disclaimers and such

To make this sound as dramatic as possible…Tonight, for me, begins the process of processing again through writing. I can’t say exactly why I stopped. I could perhaps just say that I’m altogether too busy (which in reality might be the truest lie I’ve ever told); it might have something to do with me being so entirely confused a large majority of the time about the types of things you can probably assume I would be confused by that I’m too dumbfounded to find a pen ; or it could just be that I’m so scared of not processing my daily life enough, or from quite another angle – processing it wrongly that I’ve become selfish with my own heart and mind which has had the knock on effect of me hiding myself from myself. What I’d like to think it is, and this might be a bit more true but then again it might just be a bit more valiant sounding, is that I haven’t wanted to write from the place or from the perspective of a tourist, a sightseer, a short term volunteer, or even a development worker (which, btw, I am wholly not). In this beginning of the time I have here I would like to think that I care more about the people, this country, and the work of myself and my colleagues that those elements of where I am also become a little bit of whom I am; as to not downplay, belittle, over associate, assume, or inadvertently leave out too much or for that matter too little. I wanted to be a part of this particular patch of the planet before I started to be your eyes and ears into said patch, where I and many, many others are slowly by slowly making home. At least that’s what I’d like to think. I suppose you can make up your mind for yourself. That said, a small disclaimer here, it would be altogether unfair of you to assume of me that I think I am entirely a part. I’m just as much a part as you would be if you found yourself living here for the last six months. What it might just boil down to is I’m just tired of not thinking, writing, communicating and processing in this method. In the past I’ve made promises to very many a people to do such things as keep in touch, to write life down or to finish off adventures in sentence form that quite frankly were never kept. My intention here then is to not make you believe that the last six months of comings and goings will suddenly be documented on this particular platform. Although I have many thoughts on, among other things… the riots I witnessed at a distance of meters in the central part of the country; the concept of everyone having a village no matter how domesticated we might proclaim to be; sitting next to one thousand hatchling chickens on a bus for multiple hours and why this is an absolutely beautiful thing; how I love hanging fabric and papyrus mats on walls; the ability or inability to be necessarily whole while living at a distance from someone who has a part of your heart, eating millet porridge for lunch; what it’s like to live across from a discotheque in northern Uganda (if you were wondering and I’m certain you were, ladies nights are not only always on Wednesdays they are also always the most raucous); the gamut of distractions we as the western world have created for ourselves in our absolute material wealth and quite ignorantly exported into the global south;; making friends with fish farmers, and beekeepers and fish farmers/beekeepers; why mango pie could revolutionize your taste buds; the reality of much of the worlds existence in the realm of taking choices as opposed to making choices; how ox plows, oxen and adequate training could make the landscape of Acholiland something to really move out of IDP (Internally Displaced Peoples) camps for; how you shouldn’t steal chickens in the village because one of two realities could very well happen to you: getting your head chopped clean off or getting your tongue bitten out by a bird made out of lightning (its science); the delicious taste of edible rat and how I can’t decide whether it was that or the copious amounts of pork (also quite delicious sans hair) which may or may not be making me lose kgs due to an all too likely intestinal parasite; how old men everywhere are somehow practically the same and how your grandpa would absolutely love Obote too if he were Ugandan; and I can’t forget about this one, the false economies created by well meaning aid…I don’t believe it would be right of me to tell the lie that those thoughts are ever coming, let alone soon. You have to remember that this isn’t a box office and you wouldn’t buy this drivel anyway so let’s move forward and sometimes backwards starting with today.