Lobster in a Bucket

Action Jackson

So I'm sort of back online. I'm rocking windows 98se and an old sony laptop. It's workin. I'm going to try to get my email list back together this week. But thanks for checking this weblog. I'm also going to try to get something going with the podcasts, but that's a ways away. Stay calm for the return to normalcy.

We live in a culture where image is deeply suspect, after a century of dense advertising, cgi, plastic surgery, photoshop, Nessie the lochness monster, and many hundreds of fake Rennaissance paintings seeing is no longer believing. Not here in sunny Uganda. Every day, I get accused of being Jesus. Why? Not because of my Christlike behavior. Oh no. It merely turns out that I resemble the dude from the Jesus video. Which next to Jackie Chan's Rumble in the Bronx is the most watched film in Uganda.

Now these people are not all making fun of the Mzungu with the unruly hair and beard. No, for this culture, where seeing has been believing for so long, the actor from the Jesus Film is taken to be an accurate depiction of who Jesus actually looks like. Talk about iconography.

Hittin the Streets Uganda Style

Dear Friends,

I've always enjoyed depictions of pathetic beaurocratic inneficiency in film and books. The other day it hit a little closer to home. When your car is broken into in America, the correct response is to immediately dial 911. An officer will promptly come out to where you are in his car and investigate. He may take some finger prints, get statements from you and your friends, maybe a guard. Then a nice neat report will be filed. Maybe, your stuff will be recovered, but probably note, but in any case, the details of making a crime a crime, in the eyes of the law, are short, simple, and hassle-free. Not so in Uganda.

This is the process, without too many details of what I went through when all my stuff got stolen. I'm writing this for humor's sake, please don't pity me. Once I saw the condition of the car, the absence of my stuff, and realized that, obviously, I had been robbed, I began to look for some assistance. I found the head of security for the mall. He was a big old, kind of fat, old man. After looking at the car he exclaimed, "What is hahppenen heeahh?!?" While it was fairly obvious to me, it remained kind of unclear to him. For the next 15 minutes or so, at every new revelation of theft: I.E. the other cars that had been broken into, the subtle signs of forced entry. again, I was confronted with the question, " What is hahpennen heeahh?!?"

The police, at least the ones low enough on the ladder to actually do police work, and not just drive around to meetings, have no cars in Uganda. So to file a report, I had to go back to a police station in the car, that had been robbed, pretty effectively ruining the scene of the crime. I had to make a report for two reasons, one, the US government wouldn't give me a passport without one, two, the insurance company, if there was one that covered my stuff (I'm now pretty sure this isn't), will need one. So we went to the station. We filed a report, which consisted of saying what happened to a secretary who hand wrote the report on paper, I signed it, and then left.

When I went back to get a report the next monday I sat in a room for about 3 hours full of detectives trying to avoid work. Well to be fair, they may not of really been avoiding work, I'm not sure that a cop can do much work without a car, a cell-phone, or at least a typewriter. When I finally got my report, I was berated for disrupting the scene of the crime, by driving over to them to make the report. They then asked me to take them over to the mall. My co-worker, Mark, took them in the violated vehicle. I jumped out of the moving car to try to make the embassy before it closed. At the mall, it became very clear that these two detectives were more interested in shopping, than investigating. After all, what could they do? Mark got annoyed with them and told them it was time to go, they asked for us to pay for their rides back to the station, Mark just took them instead.

The Bad News Bears

Well some of you may already know, but I got robbed yesterday while in Kampala. Our car was broken into in Kampala's "most secure" commercial parking lot. Our car was one of 3 broken into in about 15 minutes, all very professional jobs. Our car had an incision about 1 in long in between the door and the lock. It was pretty impressive. So anyway, my laptop, camera, passport, checkbook, vintage aviator sunglasses (weeps), and headphones were all in a backpack that was taken.

Unfortunately, I don't have a computer anymore, and I don't have a checking accouunt that I can access in meaningful way. In short, I'm pretty much laid up. My incipient podcasting and picture posting is now out as well. I can't check my main email address either, so if you need to contact me, or just say your condolences, cadtmatt1 at prodigy.net or mrallison@gmail.com are both gonna work.

Ominously. it seems like theft is a recurring theme for me right now. This one, while practically nearly catastrophic, doesn't have me nearly as bothered as the theft by my workers a couple weeks ago. In my mind, the things that I have, while nice, and practically neccessary (like my computer and passport) have very little to do with what I'm actually doing here. In other words, I feel a regularly weak sense of ownership of my stuff in comparison to what I'm doing here. I feel affected by the unravelling of my friendship to Birungi due to his theft a lot more than having my stuff stolen.

Lastly, some of you may be wondering, "Why in the heck did he have that stuff in his car?" That's a fair question. The place we had it parked, Garden City Mall, feels like a western shopping center, there's only one entrance, highly secure. It's that kind of place, we come in as a team there, often with all our stuff loaded up, all the time, and have never had a problem, because theft hasn't been a problem there before. So don't take me for a complete fool.

I guess that in terms of prayer. you can pray that many logistical details will work out in the next three days, particularly the ordeal of getting a new passport issued. Second, mainly for the reason that I can continue to dialogue with you guys, I'd like to be able to use a computer for the next 6 weeks or so, before I come home to America for a bit.

Matt

Skype Skype Skype (said quickly)

So, this is my last post for today. Yesterday I had a real, live conversation with Josiah over Skype. With Skype I can call America for about 2 Euros a minute, but the quality of connection is iffy. However, you can also use Skype to talk from one computer to another, which is entirely free, and with decent voice quality. There's still a bit of the walkie talkie "over" "roger" business, but considering that I've forgotten what an Interstate is like, and what powerlines are for, this Skype thing is pretty novel. So my Skype screename is Strategerie so look for me.

Matt

For Josiah

I was trying to explain to Josiah yesterday that my Ugandan students don't smile for cameras. For this photo, I told them that they had to smile. And you can sortof see what you get.

Pictures

Well...my mom's been beggin for pictures. So here's some. They're the three Masso children, Acacia 7, Liana 5, and Gabriel 2. I taught just them today as my co-teacher Bethany and the 4 Myhre kids are in Spain at a Team Leaders Retreat. Hopefully this is the beginning of something wonderful, for my mom.

This is Liana and Gabriel

And this is Acacia, pensive, focusing on vocabulary.