Skinny Jeans

One year ago, as I was preparing to leave for Uganda, I distinctly remember guffawing at other people’s packing concerns, “Why is someone bringing a blow dryer?  I don’t need to look cute.  I’m going to Africa, and my boyfriend’s staying in America.  I just need practical clothes.”  Ten months later… I’m kicking myself.

I’ll admit my thinking is relatively logical for a shorter trip, but I’m not camping for two years!  Why do most Peace Corps Volunteers succumb to this expectation?  I’m living here for two years.  I thought that I wouldn’t mind looking frumpy and hiking-ready for two years.  Despite my change in heart, I still have no one to impress.  Most of the people in my village always think I look “smart” (British for looking good or put together).  My boyfriend’s still in America, and thankfully doesn’t have to see my mismatching outfits.  So, what’s the deal?  I’ve realized that I need to look good for me.

In college, I had a very simple rule.  No wearing sweatpants to class.  So everyday, I forced myself to throw on a pair of jeans, a sundress, a skirt, whatever.  Anything but sweatpants.  In sweatpants, I didn’t take class seriously.  I would usually snuggle up in my seat, and prepare for a 50-minute nap instead of note taking.  On days when I felt really lazy and resentful that my major required me to take a 9 am class, I would add some make up just to make me feel more put together.  From college, I learned that the better I felt about my appearance, the better I felt overall.

So, how did I forget these lessons when I joined Peace Corps?

Sadly, there are a lot of things about my appearance that I have had to come to terms with.  First, I had to admit that, yes, even though I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer, I don’t want to look homeless.  I always thought that I’d be rugged and dirty, and that I’d be totally ok with it.  False.  Most of the changes were immediate: now I wear glasses instead of contacts, I chopped about ten inches off my hair, I constantly look greasy from sunscreen overdose, my clothes aren’t fitted, my shoes are clunky, my nails are unpainted, even my panties aren’t colorful!  God, I know all of this sounds so petty, but it took me a very long to get used to the new me.  In training, when I passed by a mirror, I didn’t recognize my own reflection. 

All of those things took a few months to get over.  Now, I’ve gotten used to the glasses business.  I know that contacts would be a pain in the you-know-where.  My hair grows like a weed, and it’s almost back to its original length!  It’s still bluntly cut and a little uneven, but I finally don’t need ten bobby pins to keep it in a ponytail.  I’m still a little greasy from sunscreen, but at least I can throw some powder on top of it if I’m around other Americans.  I’d prefer greasy to crows feet at 25.  My mom helped me solve the rest.  Thankfully, she doesn’t bat an eyelash if I ask her to send me fun dresses and pink poka dotted panties.

However, there’s a nasty well-kept Peace Corps secret: men lose weight, but women gain weight.  During training, the staff and more senior volunteers tried to warn us, but no one really could accept it.  How could women gain weight in Africa?  Unfortunately, it’s true in many cases.  After our first few months at site, the boys were slashing new belt holes to keep their pants up, while the girls complained about not being able to button their pants!  Often, when weight was brought up among our group, it became a battle of the sexes arguing about which was worse, gaining or losing weight.  No one can say for sure why this happens, but I’ve got a few ideas.

1.     Especially at the beginning of our service, you’re trying to fit into the community, which means following community expectations.  In Uganda, it’s pretty rude to turn down food.  There have been times when I’ve just finished my very filling breakfast of oatmeal, and I am given an oily chappati only moments after arriving at school.  In order to do the polite thing, I would wolf it down and feel sick for the next few hours.

2.     Ugandan food is 70% starches, 20% fat and 10% protein.  Now, I’m not sure if those are exact statistics, but that’s how it feels.  It’s really common to have two or three starches in a meal, and a meager source of protein.  I still don’t understand male vs female metabolism, but I feel like men just torch through these simple carbs and women hang onto them.

