The Year of My Content

Cat crap coffee.

Worms and lime Jell-o.

Eggy burps and frog legs.

Boy/goat oral sex.

Derriere facials.

These are actual “search terms” that people have used, and in turn, have been directed to my blog because of. I will blame (and credit) my Africa posts for the landslide of readers wanting to learn more about parasites, diarrhoea, gin and snake bite remedies.

It’s been a year. A whole long-winded year of blogging. Rona Maynard, former editor of Chatelaine insisted I get my act together last April and take my Facebook community stage performance to a wider audience.  And what does she know? Well, when it comes to anything literary, writerly or necessary, she would be the woman I would choose to represent me for the Double Jeopardy question in any of those categories.  So I did.

“You really MUST have a blog (I say for the hundred and 99^th time).”

–Rona Maynard, April 25^th, 2009

Rona had been following my colourful (profanity-laden) posts of life in Uganda, when I volunteered with the Jane Goodall Institute. The graphic tales of nearly being shot, shitting my pants, mystery bites, eating termites with piss-warm beer  aged my parents about 20 years.

My blog evolved into an uncensored postcard. We all know letter carriers read our postcards—and with a blog, I was posting postcards to the world, essentially. Now I get immediate disclaimers from my parents and close friends: “Do NOT put that in your blog!” They’ve learned that if there’s no disclaimer, the material is fair game.

Last week, when my brother and I were particularly smiley from drinking old-fashioned whiskeys, we had a revelation. The blog had evolved into another purpose—it was my data bank–the hard drive of my mind! Dax and I were trying to remember my mother’s famous quote about boredom. We struggled for a good five minutes, trying to assist each other’s memory. Dax finally wisely said, “Oh, just look it up on your blog tomorrow.”

(And I did. I knew exactly where to find it. My mother had said, “Only boring people get bored.”)

Writing a weekly blog is self-indulgent. I get to explore all my passions without worrying about parameters (with only my fear of being boring in mind). Readers can tune in or be turned off in mere sentences. I’ve written about many controversial topics (Chaz Bono and her “gender variance”, the bushmeat trade in the Congo, Abbotsford gangs). I’ve detailed the side effects (read: toilet visits) of living in Africa and what happens when one eats fly-infested meat that has been hanging in the equatorial sun for hours.  

Ikia

There have been posts that I’ve written with tears running down to my collarbones from start to finish (when Mila was dying of cancer). In the Congo, I funnelled rage and sadness into a post about Ikia, the chimpanzee who died in our arms 12 hours after arriving at the sanctuary because of governmental delays.

With my writing, I’ve convinced more people NOT to go to Africa than I have convinced to go. All that was raw, unsettling, dusty and disturbing, I included.  A foodie review of pan-fried goat testicles and crispy frog legs didn’t come across as I intended. I thought I was living high off the hog in the Congo. Or, high off the goat, at least. Noelle from P.E.I. thought otherwise: “You scare the shit out of me, yet make me laugh at the same time. As much as I love Africa and dream about going, the more I read your stories the more I think….yeah, I’ll stick with my Animal Kingdom.  You’re brave and you do belong to Africa.”

The year in review saw posts from Uganda, Kenya, Banff, the Congo (pit stop in Zimbabwe), Amsterdam, British Columbia, Toronto, Nashville, Venezuela and the dozens of places my restless mind travelled to in between. There were tributes to my nearest and dearest, nostalgic excerpts from the diary of my 13-year-old self (that was an out loud love letter to my grade 8 fiancee, Robert LeBovic), fried grasshoppers, Thai cooking classes, bitching about moving across Canada, corrupt Congolese police tales, musings on love,  lost in translation stories, half-marathons…sigh, there was a lot.

I woke up in so many beds, under so many mosquito nets and starry hemispheres, after so much gin and tonic with four Q-tips worth of safari dust in my ears. I packed up a life in BC and unpacked one in Toronto. I quit jobs, found new ones, had fecal-oral contamination, went piranha fishing, had Banff ticks that I flew home to Abbotsford with via Westjet, itched for nearly six months due to something else, and fell in love with the charms of Nashville and the chimps of the Congo.

And you followed me, like shadows, to the corners of the earth, and the corners of my mind. Which puts me in an odd place at times. Is there any mystery left to me? I’ve put it all out there. Strangers know me better than my non-blog reading co-workers. Is this a good or a bad thing?

I’ve spent tonight reading through 60+ of my favourite glowing comments that I’ve saved in my inbox in response to the blog. If I include one, I have to include them all. If  I quote my mom, then I have to have a dad quote, and then I’ll feel awkward and like I’m playing favourites if I don’t include Dax and Kiley. Then there’s Suzanne, and her sister Jo, Kay, Connie, Heidi, Kelly W. Leslie, Wendy G., Mag, Jann, Kristyn, Jules (not me), Wendy M., Rona (of course!), Rodney, Sass, David, Carol, Karen, Carol (another one, I’m not repeating myself), Kim & Kim (not together), Steph, Lynne (and Al who gets the postings read to him by Lynne on drives up to the houseboat)…I’m forgetting important people here—Farrah, Kaitlin, Chantal, Martine, Pamela, Toni, Nunavut Michelle, Karen of way west Queen west (the Nunavut of Toronto), Karin, Martha, Kathleen, Babysnooks, the ever-breeding Twitter population, Andie, my Body Blitz fan club, Rose, Nancy, Corie, Denny, Jennifer Aniston (oh, are you still paying attention?)…

Thank you to all my dedicated and drop-in readers for your rallying cries, support, chides, type-o alerts and genuine blog love. And a special thank you to my parents for not cutting me off the Christmas card list for all the Torti secrets that I have spilled.

The moments we most remember when we look back are the ones that made us feel more deeply than usual. Feel pain, feel elation, feel despair.  There’s a Feist song I like that says, “I feel it all, I feel it all…..my wings are wide, my wings are wide.” So great.—Staci Frenes

And so another year begins, with wings as wide as an albatross (that’s a 2.4 meter wingspan).

 Join me?

Bravery?

Jane and Jules, chimp lovers

On the weekend, two friends remarked on how brave I was to go to the Congo. Brave? I was blinded by a passion that didn’t even allow me to consider any ill-fated consequences. I had an opportunity to work with chimpanzees—after hearing that, my mind was already in fast-forward, mentally packing my bag and visualizing my Jane Goodall moment.

When I decided to go to Costa Rica and volunteer for three months at age 20, I was also commended on my bravery. Again, it was a selfish indulgence. Live in a jungle hut and pick bananas off the trees for breakfast? What could possibly go wrong in the jungle? Where do I sign up?

I’ve made a lot of questionable decisions over the years. Again, I blame it on the blinding passion. Like the time I hitchhiked to Clayoquot Sound, BC, to stand on a logging road blocking the path of the trucks ready to level another stand of trees.

My ‘bravery’ can also be blamed for my enthusiasm to have a pint at the most bombed-out bar in all of Europe. Who wouldn’t want to do that? As I sat in the pub across from the Opera House in Belfast, Ireland, I was sure that after 33 bombings, surely a 34^th couldn’t happen. Not while I was there. Not on my watch.

Scrappy, the dog who dodged a bullet

In Uganda I stood strong (‘bravely’) as Debby and I had a gun pointed in our direction by a Ugandan Wildlife Authority guard. The guard was ready to shoot Scrappy, one of the dogs from the Jane Goodall office. When Debby remarked on the guard’s ignorance in shooting a dog in front of a young child, the barrel of the gun was suddenly a little too close for comfort. But shoot Scrappy? The guard would definitely have to shoot Debby and I first.

But still, it was ‘bravery’ that made me walk (at incredibly high speeds) away from the corrupt police who wanted to confiscate my camera in Entebbe.  They had guns too (sawed-off shotguns in fact), ready to be used if necessary—however, I could barely hear their threats over the THUMPTHUMPTHUMP of my heart. Was it worth being shot in the back over a stupid camera? On that day, yes. I had a really nice sunset shot from Anderita Beach and a cool picture of a Marabou stork in a dumpster.

Steph commented that I was brave to stay three nights in Nairobi by myself after missing my flight to the Congo. To me, there was no other option. I had heard all the horror stories already—the missionary couple who were attacked with machetes, the brutal carjackings and the bombing of the American Embassy. These highlights were pointed out on the Nairobi tour with my hired driver.

When I think back to my time in Costa Rica, it was clear and present danger on a daily basis. Our group was situated near the Panama border and we passed by drug-runners with flour sacs full of marijuana on a daily basis. We avoided eye contact and both went on our merry, separate ways. Except the drug-runners had AK-47’s slung over their shoulders and machetes on their hip. I had a Swiss Army knife that I couldn’t open at the best of times.

Last week when I told my mother that I had booked a trip to Venezuela there was a gasp. Naturally she was nervous that I was taking off on another four month sojourn. When I told her it was just for a week, she resumed breathing and said, “Well, don’t get yourself kidnapped down there because they want gazillions of dollars in ransom.” Nice.

And this is when I had the flashback of the drug-runners and ‘missing persons’ in the jungle. Locals often disappeared and the mighty Water Tiger that lived in the Cuen River was blamed. I’d put my poker chips on the dudes with the flour sacs.

And it all led to this– the night in the jungle that I didn’t feel very brave at all. I was imagining my story as a Reader’s Digest Drama in Real Life feature. Mostly I hoped I would live to tell the story to someone, anybody.

Jungle Jules, circa age 20

Our volunteer group of 12 lived in a hut with a tree bark floor and palm frond roof. There were no walls. Twelve of us lived in a space the size of a North American living room, with mosquito nets strung about the ‘ceiling’ like a massive spider web. Wild boars lived under the hut and made horrific screaming sounds in the night that sounded like women being murdered.

