America

I have to apologize, because i have been very lazy since returning from Uganda almost a month ago, and more than a little reluctant to face the real world. Real world meaning friends, job, blogging about everything i have been experiencing, etc...

It has been a whirlwind month, designed to distract me from the fact that i am home, which is good, but three weeks in, i still feel shellshocked. Not culture shocked, exactly. America is how i expected it, the change is more personal, more within me, and it has been a hard transition to verbalize.

I arrived home on the 6th of September, and flew out to Jackson, WY for Karl and Tara's wedding on the 11th. It was great to go out there- it was my first time west of Chicago and East of LA, and i have to say, Wyoming is beautiful. It was also really nice to see people from Uganda- there were 10 others at the wedding who had also spent time there- partly because it helped reaffirm for me that the whole experience really happened. Sometimes it all just seems surreal- and so drastically different that it is hard to believe the last year happened, that everyone i know and everything i did in Uganda also exists- or rather co-exists with everything here. It was also great to see old Uganda friends Jim and Sherri and Shannon, to see what they are doing, how they are dealing with Life After Uganda.

Here are a couple photos from the McMoser wedding, and my first attempts at wedding photography...

I also made it down to the Gauley river in West Virginia with the Seilers. Got to meet a bunch of cool new people, and got to reunite with a suprising number of paddlers who had been in Uganda. We are everywhere. The river was beautiful, and it was my first time running it in a kayak. The Seilers did a great job taking me down the upper and lower- though i will say it was a bizarre experiance to run a river that wasn't the Nile. I spent a day on the Special my last week in Uganda, just me and my friend Chris- the only two people on a world class wave. Then i was on the Gauley, with a 20 minute line for a little, not so great feature. Everything felt smaller, and the cold of the water was a shock. I had heard so many stories about how big the waves were on the Gauley. I saw two good sized waves. The rest are big, some nastly looking features, but they are long and low, and completly different. The Gauley was a ton of fun, and it was nice to run something a bit more techinical, get a bit of a challenge and some practice in reading water again, before heading out to nepal. The party of Gauley fest had also been much hyped up, and did seem a bit tame to me- but everyone else agreed that it was an off year for the festival itself, due in part to a new rule restricting the number of vehicles allowed within campsite grounds.

After Gauley i made it up to Saint Lawrenece University in Canton NY, to visit the little sister at college. It was her homecoming weekend, and the only thing i could think was "college is weird." A $120,000 education and the best vocabulary term i come up with is "weird". Its funny to experience a college that is not your own. I still have strong memories of Colby, and SLU was similar enough to evoke a lot of things i had forgotton. College is a funny bubble to go back and see as a recent outsider. All the kids dress the same, and they all talk about the same things, no matter where they go to school, quoting whatever they are learning in class that semester, so caught up in the bubble they live in, while still being really opiniated and wordly. It was neat, if somewhat disconcerting to see. All the same, it was really nice to meet some of Izzy's friends, and see what she had been up to in the year that i have been absent from her life. She even took me rock climbing at the wall where she works. Visiting Izzy made me miss my college friends, and i think will give me the kick i needed to get out of my post Uganda funk. OR maybe that was the 20+ hours in a car with the fam....

Seriously- there should be a re-integration process after living in Uganda, or specifically, the NRE bar, and then coming back into western culture. I don't mean visiting western culture, knowing that you are about to return to Uganda, but really re-entering western culture for an indefinite period of time. In her book "Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier" Alexandra Fuller writes "In late December I went home to my husband and my children and to the post -Christmas chaos of a resort town, but instead of feeling glad to be back, I was dislocated and depressed. It should not be physically possible to get from the banks of the Pepani River (Zambia) to Wyoming in less than two days, because mentally and emotionally it is impossible. The shock is too much, the contrast too raw. We should sail or swim or walk from Africa, letting bits of her drop out of us, and gradually, in this way, assimilate the excesses and liberties of the States in tiny, incremental sips, maybe touring up through South America and Mexico before trying to stomach the land of the Free and the Brave." (Fuller, Scribbling the Cat, 72)

This passage expressed more eloquently than i was capable, the experiance i was and still am going through returning to the states. As i said before, i almost feel shell shocked, like i am returning from a war. I haven't had the energy or the ability to deal with people, other than in limited doses. I have only just now set up voicemail on my phone, and have spent much of my first month back at home avoiding many of the people i wanted to see and to talk to. I think it was my way of trying to hold onto Uganda a little bit longer, as if by ignoring all the things i had come home to, i could pretend that i wasn't really home yet, or that i would for sure be going back as soon as possible.