3.     When we’re not being force feed Ugandan food, we’re cooking at home.  I hate to be stereotypical, but in general, women know how to cook and men struggle a bit.  In order to fill up the day and drown our stress, a lot of female volunteers throw themselves into cooking and baking.  One volunteer said that she spends about four hours a day cooking!

4.     Once we discovered the “western” restaurants in our closest towns, we all tended to gorge and feast.  Even though we went every weekend, there was always this panicky feeling that we may never have another chance to have a milkshake or pizza.  A lot of the time, the food wasn’t even that good, but it didn’t matter.  It vaguely tasted like home, so you ate every last bite.

5.     On these weekend adventures, we tended to egg each other on.  It was a horrible group mentality, which still exists.  If your friend orders another coke float, you don’t feel so bad about your extra plate of French fries.

6.     Unfortunately, we don’t have a village gym.  Although most volunteers do a lot of walking, it’s nothing compared to how much time we used to spend pumping iron, busting out killer dance moves at Zumba or pounding pavement every day.  It’s very difficult to be motivated to work out here.  Either you’re going to work out by yourself at home, doing god knows what, or you’re going to brave running.  Running is a very bizarre idea in the village.  Why would you run if you could dig?  People laugh and point while children run after you, sometimes with sticks.

To make matters worse, Ugandans have a very different perception of weight.  Ugandans consider “being fat” means you have status or wealth to afford a lot of food.  If someone says, “Eh, you’ve reduced,” it’s actually a fairly serious insult.  Therefore, especially among people in the village, having curves for a woman is a very good thing.  The ultimate compliment: “Eh, you’ve really gotten fat this way.”  Great.  As if I wasn’t already feeling self-conscious.

In America, we don’t talk about weight.   And one year ago, I couldn’t imagine broadcasting to the world my insecurities, but I guess I’ve changed.  It has taken me months to get the courage to write this blog, but I finally feel ready.

In my first three months at site, I gained at least ten if not fifteen pounds.  I was devastated.  In Newport, I went to the gym six times per week, ate the super healthy Greek yogurt and weighed myself every morning.  Suddenly, I was drinking full calorie soda almost every day, I couldn’t wake up early enough to go running and I pigged out with my friends on the weekends.  And it became a vicious cycle.  The more horrible I felt about myself, the more I wanted to eat and sleep.  All of my frumpy, stretchy clothes still fit, but my skinny jeans laughed at my attempts to pull them over my hips.  My closest friend and I would make new diet and workout plans every Sunday after our banana chocolate chip pancake feast, but nothing changed.  Although it's really pathetic, I'll admit that I had at least one or two... or three.. good sob fests about my weight gain.

Is it terrible to say that my turn around was a direct result of giardia?  After getting deathly ill three months ago, I instantly lost at least five pounds.  For weeks, my appetite was non-existent.  I had to force myself to eat yogurt, hard boil eggs, oranges and bananas- about the only things my stomach could handle.  When I finally recovered, I realized that hey, I feel a lot better about myself. Giardia jump-started my new way of life.  I stopped feeling guilty about politely declining food that I didn’t want.  As awkward as it was, most people didn’t really care.  I stopped using three tablespoons of oil to make popcorn.  I stopped eating peanut butter straight from the jar.  I stopped gorging on the weekends.  Mbale will always be there.  Why can’t I just get one treat instead of five?  And I finally discovered the joy of running in the evenings, not at the crack of dawn.  Who cares if people laugh at me?  I actually started challenging the young men that were giving me a hard time.  Ends up I can out sprint most of them.  Everyone leaves me alone for the most part now.  My knees can only take so much running, so to supplement my runs, I’ve started working out at home.  Yoga never felt like a real workout- sorry yogis!  Now, I combine yoga, dance, kickboxing and strength training moves to create an hour-long sweat drenched, cardio boosting and stress relieving session.

Finally, I feel like myself.

Last weekend in Kampala, I slipped into my skinny jeans for the first time in ten months.  I can’t describe how good it felt to finally look and feel American.  Jeans must be so deeply ingrained in my self-image that I couldn’t shake their power.  Wearing those jeans made me feel feminine, ironically.  For the first time in country, I felt beautiful.  I felt like Chelsea, pre-Peace Corps.