We had been together since early December, and all threads of patience had been completely frayed. In one exasperated moment, I hid Alex’s drumsticks in the palm fronds because I was visualizing a homicide due to his incessant drumming. Every Sunday we had a meeting to discuss our feelings which basically evolved into a Lord of the Flies-esque scenario. We could barely tolerate each other anymore with such close quarters, paralyzing body odour, Chihuahua-sized mosquitoes and drumming.

Our group was motley—with reps from Costa Rica, Canada and Australia. We had already split into Survivor-type alliances (and this was way before Mark Burnett created the show that would hook millions of viewers all these seasons later). Rachel from Prince Edward Island was my go-to girl, and we often shared our hidden stashes of Oreos, bathtub warm beer and just-discovered orange trees with each other.

But on January 20^th? I was looking out for number one.

My loft condo in Alto Cuen, Costa Rica

The Cabecar chief of Alto Cuen had generously offered his own hut to us for the duration of our stay. He also pointed out an abandoned hut a 10 minute walk into the rainforest that we could also use. We decided that one hut would be for cooking and sleeping, and the satellite hut would be a place for reading, writing and siestas. Library voices only. It was a perfect retreat. On the days when the rain pounded down and bounced off the ground, a book, a sleeping bag and some secret chocolate balanced the world.

We were a gruelling 12 km hike from the closest village. The trip involved six tricky river crossings (one of our group members nearly drowned on one occasion when we hiked in with horses. Her backpack caught on the rope that we were using to cross the rapids when one of the horses was startled and moved downstream. Alice was trapped in the current with the weight of the pack on her. But that’s another story). Our trips into ‘town’ were planned for every third week to pickup canned goods, flour, mail and chocolate.

On that January day in 1996, I told Alice I was going to the satellite hut (the “Summer House” as we began to refer to it), with a crappy Costa Rican blueberry chocolate bar stuffed in my bra. I had received some mail from home and was eager to tear into the letters.

The path to the Summer House was like a page out of a fairy tale. Brilliant orchids, butterflies bobbing about in huge clouds of bright yellow and crimson wings, verdant vines snaking up trees, processions of carpenter ants marching along, toucans crash-landing into the palms—the awe of living in a virgin rainforest never escaped me.

I ate my chocolate bar in painfully small rations. Our diet consisted of rice and black beans, oily mackerel, glue-like oatmeal, yucca (which when mashed had the consistency of Vaseline), plantain and bananas. I read my mail, twice probably, licked the chocolate bar foil clean and had a cat nap.

I slept longer than anticipated and awoke with a start at 5:55 pm. I quickly slipped on my rubber boots and turned on my Petzl head lamp and headed off to the main hut. Living on the equator and in a valley, it was completely dark at 6:05. There was no dusk, just day and a very dark night.

(Direct journal entry follows, recounted with a lot of swearing after the ‘event’)

I should have changed the batteries in my Petzl. Oh well, I continued on. And on.  And on. Hmmm. Didn’t recall it taking so long to get to the other hut. Hmmm. No orange tape on the tree to signal the turn in the path. Hmmm. Where the FUCK was the path?

I was totally fucking lost. Self-talk: Don’t panic. Going to die, but don’t panic. The roots and vines were closing in on me.  I turned off my flashlight to preserve batteries while I contemplated my life so far.

–More cursing—

I decided to yell.

“PHIL? ANDREA? TIA? SHAYE? ANYBODY?”

Long pause.

A million deafening crickets. No voices. I was listening so hard I was hallucinating voices.

“PHIL? ANDREA? I’m lost in the woods!”

My voice was getting shakier. My legs? Could I feel them? My heart threatening to have an attack. I had a sudden revelation. Not only was I lost in the woods,  I was lost in the JUNGLE. In Costa Rica! In an indigenous village! I was hollering in English and they speak Cabecar and a little Spanish. I was fucked. Think Spanish. Think Spanish. Una cervesa. El gato es en la bano (The cat is in the bathroom—I knew that phrase from Spanish class would come in handy!).

“DESCULPE!” That was it! Help! I remembered how to say ‘help’ in Spanish. I begin yelling desculpe. I developed an instant sore throat from yelling. (*I later learn when recounting my story to the group that ‘desculpe’ means ‘excuse me’ not ‘help me. So, I was in the middle of the $&%* jungle yelling “EXCUSE ME!”)

 I looked at my watch. 6:17. Everyone was having dinner, clearly not missing me.

The Bosque

I shouted some more, not willing to take any more time to think of the complete scariness of my predicament. I was so far from the hut that NO ONE could hear me? Then I remembered the Spanish word for forest—‘bosque.’ I holler “El Lost-ay in the bosque!”

Long pause.

They always say to hug a tree and stay in the same spot when you are lost (THEY were obviously not lost in the jungle in short sleeves with malaria-laden mozzies looking for bare skin landing strips).  Blah, blah, blah.  I convince myself that I can find my way back to the path.  Experiencing extreme denial of not being lost, I walk for a few more minutes. I thought I was lost before? Now I was reallllly lost. In the exact middle of fuck-all Costa Rica. Or Panama for all I knew.

 A million eyes were watching me. The whistle that they put on the Suggested Items to Pack list would have come in handy at this precise time.

I went back to yelling desculpe. I yell desculpe until I am hoarse—finally I hear a sound in response. Kind of an “AYE.” I respond with my urgent desculpe and AQUI! (here), hoping I’m not attracting a randy drug runner with gold teeth.

“Excuse me here! I love squash. Do you like green carpet?” Who knows what I was yelling. The voice grew closer. I turned on my headlamp (that I turned off, figuring I might be spending my night in the jungle. Thought I might want some battery power for when the jaguars attacked me). I started walking towards the voice. Did I say walking towards the voice? I was running. Totally bushwhacking. “AQUI! AQUI!”

The voice belonged to a Cabecar man and a woman with a baby in a papoose. I began explaining my Lost-ay in the Bosque story in caveman Spanglish.

I’d been found, but was at a loss. Where did I belong? I pulled a pen and a letter from my pack and began to draw the village church. “Jesu Christo?” I asked. I printed Reto Juvenil (Youth Challenge, the name of the group I was with). No response, they probably couldn’t read. I drew the soccer field. “Octavio?” We’d been working with Octavio, one of the prominent community members on the construction site.

“No se.” (I don’t know).

The woman with the papoose took my letter and walked away. The man followed. (I was definitely not sticking around the jungle by myself!) I followed them, stepping on their heels in fact. “Octavio’s casa aqui?” (Octavio’s house here?). There was a grunt response. I was never good at small talk, but kept trying. “El bosque es mucho neigre a la noche.” (The forest is very black at night). No grunt. Nothing. We walked quietly and quickly in the dark.

We walked and walked (15-20 minutes) into a jungle-y dead end. Excellent, now we were all lost-ay. But I heard voices. We were approaching a hut with glowing lanterns. MY HOUSE!! I could see Phil and Tomas by the fire in the kitchen. “WITABADA!” (‘thank you’ in Cabecar). I said this 10 times and shook the hands of my rescuers a little too firmly (Cabecar handshakes are a mere brushing of the palms).

I can’t even remember what my knight in shining armour looked like. The whole hour of lost-ness was such a frantic blur.

I returned to the hut and there were no excited faces or eager embraces. They hadn’t missed me at all. While I was having the most terrifying moment of my life, a near-death experience if you will, my jungle pals were playing gin rummy, drumming and eating my share of the rice and beans. They figured I was sleeping. They didn’t hear my desperate calls for help. I must have been in Panama for sure–all because I didn’t want to share my chocolate bar and wanted a bit of quiet time and personal space. I almost had all the personal space I wanted!

The following day this quote appears in my journal:

Security is mostly a superstition

It does not exist in nature,

Nor do the children of men as a whole experience it

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run

Than outright exposure

Life is either a daring adventure

Or nothing

To keep our faces towards change and behave like free spirits

In the presence of fate

Is strength undefeatable.

–Helen Keller (1940)

Limon Naval Base, Costa Rica

On February 17^th, 1996, our group was evacuated from the jungle by local military and flown to a naval base in Limon. The militia were doing emergency food supply drop-offs in the Astrella Valley due to major flooding of the Cuen River when they discovered us in Alto Cuen. The suspension bridge had been washed out and we had lost radio contact weeks ago.

Brave?

Let’s just say I’ve had a few experiences that have put my life in an altered perspective. It’s a daring adventure—or nothing. I’m with Helen on this one.

Up in the Air, Elephants and Entebbe

By now all the rabid George Clooney fans have oooh-ed and ahhhh-ed over his schmoozy Ryan Bingham persona in Up In the Air. The Golden Globes are always a convincing force, pushing everyone else into the theatres to see the greedy award-grabbers like Avatar, The Hangover and Up in the Air for themselves.

So I went, because I like to be pop-culturally informed. If you are holding out for the rental so you don’t have to pay $12 for popcorn, there’s no spoiler here. Ryan Bingham’s life revolves around flying. In fact, being grounded leaves him unbalanced and twitchy. However, when love tempts him, he begins to reconsider his whole life. Maybe everyone else has it right. Maybe love, permanency and a home with a full fridge and drawers is attractive and natural. Bingham’s solace had long been the routine and simplicity of airline travel.  He had no baggage other than what he checked in at the airport. Or did he?

His motivational speeches on the absurd weight of the physical and emotional baggage that we carry turns as flat as an open Coke left on the counter overnight. His sister’s impending marriage reveals his estranged relationship with his entire family. When he meets his match in Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga), Bingham re-evaluates his life spent in the sky, travelling 320 days of the year.

The movie should have convinced the audience that baggage is good. It represents a life well-lived, friends and partners well-loved, dogs, cats, the whole sloppy and gorgeous mess. 

