actions, I laughed shamefully. “But—no James, I completely did not even realize that I had been grabbing food from your plate! I thought that it was something that I had not tried! I am so sorry.”

“My son! What have I told you? This is your house too. Daniel, you know that you are my son,” said James adamantly.

“James, I know, but I can not believe that I had been eating off of your plate.”

“It’s no problem. I just thought that you were very hungry,” said James with complete sincerity. “There is still more food, let me bring more”

“No, no, no. I am satisfied. I just had thought that it was something different. Something new. I am so sorry.” I could not have been more embarrassed.

Had I really snatched food off of my neighbor’s plate? Not just once. Not just twice. But many times over and over? Absolutely yes! I had, undoubtedly, just eaten food off of another person’s plate, in their house, without even asking; and they were letting me do it the whole time because why?! Because they just thought that maybe I was starving?! How could I live this down? Would I ever be invited to James’ house again for a meal? Would he look at me tomorrow and turn away? Would my other colleagues look at me as if I would eat directly from their plates? Steal their crops and sell it in the market and make some money? Start my own rival chapatti stand next to theirs and sell at a lower price, defeating the competition? Of course not. Instead, I was offered one more sachet of that luscious clear liquid as the film…wait. The power just went out. No more film. Now it is complete darkness.

Slllrrrrrpppp went the sucking of vodka. As the crickets calls began to be heard James and myself, over-filled (myself obviously more so) with sumptuous food and cheap vodka, discussed but what else, life in Uganda. Life in Kaliro. Life at the NTC. How life throws so many things at you—some fair, some just downright dirty—and we all have to take it and make of it what we can. Not all of us do this of course. In the previous moment I literally ate off of another individuals plate. A man, that no matter what personal and economic trivial matters his life has, welcomed me in to his house and didn’t even say a word when someone with more was taking what is rightly his from his very eyes. I didn’t know that I was taking it, but if I was, then in his eyes I obviously needed it more. What does that say about someone? Though when I think back to this evening I still feel pangs of embarrassment scaling through my nerves, but for James, I can only assume that he is saying to himself, “My son.”

Seas of Unknown

Seas of Unknown

It's in the plans, whatever we do

A book that can not be read, but

The stereo brings us back here

So we needn't rush the future

Touch the skies but do not forget

Where it all began to make sense

And maybe one day we'll be back

And the pages will have been turned

And that day when we're back only

Our fears can hold us to the past

It's terror we hold

A terrible fear of

Things unknown

But the ledge we

Stand on continues

To move with us

So don't fear and

Let's look down

Off the ledge to

See the unknown

It's a paper of complex schemes

A movie with no ending, but

The dreams keep our reflections here

So hiding will get us nowhere

Dive to the sea but the pressure

Keeps us coming back for the air

And when we come back to breath it

And bottles we sailed are opened

And that day when we're back only

Our fears can hold us to the past

It's terror we hold

A terrible fear of

Things unknown

But the ledge we

Stand on continues

To move with us

So don't fear and

Let's look down

Off the ledge to the

Sea of unknown

Not only now

We don't know

Now not only

Take off your

Shoes and put

On your wings

And soar to the

Sea of unknown

Seas of unknown

It's terror we hold

A terrible fear of

Things unknown

But the ledge we

Stand on continues

To move with us

So don't fear and

Let's look down

Off the ledge to the

Sea of unknown

Seas of unknown

7/7

What a joyous Birthday!

87% of normal and improving; that is an achievement to be at compared from about 38 hours ago. I could have sworn I was giving birth. Yes, I am completely aware that I am a man, and so much that science as told us this is not possible, for all I knew just over 2 days ago at around 2.30am, this is exactly what was happening, where was I supposed to find a midwife now? So happy birthday to my newborn and me! Just hours after I entered the 27^th anniversary of the day of my birth and the previously sanctioned COS date (Close of Service) of my Peace Corps service I am sent writhing in pain behaving like a combination between a dog trying to find a proper position to sleep in and a fish caught out of water. As the sun rose without having an definable sleep, I lied in that bed feeling that there was something amiss about this past night. Obviously no baby birthing was to contribute to the night’s events, so I could only attribute the pain possibly to the consumption of ostrich, wildebeest, springbok and crocodile meat from the night before. As I felt somehow improved from the combination of feeling feverish and feeling like my insides were turning inside out I went back to work the next day with the assumption that all was A-OK! The walk to work was somehow laborious, I just felt tired and still was having some pain in my side, but wasn’t the same as the night’s. Happy birthday to me yeah?

