Uganda - 30, Theater Factory, going home

Today I am 30 and you are here when I wake up. I’m 30 now, I tell you. Such a remarkable thing to be grown (inside another body). To come from. And …

Jen, to answer your question – how to continue? – I would maybe place another question – continue what? – This has been my daily question of the last – 15 years? Like I said, not surviving. Not finishing. Not those things that are about breaking the future off from the here and... Still…

It’s a day off day. We have rollex again for breakfast. I spend the day putting the first ink on paper for my Fulbright proposal. I am coming back.

I tell Okello that it is my golden birthday and he returns with 5 members of Ndere troupe and 3 musical instruments. And they sing happy birthday in harmony and then Cogonza dumps a glass of water on my head.

Cold water. I get it! Ok. I’m here! Hey!

I do my laundry by hand. I drown the grass in soapy water. I drape clothes over the line where the sun has just left.

Can I love this?

Asiimwe’s friend Julius picks me up and throws me in the air. OK. I

I am sitting in your kitchen. November already. Lucie, who took Jubilith and I to her house for lunch, has just found my email and writes to say hello. I listen to the garbage truck outside and realize I forgot to take out the trash.

I make myself an education from your bookshelf - writers who are exploring the line between poetry and essay (reflecting on/ forming experience) and who are writing about memory as a present occurrence – Scalapino, Toufic and Hejinian. I am interested in Toufic’s proposal – that the opposite of forgetting is not memory. The past is already. The opposite of “to forget” is “to promise”.

As in, I promise to love

As in, I promise the size of an egg an arm

As in, I promise long horn cow we

As in, I promise insect face we laughed

As in, I promise screamed bird hymn

As in, I promise pink suit stare wooden bench

As in, I promise bicycle

As in, I promise dog hole snake cement blue plastic late afternoon

As in, I promise tide high river one eye

As in, I promise we

We rush by dinner and go to the National Theater for Theater Factory. Theater Factory resembles a Ugandan Saturday Night Live - clever and full of energy and tapped into something remarkable as evidenced by our struggle for chairs. Their show is on TV now too. It’s a big phenomenon and truly local. I think Ugandan artists are committed to creating economically sustainable work as part of their image of a successful national culture. I think Theater Factory is making big strides in this endeavor.

The bathroom in the National Theater is out of toilet paper.

We go backstage after the show to congratulate the artists. And then it turns out they’ve bought Dana and I cake! Dana turns 30 tomorrow. Kenneth organized the cake. Did I mention that he’s the funniest man in Uganda? He performs stand up as part of Theater Factory’s show and also works as a radio personality named Pablo. He’s also just a great guy. He’s got cow eyes. Cows are a symbol for beauty in Uganda.

Promising is something I do now. A now that is for the past and the future. How to continue? Maybe this is the question. Maybe this is a question that implies a promise to continue without a certainty of what continuing looks like. A perpetual interrogation of continuity: what continues in me?

I’m lying in bed. I can hear through the walls Erik talks to Zak. I’m grateful to him for telling the truth and for failing to tell the truth. I’m grateful to him for creating this exchange. For asking me if I have remembered my passport.

It’s the middle of the night. The moon orange over Kampala. Albert drives Dana, Lauryn, Katori and myself past the darkness of Lake Victoria to Entebbe. To the airport where the signs say goodbye in 17 different languages.

Today is made possible by Ruth Lambert in memory of SAWM.

Uganda - source of the Nile

We start the day with more omelets and pineapple and bananas. Today Rabbi Gershom and Lorne are driving north to Acegerekinei village to help with famine relief. Here is an article Lorne wrote about this trip.

It’s a quick drive to Kampala - we stop halfway at Jinja, the accredited source of the Nile. It’s a weird scene – kind of like the grand canyon in terms of ways and means to buy things. There’s a group of traditional dancers and musicians in vivacious blue and yellow and smiles. Turns out they’re filming a Primus commercial. The group takes a boat ride out into the source. I stay behind and watch mobs of school children recite together the text of a large plaque describing Jon Hanning Speke’s discovery of the source of the Nile. He’s a British explorer who sailed up here in the middle of the 19^th century. It sounds very serious – recited in unison by over 100 small voices. And then recited again. And again. When I read about his journey, it sounds like a mess – he went deaf and then blind and then he got better and by the time he got to Lake Victoria he had lost all his equipment so he couldn’t really say what he had found. It was later said to be the source of the Nile.