So, why did I find myself in the travel section of Indigo Books minutes after the movie ended? Up in the Air reminded me of the anticipation that pulsates in airports. I wondered where I would/should go next. I pulled a guide book from the shelf on volunteer opportunities abroad and decided to play a game with myself. I let the book fall open to a random page, and decided that would be my next destination. I averted my gaze (to avoid cheating myself). I looked at the page that fate had opened to:  Thailand’s Elephant Sanctuary.

Because I’m a Switzerland when it comes to making decisions, I’ve decided this will be my new tactic. The 100-acre sanctuary is located 50km from Chiang Mai in the Mai Taman Valley. Many of the elephants are rescued in an injured state from poaching activity, as seen with one individual who arrived with only one tusk. Once rehabilitated the elephants are released into “Elephant Haven,” a 2,000-acre natural forest where they can live safely with the herd of 25 that has already found a forever home in the Haven.

Volunteers stay in bamboo chalets, collect fodder with machetes during the dry season and can accompany a vet on the “Jumbo Express.” Working elephants kept by remote hill tribes receive veterinary care during such missions. Mornings begin with car-washing the elephants in the river. Because they are prone to parasites and other skin conditions, they require a daily squeegee job. At noon, when the pick-up truck rolls in with papayas, pineapples and bananas, “you are covered in fruit pulp and elephant snot” in minutes. Awesome!

J.A.C.K. Lubumbashi, Congo

I walked home from Indigo in the spitting rain, inspired and imagining elephant snot. I went online and read more. I checked out the Tennessee elephant sanctuary again and made notes in my not-so-official Five Year Plan book. Then I saw a Facebook posting from PASA Primates in need of volunteers at the Drill Ranch in Nigeria, working with orphaned chimps and mandrills. I jetted off an email immediately for more details.  Then I received news that the J.A.C.K. sanctuary in the Congo (where I volunteered in July) has three more chimps arriving after being found at an abandoned captive facility in DR Congo. That made me want to fly back to Lubumbashi tomorrow.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I will probably volunteer more than I will work in my life.

It was just over a year ago that I watched Entebbe, Uganda disappear below me. The tears in my eyes made the few lights of the ‘city’ double. Landing at Schipol and taking the train into Amsterdam was a rude slap. Winter! That hospitable African sun no longer warmed my skin. I immediately forgot about the nuisance red dust that came with that lovely sunshine.

I rented Out of Africa the very next day. I looked at all 800 of my pictures on a regular basis and cried for the dogs and pals that I left behind. I missed the frenetic pace of the Tuesday night market. Having a warm Nile beer with a bowl of salty grasshoppers as the sun dropped into Lake Victoria. I wanted a Stoney Tangawizi (fiery ginger beer) and a rolex (an omelette with chopped cabbage and tomoato rolled into a greasy chapatti) from a shifty street vendor. As I ran in the sopping BC rain along McKee creek, I wanted to feel that stupid dust in my eyes and ears. I was sad to not be dodging scrawny goats and fleet-footed chickens and ‘boda-bodas’ (mopeds) with 400-pound Nile perch flapping on the back.  I missed Africa in an almost pathetic way. Like a heart-broken lover.

And then my friend Heidi reminded me of all the things I had casually forgotten about when living in Africa. Travelling as a videographer with World Vision, she spent the last two weeks in Entebbe, Gulu and Kampala. I was thrilled to tell her about each place—what she had to eat (pizza at Anderita Beach, Nee’s green curry at the Gately) and how the sunsets would catch the sky on fire. My only warning was about the darling vervet monkeys who were prone to stealing bananas from your hand, or anything else that they assumed was edible.

Taxi??

And I think I mentioned that Kampala was a zoo, but I didn’t want to be like a movie reviewer with a spoiler in the first sentence. I did send a photo of the Kampala taxi park as a subtle warning though. It’s a football field of ‘matatus’ (mini-van taxis), each with a horn which is blared in response to other blaring horns. Just like barking dogs, one starts, and the rest join in. But Heidi had been to Zambia, she knew the drill.

The flight to Entebbe alone is enough to cause exasperation in any sane person. Sitting upright for what seems like 108 hours is the first hurdle. Sleepless and rattled by disappearing time zones, you arrive in the vacuum cylinder that is Entebbe. It smells like one big armpit. The skeletal dogs you pass by are like a non-stop Humane Society commercial with some achy Sarah McLachlan song cooing in the background.

The dust begins to blow, the sweat begins to drip until you feel like you’ve taken a dip and are stuck wearing your wet swimsuit for the rest of the five hour car ride.

Heidi’s first post mentioned her exhilaration in finally arriving in Uganda, despite the cold shower (yeah, I forgot about the frequency of those too). She was looking forward to sleeping on her single bed with the lumpy foam mattress. I nearly spit wine all over my laptop screen. I remembered the foam mattresses well. They make you sweat so much that when you wake up, you think you’ve pissed the bed. And then there’s the mosquito net to wrangle with.  If they are hung from the ceiling on a hoop, there is a fantastic chance that by morning, there is a huge gap somewhere in the netting and 500 malaria-carrying mosquitoes are trapped inside the net with you.

Heidi’s Twitter-ed dinner reports were the most dramatic (and realistic). I think after being in Entebbe for four months, I had become used to the starch intake. A typical lunch or dinner would include: matoke (steamed green plantain), potatoes, yams and rice. Served with, as Heidi eloquently described it, “chicken parts.”

Yes, there were always mystery parts. I think I had part of a goat’s stomach in some broth once. But I conveniently forgot about the stench of fish for sale on the sidewalk in Kampala. The body odour that permeates all air molecules. There were several matatu rides where I had to do a lot of self-talk in tandem with my iPod and The Killers at a deafening level.

And then there was the internet and electricity issue. The patchy communications home made my mother routinely WRITE IN CAPITAL LETTERS. In Entebbe, the power went off in the airport as soon as I arrived. The luggage carousel was halted, but speech was not! The airport was alive with the raised voices of wilting missionaries and UN workers and Tilly-hatted tourists in safari suits fanning themselves as they complained to anyone who made eye contact.

I forgot about the crappy internet connection. I forgot about the stretches of three or four days without electricity. And the hurried cold showers that accompanied them.

When Heidi returned to Nashville, I relived my return home. Clean sheets, clean surfaces, meat without flies on it, ice cubes, soap! Deodorized people! No one yelling “Mizungo! Mizungo! Give me money! Mizungo, buy this!”

And I had space. I have probably only yelled twice in my life, and not even at a dog the other time. However, when I was flying out of Lubumbashi in July I had to yell against my will. Maybe it was more of a really loud voice than a yell, but, the man behind me had his passport pressed into my back. His jacket was practically slung over my shoulder and I could feel his hot, stale breath on my neck. I could feel myself cracking my own molars, trying to resist an eruption. “STANDING CLOSER TO ME DOES NOT MAKE THE LINE GO FASTER.” I erupted. It happens to the best of us when travelling.

And this is another blessing of North America (besides meat without flies and reliable wi-fi). We give each other personal space. It’s an unspoken rule that doesn’t exist everywhere in the world.

But, if we don’t travel and put ourselves in unfamiliar landscapes, how do we ever appreciate laundry detergent, $5 coffees and toilet seats? Or being served chicken instead of chicken parts? Distance from comfort, family and friends refines gratitude.

Public washroom in Kampala, Uganda

Even though I was reminded of all the nerve-fraying aspects of African travel, I am still halfway there in my head. I can always come home to a toilet seat and pocket-coil mattress again. It might be time to rent Out of Africa again. Apparently I miss corruption, using 500 Q-tips a month, parasites, starch and riding in matatus with 19 people, 6 chickens, blaring gospel music and an oily car-engine half on my lap.

Doesn’t everyone?

“Once you have travelled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.” –Pat Conroy

Heidi’s World Vision Zambia footage featuring “All the Days” by Jann Arden:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYidUQIY0r4

Elephant Sanctuary in Thailand: http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/

Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee: http://www.elephants.com/

The Drill Ranch in Nigeria: http://www.pandrillus.org/projects/drill-ranch/

J.A.C.K. in Lubumbashi: http://jack.wildlifedirect.org/

Why All the Talk About Africa?

It was past midnight last May when I was waiting for an epiphany. I had been dreaming of hummingbirds biting me, which I learned later was a sign of restlessness. I had no idea at that time that such restlessness would see me flying to Africa in September.

The semester at Douglas College had just drawn to a close, and I was wondering what I could do to marry my interests of creative writing and my passion for animals. A colleague had landed a cool copywriter gig at the Telus World of Science in Vancouver. That’s when I realized that there were broader possibilities out there—and I Googled the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI).

I scrolled through the job postings and randomly applied for a position designing an environmental studies-based curriculum, despite being totally unqualified. I thought of Peter Mansbridge and his early days, working as a clerk at an airport in Manitoba. The airport announcer had called in sick, and with no short notice replacement available, the supervisor asked Mansbridge to announce a delayed flight. A local radio station manager was in the wings, heard his voice and recruited Mansbridge on the spot. He was shuffled to CBC radio’s northern service shortly thereafter. This is how things happen.

Chimp at Ngamba Island Sanctuary, Entebbe, Uganda

With an urge to do something bigger and stretch my mind into a downward dog of its own, I sent off the application with my beefed-up resume and then looked for Uganda on the globe. At that point, I had no idea where in Africa it sat. The curriculum designer position was for six months, beginning in July. When April and May rolled by, I assumed that the position had been filled.

During the last week of June I received an email from JGI Uganda. A posting that my skill set would be better suited for had become available. Would I be interested in editing a book on the tribes and totems of Uganda? As soon as possible?