Well finally I arrive at the office ready to finish my last paperwork to end my service officially but in the mean time my mind can not get off the residual pain throbbing from the night before. Moving around the office, trying to find people here and there became too much and I knew that it was time to see if I was just being crazy (did I pull some weird muscle) or was something really going on? Assuming it’s not someone attempting to tickle you, give you a massage or treat you like the Pillsbury Dough Boy, someone poking at your abdomen is just odd, but it can tell a lot. Well unfortunately I cannot tell you a lot. Blood work: unremarkable; negative, nothing out of the normal. Urine analysis: yellow (somehow concentrated), otherwise normal. Malaria test: negative. Liver Functionality Test: normal; normal, and normal. What is was the cause of the intense pain, general discomfort and lethargy, and fevers that have been going on? Today is my birthday and my last day of service and this is how I go out? I have things I need to do, people I need to see and places I need to go! A memorial for a friend who passed 2 years ago I am going to miss. The anniversary for priesthood for a friend of mine—I am going to miss. What if this continues? Are they going to evacuate me? We don’t even know what it is?

Though my entire body was aching and I was moving at a snails pace, I was surprised by the staff of the Peace Corps Office with a lunch and cake (though none of them had known at the time how I had been feeling). This was totally unexpected and was amazing to have been treated so well by these friends and colleagues of Peace Corps Uganda. If only I could have been a bit more animated I know that I could have shown my appreciation a bit more, but I hope they know how much that meant to me. After that I went back to lying down and soon I found that my birthday was going to end with what I believe to be my first IV. Maybe I have had one before but I have a memory like an 80-year Alzheimer’s patient. So after a liter of fluids were inserted directly in to my bloodstream I was on my way home, hoping and praying that this was the end, and maybe this was just a little food poisoning or something? So I did actually end the evening with a piece of lasagna out at a restaurant, but the night’s course of sleep consisted of feverish and sweaty sleep though waking feeling fairly refreshed on the 8^th. Whew, that was brutal but look’s like there is light…

…Well that was a bit too soon to think that! Let me be short with this account even though the events here were arguable worse than the day’s prior. I thought things were good and I walked up some stairs and got halfway up and couldn’t catch my breath and my abdomen and back were in pain and I figured oh this is all okay and then I spoke on the phone while pacing for 5 minutes only to feel like I was running a marathon and breathing almost consciously and finally going back to the medical unit and being like oh yeah now something is wrong we have to figure this out and no this isn’t just me and no this isn’t just some muscle pull and something really is or has been going on inside of me and we need to go figure this out NOW! Blood work, malaria test, urine analysis, more Pillsbury Doughboy pushing, chest x-rays, ultrasound (nope, no baby)...I tried to walk up a hill but had to sit down. It was as if ‘pain/anguish’ had taken the form of some spirit and was squeezing me and sucking all of the air out of me! Someone wheel me up the hill those last 30 meters. Thank you so much, really, thank you, I couldn’t make it. It doesn’t make sense. I can sit there and chat with you—yes the pain is still there and it is laborious to breathe—but I can sit and chat as if it is a normal day. You want me to breathe, laugh, walk, turn, move and do all that and we have a problem…well NOW we have tested so many things and what, well we don’t really know? Could be a viral fever? Could be a kidney stone? Could be a combination of the two or something random and completely different and we just don’t know? Give me just one more night of a fever and sweating myself to sleep and now I’ve finally entered a beautiful pasture of hope and joy and delight and smiles and baby hippos and squirrels playing and endless snow cone and cotton candy machines! There is no intention to imply the use of psychotropic drug use, more to show the difference between how the past 2 days were in comparison to the here and now. I guess the best birthday gift I was given was relief from the past 2 days and it has come! So why don’t we let the next 363 days of year 27 pass without any stones? or other inexplicable pains and I thank Uganda for an amazing last 40 months of my life!