Dislocated is an entirely appropriate word to use. I left my job and the life that i had established, and came home to very little that is concrete. As a result, i have been cranky and iritable, picking fights and being defensive over very little things. No matter where you are coming from, it isn't easy to return to your parents home. All the things you have accomplished, all the growth you maybe experianced, seems to vanish within the first 24 hours of being home. Your parents treat you as they always have, and you fall into old patterns- of behavior- bad habits-things you hope you had left behind. I've been unhappy since being home, and the easiest way to describe it is that i liked "me" better in Uganda than i do in Swarthmore, or even the states. And because of this, you feel almost guilty for not wanting to be home, not feeling glad to be back in America.

It is difficult as well trying to convey the experiances you have had in the past year; either to people you know, or to people you have just met. I feel a little bit like a science exhibit, my parents show me off- this is our daughter Anna, she just came back from AFRICA.. oooh... It is hard, because people don't always get it, or they arent comfortable, can't wrap their minds around living and working in Africa for a year. I feel a little embarrassed telling people- embarrassed maybe because i had the luxury of traveling and volunteering for a year, instead of starting to work to pay off loans, extravagant in what ive done the lifestyle ive lived, or also, just because as much as i want to share my experiances, i want to keep them for myself. Its a hard balance to figure out. The people that have been such a large part of my life for the past year are reduced to stories, and funny anectodes. "Is that the one who... "

It is refreshing to leave Uganda, and to get a different perspective, and its amazing what you start to miss. The states feel cold, and a bit sterile, or reserved. I just feel more constrained here than i did in Uganda, for many reasons im sure. The lawns are manicured, the dogs and children are clean. There is a suprising lack of wildlife here, notably birds. I got very used to the squabble and constant chatter of the birds and the monkeys in Uganda. Coming home in the fall, when most of the birds have already begun to migrate south- the air feels empty. It is nice to have a dusk again- because Uganda is so close to the equator, the sun sets quickly, you dont get that golden hour, or the fading of the day.

Of course ive enjoyed coming home to mine, and my sisters closets, and rediscovering all the things i own. One of the first things i did was clean out the closets. I was suprised to see how much stuff i had, how little i felt i needed it, and how quickly that opinion starts to change. American materialism. impressive. I keep telling myself i am not going to spend money, in attempt to save for nepal, but its hard. Things are expensive, and then you walk into a store, and suddenly you have bought a necklace, a pair of shoes, a movie, picture frames, or other things you dont need. Then you have buyers remorse. I often have buyers remorse. Fortunatley, im good at rationalizing.

I have been trying to ride my bike as much as possible, in lieu of driving a car. I forgot how much i enjoy driving- though having cars with suspension and paved roads was a bit of a shock, causing slight panic attacks because it felt as though we were going so much faster than we were.

In all, i can't wait to leave again, and have been thinking more and more seriously about returning to Uganda for at least another year. We shall see. In the meantime, more planning for Nepal is in order, and im going to do as much as i can with some of the photographs i took in Uganda. I will attempt (again) to load some online, and put up a post detailing some of my favorites. I already had a bunch printed to pick some for a Swartmore photographers exhibit, and the photoshop that printed them gave me smily face stickers, so i think some of them came out allright...

Itanda Falls

first half of Itanda
second half of itanda


Itanda Falls is one of the longest, biggest and most technical rapids on the White Nile river. Classified as a grade 6, I would say that Itanda is the rapid that gets the most hype of anyother- at least among paddlers who come to the Nile for a short period of time. "Have you run Itanda?" "Do you think im capable of running Itanda?" "Whats the line for Itanda?" or "Itanda is such a sick rapid!"

Itanda is the last rapid one the day one rafting trip- where rafters get thrown into a hole called the badplace. Adrift Adventurers, on its brochure quotes Englands Prince William as having said "That was awesome! can we do it again!" Of his badplace experiance. It is the rapid where we get the techno music intro before seeing many rafts get violently surfed, and many rafters get slightly hectic swims. But is Itanda really worth all the hype?