It’s no secret that I find great difficulty in decision-making. Choosing between the coconut curry stew and the lemongrass chicken at New Saigon is agonizing. Do I want a skim latte or a mochacinno? A Sidekick or a VW Golf? How was I supposed to make a snap decision like going to Africa, as soon as possible? Sending off an application in May was cerrtainly spontaneous, but my nature is to brood, fret, think, re-think and create pro and con lists as thick as a phone book. God, really? Me? Uganda? I hadn’t told anyone about applying for the job…

And then I was there (after much see-sawing), from September 2008, to January 2009. The Tribes and Totems of Uganda project was a fascinating project, and the pile of 500 submissions from local elementary students soon narrowed into a comprehensive collection. The learning curve was exactly what my restless self needed. When I roared through that assignment and found myself with two months left in my volunteer stint, Debby Cox, then director of JGI, asked if I could draw primates. I guessed yes, I probably could. My days were soon consumed by designing a colouring book on the primates of Uganda. When an employee of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Foundation came to visit, I was suddenly drawing the primates of Rwanda to be used in a colouring book format for them.

I was in my element, drawing bushbabies and monkeys all day. What could be more fulfilling? Well, I will find out this July.

On safari in Queen Elizabeth Park (Uganda) at Christmas, I met Chantal Jacques, co-director of J.A.C.K. (Jeunes Animaux Confisques au Katanga—Young Animals Confiscated in Katanga), a refuge centre for orphaned chimps confiscated by the Ministry of the Environment in the Congo. Chantal was interested in hearing more about my work with JGI and we exchanged emails as our tour groups were heading in different directions. What I didn’t expect a few months later was her email asking if I might like to visit the Congo in July and volunteer for a month.

This decision came quicker, yes. Yes!

Mac, at Ngamba Island

The opportunity to volunteer at J.A.C.K. will allow direct contact with the chimps, unlike my JGI experience. Chantal has pre-warned me of early mornings, preparing milk for the chimps. The house where I will be staying has no water (yet), electricity is dodgy, and Internet connections are patchy at best. And there is no postal service. Did I really want to come?

I was already knee-deep in my Congo research. Reading the refuge blog pulled me in even further. I have learned that the refuge has nearly insurmountable barriers to conquer. The Swahili word for wildlife,“nyama,” is the same term used for “meat.” Great apes and primates continue to be killed as a food source in the lucrative bushmeat trade, and as ancestral custom. One Congolese tribe believes that crushing and cooking the bones of an ape will allow the child who drinks the powder the strength of the chimpanzee that was killed. Infant chimps are smuggled by members of the Congo Army, high ranking Congolese and by request for expatriates wanting a darling little pet. Ten chimpanzees usually die for every baby taken as the family struggles and fights to defend the infant from poachers.

Franck and Roxanne Chantereau, co-directors of J.A.C.K. estimate that chimp trafficking in the last 10 years in the Congo has resulted in the death of over 4,000 chimpanzees. Still, chimps are found being sold for small change on roadsides in Lubumbashi. J.A.C.K., a self-funded NGO was started in April 2006 in response. The refuge, located in the Lubumbashi Zoo, was created to provide a safe space for orphaned chimps to live, as they wouldn’t have the ability to survive in the wild.

Education is key focus of the the refuge, and their accessibility (no admission fee) helps expose locals to the consequence of poaching, eating bushmeat and smuggling. There are plans to build a visitor’s centre with informative displays showing the correlation between local lifestyle and the impact on the future of chimpanzees in the Congo, where 40% of the remaining African population lives.

Even though my parents and partner aren’t exactly doing cartwheels about me travelling to the Congo, they see the lure. Of course they worry that I will pull a Meryl Streep and become an Out of Africa story, deciding to stay, buying myself a nice coffee plantation to live on. But that was Karen Blixen’s story, and I have my own to write!

* To immediately transport yourself to Africa, check  the “Into and Out of Africa” category on my site. Here, in chronological order, you can travel with me all over again beginning with From Your African Correspondent, Jules Torti (September 20, 2008) to Stories From Across the Water (January 23, 2009), which was posted shortly after my return to Canada.

For more information on J.A.C.K.:  http://www.jackdrc.org/

J.A.C.K. Blog:  http://jack.wildlifedirect.org/

Jane Goodall Institute Africa programs:

http://www.janegoodall.org/africa-programs/programs/uganda.asp

From Your Africa Correspondent, Jules Torti

September 20, 2008

Where do I begin when everything is so radically different from the landcape I have come from? There are familiar aspects, like dogs underfoot. Here at the Jane Goodall office there are five: Levi, the white rhodesian ridgeback, Tinker (black lab who brings sticks smaller than cigarettes for you to throw to him), Scrappy (the true African dog with ears perked up in a manner that resembles a bird coming in for landing, and Buster and Beevis (two pups in guard dog training). There are also two cats, Pops and Juwa, who are probably wondering what the hell they did in their last life to deserve the company of five dogs.
The office (where I also live–enjoying a one minute commute down the stairs to work) overlooks Lake Victoria, which is the cichlid capital of the world, if you are a fish hobbyist like my bro. I’m wondering how I can bring back some cichlids for him with the 100ml liquid restriction with the airlines.
My housemates are Carol (from Boston, but without a Boston accent as she is of Ann Arbor, Michigan blood), Mary-Lou (from Australia, all 6’4 of her), and Aura, who reminds me of Katherine Hepburn–or is it Audrey? She is known as Mother Superior, and is currently on Ngamba Island working at the chimp sanctuary.
Life on the equator means the first break of sunlight is around 6:20 am, and by 7:15 there is a blackness in the sky that Toronto will never see! There are a few solar powered street lamps, but these seem to be a mile apart.

There are mango, avocado and coffee trees–and a thousand birds. Each morning I wake to the sound of a rooster programmed to cockle-doodle-doo at 4:30. Carol tells me the family buys the bird on Sunday, fattens it up all week, then eats it on Friday. So, the weekends are quieter, due to the rooster being roasted. The birds start a ruckus shortly after the rooster, and I am eager to match the bird songs with the bodies. One of the bird’s calls sounds like the “plook, plook” of a leaky faucet.

The hornbills zoom in and sound like kites taking a sharp cut in the wind, fish eagles (like the bald eagle) take the wingspan prize as they soar with wingtips reaching 10 feet, on the wind currents. The blue turacos are the most spectacular but I have a certain fondness for Uganda’s most loathed bird: themarabu stork. They look lheroin addicts with haggard bodies and jerky movements. They are so awkward, they are like the Bambi of the bird world adjusting to their wings and ability to fly. Their heads are bald, and they need a good bath, probably because they spend most of their life poking through the dumpsters.
The vervet monkeys are a comical bunch–and a few days ago, I was nearly robbed by a pack of them in a parking lot. For my birthday, I thought it only proper that I find some sort of African cake but, I haven’t been able to locate the Entebbe Costco yet (haha). So, for 400 shillings(30 cents?) I found my cake. I also bought some buns (from a shop that sold Ugandan sherry, cooking oil, lollipops, yarn, soap and that’s about it). As I cut through the Imperial Beach hotel lot I spied a great picture of monkeys sitting on the arms of a wheelbarrow. I pulled out my camera, zoomed in and felt a tug on my bun bag. I turned around to see a vervet monkey with his mightly little hands tugging at my bag.

Then, I was swarmed–it was the monkey bun mafia!! I pulled and pulled, and the monkey was actually hanging, suspended, from my bun bag!! The others edged closer, trying to intimidate me, but I stood my ground. It was my birthday cake, dammit!! Finally, he let go, but the monkeys stayed close on my heels, still plotting how to get my goods. Eventually they dropped off and clamboured up into the trees, Barrel of Monkeys style.
So, the cake. It tasted like bread. And the buns? Tasted like cake. I had made a sandwich and it was like fresh tomato and cheese on a donut. And, with no presvatives in this country, it crumbled apart like a taco. Carol informed me later that there are two varieties of bun: salt buns and sweet buns. I would have to check the ingredients.
My first market experience was a complete sensory massage. Every Tuesday, vendors congregate to sell everything from rat traps to knock-off watches, to pineapples and eggplants. There are heaps and heaps of second-hand clothes, apparently shipped from North America as Value Village rejects. There are winter parkas for sale, skinned goats, and rolexes. By rolex, I mean the ultimate Ugandan street food (although there are knock-off Rolex watches too). It’s a greasy cabbage and tomato omelette rolled up in a chapati for, about 75 cents. Carol insisted that we have a rolex, and street chicken. This was the ultimate test for my Dukoral, the travellers anti-diarrhea medication. I thought for sure I’d be shitting my pants in the night, tangled up in my mosquito net trying to get to the toilet. We sat at a table below the street level, just as night was falling. Kerosene torches lit the length of the street as crowds pushed along. Wild cats circled under the table as a young boy provided water for us to wash our hands. I wondered later where the water came from, but thougt, eating street chicken was the worst evil.
The market just hums. Many of the vendors sell the same produce (mostly onions, tomatoes, peppers, bananas, peas, limes, ginger), so there are great attempts to make their blanket area the most visually appealing. Tomatoes are stacked 4-5 high and the best eggplants are fanned out in front with open sacs showcasing tiny minnow-sized dried fish. I asked for four tomatoes, but was given 8–Carol told me that this is normal. “They always give you 3-4 rottten ones to get rid of them.”
The grocery ‘stores’ sell peanut butter, sardines, Cadbury chocolate, unrefrigerated eggs and bottled Coca-Cola. There are cassava and matoke (cooking banana) chips and even a local icecream.
On the streets there is constant motion. As they drive UK style (opposite side of the road), my morning runs have been a test of dodging bikes carrying six foot lengths of aluminum, sacs of pineapples, matatus (SUV taxi) honking horns, and boda-bodas (moped taxis) zooming by with 3 people on them. Women sit sidesaddle, sometimes there is a smiley kid in front, and everything gets transported this way. Yesterday a boda boda driver had a suitcase in the front, a rolled up duvet and a live chicken in his hand. A version of the African motorhome?
Poverty is very close at hand. The road I lived on has two 3-star hotels, a golf course, the zoo, and an AIDS clinic. However, turn off this road in any direction and there are mud huts, women sweeping dirt from the dirt in front of their homes. Fires of rubbish are burning, skinny dogs run along the ditches, and chickens run truly free range.
The roads are red, like burnt sienna of Crayola crayons. In the morning, the roads are dotted with kids immaculately dressed in school uniforms (bright purple, yellow and green, pink & red–they certainly make fine use of the colour wheel). With so many people all at once, it seems as though a concert or movie has just ended. Where did everyone come from, and where are they going? The kids yell out to me: “Mizungo! Mizungo!” I am a celebrity for my skin colour alone here. The men holler out, “America!” I like to think it’s because I look like Miss America. But, it is again my skin, white=America.

