Day 1: June 18, 2010
I think I had a life outside of airplanes once. I'm not entirely sure, because the past few days have been nothing but my butt in various airplane seats. Still, I'm feeling reasonably certain that I had a life out of airplanes once. “Once” being 65{1/2} hours ago.
Sixty hours ago, I got off a plane at Bradley International Airport in Hartford, Conn., having finished one of the most fulfilling weeks of my life.
I was volunteering with AIDS/ LifeCycle, the bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles. For seven days, I served on the Gear & Tent team, a group that packed and unloaded thousands of bags for the thousands of cyclists each day. Now, I'm not asserting that my work was a harder task than what those heroic riders accomplished by pedaling 545 miles. I'm just asserting that it was different. (Also, it was harder.)
After what felt like a diva snap of the fingers, it was suddenly time to head back to my home in Vermont. I felt just as fulfilled as I was exhausted.
Coming back was a nightmare: the traveling was fine; the emotions were completely raw. In an effort to avoid sorting through said emotions, I had convinced myself it was important to be at work the next morning.
Which was silly. There really is no actual need for a dean of students at a small rural school in southern Vermont during the summer months when moose outnumber students by a ratio of 42 to 1. I sat zombie-like in my office for two days in a complete stupor: my body may have sat at my desk, but my mind and my heart were most definitely hanging out in California.
Then, 60 hours after my return east, I packed largely the same clothes (thoroughly disinfected) in the same blue duffel and did what everyone does to process pivotal life events: I drove 4{1/2} hours south to New Jersey to set off for Uganda.
Seriously: Uganda. Which apparently is in Africa.
This trip came about so randomly that I haven't obsessed over it much. On a Wednesday last month, Gloria Thomas, a humanitarian/philanthropist based in New Jersey, was a guest on my gay radio show. She had received several mentions in the national press due to an open letter she penned to President Obama exhorting him to take action on the “Kill the Gays” legislation being proposed in Uganda.
As I interviewed her, she spoke so passionately about her work with impoverished youth at a school there. I then made a flippant comment - as I do - that I would love to go with her on her next trip. She immediately replied that I would most certainly be coming with her on her next trip.
Her assertion left no room for any alternative. On Thursday, I asked my college to sponsor my trip. And on Friday, I had an email in my inbox confirming that I now had plane tickets to travel to Uganda. Which apparently is in Africa.
Day 2: June 19, 2010
I woke up groggy this morning. Turns out, jet lag is a real thing. I lay in bed for a few minutes until it suddenly occurred to me that I was in Uganda, so I quickly roused myself to start my first full day in Africa.
I loaded up my plate with various pieces of fruit and returned to the table and sat across from Gloria. She looked at my plate and told me that the pineapple would blow my mind.
I smiled even as I thought, I promise you: no pineapple will ever blow my mind. Then I ate the pineapple.
It blew my mind.
Most of the day was spent being an American and, at least for me, being embarrassed by it. Our van provided a cocoon that insulated us 13 Americans from Uganda, a disconnect that allowed my tripmates to marvel at poverty while always maintaining some distance.
But windows being transparent as they are wont to be, this meant that people could see into our van as well. We 13 Americans, with our whiteness, our exuberance, and our pointing - well, we looked out of place to anyone who even glanced in our direction.
My gut reaction was to assume a veneer of self-effacement, apologetic at the intrusion that was so clearly a temporary arrangement, one that passengers and pedestrians alike all knew. We were not humanitarians moving to a foreign land. We were more like vacationers who would be volunteering a little bit. The thought of exclaiming, waving, and pointing-as everyone in the van seemed to be doing-well, that made me more than a bit queasy.
On this day, we reached Otuzzi, a remote co-op of a village that can only be reached by imperiling us on an insane dirt suggestion of a road. I was white-knuckling the seat in front of me the entire time, as it felt like our van could flip over at any second. This was most certainly a road-less-traveled, at least by van.
Upon arrival, we were immediately led into Otuzzi's Craft Store, the proceeds from which directly support the community. Eight craftswomen of Otuzzi sat outside while we shopped. I bought probably $120 worth of crafts for around $10, and the villagers were apologizing to me about the high prices. I was certainly uncomfortable with their reaction, but I wasn't quite sure how to respond other than to say, “Thank you.” So I just said, “Thank you.”