I am standing on the shore. I am thinking about sources – return, as in where one is going. Ultimately known – and meanwhile…

A bust of Gandhi. His ashes – some of them – were thrown in the Nile. His eyes cast down, or closed. He’s all ears.

Our group is the boat that is singing.

Meanwhile, famine. Meanwhile, 2,420 pounds of food is loaded off a truck in a remote village where people are hungry. Meanwhile, an old man holding a bag of corn meal tells Rabbi Gershom, "Thank you for saving us." Meanwhile, Rabbi Gershom tells 65 families sitting under a tree that Jews value human life above all else. Meanwhile, famine. Meanwhile, an email waits in my account from a friend. She says it seems I am asking a question she asks herself daily - "the world seems like such an impossible place for real living. how to continue?" I like this question because, it seems, we are asking it together.

Today was made possible by California Institute of the Arts.

Uganda - Abayudaya, Sipi Falls

There's another American staying with the Abayudaya. Lorne Mallin. He’s an amiable guy spending his retirement touring around the world. He's teaching here and writing for and about the community. We wake up a little after dawn to help a local farmer and his wife plant 100 eggplant seedlings. He leads us down the slope of the hill in narrow paths through banana trees, coffee, Irish potato plants, beans, cassava – these are from the World Bank and yield three times as much the local cassava plants. Maybe seven cassava a year. It requires such patience, agricultural time. To care for this plant for one year and then to harvest 7 cassava. Is that a week’s worth of food? Some kind of patience.

We arrive at a small rectangular plot of dirt. The farmer shows me how to dig holes – the depth, the spacing, he marks them and I dig. Soccer ball sized craters. – about 6 to a row. It’s tiring work. We need to dig 50 in all as each hole holds two seedlings. His wife carries manure in a plastic container from their cow. We put them in the holes and mix them with light dirt. The seedlings are wrapped fragile in banana leaves. We unwrap them – wet book pages – and place them in holes, tucking them in with fertile ground. The farmer hacks up a banana tree and we place the stiff, light bark over the holes to keep the seedlings safe from sun. My back is sore. The novelty of helping worn off. This is hard work.

Omelets for breakfast. Fresh pineapple. Local coffee. Luxury.

We meet with Rabbi Gershom. This guy has a big mind and a big smile. He’s the first rabbi to be “officially” ordained by the international community. He went to rabbinical school in Los Angeles, actually. He just came back last year. I wish I could remember more of our conversation – yes, as a rabbi, he allows people to incorporate traditional ceremonies into Jewish ceremonies. The holocaust is part of his identity as a Jew in that he believes one can live in a way where god is in the room and this is an image of the urgency of this work. And then Katori asks about whether he would accept homosexuals – this is a really hot topic in Uganda, a country where homosexuality is illegal and gays can face discrmination, imprisonment and possibly ill torture, according to Human Rights Watch. And now a new bill is being introduced that would prosecute those who “promote homosexuality”, not simply practice it – and he answers in this surprising way: he says he doesn’t want to go against the political or social will – that’s not his battle – but he doesn’t think homosexuality is a sin as long as someone is being true to his/her own nature. If he were to sleep with a man, he says, it would be a sin because it wouldn’t be true to himself. I’m inspired by the way he takes in every person and every question and considers it and responds openly – without fear.

The group takes the rest of the day to be tourists. We drive to Sipi Falls – water falling off cliffs. Such a simple thing and it takes the breath away. We hire a tour guide and he leads us through people’s backyards to the base of one of three waterfalls. One by one, we stand in the force of spray and sound bouncing off rocks. Wow. The people who live here have a tremendous gift.