During the week I am actively working on my project: to compile and edit stories and artwork about the tribes and totems of Uganda. The Jane Goodall Institute runs a program for kids called Roots & Shoots, and this book development is part of that. There were over 500 submissions from 40 local schools to sift through. The stories are dramatic, and some of the drawings quite comical. The lion seems to garner the most intriguing interpretations.
Ruth, our housekeeper provides lunches during the week that are wonderful, but leave me in a starch coma. The diet here is very soft–bananas, rice, matoke (mashed banana), eggplant, millet loaf–Wanda, my saviour is sending All-Bran bars in hope that I can have a bowel movement at least once a month.

sunbird

There is a calm here, of suspended time. Technology is ever-present (many Ugandans have cell phones pressed to their ears, and Big Brother Africa 3 has a huge following), but I have found pleasure in reading more and eating breakfast with nothing more than the scenery to read (part of me does miss the Vancouver Sun folded out though!). With early dark nights, it is easy to follow the pattern of the sun. Plus, I have yet to find the switch that turns the early morning birds off.
That’s my first week in Africa…the condensed version. It is difficult to communicate the vibrant colours and peculiar sounds and warmth of the equator, because it is so very different from the landscapes of my life so far. Aside from missing my gal and dog incredibly, the richness of this experience illuminates the reason why we live: to pursue our dreams and stretch our minds a little farther, into uncomfortable and new places. And, to share those dynamic experiences with those we love and find comfort in.

Chumps and Chimps

October 13, 2008

So, it goes like this…
I decided to take the cheap (but hair-raising) matatu taxi into the capital city, Kampala (only a $1.50 for a near-death experience). The matatus are licensed to carry 14 passengers, but in no time we have 19. All I can smell is armpit, and there is Hooray for Jesus music blasting from the vehicle’s already blown-out speakers.
If we crash, I’m not going anywhere because I am so wedged between people and bags of eggplant, a generator and a greasy car engine-looking thing. I can’t even take a deep breath because there are elbows deep in my ribs on either side. The guy beside me has fallen asleep and apparently feels quite comfortable with his head resting on my shoulder.
The matatu driver honks at every person he sees along the way, even when there are no seats left in the taxi. He honks and abruptly pulls over in a cough-inducing cloud of dust for people walking in the opposite direction on the OTHER SIDE of the road. I want to punch him after only three minutes. It’s a never-ending scavenger hunt for passengers as people get on and off every few minutes. One thing is for sure: after world peace and an end to third world hunger, my only hope is that Ugandan drivers learn to drive with their steering wheels instead of their horns.
We finally arrive in Kampala, and my blood feels like it’s carbonated. I need a bath in Javex bleach for the unbleachables. The pants I have worn specifically because of a high security zippered pocket (for my passport), cling to me like Saran Wrap. I am sweating like I’ve been trapped in a phone booth overnight with six Sumo wrestlers and a mamba snake.
I jump on a boda boda(motorcycle taxi) to go to the Immigration building to have my three month visa renewed (the snotty airport official would only stamp it for one month when I arrived, despite the Ugandan High Commission in Ottawa already issuing it for three months). The boda driver weaves through the lanes of diesel-belching traffic, and I am quick to assume that he has a depth perception issue. I have my elbows so tightly tucked in behind me as I clench the back bar of the bike, I don’t know if they will ever un-tuck! There are no helmets for passengers, let alone for the drivers themselves. I see one driver wearing only the inner foam lining of a helmet. As I think about the fragility of my skull I try to ignore the giant wheels of the charcoal delivery truck towering above me, I notice that I am squeezing my driver’s ass so hard with my knees that he probably won’t have a bowel movement for a week. I am so focused on trying to keep myself small and to avoid the mirrors and bumpers of passing vehicles. It’s nothing but screaming brakes and incessant horns. Three times I wince, thinking, shit, this is it, we’re getting smacked. But, I arrive at Immigration (to meet a fate of a different kind) in one jittery piece, streaked with red dirt from brushing up against so many vehicles as we wormed through traffic.
Whew.
I enter the Immigration courtyard and see at least 100 people fanning themselves under a tent canopy. I immediately decide that if I have to wait in this line, I’ll just fly back to Canada instead. I ask where I should go to have my visa renewed and a cranky security official with a gun slung over his shoulder like a backpack grunts and points. I wait for an hour where he indicated and when I reach the window with my passport in hand, I am told to wait in another line twice as long. Women are standing so close to me that their breasts are pushing into my back. A guy in the next line is so close I can feel his breath on my neck. Finally, I turn to him and say, “‘standing closer to me doesn’t make the line go faster.” He edges back, but soon creeps forward again, and the papers in his hand are pushing into my spine–so I lean backwards and hear his papers crumple. It’s just a fucking herd of people, butting in and pushing. A Dutch woman politely asks me which line is for work permits, and the guy with the papers behind me steps boldly ahead of me when I turn my head to answer her. I assertively tell him, “hey buddy, it’s called a line-up” (and I instantly think of my ex-girlfriend Kelly, and her famous line that she used daily in downtown Toronto: “It’s called excuse me!” There are no excuse-me’s in Uganda, and especially not at Immigration.
Finally, I am at the window (again), feeling faint and damp in my hot pants. I tell the already sneering official that I simply need my visa stamped. She asks for my return air ticket. What?? I didn’t bring it of course, because, I already had the stupid visa, I just needed the stamp. She tells me that I’ll have to come back with my plane ticket. “Maybe on Monday?” I say “no way” and lie that I have traveled all the way from Masindi (4 hours away). We are back and forth in a verbal judo, and I am actually raising my voice (which I generally only do once a year in extreme cases). I had already sent a copy of my return ticket to the High Commission in Canada–and I had to show it at Entebbe airport. She did not need to see it. She tells me to come back after lunch (it’s now 12:10). I ask when lunch is over—“2pm.” Imagine!! She takes my passport, makes me fill out a form and instructs me to write a letter stating my case. She refuses to talk to me anymore.
I am spitting daggers by now, but walk to find somewhere for lunch. My appetite is for eating Immigration Officials head, but I settle for some chicken tikka masala and buttery naan bread in the sun. I am still mildly stewing, wondering my fate with immigration and a little angry with Africa as a whole. When I pay my bill, I realize that I have been grossly overcharged. I mention this to the server and he apologizes with a shrug and tells me that the menu is old, prices have gone up. I don’t have any fight left in me for overpriced naan bread, I need to save my fire for Immigration.
I walk back and there are lineups beginning to form already (which I’ve already explained doesn’t really mean anything). The window opens at 2:10, and it’s a new guy–asking for my receipt. “A receipt?” I was never given a receipt! I tell him my weepy story and he says I‘ll have to wait for the woman I dealt with to come back from lunch which will be, “whenever she decides to come back.”
It starts raining, so everyone is pushing to get under the awning. Twenty minutes later a woman running with a yellow plastic bag knotted over her hair tells me “ít’s coming,” –but this could be more rain, the apocalypse, or?? I wait another 15 minutes back in line, water splashing down from the roof spout, leaving me wet up to my knees. My woman returns from her lunch at a casual 2:45. She writes me a hasty receipt to go to Room 2. I go to Room 2 and am appalled by the non-filing system—there are a thousand sheets of paper stacked in a hundred piles on bookshelves that threaten to buckle and fall over. There are boxes and trays of passports. I want to cry, this is where passports come to die.
I hand in my receipt to the surly guy at the desk drinking coffee as black as oil and he hands me my passport immediately. I open it up and the visa looks the same–all that for nothing?? He shakes his head and flips the page, and I see the god-damned stamp allowing me to stay for 30 more days. Good grief, I can’t wait to do it all over again in a month.
The thrill of my week (Immigration did not register high on my thrill meter) was going to visit the Ngamba Island Chimp Sanctuary. It was the 10th anniversary, and my association with the Jane Goodall Institute allowed me to sneak on the invite-only red carpet list. A violent thunderstorm lit up the sky just before the boat was to leave the dock to take us 23km south to the Koome Islands. Lake Victoria was frothing with white caps, and the boat was delayed for an hour and a half. Carol and I found seats on the 30-foot “traditional canoe” with not-so-traditional Yamaha motors (travel time: 90 minutes). The boat was soon full of people and giant speakers that were balanced in the center. My mother would have climbed out of the boat at that point. Staff from the sanctuary passed out lifejackets (or, what were intended to be lifejackets—they looked more like nylon vests with shoulder pad flotation devices in them). I was told that I didn’t need one, “you’ll be fine,” and the last jacket was handed to a local. How would I be fine? Carol told me later that the majority of Africans can’t swim, so, even if I could only pull off a dog-paddle, “I’d be fine.” The equator invisibly splits the world here somewhere in the deep waters of Lake Victoria, making it an even 9,640 km to the North or the South pole. So, it would be a very special dog paddle indeed.

