The Leviathan

27 January 2010

Uganda entry: 3

The day is hot, and the sky hangs heavily laden with a thick layer of smog from the night before. In it, I can see the slow moving mutatus and speedy bota-botas, the drivers chewing on qat, a natural stimulant similar to cocaine leaves or espressos beans, as they transport drunken Ugandans who stay out every night until the early morning. They leave behind more than empty bottles and dirty ashtrays; they leave behind this thick air. I can see out the open doorway of our modest classroom with its white walls and testy outlets, the hills of Kampala, birds searching for morning worms, and employees hanging the day’s laundry to dry. As I lose myself in the scenes that play out, our professor rambles on about the tribes of Kenya and Tanzania, about the Kipsigi and the Luo, about circumcision and the rites of passage, about livestock and concepts of wealth. His delicate glasses hang loosely and lopsided off of his flat African nose. His forehead wrinkles with the questioning expressions of his eyebrows as he grunts rhetorically. His name is Mpagi, and he twirls his pen as he excitedly reads from his repetitive lecture that he has typed out. Other students ponder superficial questions in an eager, but futile attempt to justify their own ill-founded beliefs to those found in traditional African culture. I simply attempt to keep myself from falling into a yawning apathy.

In an essay I wrote for this class, I concluded my argument by maintaining that the articles we were assigned wholly disregarded the factors of racism and oppression that inseparably accompanied the Christian penetration of the African continent, and it became a realization that my time here has been generally unscathed by the factors of economic imperialism and civil violence that confront this nation today. Yesterday was the anniversary of Museveni’s 24 year reign over Uganda, and it was celebrated without haste, but with an almost forced sense of submission. The violence of Northern Uganda can seem irrelevant to life in Kampala; it is nothing more than stories in the newspaper or quietly made comments. I read an article about a man whose genitals were removed in a back alley brawl, about the children marching in support of the Homosexuality Bill that is on the floor of Parliament, about the fight to end female genital mutilation. In my reality, genital mutilation and the state-sanctioned murder of homosexuals do not exist, yet I am here, and I am a part of this society, to whatever extent that may be true. Though it might be easy, because of my status in the social hierarchy, to ignore these issues, which most of my peers have resided themselves to doing, my grasp on ethics and morality make that impossible. I could simply sit in yawning apathy, taking in the beauty of my surroundings and justifying to myself the abject poverty that I have experienced. I could think about the present, and talk about the past in laughter. But in order to be fully penetrated by my experiences here I must, to the greatest extents of my humanity, attempt to see from the tragic, yet hopeful perspective of true Ugandans, prideful Ugandans with ambition and desire for a better future. I realize the extent to which I am able to empathize with others who have such a different lifestyle and cultural past from my own. I will never understand the Rwandan genocide, or the corruption that is allowed to run so rampant here in Uganda. I will never understand the perspective of those who find Christian morality in the death of homosexuals. But I can understand their hope, and I can be a part of that.

I’ve found myself falling into the dark pits of lethargy and apathy for the past week. Since my partners in research left for the shores of America, I haven’t found the inspiration of shared intellect or the dedication to comprehension that was once inside me. Reading and researching and passion seem to have gone into dormancy. I find myself talking about other students and my hopes for mental health, but the meaningful issues have evaded my cognition. I can feel their resurgence though, like the Battle of Normandy. The articles and readings we are assigned have proven quite useless, and the homework has proven even easier. I must push myself, as Daniel says, “Without a Leviathan looking over my shoulder.” I know I must do this, but now I know that there is a Leviathan, and it does not come from the sea or from a professor; it comes from within me, from my passion and my purpose. Fear is instilled in me from within, from the deep red sea of my person arises a monster of hope that drives me to study, to read, to research, and to learn something from my experiences. And as my professor continues to ramble confusedly about next week’s assignment in the Ugandan English that makes little sense in the context of grammatical correctness, I am sure that my Leviathan, with his horns and fins and saber-teeth, is powerful, and that he is capable of overcoming the superficiality of my education here. I can respect the relaxation and warnings against perfection in Ugandan tradition and culture, but I am myself, and I have to pursue my own goals regardless. To quote an African proverb: I am because we are, and because we are, therefore, I am. Though I am a product of my environment, I cannot allow that to rule who I become. We are, and I am, and those two are mystically connected without being the same.