What was the tour guide’s name? He had a way of seeing that I couldn’t wrap my head around. Open. He says that he was given this gift of being open with people – being able to talk to anyone – and so he became a tour guide. He takes the work seriously – organizing other people to give tours that have a certain kind of standard – chasing away children who are begging – otherwise, he says, they will not go to school. They will follow tourists around and ask for money and then where will they be? He has lost his parents from AIDS and supports his younger siblings and grandmother. He is used to thinking about taking care of a group of people. I find myself thinking – is he telling the truth? And if he is, is he telling me this story so I buy things? From his body language, I am inclined to think, he’s being friendly.

It reminds me of my friend from Uganda who is here – among many other things – teaching dance to young people living in the Salvation Army. This one young man calls him “Africa”. As in, “Hey Africa, why you using those big words!” Like – ok, look, he’s a impeccable storyteller but I forget all the details so I’m going to skip to the punchline - there’s a stereotype of Africa as being poor and my friend explains, it’s a different thing to be poor in a beautiful place where everyone is in it together. There’s dignity in it. (Yes, of course, poverty itself can be dehumanizing, but also what do I add to it in my thinking and action that dehumanizes people?)

And here – we are in the habit of circling up under the stars outside the guest house. In the dark on the top of a hill. Conversation becomes – how does sweetness remain a space for serious contemplation? Erik models this exploration – our tour guide steps off the path a moment and reemerges with a chameleon on his finger. We see “green” – he sees individual plants, a chameleon. A calling to the work of discernment. The chameleon is afraid, his arms making furious mindmills in his attempt to escape onto a neighboring leaf. The chameleon is afraid – not because he is experiencing pain or injury – but because he doesn’t know himself. He doesn’t know that he will not be destroyed by whatever threatens to overwhelm him because he doesn’t know who he is. By whatever strange means we come to know ourselves.

It reminds me of a dream I had several months ago – I am on the bus, in Uganda, and I am turning 30. And my father gives me a present. It’s covered in writing. A song. In another language. But three words are translated. I can’t remember the literal translations, but put together they could mean – To know yourself is to be without self. And/or. To stand in the presence of God is to be in God’s absence. I remember the act of reading being disorienting in my dream. I don't know what this has to do with genocide or theater, but for myself, it is a reminder that desire does not necessarily consummate in fulfillment. Home is not the clarity of answers, but the confusion of standing fully inside your own questions, or need or seeking or whatever you want to call it. Maybe when I say I need to understand the work of grieving, I am really saying I need to arrive outside of this work. Maybe when I say I need to understand why I am here, I am saying "get me out of here!" Maybe there's a kind of a kind of meaning that is just to stay present to a thing. Rwanda. Uganda. This new space. An agricultural patience. I don't know.

Today was made possible by the California Institute of the Arts.

Uganda- drive to Mbale, Abayudaya

David says he is well and can drive us to Mbale – it is 6, maybe 8 hours away. The roads are much better. Last year everything was dirt and pockmarked and under construction. Chinese companies. He sweats the whole way. The man is made of steel. I wonder how many people are depending on his paycheck.

We are driving to the Abayudaya. This is a community of self-appointed Jews in the east of Uganda. In the beginning of the 19^th century, the British converted a Ugandan warrior, Semei Kakungulu to Christianity. They used him to conquer neighboring tribes. Kakungulu operated under the assumption that he would be given proxy control over these areas. When that didn’t happen, he became disillusioned and he and his followers went into seclusion. Kakungulu spent a lot of time reading the bible and came to the conclusion that the first five books – the torah – were what spoke to his heart. He started to practice rituals described in the torah and he and his followers circumsized themselves. The people in the community around him were appalled and called them Abayudaya – which means Jews, a derogatory term. But he said, yes, that’s who we are. We are Abayudaya.

They didn’t know that Judaism was a major religion internationally. So, I believe there was mutual surprise when members of the Abayudaya ran into a Jew, Joseph – I believe they were on a journey that involved trading. This is around 1920. Anyway, Joseph agreed to come back to the Abayudayah community and teach Judaism – he brought a Torah, introduced the Jewish calendar, and taught them major religious ceremonies.