We also got a tour of Otuzzi's medical facility and their dentist's office. In the latter, there was a patched-together dentist's chair. That chair looked like it could fall apart during the next root canal. They don't have electricity, so a fancy, motorized one would be useless. But how about just a nice manual chair?
I somehow got it into my head that this dentist's chair was my mission in life. I hadn't been in Africa for 24 hours, but clearly my purpose on this planet was to get the village of Otuzzi a new dentist's chair.
I began composing an email to the makers of dentist's chairs that would surely move a compassionate executive to immediately comp the village of Otuzzi a dentist's chair. But it wasn't enough for that compassionate executive to give it to Otuzzi, he'd also pay for the shipping and handling and have someone on site to install it.
I had no doubt that Oprah would hear about my efforts and show up herself to put a scented candle under the chair for the first patient to discover. I couldn't believe it: I was going to meet Oprah! It was going to be one of the most satisfying hugs that I would ever experience in my life, and not an hour would go by before she'd anoint me as her heir apparent.
And to think, it all started because I saw a run-down dentist's chair and had a vision to make things better.
Obnoxious anthropological superiority and white privilege do funny things to the mind in a dentist's office in Uganda.
Day 3: June 20, 2010
Hey, remember that time when I sat through a 3{1/2}-hour Pentecostal church service in Uganda?
I'm fairly sure I will never again in my life write such a sentence, so I tried my darnedest to be as present as I possibly could straightaway this morning. We were told next to nothing about what this church service would be like except that it was a 3{1/2}-hour Pentecostal church service.
That description alone made me feel dreadfully out of place, so my sole goal was to be in the moment. I was determined to not let that pesky gay Jew part of me interfere.
Although I largely failed in this task, I would argue that there were a few moments today when I felt like I was there.
We piled into our van and drove to a hollowed-out suggestion of a church. Our group was immediately escorted to a few rows of white plastic lawn furniture set up front and center. Those white plastic lawn chairs were virtual thrones compared to the crude benches underneath the rest of the congregants.
This is not to imply that we sat much. Because we didn't. The service was nothing short of a musical revue: singing, dancing, clapping, praying, and pentecosting. I was mesmerized by the humans around me, and I constantly marveled at the movements of the churchgoers as I watched their hips do things my hips are not wont to do.
And suddenly I couldn't help but think about my father, Barry Mitchell Schneck. Barry is a man who has a relationship with religion, a bond with faith, a connection with the idea, structure, and culture of Judaism.
Have you ever been to a bar or bat mitzvah? You know that guy who politely but sternly shushes the tween friends of the bar/bat mitzvah honoree? These kids can't possibly understand the significance of the hours-long proceedings because the prayers and songs are in another language so they naturally start chattering away.
My dad is the guy who shushes tweens into reverence and respect of the babel. He is faithfully present in temple every Saturday, and I know that he derives comfort and stability from Judaism. It is firmly rooted in his core.
The closest I have ever come to deriving comfort and stability from faith is my devotion to the pantheon of programming on the Bravo network. Although all those Real Housewives are firmly rooted in my core, it just doesn't feel like the same depth of reverence that my father embodies.
I have often wondered what this relationship with religion actually does for my father and what I was lacking without it. It has always been a source of envy even as I have never made a move toward religion that wasn't mandated by my childhood dependent status on my parents. And even then, I attended services begrudgingly with a sour expression never far from my face (if it wasn't already plastered there to begin with).
In that Pentecostal service, my mind tried to draw parallels between Saturday morning services at Temple Emanuel in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, and the one here in Uganda. Other than that they were both faith adjacent, this line of thought was like comparing apples to banana bread.
For me, Jewish services are mostly staid affairs. If there was wonder and envy to be found in Temple Emanuel, I had to dig real doggone deep to find it. In today's Pentecostal service in rural Uganda? No such shovels necessary.
There was a fervency that was right on the surface of the entire church this morning. It was palpable. If I had been envious of my father's connection to devotion, this morning there I was feeling white-hot jealous.