The line on Itanda is composed of a sort of thread the needle move between three or four very large holes: The pencil sharpener, the cuban, the ashtray and the badplace. These holes are large, and often trashy. They are also subject to change with the waterlevels, as is the difficulty of excuting a clean run. The right side of the river is the recomended swim line, while the left side is much shallower, and rather nasty. One of the difficulties in running Itanda is that generally, to run the rapid, you can't scout it. The rafts take out on the right side of the river, walking around the big stuff, until putting in half way down for the badplace. (No raft has ever sucessfully run the rapid without flipping. One tried several years ago, made it to the cuban, then flipped. The other attempt was last year, and the raft flipped on the entrance ramp, causing the 7 guides to swim frantically to the right).
portaging the badplace

Itanda is undoubtedly a very large, very intimidating rapid. I deliberated for months (literally: eight of them) before gathering up the courage to run it. Over the course of the eight months i stared at the rapid countless times, pointing out the line for clients, and then taking them down the sneakline or chicken shoot to the right side of the badplace. As i said above, one of the things that makes Itanda so intimidating is that the entrance ramp is on the left side of the river, after a grade two lead in, meaning that once you commit to running the rapid, there is really very little option left but to run it. The entrance ramp is steep- you cant see what is below you, always a little intimidating and disorienting.
the entrance ramp to Itanda, middle Left in picture, big green ramp.

After running the entrance ramp, the first thing you have to do is ferry across the river, avoiding a little "fuckme" wave, riding up onto the back of the pencil sharpener (the first large, crashing diaganol hole). You ferry across towards the pencil sharpener in hopes of avoiding another hole immediately below you, in the middle of the river, called the cuban.

ferrying next to the the pencil sharpener

Some claim that the cuban is the best wave on the river. I think its gonna take some practice on the special before you go surfing the cuban, but then again... thats just me. Ive also heard it said that to know if you are ready to run Itanda, look at the cuban. If you are comfortable surfing it (i.e, surfing your way out of it when you hit it) then you are ready. Surfing out of the Cuban

Below the cuban and slightly to the right is the Ashtray, and a little while later, the badplace. Ideally, one goes right of the cuban, right of the ashtray, and then cuts hard left to go left of the badplace. Because of the way the holes are positioned, it is entirely possible to hit the cuban and the ashtray, and even the badplace, all in the same run. exhausting.
As i said before, there is a lot of hype and a lot of discussion about Itanda falls. It is one of those rapids that people collect, or add to their list. "You went to Uganda? Did you run Itanda?"I have even known of someone who blatently lied, claiming not only to have run Itanda, but to have "styled" it. Needless to say, this person never even attempted the rapid. Itanda is also a rapid that is being used to judge someones paddling capabilites, which, after having worked on the nile for several months, bothers me. Itanda is a rapid you should run because you want to, not because someone esle tells you to, or thinks you are capable of it or because someone else you know ran it. One of the reasons i was hesitant to run it was because i often get assumptions that i am not a very capable paddler, based purely on my size. I didn't want someone to look at me, decide that because i ran it, they could run it, with out ever having seen me paddle.
The nile is a forgiving river, but that doesnt mean you cant get hurt. Recently I had a client who was interested in runing the rapid. As a company policy, Kayak the Nile wont run you down it. I pointed out the line as we portaged an ran the sneak, and that was that. a week later, the client followed somone down, someone who really didnt know where they were going, ended up missing the entrance ramp, and swimming the entire rapid, after having been surfed in a nasty hole for a full four minutes. That kid is really lucky he made it through unharmed, all gear collected. To be honest, if the kid had followed some one who knew where he was going, he probably would have been okay. probably.