In 1928, Semei Kakungulu died of tetanus. Half his followers reverted to Christianity and half remained Abayudayah. They remained so despite advantages going to Christians – the schools were often missionary schools, the Christian church could supply jobs. In the 1980s, Idi Amin came to power and outlawed Jewish worship. Most people converted to Christianity, but the Abayudayah who remained – 300 or so – kept practicing. They were in the middle of something else – not just surviving; they were building a life.

Today the Abayudaya live in a few scattered communities near Mbale. They have made connections, are officially recognized by, and receive support from the international jewish community. They also have peaceful relations with their Christian and Muslim neighbors and have established an inter-faith coffee cooperative. They model an intentional way of living – a modest peace.

We stop in Lira which for some reason feels halfway between Gulu and Mbale – although when I look at a map it’s only 1/3 of the way. Maybe it’s the roads. Lira is a big town with a view of a voraciously green hill, a rock, cell phone towers. They have a big movie theater with bright pink walls. Lira is bright! We eat lunch at a little restaurant with white tile and a bollywood film on the TV.

OK, so, really, at this point of the trip, I can’t sit still anymore. I’m stumbling over my own obstacles to seeing. Turning 30 is hard for me - a sign post for "going on". Alone. Or at least, without mom. I am not sure quite what the work of grieving is. I don't like this image of "going on". Surviving. I don’t want to be a survivor. I don’t want to say I survived losing mom or I survived living with her illness. I don’t want the meaning in suffering to be proving that I am strong. I want something more than that.

We arrive at the Abayudayah guest house. It’s beautiful – clean, on top of a hill looking out on mountainous green – I go for a walk. I’m trying to walk out of my head. To the edge of the hill where the road slopes down to the sound of lively conversations – a town, a school getting out. Children in blue uniform walking up the hill. The land is flat until the horizon, until the haze of colorless sky. Farms. Smoke from domestic fires. Homes. The land goes on unfamiliar forever. What is it - the work of going home...

Today was made possible by the California Institute of the Arts.

Uganda - Gulu, Mao, Invisible Children

And, well, at least I’m not the only one asking this question. Erik drank too much Ethiopian coffee and was up all night with his mind spinning. Rwanda – and also Northern Uganda – are places where culture has broken, he says, and is knitting itself back together. I imagine skin over a wound. To study how culture knits itself back together here, we learn something about the work of culture. We learn something about violence and hope in our own culture. (The work of peace always starts from home perhaps?) The trip, a constant introduction. Introducing. To network. To plan. To come back for at least 10 years. To keep moving. Art is a movement. A way of being in the world (hospitality, playing house, conversation.) There are things the trip is geared toward – to see, to accompany, to relate to…

I have written in my notes this question – If art is a way of life what are its characteristics? It is followed by a list related to drawing choices and events down to a human level (rehumanizing the other, ourselves), to allowing space for the ineffable (the work of forgiveness, justice, silence), to (re)organizing images and energy (telling our truth). Also in my notes – a working definition of cultural institution – disseminates information, combines practical needs with aesthetic ideas/ideals, directs conscious adaptation of histories...

It’s the time in the trip when the mind starts spinning.

This image will stay with me: the way skin regenerates over an injury. Bodies heal themselves. And one’s job becomes patience. Not making things worse.

What are we doing here? What are you calling here?

The bus driver, David, has malaria and typhoid. He says he’s gonna sleep it off and he’ll be fine to drive us to Mbale tomorrow. We spend the day in Gulu.

We meet Chairman Mao. He’s the chairman for this district.

We crowd into Norbert Mao’s office. We’re a big group. Introductions. He says he is glad to meet us. He says many people come now when the fighting is over. Where were we when people were really suffering? Ah, but still he is glad we have come.

We have a long conversation what he sees as the challenges facing Uganda and the region. When asked what he saw as the priority in developing Africa, he answered – build more roads. Roads lead to easier access to Africa’s natural resources. It leads to commerce between nations, and among more regions in nations. People in remote regions can gain access to hospitals, larger markets. Uganda is wealthy in terms of its natural resources. Why is the country so poor? Mao suggests Uganda mortgage their natural resources – uranium, copper- to China in exchange for roads. He will be running for president next year against Museveni. Yoweri Museveni has been in office now for over 20 years. Many people like him since he brought some degree of stability to Uganda after the turbulent dictatorships of Milton Obote and Idi Amin.