Mac

There are 44 rescued chimps at the Ngamba sanctuary. They have either been found trapped in wire snares or mantraps (made out of spring-loaded car parts sometimes weighing 12 kg that the chimps will drag around, usually dying from a slow death because they are unable to feed). Some are victims of the pet trade, or, orphaned when their mothers have been illegally poached. The chimps sheltered at Ngamba would never survive in the wild—chimp communities have strong blood, and they don’t allow new faces in without huge dominance fights which often end in death. Often, for chimps that have been injured in snare traps, they can no longer properly find food for themselves or climb to safety as they once could. At Ngamba, the chimps call 98 acres of natural habitat home. The electric fence that separates them from the viewing area is operated by solar-power (much like myself).
The chimps are fed daily by caregivers, which is what we arrive just in time to see. Bananas, carrots and jackfruit are thrown from the platform, and soon the word is out. The jackfruit is the most prized, although, Sunday, is quite partial to carrots. He soon has so many collected in his arms that he walks on his hind legs to a quiet spot to peel them with his nails. The chimps are fed at 11am and 2:30 (more bananas, avocado, tomatoes). At night they are given posho (a porridge made from maize flour). They sleep in an enclosure with suspended hammocks that mimic the nests that they would build high in the trees.

Sunday, peeling carrots

Watching the Ngamba chimps so closely while they feed is quite entertaining. Tombu hogs most of the jackfruit and bristles when the younger chimps enter his personal bubble. Others sit and simply hold up their hand if they want more bananas. Like, “here, toss me one.” However, one of the chimps becomes agitated with the whole scene and Stanley warns that he is going to throw stones. The chimp struts away, much like a macho guy flexing in front of the mirrors at the gym. His hair is on end, and Stanley points out the stones clenched in his hand. Sure enough, the chimp turns back around and charges, flinging the stones up at the platform as we scurry. He slaps the ground hard with his hand and cools down. In the wild, this is common behaviour. Chimps “display” by making themselves sound bigger than they are. They hammer on ironwood trees because of the great echoing drumming sound, they throw things (Jane Goodall tells stories of having empty kerosene cans pitched at her), they snap branches, and basically have a tantrum. We share 98.7 % of the same DNA with a chimp and it becomes obvious that they share our sadness, anger, agitation and joy too. They are affectionate with each other, holding hands, kissing, consoling even, but, they are also wild animals prone to natural instincts.
Visiting the Island’s vet clinic, I learn of the importance of vaccinations, not for my protection, but for the welfare of the chimps. If an employee or tourist comes down with the flu, they are evacuated from the island immediately. Because our DNA is so similar, chimps are susceptible to many of the same diseases that we are: the common cold, flu, and even polio. In Gombe, Tanzania where Goodall did most of her chimp observations, there was a polio outbreak in the 80s that devastated the chimp population. Chimps sadly lost use of their arms, their legs—some learned to somersault to get to places. They could no longer climb trees, and Goodall’s description of the outbreak actually had me sobbing as I read In the Shadow Of Man. Several chimps died from the outbreak that was believed to be passed on from humans. (Pfizer drugs actually donated polio vaccines that were slipped into bananas and eggs to help prevent the rest of the chimp community from falling ill.)

Lily Ajarova, the Executive Director of the Chimpanzee Sanctuary and Wildlife Conservation Trust said, “the fact that there is a chimp sanctuary is proof of human failure.” Chimps face endangerment from many fronts: human encroachment, the bushmeat trade (seen more in the Congo than Uganda–yes, people actually eat chimps!), chimps being presented to foreign dignitaries as gifts and the mass burning of forests for charcoal (the primary fuel source in many villages and cities).
The hope is that one day sanctuaries like Ngamba Island no longer have to exist. That one day, chimps will find a safe haven in the forest where they belong.

Sex With Goats and Newspaper Maxi Pads: PG-13

October 31, 2008

This week I travelled with Jacques to Budongo to perform gopher duties for her as she facilitated Peer Educator workshops targeting 10-11 year old girls selected from 11 schools in the Masindi and Bulisa district.
The Nike Foundation (in addition to the Jane Goodall Institute Canada and USA) funded the three day intensive taught by the Uganda Youth Anti-AIDS Association (no free Nike swag bags though, damn, just $10,000 bucks). The girls arrived in their day-glo uniforms, a Nike swoosh meaning nothing to them. They sat as quiet as church mice as Jacques introduced them to the Budongo Ecotourism Centre, a startling contrast from their mud hut village life.
“Girls, we sit on the toilets here, we do not squat. If you squat on the toilet seat, you will break it. If you sit on it, I promise you, you will not fall in. There are showers in your cabins, only use as much water as you need, not as much as there is. If Mary-lou or Jules says something to you, and their accent is too strong, say, “I beg your pardon, please rewind.”
Jacques, a Ugandan who speaks 5 languages, is as effervescent as a bottle of Coca-Cola. She encouraged the girls to talk openly, this was their opportunity to discuss reproductive health issues and AIDS with just girls. “However, girls, will we be calling a penis a big spoon or a big stick? No. We will call a spade a spade. A vagina is a vagina.” The teachers suddenly started squirming, and I’m certain I could see their black skin blushing. I was still stuck on the penis being referred to as a big spoon.
As an icebreaker, the girls were asked to stand up with a friend, and announce why they were friends. “We are the same sex!” (Oh, hurray, a future lesbian!). “She has good manners.” Two more girls cautiously stood up, “we’re age-mates, and my friend is gentle.” “She is disciplined.” Disciplined? I thought of a group of Canadians doing this same activity–.“I am friends with Dakota because she has wii.” “Madison is my friend because her mom lets us eat Oreo cookies for breakfast.” “I like Dawson because she wears Lululemon and has two turtles.” “I like Olivia because her Dad has a Hummer, and he takes us to the movies and buys us popcorn and M&M’s. And, we have sleepovers and stay up late downloading music on our iPods.” Are we that superficial in Canada? I certainly never picked friends for their manners and discipline! I was totally friends with Kim Valade because her family had a swimming pool AND her mom made homemade ice cream sandwiches! Plus, they had a pinball machine, best friend material for sure!
Jacques pulled the group back together, explaining the importance of peers with one blunt statement, emphasizing the importance of choosing friends with similar goals and interests: “Girls, if your friend is a drunkard, then you will be a drunkard.”
A pre-evaluation “test” was circulated for the girls to complete to assess their knowledge level. The questions were about STDs, menstruation, ways to prevent pregnancy and “during the menstrual cycle, which day is a girl likely to get pregnant?” (My favourite answer was “Sunday”).
I tried to think back to my 10-year-old life at Mt. Pleasant School. Weren’t we still eating glue and wearing pom-pom socks with parachute pants? Had we even heard of AIDS? Had I even kissed Robert LeBovic on the cheek yet? We were told about head lice and not to share hats, but that was the worst of our worries.
When I was 10 I was listening to Boy George and the Mini-Pops. I had GI Joe and bug collections and thought peanut butter on graham crackers was fine dining. Maybe we learned about reproductive health in grade 6 or 7, but wasn’t it just a film with two cats humping each other until the film spun off the reel and the lights were turned back on? Maybe I was too busy reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book under my desk because I thought Sunday was the day a girl would likely get pregnant too. My sex ed can be credited to the movie Porky’s and Dr. Ruth’s phone-in radio show.