I hope that I can keep up with my new commitment to health and sanity.  Although I never thought my weight would be an issue in Peace Corps, I know now that feeling good about my body is a key element to my self-esteem and happiness. 

In celebration of running again, I’ll be participating in the Kampala half marathon on Sunday.  I have no intention to make good time, I only hope to finish!  Stay tuned: I'll let you know how it goes!  Only five more days of training.

My New Neighbor

Just wanted to share with you all the wonderful surprise I found yesterday morning.  After leaving my basins out for the night during a welcomes rainstorm, I discovered someone else enjoying my precious rainwater.

Don't worry.  The water didn't go to waste! I was happy to share... I still brushed my teeth with this water.

Adam and Eve

It’s taken me almost three weeks to finally cool down, and somehow objectively write about the following incident.  Regardless, I know that I’m going to get a worried phone call from my mom that ends in a fight because she won’t want me posting anything potentially controversial.  Oh well.

I was having a perfectly pleasant conversation with one of my head teachers discussing this and that about America, Uganda, education, whatever.  You get the picture.  Not a riveting conversation covering any hot topics: religion, money, sex, etc.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, he asks, “So, Madam Chelsea, what are your beliefs?”  Beliefs?  About what?  I still haven’t been able to shake that aspect of my Americanness.  It actually took me a second to figure out what he was talking about.  Usually, I just throw the line that I grew up Protestant… and forget to mention that I’m essentially agnostic.  Believe me, I miss that Americans avoid religion like land mines.  It made my life so much less awkward.  On this day, I just shrugged my shoulders, too tired to even pretend.

His response?  Well, it may shock you.  “Well, in my religion, men and women are not equal.  In fact, women were only created to make men happy.  God created man first, therefore he’s superior.”  I felt like I had been slapped across the face.  In training, Peace Corps tried to prepare us for this moment, but it ends up that you can never be fully prepared.  My gut response was to slap him back, but physically.  Thankfully, I restrained myself.  My next response, although I’m sure I was speaking way too fast and forgetting to annunciate properly, “Yeah, well maybe God realized he made mistakes when he created Adam.  So he decided to make perfection with women.”  He had no response to what I would call a very logical argument.  I honestly have very little recollection of what happened next, but I’m pretty sure that I left as quickly as possible to start teaching.

Now, before I really start getting into this, I want to make something very clear.  I am not singling out Uganda or Ugandans for their beliefs or practices about sex and gender.  Gender equality is a tricky business.  This whole argument must date back to when “men” made fire.  Hey, you never know!  It could have been a woman to figure that one out.  They were the ones trying to cook, right?  I would like to acknowledge that even in America, we have gender issues.  Women do not earn the same salary as men for doing the same work, and there are fewer women in leadership positions.  Did you know that in the United States, one-third of women will experience harassment or assault?  So, we’re not perfect.

Looking beyond the states, the United Nations has officially declared that one of the top priorities for development should be the empowerment of women.  It is a worldwide problem.  Studies have shown that when a country empowers a woman through equal rights, education and employment, the economy improves, the infant mortality plummets, the use of family planning increases, malnutrition decreases, etc.  Armed with more power and knowledge, women become important members in the workforce and can make healthier decisions for her family.

You may be asking… what’s the situation in Uganda?  From what I understand, it’s improved a lot, but we still have a ways to go.  Women are given the same opportunities for education and the same rights.  So the government is on par with the UN’s program.  The burning question?  How do you get people’s attitudes to jump on that bandwagon as well?  The problem does not only lie with men like my head teacher.  Some women themselves do not have the proper attitude.  Let me give you an example: I was asking my P-7 kids what they wanted to do when they grow up.  At least four girls told me they wanted to be a nurse.  Finally, I asked, “But, why not a doctor?”  “Madam, don’t you know?  Women can’t be doctors!”  Huh, I guess I should give my aunts a call.  They must not know.