You Tube Channel

I don't have many videos on there, but some of the videos that I post on here I have also posted on my YouTube Channel that is ill-used. All of this new techonology is beyond me. Go here for some videos...maybe I will add more?


http://www.youtube.com/user/kozadaniel?feature=mhum#p/u




STORY TIME:
Last year at right around this time I had ventured back to the US for my home leave between my 2nd and 3rd years of service. Having been in Uganda for 2 years away from most technologically revulotionary electronic gadgets, I didn't know exactly how I was going to handle some of the what had become common everyday personal possessions. Yes, in Uganda one can get an iPhone, or an iPad, or a Samsung Pad thing or any of those, but the costs are through the roof and I don't really know where they are purchased. Anyway, back to the story. So I had of course heard of this whole iPad revolution that had begun and was nervous/curious to see what the craze was all about. Upon entering the Apple story I was greeted by a very courteous staff member wearing a black Apple t-shirt named Catherine. My heart was racing, what do I do, there is so much in here and its not even like a kid in a candy store any more but rather a grown adult inside of the NASA Atlantis Space Shuttle with no clue what anything really does and afraid to touch anything. I inquired about the iPad and was led by Catherine the black t-shirt wearing Apple employee with a large name tag around her neck and some weird iPhone-looking gadget in her hand (it had some weird additional attachment to it) to one of these infamous iPads. She immediately picked it up and plopped it in to my hands. Palms sweaty with nervousness and confusion, I began to hold this space age object up in the air, looking underneath it as if I am looking for an oil leak in a car; proceeded to smell it, listen to it, and hold it at arms length from me as if it was a baby that suddenly began to urinate and giggle. Catherine attempted to ease my obvious fear by showing me with a touch of her finger how one could manipulate this iPad to do whatever the heart desires. Ever so briefly, I attempted to poke at the display as one might poke at a hot liquid to ensure it has cooled properly only to suddenly shove the device in to Catherine's hands and exit the shop quickly embarrasingly, behaving exactly as one might after tripping on their own to feet while walking on the side walk and looking around making sure no one is around and that no one saw.

Let it be known that was my first and only iPad experience. What is going to happen in round 2 in some few weeks? Only time will tell.

We Have Won The Battle

Here is a short little music video created by Mr. Kafeero Bernard, a music teacher at the NTC, Kaliro. This song was written by Mr. Kafeero for our most recent graduation assembly at the NTC, Kaliro and is a message describing the struggle that is education and that through fighting adversity we are able to succeed.

Panic Waiting Patiently

The Nile River at Sunset:
Sometimes I forget how often I cross one of the largest and most historical rivers in the world...

How do you just miss one thing? It is such a frequent question. Even I admit to asking that very question to persons when they are leaving something that has been especially dear to them. Does that very level of question limit our thinking for any specific reason? I have trouble focusing my attention on one specific aspect. Is it wrong simply to lump life altogether and say that I will miss that? Though excitement and new experiences are there on the horizon and I am striving for them, this land, this food, these people, these conversations, this laughter, this sorrow, these sunsets, these long dusty walks—this life—to me is just one thing. One very big thing to miss. One very big thing to remember. One very big thing to one day live again?

In less than 5 weeks I will take my first steps on to that plane at Entebbe International Airport and in my hand I will be holding that infamous 'one way ticket.' Though I have returned to Oregon twice over the course of the past 40 months, none of those times could have prepared me for these next steps. Both of those times I had with me a date and time for my return home to Uganda. I had throughout those holidays thoughts in my mind of the work to be done, of the people to see, of obligations to be fulfilled.

Someone mentioned to me that maybe 'panic' is just waiting patiently in a room. Maybe that is so. Actually, most likely that is so. So in the famous words of Jean -Luc Picard, 'Make it so'. Bring on the panic, bring on the fear, bring out the confusion of what comes next. Though fear raptures the mind like a blitzkrieg sometimes the excitement of the unknown and a new challenge is enough to wage war and to come out the victor.

Tomorrow I will wake up with one less day in Uganda—when looking in the mirror that is simply one day closer to a black hole of endless possibilities.