These kids were answering questions about how HIV could be transmitted and tackling big, meaty issues like how to avoid rape and defilement (older men offering gifts to girls if they undress or squat in front of them). Jacques told me that it is not uncommon for kids in grade 3 to have sex—they like to imitate “mommy and daddy” in every way!
The Ugandan Anti-AIDS facilitator, also named Jacques, asked if any of the girls were married (for Muslim girls, they are ready for marriage after their second menstrual cycle). She asked if anyone was pregnant, because these were very real possibilities. “If you are having five men, have one. Teachers, you are old, show example and have one man.” To avoid contracting AIDS, Jacques advised to “avoid loving boy sex and gangs of boys. Avoid walking at night. Girls, we should not be playing sex before marriage! And for STD prevention, don’t share knickers!”
In the afternoon I read over some of the evaluations and wondered if the girls understood that simply walking at night didn’t make you pregnant, because that seemed to be the number one answer (like those glossy teeny-bopper magazine adverts: “Will using a tampon make me pregnant?). For AIDS prevention, many listed to not “share sharp objects,” when Jacques had said to avoid needles and piercing equipment. For adolescent changes many understood that public hair would grow on the vagina, but it could also grow under the hand (?) or under the handpit! A more honest answer came from one girl who listed adolescent changes as: “you begin abusing people and you don’t do anything at home, and, your voice becomes sharp and your breasts come out!” Also, did you know the menstrual cycle can be described as “eggs, larva and pupa stage” (someone was sleeping during that section of the workshop), and sexuality is: “where a male organ meets a female organ.” Oh no, not the big spoon!
Goat stew and rice was served for lunch, and I couldn’t help but compare how my Canadian counterparts would react. Imagine serving goat to 10-year-old kids—or, for dinner, tilapia with the fins still intact.
By afternoon my attention was drifting, and this is when I started prowling through Jacques’ Teacher Resource Guide. I had no idea that the Presidential Initiative on AIDS Strategy for Communication to Youth (PIASCY) would be such an engaging read.
Of course, I immediately scanned the index for homosexuality.
Homosexuality: This is a sexual deviation in both the African and religious context. “From the Christian perspective, these deviations are considered a strong offence to God (ref. Genesis 2:24). That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and the two become one. It defies the moral stance of God as the creator of marriage, love and sex. As a practice it demonstrates man’s disobedience of God’s order for husband and wife. Single sex marriage is illegal, and it is unsafe for one to engage in a relationship which may end in illegal implications.” Luckily, for a sexual deviant like myself, there were immediate solutions available. All I had to do was develop Godly principles and values—which would protect me from being swayed into these deviant actions. If I was assertive and “stuck to my stand” I could just say “no,” even when everyone else says it’s cool. But, it is cool, isn’t it? For gay (or pregnant) Ugandans, they are expelled, thanks to Genesis.
I couldn’t wait to delve into the listings for oral and anal sex and masturbation. Oh, and bestiality too! I almost choked on my sweet African tea—Bestiality: “sex between human beings and animals, as for instance, a man having sex with a goat. What can one do to avoid being dragged into sex? Uplift your self-esteem, believe in yourself. Even if you are poor, resist such a relationship to avoid risks. Be assertive regarding your position (okay, I had to laugh out loud at this one—since when are goats so dominant and bossy about having sex, and dragging humans into sex?) Teachers, reward those who are making the decision to abstain.” Geez, instead of a gold star for knowing your time tables and how to spell surreptitiously, Ugandan teachers are giving praise for resisting the bedroom eyes of goats!
Oral sex: (another sexual deviation that can be avoided by developing those cure-all Godly principles. Looks like I’ll have to spend more time with my Godly Mennonite co-worker Brittany!). Another alternative is to seek help from a trusted adult or friends when I “feel unable to manage my stand well.” I should also avoid literature which may influence my feelings and thoughts negatively. So, I guess that means an end to my burgeoning erotica writing career. Sigh.
Anal sex: “The anus is not biologically designed for sex. Medical doctors have observed that anal sex can affect the sphincter muscle with the long-run result that one is unable to control feces.” Beware gay boys!!
I refilled my tea because now it was getting good. Could masturbation protect one from HIV/AIDS? “It may not be safe. Since African orientation is penetrative sex, many people who practice masturbation as a safer sex practice end up being emotionally triggered into penetrative sex which increases HIV risk.” Hmmm. I think someone is trying to instil the fear of God here! But, then I was shocked to learn about masturbation side effects which can lead to indirect psychological and social issues. There can be feelings of shame, guilt and low self-worth, even when those around you aren’t aware. Worse, “it can disrupt stable marital relations in the future once one of the partners discovers that it is happening and doesn’t believe in it. Self-sexual gratification may diminish the value of one’s spouse and could strain the relationship.” I think I need to set up a booth at gay Pride next year and hand out flyers! Do people know about these side effects and aggressive goat issues?
Luckily, there was advice in the resource guide on how I could overcome pressures to masturbate. I have to avoid hanging out with people who say and do things which may arouse my feelings in that direction (you know who you are!). Again, the Godly principles which I really need to start developing, starting… tomorrow. Oh, and I shouldn’t let my mind dwell on thoughts, pictures and literature that might influence sexual feelings. Instead, it is as easy as finding active ways of “occupying your redundancy periods, such as sports, music, drama and reading positive literature (like my weekly updates I suppose!).
There’s a reason why I was almost expelled from massage college for sarcasm. But, some humour is needed to grapple with the profound sadness that I see here. At this same workshop, girls were taught how to make their own maxi pads using cotton t-shirts and plastic bags. Most of them were accustomed to using old sheets of newspaper as pads but Jacques warned them that pieces could break off and block their fallopian tubes (really? I call bluff).
Dr. Musazi, a local university professor and engineer recently developed sustainable maxi pads (or sanitary towels as Jacques calls them) from a tall plant called the papyrus. The papyrus grows as fast as bamboo, and looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book with its poofy-hair top. Ten pads by his company, Technology for Tomorrow, cost 650 shillings (40 cents). Local NGO’s are distributing them to northern refugee camps. However, the technology has me sceptical as the pad is three times longer than it is wide…and, most of the girls don’t have underwear. So, where does one affix a pad when you are wearing a skirt? This is when Anna (a Californian photographer documenting AIDS orphans in Sub-Sahara Africa) and I hatched the idea of Project One Million Panties. If every girl at 60 Ugandan schools in the 30 districts that the Jane Goodall Institute works with were given one pair of underwear, one million pairs would be needed. Does anyone have Oprah’s number? The pads are innovative, but, without underwear…plus, only 10 packages of pads (10 pads/package) were provided to each teacher who accepted them on behalf of their school. I am suspicious that the teachers might pinch the pads for themselves, despite being instructed to hand them out in emergency situations.
It’s a daily see-saw of despair and hope for change. I feel guilty sitting in my designer Ginch underwear with access to 50 brands of tampons (some smaller than a hearing aid) and pads with wings and floral scents if wanted. I can’t imagine using newspaper for anything but reading, or worrying about getting pregnant at age 10. Scarier is growing hair in my handpit!
Now that I feel a redundancy period coming on, I know that I should engage myself in some sports, music or drama. And, when I run tomorrow morning down Berkeley road, I am telling the goats to back off, they are not dragging me in for sex!

Guns, Porridge and a Revlon Girl

November 8, 2008

The week started off with a near bang. From a rifle. There are guns everywhere in Entebbe, slung sloppily over shoulders like knapsacks. It’s a bit shocking that it doesn’t bother me, but then, living here I have to desensitize myself to most of what I see on a daily basis.
On Monday, Debby (the Jane Goodall Institute executive director) and I had taken the dogs down to a quiet stretch of beach where Tinker could fetch sticks until he was in a coma. He’s a lab retriever, this is his life’s work. Debby had just returned from the Congo, and her animated stories of life in Birundi and a decade in the turbulent Congo are quite engaging (plus, everything sounds better with an Australian accent). She has been held at gunpoint three times, carjacked and pissed on by agitated chimps several times, so, this woman could eat nails for breakfast. Really, an arm wrestle between her and Dian Fossey would have been at a deadlock.
As we walked up from the beach along the golf course and zoo property, the dogs ran ahead, past two alert ostriches. Vervet monkeys scrambled to the trees at first sight of the dogs approaching and demonstrated their ferociousness once they felt brave, high in the canopies. A few fireflies illuminated the tall grasses as we picked our way along the path, past termite hills that appear at first glance like giant sandcastles.