In most of Uganda, women are expected to do the bulk of domestic chores.  And hello, these are not American chores.  This is backbreaking, all day long, exhausting chores.  Fetching water, washing clothes by hand, sweeping the compound, caring for the kids, digging in the gardens, washing dishes, cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I swear, if my kid ever complains about chores, they’re going to fetch 20 lbs of water on their head from the kitchen to the bathroom.  These women are amazing.  They are awake before the sun is up and must go to sleep after midnight.  I’m really not sure when they sleep!  This domestic responsibility comes at a young age of about four.  Female children are expected to perform all of these duties in order to help her mother and her probably six other siblings.

So, why are women still not empowered in Uganda if they have access to education?  A lot of girls don't finish their primary, let alone secondary, education.  Girls drop out for many reasons.  The list below may not be comprehensive, but it gives you an idea.

1.     Responsibilities at home, such as chores and caring for younger siblings.

2.     Early marriage.  In Uganda, a man must pay a bride price; therefore, if a family is really struggling, it can be tempting to marry the child while she’s still quite young.

3.     Poverty.  She may try to find another way to bring money to her family.

4.     Pregnancy.  The information about sexual and reproductive health can be spotty, and practicing safe sex at an early age is not stressed.  Ugandan schools take an abstinence only stance.

5.     Menstruation management.  Once girls reach puberty, they are not prepared to manage their monthly periods.  Although pads are available, they are considered to be too expensive to buy every month.  Girls will stay home during this time, and begin to miss so much school that they become discouraged.

As a fellow woman, who just so happened to be raised by an ultra feminist, I find the current situation appalling.  Never in my life did I dream that a man would tell me that I was not equal to him in a professional setting.  Can you say fired?  If only we were in America.  Unintentionally, I realized that most of my Peace Corps work is leaning towards girl empowerment.  I’ve got a number of projects in the works or on the ground to help girls gain self-confidence and stay in school!

One of my projects was suggested to me by one of my female teachers.  It just so happens that she teaches at the very school of the head teacher who doesn’t believe in gender equality.  Perfect.  All the female teachers wanted to create a club for the P-5 to P-6 girls to teach them sewing skills, which are practical in domestic life and could potentially provide an extra income.  I jumped on it.  With the approval of the teachers, I gave our club a twist: a positive, safe environment in which the girls will be able to bond with successful, knowledgeable women who will serve role models that they may lack at home.  Plus, we added a life skills session once a month.  Bam!  You’ve got yourself a girl’s club that is targeted to keep her interested in school, to improve her self-worth, to facilitate companionship with her peers and elders, with the potential to become an income generating activity!  I wrote up a lovely club charter to get the ball rolling.

Only two days after our godly meeting, I presented the club charter to the head teacher.  Did he have any questions?  Just one.  “Why are you only helping girls?”  Oh baby, you just set yourself up.  I finally found my tongue.  Maybe after stewing for two days, I was able to have a respectful, but strong response, in a very stern tone to boot.  “Sir, what you said to me the other day was completely inappropriate in a professional setting.  Particularly a school setting.  It is because attitudes like this exist that we need this club.  Women are not treated equally in this country, and we need to help our girl children stay in school.”  Ahhhhh, I felt so much better, although I was shaking due to my intense fear of confrontation.

I know what you’re all thinking.  I even know what some of you are thinking because you’ve told me.  Yeah, so what?  You told off one teacher, at one school.  Are you so self-righteous to think that you actually changed his mind?  You didn’t.  It’s nearly impossible to change people’s minds, especially when they’re on defense.  Just leave it alone Chels, you won’t be able to get him to think differently.

If I’m completely honest with myself, I can admit that you’re probably right.  He’s at least 40 years old.  Pretty set in his ways.  And why would he want things to even out?  Do you think he wants to wash clothes by hand?  Or cook?  Nope.