We talk about the situation in Northern Uganda now. The LRA has moved to Congo and to Sudan. Mao suspects that Kartoum – the capital of Sudan – is interested in funding the LRA to “mess up” southern Sudan – the Darfur region. I’ve heard suggested that the Sudanese government was funding the LRA and the Ugandan government was funding the Sudanese Liberation Front, a rebel army in Southern Sudan fighting the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed militia. Mao points out that although things look more peaceful now in Northern Uganda, what is to stop the LRA from coming back? And what is the work being done to address grievances that lead to violence?

In Northern Uganda, the population is decimated by war. According to Mao, eighty percent of the population is under 30 and half the population is under 15. Will all these young people find jobs? Do they feel they have a stake in peace?

There is some tension about the upcoming elections as Northern Uganda is somewhat sore with the current government for not intervening as they were driven from their homes and their children were abducted. There is some feeling of not being counted.

I am thinking again of my friend’s questions – “What happens when over 40 nations (the ones popularly known as "tribes") are forced to merge into one "nation" under a system of governance that is unfamiliar? Can one really call that a nation? What happens to the smaller nations that find themselves under the mighty foot of the bigger nations? What does the word "nation" mean to you, Emily?”

Mao discovers we are artists. His faces animates. His wife is a filmmaker. He wants Gulu to become a cultural center in Uganda. A nation is only as good as its culture, he says. Drama, radio – we can change the way we think of the future.

It was a gem of a meeting. Not just because of the wealth of information, but also Mao’s charisma. He’s a remarkably personable, honest and sharp politician. It will be interesting to see where he goes.

We wander through Gulu. Get lost. Christian takes us to visit his friend’s house. He makes paintings and small figures out of banana leaves. We stop at a coffee shop. We go back to the hotel. I sit in the lobby and watch TV – Jon Stewart is making fun of Republicans for insisting that Barak Obama should reveal his birth certificate to prove that he’s not African. Hail in Europe. Flooding in Belarus. We have pizza for dinner. With chicken and beef on it.

And we meet with the Ugandan head of Invisible Children. She’s a fascinating woman. Laker Jolly Grace Okut. Some young filmmakers came to Northern Uganda in 2003. They created a documentary about the conflict – Invisible Children. And then they teamed up with Okut – who has years of experience running development organizations – and began a non-profit. The young men organize young people in the US to raise money and she pragmatically uses that money to build and repair public schools, to finance education, small businesses, and aid in resettling people from the IDP camps. She seems smart at collaborating with existing infrastructure as she is concerned about the money going into projects that follow through. If you were interested in investing money in Northern Uganda, it seems like a good organization to go through.

She was also friends with Joseph Kony and participated in the negotiations to disarm the LRA. She spoke to us a little about what she feels isn't working. She says the use of force has been disheartening because when the army gets close, Kony lets the children go. The army guns them down only to realize they are shooting up 10 year olds with AK-47s down to their knees. Negotiations aren’t working, she says, because why would he put himself in prison? She says someone will need to pay him off. Promise immunity. Give him a million dollars. Then he’ll come out of the bush. It’s such a difficult justice.

I find comfort for this helplessness that sometimes takes hold - to meet people who are doing so much for the recovery of Northern Uganda. There's some kind of space between everything and nothing. I hope it will be OK. I hope the people we have met find some peace. I hope we all find peace.

Today was made possible by the California Institute of the Arts.

Uganda - Hope North, Gulu

The termites live in holes in the ground. The rain drives them out. People eat them. They are a delicacy.

I have swept the dead termites out of the hut and the children have come and put them in tin cups to cook.

The head boy (the boy who is elected leadership among the students) gives us a tour through the school. I wish I remembered his name. He’s soft spoken and tall with a natural ease about him. Hope North’s long term goal is to be an international peace institute as well as a school for war affected children. The guest hut has a ground plan of the proposed site hanging on the wall.