Throughout the service, two 4-year-olds in the aisle next to me alternated between dancing exuberantly and kneeling on the ground, scrunching up their faces, shutting their eyes tightly, mouthing prayers to above. Their whole behavior screamed of beseeching. I'm not sure for what a 4-year-old actually beseeches, but there was all kinds of beseeching.
The sermon provided by the pastor was an out-and-out doozy. It was centered on the power of voice. How do you use your voice? How can you make people hear? How do you vocalize the word of God and follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ? Other than that last question, it all somehow hit home and took root somewhere in me.
Hilarity ensued when Gloria was called up to the podium and then called us Americans up one by one, handed us the microphone, and told us to address the congregants.
Gloria, of course, gave us absolutely no warning that this was going to happen.
The crap that came out of my mouth about my heart being more full in my two days here than it has ever been before in my life was crowd-pleasing, even if I felt no conviction behind it. I know how to work a room, and this felt like the right thing to say. I got a smattering of applause, and I was OK with that.
The tripmate who was handed the microphone after me sidled up next to me on stage and whispered, “You're an ass for making me follow that.” I shrugged.
There were more prayers, more singing, more dancing, and, yes, more beseeching.
And then, just like that, it was over. We were ushered from the white plastic lawn furniture back to our van.
The church is around the corner from Busingye Primary School, our other destination for the day and the main focus of our entire trip to Uganda. As it was Sunday, the only students who were milling about were the boarders. And the only students who are boarders are orphans.
When your main exposure to orphans is Pepper pushing Annie around in that laundry cart, Busingye on a Sunday is bound to be at least a tad bit eye-opening. And “eye-opening” doesn't begin to cover it.
There was one point this afternoon when I was crouched down next to a 3-year-old who was carefully tearing apart a large leaf. At no point did he look at me or acknowledge me, but as I was casting a shadow across him, and I was maybe 4 centimeters away from him, my guess was that he knew I was there. But he kept right on tearing.
Could this have happened with any child? Sure. But I couldn't help but attach a different set of meanings to the leaf tearing given that he was an orphan. I transformed the scene into a giant metaphor because to do otherwise would be to be comfortable with the unfamiliar. Orphans in Uganda were unfamiliar, and I couldn't have that level of comfort with them yet.
After lunch, I gravitated from the group toward the library to sit with Irene, the sister of the headmaster. She was dressed in a stunning orange wrap dress and a matching head wrap. You couldn't help but notice her in church this morning as she led the children's choir. I later learned that her father is the Pentecostal pastor who had delivered the sermon.
Irene and I talked about American education, and she began telling me of her own school. With 54 students and a huge chunk of them orphans, her needs were plentiful. She showed me pictures. I, in turn, melted.
I had purchased the 300 boxes of chalk for the Busingye School and asked her if she needed any for hers. She lit up.
So I grabbed a whopping four boxes from the Busingye stash. I gave them to Irene.
No sooner did this chalk transaction go down than Joseph, her brother and the Busingye headmaster, walked in. His resting-face countenance was already stern and, when he saw the chalk leave my hands and enter Irene's, the sternness in his countenance deepened. He looked at me as if I had given away one of his kidneys. It was uncomfortable, and I bowed my head.
An hour later, in the van, Gloria laid into me, chastising me in front of all of my American tripmates. She was curt. Her words were clipped. She explained that Irene is a beggar and that it wasn't my place to get involved, especially as I couldn't possibly understand the dynamics of the situation given my limited time in Uganda.
It was an epic dressing down of Ken, and everybody in the van most certainly knew it, including Ken. My head immediately returned to the bowed position it had so recently left. It also gave me my first glimpse of Gloria. I had a sense she was not a woman you wanted to mess with. That sense solidified here.
Me being me, I couldn't stop thinking about this interaction for the rest of the day. The more I thought about it, the angrier I became. Irene started a school. She showed me pictures. She hadn't asked for anything. I bought the chalk with money out of my own pocket.
Could I have been the victim of some long, well-thought-out, stunningly-draped-in-orange con? Maybe. But there were 296 boxes of chalk left for the teachers at Busingye School, four boxes for Irene's school, one headmaster with a missing kidney, one Gloria who dressed me down, and one bewildered gay Jew.
So, everybody wins.