But that’s a very dangerous way to think.  As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I’m not bringing some fantastic project with an unlimited budget.  Oh no.  It’s just me.  With no funds.  My entire position is to challenge people’s thinking.  I’m here to help teachers improve, which means challenging their current teaching methods.  I’m here to help Ugandans understand Americans, which means challenging all the bizarre rumors they’ve heard.  I’m here to help Americans understand Ugandans, which means challenging our own preconceptions.  I know it’s a long shot, but I don’t care.  If I didn’t think I could make a difference, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be able to get up every morning to go to work.  I wouldn’t survive my service.  I have to hope that although my words may go one ear and out the other, my actions and programs can at least get people thinking.  That’s all.  I just want people to think about what’s going on.  About whether or not they agree with it.  And about whether or not they can make a change.

At the end of my service, I doubt I’ll see all the women in my village wearing trousers and refusing to kneel to men.  I do hope that I’ve planted a seed of an attitude change, particularly in my young girls.  I want them to know that they can do anything in the world.  And that if no one believes in them, at least they know that I do.

After I explained my new club to the head teacher, he followed me to the classroom.  He wanted to see me attempt to teach mathematics.  He was surprised to learn that I thought I could tackle P-7 math.  Of course, I teach math better than English.  It’s just how I do.  He couldn’t get over that not only could I explain the concepts, but that the pupils could actually perform the operations after.  Finally, he motioned to the club charter, “So, where did you go to get this typed up?”  “Oh, you know the place by the vet?” “Yeah, they’re great over there.  So fast!” “No, uhh, I actually made them let me type.  I’m much faster.”  He couldn’t believe it.  Maybe I just need to be around more.  Yes, I can do math.  Yes, I can type like a maniac.  Yes, I can wear trousers.  Yes, I can run 8 miles.  Yes, I practice kick boxing (there are even rumors that I'm a boxer).  Yes, I have a bachelor's degree.  Yes, I can drive a car.  And yes, I am a woman.

BOO!

Halloween may be the most bizarre holiday we celebrate. I’ve tried to explain it to my Ugandan teachers and friends, but somehow I just end up sounding crazy. Let me explain.

1. Let’s start easy and simple. Jack-o-lanterns. There are pumpkins in Uganda, so thankfully I don’t have to start from scratch. We scoop out all the insides, carve a scary face into the vegetable, place it outside our house, stick a candle in it and now you’ve got yourself a Jack-o-lantern. You buy food, ruin it, then let it rot outside your house? Well, when you put it that way, yeah I guess we do. Why? Uhhh, I don’t really know. I think in the past it was to scare the ghosts that are out at night. You think a scary pumpkin will make ghosts away? Good point. Moving on.

2. Alright, I’ll admit that Jack-o-lanterns are a strange tradition. But, how about costumes? Everyone dresses up in a costume! Children, teenagers and even adults. Scary costumes? Yeah, usually they are supposed to be scary, but sometimes people just dress up as other people or things. That aren’t scary? Yeah, like teachers, baseball players, hippies, Christmas trees. Well, now I’ve just lost them at baseball player. What would they think if I told them that people tend to blow a lot of money to be the best dressed or most original?

3. Trick-or-treating! So, on Halloween, all of our children go door-to-door collecting sweets. Who buys the sweets? The owner of the house. Why? It’s Halloween. Only the poor children go begging? No, they aren’t begging! Every child, no matter how poor or wealthy, goes trick-or-treating.

4. Oh, and we make our compounds (our yard and house) look scary so when kids come to ask for sweets, it’s spooky. How do you make your house look scary? How do you explain that weird, fake spider webs? Or that some people make their lawn into a graveyard?

5. Funny story! My mom used to dress up like a scarecrow and sit on the front porch. She would play creepy music- what does creepy music sound like?- and try to stay as still as possible. When kids would come get candy, she would scare the, well, poop out of them. It was hilarious! Wow, that sounds awful! Why would you do that to a child? Great, now I sound sadistic and crazy.