Tour includes a bakery, fields for growing corn, beans, potatoes, other plants. The corn is so dry. There hasn’t been enough rain. The old watering hole. The new well – the well last year was infested with – I think it was typhus? Cholera? But they raised money and dug a new one and it looks like it’s working out. We toured the dormitories – named after Forest Whitaker – he donated considerably to Hope North after his time in Uganda filming Last King of Scotland, where he met Okello and Rwangyezi – who both worked on the film. The dormitories are big cement buildings with tight rows of bunk beds. They are across from the classrooms. The class rooms are cement buildings with worn chalkboards and a few wooden desks. This is a place with big dreams. It’s a difficult thing, I think, to make dreams into practice. The students and the teachers work hard. We ask where is the head girl? And the tour pauses while someone goes to find her.

Ndere troupe stops by on their way to perform at Lima and they eat heaping plates of eggs and posho and chicken and japati for breakfast. Hope North raises chickens and goats – but I think this chicken was bought from a nearby town for us to eat. Lauryn is in the classroom singing hymns with the choir. The children dig termites retreating back into the ground with a spoon.

It turns out the students have a big schedule so we all crowd into a small classroom and give our gratitude and acknowledgement of this encounter and head to Gulu. Christian, the man who has been working at Hope North as a Peace Corps representative, is gracious enough to join us.

Gulu town – someone made a joke that this is like NGO Vegas. Northern Uganda had a rough time for a long time with Alice Lakwena and then the LRA. It is a popular place to send aid. The aid is mostly concentrated in towns, especially Gulu. There is some frustration because there is no single entity coordinating the aid efforts so there can be redundancy, inefficiency and a lot of money going into easy to access areas with very little money reaching more remote communities. Gulu town has a lot of internet cafes. And the placards for international aid organizations do have a carnival density and slickness. International aid can promote authentically human goals and values and still be a business.

Day off. We have dinner at a local Ethiopian restaurant. We’re a little grumpy. Tired from long traveling, our expectations of “doing something” at Hope North unmet. A day of “doing nothing” in Gulu. We’ve come all this way and people are in the middle of their chaotic lives in their own schedules and their own thoughts and dreams and work. And we are left facing the question – what are you doing here? Why did you come?

Or, at least, I am feeling grumpy. I leave the restaurant and walk alone back to the hotel. On the street, three young girls in high teenage fashion stop me. Who are you? What are you doing in Gulu? Will you be my friend? Give me your email. It's dark in the street. She will write me and say her name is Lilian.

Gulu is happening without my deciding why I am in it. But still, why do I come? It's essential - this work of being human together, but it's not enough.

Today was made possible by California Institute of the Arts.

Uganda - Hope North workshop

Ah, it’s our big workshop with the students of Hope North today. We are interested in encouraging the students to form a drama club. Goal may sound modest or naive – but it points to a larger question which comes up in this kind of work – what can you really offer with a two day workshop?

I’m going to do a little time traveling here and talk about something I will learn in a month when I am driving across my own country. I’m listening to NPR and they have an interview with a woman who trained a parrot named Alex to speak English. But the thing that really struck me is – what does it look like to teach someone(thing) to communicate? Yes, it involved technique. For example, parrots don’t have lips so you have to be really patient for it to learn how to make some kinds of sounds – “p” “b” – those kinds of things and I seem to remember him having trouble with words that ended in an “s” sound- he would say words like six as sick. That kind of thing. But then also, she told the story of taking Alex home with her once for a vacation and he got freaked out by the owls out of the window and said over and over “Wanna go back!” And she had to drive back to the lab in the middle of the night and bring him back. Because teaching communication is not just teaching sounds and ways of organizing thoughts. It involves teaching trust.