Scrappy, child-eater

And then, the scream that made my veins knot up. Again, another shriek that stabbed the dusky sky and the idyllic surroundings. A mother was walking with a young girl, maybe 3 or 4, who was beside herself with fear over the dogs. She was trembling and screaming like I thought only my sister could when I stole Emmanuel Lewis, her beloved Cabbage Patch Kid. Debby reassured the mother that the dogs were friendly, and until that point the dogs were more interested in the monkeys. With all the crying though, Scrappy turned back and playfully jumped towards the girl. A Uganda Wildlife Authority guard lifted the muzzle of her gun. “I shoot it,” she yelled angrily in our direction. Debby called for Scrappy, and I grabbed Tinker and Levi by their collars, which is like trying to reign in Clydesdale horses. The gun slipped from the guards shoulder, and though she was now pointing it at Scrappy, it was also directly pointing at Debby. My heart pounded in my head like a thousand jackhammers. Debby yelled at the guard to drop her gun, she wouldn’t grab the dog with a gun pointed at her. Everyone was yelling, the girl was still screeching. There was that painful suspension of time where anything could happen and the world is moving too quickly and too slowly at the exact same time. Finally, the guard pointed her rifle to the ground and we had Scrappy. We hurried along the once idyllic road, the guard yelling that “next time, I fire gun. I shoot it.” The mother yelled, “you are in our country. You do as we say.” Then, some bystander emerged from a path and was on our heels telling us how disgusted he was with mizungos. He kept muttering in Lugandan and English, over the screaming guard about how we were in Uganda now. Mizungos blahblahblah Mizungo blahblahblah. I turned to him and said the matter was resolved, the girl was fine, we were leaving, but still… he kept on us, trying to intimidate us with his closeness. Debby turned to the guard and hollered back about how stupid it would be for the guard to shoot a dog in front of a child. Scrappy had already moved on to new sniffs, oblivious to his near death experience. The escalating emotions of the girl, the mother and the guard could have so quickly turned, and we could have had a dead dog. I could have bit my tongue in half with the anger that sat in my throat. There is a delicate line that we had to accept and swallow. We were wrong to have the dogs off-leash, but, to shoot Scrappy because the girl was afraid? The consequences could have been devastating, in one awful second. My mind reeled with thoughts of Scrappy with a bullet in his side, bleeding. I know I would have shot the guard myself, there’s no question. Would I be willing to spend life in an African jail over a dead dog? Absolutely. Debby would have been sharing the cell with me.
So, I might have to do some cut and paste censorship when I forward this email to my parents. Some things are best discussed when I return to Canada, over the safety of a glass of wine by the fire. When Africa becomes a place on the map again, a place I once lived.
When I was 21 and in the depths of the Costa Rican rainforest, I waited until I was back home to mention the drug runners I saw with AK-47’s and flour sacs full of marijuana. Oh, and how I was helicoptered out of the jungle on a double-blade Chinook because of the flash floods by the Panama army. Yeah, that kind of stuff doesn’t exactly fit in the space of a postcard. Besides, didn’t my parents want to hear about the toucans and blue morpho butterflies?
My second scare of the week came after a botched attempt at making soya flour porridge. The directions seemed immediately questionable: 3 teaspoons of soya flour to one litre of water. I trusted the box and turned on the gas stove. I began mixing, patiently waiting for the porridge to thicken. It was to boil for 20 minutes, but at 11 minutes I still had a puce-coloured soup. I added three more heaping teaspoons and stirred. Nothing. Then I resorted to dumping ¾ of the bag into the pot (always the solution when all else fails). Well, that was a mistake. I had shifted from making porridge into creating giant soya flour dumplings! The newly added flour refused to blend, and the balls of flour rose to the top of the murky mixture. With a wooden spoon I tried to break up a few of the larger lumps, but there were so many! And still, I had a soupy consistency, with dumplings now! I figured the mess would be fine with some honey and raisins. I poured the slop into a bowl and took it upstairs to enjoy on the balcony with the sun on my shoulders. Sat down, crossed my leg and Levi immediately curled up at my feet, not even remotely interested in the poison I had made for myself. I spooned up a mouthful and was pleasantly surprised—until the dumpling disintegrated in my mouth like a ball of sand. The grit was taking the enamel off my teeth. I kept trying mouthful after mouthful, each sand ball worse than the previous. I went back downstairs to put the remaining 20 servings in Tupperware. Then, a voice reminded me that life didn’t have to be like this. My dad always made us eat burnt toast, with the charcoal surface scraped off, but surely, I could afford to throw out the shit I had just made. Being in Africa has heightened my awareness of being wasteful, but, would an African kid eat this? No way. Levi even rolled his eyes at me and said (with his eyes),
“give me the good stuff, bitch. I know you have Monterey jack cheese in the fridge and peanut butter.”
So, disappointed in my wasteful self I hurried the Tupperware out to the compost before I had a witness to my western ways of everything being disposable. The tall grass tickled my ankles and I thought briefly of snakes, all of them being poisonous, as Tom (our guard) told me there was a mamba around a few weeks ago—in his guard shack even! Tip-toeing now, imagining imaginary snakes taking a jab at my ankles I made my way to the compost and just as I was about to dump my slop—JESUS CHRIST! The squawk almost sent me headfirst into the compost heap of banana peels and egg shells. A huge ibis flew up and out of the compost, clearly irritated with my sudden intrusion. This was my reminder not to be so wasteful (or, more specifically, not to buy stupid soya flour porridge again). I walked away from the composter hoping the ibis wouldn’t eat the porridge, otherwise I’d find a dead, bloated ibis in the heap the next day, a sand dumpling stuck in his feathered throat…
Later that day I went to Anderita Beach for a beer, figuring I couldn’t get anymore bloated. I found a spot that seemed safe from being approached for conversation, requests for money, marriage, and the running shoes I was wearing. I ordered a Nile and pulled a copy of Jane out of my bag. Desperate for reading material, I had found a March 1996 Jane magazine at the office (Jane has since been replaced by Glamour). While drinking my beer I could learn how to apply fake eyelashes, turn Him on in bed with 96 new tricks, and read about the merits of the grapefruit vs. the popcorn diet. When the server returned she excitedly pointed to the model in the Revlon ad for lipstick that you could eat tacos with, and still have the same glossy shine. “It is you!” she shouted, loud enough for everyone on the beach to hear.
“What?”
She set my beer down. “It is you in the picture.” I looked at the Revlon girl with her coffee-coloured, shoulder-length hair, Nicole Kidman white complexion, avocado green eyes, dainty nose and bee-stung lips. “It is you, right? Tell me it is.”
I was laughing at how unlike I was to this Revlon girl, but I don’t think the server was convinced. She was so attentive with her service that afternoon, I think she was hoping for a swag bag of Revlon lipsticks from me. But, the next day it happened again. I was walking to the post office and a woman approached me asking me for jobs for her two daughters, they could cook for me (I wondered if she had witnessed my botched soya porridge-making somehow). She insisted on giving me her phone number and repeating her name, “Prossi.” Even though I told her I had no jobs to offer, she wouldn’t be satisfied. Later, after work when I was walking up Berkeley to get some bananas and simsims, I saw Prossi again. She waved wildly but then approached me cautiously. “Is it you? I met you today?” I assured her that yes, it was me. “No, I don’t know…” Prossi examined my face and clothes (I was wearing the same t-shirt and cargos as earlier). “I don’t know if it is you.” I even told Prossi that I knew her name, where we met, and that she had two daughters. “I have four daughters,” she corrected me, figuring she now knew I was lying.
“But two are looking for jobs, right?”
Prossi slapped me on the shoulder, ‘it is you!”
I told Debby of my Prossi encounter, and being mistaken for a Revlon girl. She said that Ugandans are notorious for poor face recognition—even when whites are obviously different looking, Ugandans just don’t see it (they are only looking to see if you are fatting or not!). So, I guess when we sometimes think (but never admit out loud for fear of a finger pointed at as for possibly being racist), that Asians look the same, or all blacks look the same—indeed, black people think all white people look the same too! Even though there are probably only 12 of us in Entebbe at any given time, and six of them drive around in UN trucks!
In other news, I feel like I should touch on the topic of goat sex as it created such a fever pitch with readers. I’m thinking of approaching Hollywood with a few proposals, like: Dancing With Goats, A Goat to Remember, To Goat, With Love and Crouching Goat, Hidden Dragon. Of course, for the B-movie market there is always Debbie Does Goat and I’ve already penned the opening lines–
Goat: “You wanna piece of me?”
Debby: “Here’s lookin’ at you, Kid.”
But, enough about the goats, I’ll share a dirty secret I learned about the crab-eating macaques monkeys in Indonesia: for tension-reducing conciliation between the monkeys, the dominant one approaches the opponent with raised eyebrows. The opponent stares into the dominant individual’s eyes, they lip smack and touch each others genitals and are friends again. Nice, this is how things should always be.
Also of interest: male bush babies have baculums, slender bones that reinforce the penis, which I guess all men aspire to when they talk about having “boners,” just like the bush babies of Africa.
Enough of that, my parents will soon block me from their email list if I carry on with all this baculum and goat sex business.

Moral Complacency

Irshad Manji, the fiery feminist identified by the NY Times to be “Osama bin Laden’s worst nightmare,” gently accused her Abbotsford audience of slipping into “moral complacency.” Manji recently wrote The Trouble With Islam Today: A Muslim’s Call For Reform In Her Faith.

Her website www.irshadmanji.com offers free downloads in several translations for readers who may be living in an area where the book is banned or censored. Her pride was palpable when she announced that her book had been downloaded over a million times. A million!

Manji was part of the Canadian Voices speaker series presented by the Abbotsford Collegiate International Baccalaureate Program. Heavy vocal hitters in the past year included Peter Mansbridge (CBC’s Chief Correspondent and anchor of The National), Dr. James Orbinski (former President of Medecins Sans Frontieres), Stephen Lewis (Deputy Director of Unicef, Special Envoy for AIDS/HIV in Africa) and Roberta Bondar (first female astronaut and neurologist in space). The speaker series has provided a dynamic forum of empowerment, questioning and insight into individuals who have  created a global impact.

I think Irshad Manji was bang-on with her complacency dig. My moral laziness was emphasized when I went to see the documentary Chasing Rain (produced and directed by Dax Xenis) three days after being slammed by Manji for a bit of Islamophobia and not asking pertinent questions out loud. In a unique parallel, Chasing Rain was filmed in Uganda—Manji’s family was a refugee of Idi Amin’s Uganda. In 1972 Amin declared an “economic war” that included the expropriation of properties owned by Asians and Europeans. An estimated 80,000 Asians were explused from Uganda, and Manji’s family found a new home in Vancouver, BC.

Chasing Rain documented an ambitious project backed by Grassroots Assistance in Rural Development (GARD). It involved the construction of a 6,000 litre water storage tank in Adakingo, Lira, Uganda. The project quickly became a monster of exasperation with brief moments of exhiliration. Like Manji’s red-hot poker words of accusation, watching Chasing Rain was like being in the boxing ring with guilt. I thought of the shower I had before going to see it—hot enough to boil 50 lobsters, and long enough to have provided clean drinking water for over at least 100 Africans.

The project was initiated by Jeff Owen, a geologist who identified a need for better water sources while working on biosand filter projects in undeveloped countries. The large-scale rain catchment system he planned began with a few gross miscalculations. Owen guessed it would take 30 men one day to clear the dirt from the proposed area. It took three and a half months.

The North American standards for clean drinking water and sanitary living conditions quickly became evident and the connection between water and health was obvious. Canadian GARD volunteers found themselves knocked flat on their backs with diarrhea that kept them permanently on the squat toilets that they initially hoped to avoid.

Camera man Dax Xenis panned the area where villagers collected water for consumption in jerry cans. The pond was the equivalent of Habitant pea soup–murky sludge that even my dog would turn his nose up at. The locals walked for over an hour at times to this source of water, children often bearing the weight of awkward plastic jerry cans on their heads.

And we reward ourselves in Canada for surving Earth Hour, a whole hour without electricity! An hour without water, I bet we could do that too—but a lifetime? UNICEF estimates that there are 125 million children under the age of five without access to clean drinking water. I thought I got the short stick because my mother wouldn’t buy chocolate milk every week.

When I landed at the airport in Entebbe, Uganda last September, the power went off three times as baggage was loaded on the carousel. In my four months in Africa, not having electricity became more common than having it. What became evident was how big my sasquatch carbon footprint in Canada was (especially after flying for 19 hours, leaving my footprints permanently in the atmosphere from Vancouver to Amsterdam to Entebbe). I blushed with shame over my pre-Africa tanning bed sessions with the 280 watt bulbs that could have powered all of Entebbe for a month.

My footprint sunk even deeper into the quagmire with all the plastic bottles of water I drank in Uganda. I responsibly attempted to balance this number with recyclable glass bottles of beer.

But now what? How do I shift from moral and earthly complacency? As I unpacked groceries this afternoon (from earth-suffocating plastic bags because AGAIN I forgot the reuseable cloth ones), I became painfully aware of my 100,000-mile diet. Rosenburg blue cheese from DENMARK, bananas from ECUADOR, an avocado from MEXICO. Those little stickers on the fruit and vegetables further cemented my laziness. But can life be lived without bananas?

My actions are a see-saw. I walk  to work but I eat Ecuadorian bananas. I compost and recycle but buy wine from Australia. I will grow my own herbs this summer but I like hot baths that cover my kneecaps.

Awareness, it’s the fertilizer for growth, a therapeutic massage of my morals. What I do know is that there are bigger and better things to be done in this world, one banana at a time.