6. So what is Halloween exactly? I’m honestly not sure, but something to do with All Saint’s Day. The ghosts, witches and spirits supposedly come out that night. You believe in witches? No. Then why do you celebrate? I have no idea.

If you really think about, Halloween is sooooo strange. Regardless, my American friends still wanted to celebrate it. We thought it would be best to travel away from our sites to dress up. The last thing we needed was our neighborhood suspecting a gathering of witches. That would really hurt our reputation in our communities.

We decided to make the journey to Gulu, NGO central in Uganda. We had heard that because there are so many NGOs there, they would celebrate Halloween. Even though Uganda is about the size of Oregon, it was a very long journey to get there. About 12 hours to be exact! Once we got to Mbale, we had to board a bus that would travel through Soroti, Lira and finally Gulu. Despite being stuck on that bus for nearly eight hours, we had a blast! It was about six of us, and we talked nonstop from 9:30am-3:00pm. Finally we got tired of each other and put in our headphones to relax. It was fun though. Almost like a road trip without having to worry about distracting the driver. We stopped often for bathroom breaks and buying snacks. We ate most of the trip. Bus snack food? Bananas, peanuts, oily tortillas called chapatti, omelets wrapped in chapatii which is called a rolex, samosas, chips, roasted corn, fried corn, popcorn, snickers, soda, trail mix, roasted meat etc. Yeah, we did a lot of eating.

To our surprise, we did find a Halloween party! A bunch of other Peace Corps Volunteers met up with us in Gulu, so we were rolling about 15 deep. It felt surreal. I had pictured everyone meeting up at a bar in our costumes. Sure, the other Ugandan patrons may be creeped out, but at least there would be a lot of us. In reality it was a house party that honestly resembled something like a frat party. How could a Halloween part in Uganda feel like frat party? The booze was free, we were totally welcome without anyone knowing who we were but there was definitely an “in crowd” that we were not part of.

As for our costumes, we were relatively creative considering most of them were thrown together last minute. One of my girl friends was a middle-aged man with a beer belly getting back into exercising. Two guys dressed in rice sacks that were labeled as “Posho” and “Beans”- the most common Ugandan meal. I guess you’d have to be there to appreciate it. I dressed as Donatello from the Ninja Turtles! He’s the one who wears purple. A friend “borrowed” the broom handle from our hotel to be my staff. It was the perfect finishing touch to my lazy costume, but ended up being a hazard in the hands of others. Believe me, most people cannot twirl a giant stick and should never throw it into the air. We had a number of close calls that could have resulted in a lost eye.

We had a great time dancing, but we definitely stuck to our group. Maybe we’ve been here too long, but sometimes it can be annoying to interact with other volunteers. You always have to ask the same questions to other volunteers: What do you do? Oh wow, that’s great. How long have you been here? That’s nice. How long are you going to be here? As Peace Corps Volunteers, we’re kind of snobs- I’ll admit it. Of all the volunteer programs (don’t quote me though!), we have the longest minimum service of 27 months, we get paid the least, we live alone, and we learn the language. I’m not against new friends, but if I’m visiting a town far away from my site, it seems kind of troublesome when I can just be dancing.

Once we got back to the hotel room, my friend Ryan asked the same question about three times. “Did anyone talk to anyone else besides us?” Only Bethany can claim being social! She had a lengthy discussion with another volunteer about the importance of bringing Richard Simmons workouts to the village. Yes, she was the one dressed as the newly athletic man. I guess we’re a little antisocial. I actually never figured out who was even throwing the party. It was definitely either the entire crew dressed up as the characters from Peter Pan (they even had an alligator!) or the eighties girls who couldn’t figure out how to do a cartwheel. I don’t think I helped our case because I wore a backpack as my shell, which I managed to stuff full of water bottles at the beginning of the night. When all the drinks ran out, guess who still had water? I know, unspiritual, but I sweat so much when I dance that I needed to replenish! Hey, it was a health issue.