And what does it mean to teach a theater workshop in a community whose individuals have had their trust violated in a profound way? The LRA seems systematic at this – because if the children have their sense of being in the world broken, they need to stay with the rebels. Where else would they go? I feel awkward recording testimony – but I recently watched War Dance – and I’ll talk about this because it was not given to me, but to a camera. To anyone. I have some questions about who is taking the picture in this documentary – their hand is visible, but unacknowledged – but I still recommend it – the children it follows are impossible to dismiss. It’s about the LRA’s impact on the lives of three young children from Padogo in Northern Uganda and their triumph at the national music, dance and drama competition in Kampala – a symbol of resistance and rebirth. A boy named Dominic tells a story to the camera of his time as a child soldier. He says, he was nine years old. He was kidnapped with his brother. The group of kidnapped boys and soldiers came across two farmers. He and two other boys were given machetes and told to kill the farmers and cut them into pieces. If they didn’t do it, they would be killed. If anyone cried or looked away, they would be killed. So they did it. And in telling the story, he says he has told no one – except this camera – that he has killed. And that the community welcomes him back as a victim, not a perpetrator, but he knows in his heart that god is not happy with him. And that these people – that he has killed – were killed for no reason. The LRA has asked children to kill other children. To cut off their lips, or eyes. To kill their parents.

And what can you really offer with a two day theater workshop?

And then I see a lot of reporting on Rwanda and Uganda that ends here. Like OK. This atrocity is the real story and the work of recovery is never enough. But I think there can be some space between doing nothing and making everything better.

So, in this two day workshop, our goal is to encourage the students of Hope North to form a drama club. Because, we imagine, it could be fun. As a space to tell their own stories and to feel heard. As a space to compose memory and to imagine the future. To play. To practice playing.

Our workshop looks like this:

We are a giant group – maybe 150 students? We all get into a circle in the field. We’re a very big circle. I have to squint to see the shy faces on the other end of the circle. We do a warm up together. A movement/sound meditation. There are little kids standing on the periphery and watching us, curious.

We break into groups and do a story circle – do you know this? It’s really simple. Everyone tells a story. Nobody comments on stories. Everyone listens. Most of the stories I hear in my group have to do with times people got injured or scared and ran away from something – they saw a snake, they were playing sports – young kids with old faces and quiet voices and we’re standing under the shade of a tree in a field where students play soccer very well and telling stories of overcoming obstacles in our lives.

Next step, we get into a big group and share images that we remember from our stories – an elephant, soldiers, a birthday cake. Then we tell the students to go and make masks inspired by images from the story. Come back in 15 minutes. At this time, the structure falls apart a little bit. In an hour and half, we are back, gathered under a tree. We look at about 15 masks. There’s two gorillas. An insect. My favorite was the student who was a wall. What did he say? He could hide from soldiers? Or it made him a very good soldier? He performed being a wall for us. That was the next thing – we had some of the masks improvise a scene together. They did capoeira. Capoeira artists came in – last year? Two years ago? – and led a week long workshop. And the practice stuck. And the practice evolved. Maybe that will happen with this work too.

So, anyway, this is meant to be the first half of the workshop. We are meant to practice an exchange. It’s meant to look like – we lead a theater workshop, then we teach each other dances –Hope North teaches a dance, our Ugandan partners teach a dance, Americans teach a dance

In the break between the workshop, I draw with the young children of the village. Why? I don’t know. I want to make friends. The kids draw with serious joy. The oldest, Rose's daughter Concy, meticulously copies drawings from my book. A list of things to do in a day. They don’t know our names so they call us “This one.”

It’s a hot day and the dancing doesn’t happen. I bind all the children’s drawings together and make a book. Zoe draws a cover. She’s good at it. The day disappears. It’s evening. It is night. Dinner by candlelight in a field under the stars. Fire. A van is pulled up and the headlights are turned on and a handful of students perform capoiera by the light of the fire and a car battery and stars and stars. Man, they are good. Dana and Katori and Lauryn have choreographed a hip hop dance. There’s dancing together. Acholi dances. Concy leads me into the dance. I don’t know how to dance and the student behind me is very kind and keeps pushing me into the right position every time the dance changes. We are beating the earth with our feet. It is night. I am asleep. The termites come to the light and die in dark sheets over the floor of our hut.

Today is made possible by the generosity of California Institute of the Arts.

*Photo taken by Cristina Frias.