There is also a lot of talk about boaters who leave Itanda until their last day, and then follow someone down. Generally amoung those of us who work and live on the nile, this is deemed as not "running" Itanda. It is seen as a cheap copout. I personally can't really comment on the above. I ran Itanda my last day in Uganda, partly because i was busy working, partly because i was good with coming up with excuses to put it off. The number of times i turned down opportunites to run Itanda is astounding. And more than a little embarrasing. When i finally went to run it, my friend Davey led me down the grade two, and eddied out with me right above the entrance ramp. Then he took off, and disapeared, and i followed.I have this sharp image in my head, Daveys silver helmet, daveys green boat and broad shoulders silhouetted against the sun and the glare of the water. its the last i saw of Davey until the trailoff after the badplace, not that i was looking for him. I later heard that Davey was down at the bad place by the time I came through the entrance ramp. By that time, it was all survival boating anyways, as all of time suspends while you try and orient yourself, and find your line. The roaring of the water and the crashing of the waves is all around you, as is the glare of the sun and the spray of water. Fighting to keep your edge in the boily water as you make your ferry, i was unaware of the exact placement of the cuban until i hit it. It was lower water, i flushed right through, and had a clean line for the rest of it. My first reaction was that i was so disapointed i had waited as long as i did. I wanted to run it again. Ten months of hype for two minutes of paddling, was the best i could describe it. Was the hype worth it?

I dont know. Sometimes i think the hype makes people more hesitant to run the rapid, as i myself experianced. (then again, my first introduction to the rapid was 4o minutes of Itanda horror stories, everything that went wrong) and i didnt even see the rapid fully for my first two months. However, i also think that all the hype is what makes people want to run the rapid, even if they arent ready. I know several good boaters who were really irresponsible the first time they ran Itanda, and got spanked. In the end, i think the hype is okay- i think it affords a certain degree of respect to the rapid that is most certainly deserves. I do think that it gets in the way of being acuratley able to judge ones own abilities. My friends listened to me debate for months, and reassured me constantly that i would be fine, and i was. Maybe its good that i waited as long as i did, maybe before, i wouldn't have been ready. At any rate, i can't wait to go back and run it again.

Follow Ups

Sitting here on my last morning in uganda, trying to organize my life, and thought i would just give a quick update on soft power health, and what they are doing now. A lot of things have changed since i first arrived, both clinic staff and outreach staff have expanded, and in some cases changed. Both the nurses that were at the clinic when i started in october have since left. Jessica and Wilfred are still the driving force behind malaria outreach- but have a lot of trainees and helpers these days, including one named- i kid you not- Julius Ceaser. The malaria outreach program has expanded, doing a lot of work in the iganga district, and further out in kamuli, and even as far as Mbale and Sipi Falls area. (depending on the condition of the roads, these are anywhere from 1-4.5 hour drives). I dont know if i mentioned previously the purchase of a SPH landrover- which has proved invaluable in transporting nets and people- workers and patients around the country. The sales have been so successful, in fact, that SPH is starting to run out of nets. They are hoping to be restocked soon.

Another major change in the clinic is the name of the clinic itself. Due to rising tensions between the greater Soft Power family, and a lot of miscommunication within the Soft Power compound, Jessie decided to rename the clinic The Mukagwa Twekembe Alan Stone Community Health Clinic, partly in honor of her father, recently deceased, who offered SP and Jessie a lot of support. With the paint job the clinic recieved in January, and a new sign for the name, the clinic looks better than ever. The last time i went in to say hello it was super busy, so regardless of the name, the clinic is still doing a lot to help the greater kybirwa/bujagali community.

Annie is still running the show as jessie travels overseas, competing in the kayaking world cup/euro cup. Noone is sure when Jessie will make it back here, and Annie her self is unsure how much longer she is looking to hold this position. She will be here to January, at least, but if anyone is interested in her position, contact annie at annie@softpowerhealth.com .

There have been heaps of new volunteers coming through, some of whom ive met, some i havent. There is a new volunteer from the Foundation for Sustainable Development, (FSD) who has taken over Shannons SHARE (Spreading Hiv/Aids Awareness through Education)- teaching about HIV/AIDS and testing secondary school students in Uganda. My coloring book hasn't been put into circulation yet, but i am hoping it will soon, and i plan on bringing a copy or two back to show some people and maybe do something more with it.

The Family planning is going really well. In addition to educating, the clinic has started to provide injecta plan and pilplan to the village women, which has been really well recieved. We are due to start our second doses in the original villages, and it remains to be seen how the program will continue.

Thats about all for now, ive got to run and go get some last minute things sorted out. Hard to believe its my last day, so thank you all so much for being excited about my coming home- its hard to leave a place that has become a home, and to know people are excited to see you makes all the difference.

Ill put in a second follow up on the Kayak club and Karl and Tara a little later on, and tell you about their new project.