How To: Eat Grasshoppers (Nsenene) in Uganda

Church in Uganda

I went to church.  I haven’t been to a proper church since my grandmother insisted I receive my communion and my mom bargained with the nuns to make sure I only had to go through one year of religious classes and not two.

“I taught her all the prayers,” she said in her thick Brooklyn accent, on the phone with the nuns.  “She knows the Hail Mary, she knows the Godfather…”  My other mother almost peed herself laughing in the background.

I did go to classes for a year, and I did receive my communion.  And I did learn the difference between the Godfather and the prayer: Our Father. I haven’t been back since.

But Uganda is religious, and primarily Christian. And if I’m going to live in this country, I might as well try to understand it.  It may be a good opportunity to continue my personal pilgrimage (ChelseaToSea: On Science and Faith) to get a little faith myself, or at least not be so afraid of it.

I got up early on Sunday morning and met up with my coworker, her two sisters, her mother, her father, and her tiny niece.  Her niece loved me. Took my hand, looked adoringly in my eyes.  And then hated me, scowled whenever I looked at her and insisted she sit next to mommy and not Chelsea in the church pews.

The church was simple and not at all like the Catholic church I grew up going to.  The pews were movable wooden benches and everyone had to bring their own bibles.  The ceiling was high and white and cracked.  Cows looked on through the windows.  And there was music.  Not the high, silvery notes like the Catholic choir, but deep belly notes coming from drums, alto singers and a saxophone player.  There was a TV screen in the background sharing the lyrics so that you could sing along. I loved it.  I swayed and danced and clapped and sang and the niece started to like me again (kind of), so I could use her as security blanket and danced with her.  They served a delicious lunch and then we kept singing. 

“I could really get used to this.  This is a ton of fun.”

And then it started. 

“We have a lot of money to give to the needy today, but not, of course, if you’re gay!!”  The crowd burst out laughing and applauding.

“I am married, to a wife, she is a woman.”  Another round of laughter and applause.

I felt like I was undercover.  A gazelle wearing a lion skin in a pride.  A black woman hiding under a white pointed cloak. 

If there is a god, wouldn’t it want us all to love in every possible way? Why would it punish us for acts of love?  Wouldn’t it want us to be open and loving and caring toward everyone?

If this god preaches that my parents belong in the bubbling circles of hell just for loving each other, then this god is not my god.

Bill Clinton

I was 16 and getting my hair cut.  I was going to high school in Key West, was obsessed with the idea of becoming a top journalist one day, and was wearing my hair in long curls.  I wanted to be an undercover journalist to be exact.  One that put herself in dangerous situations to expose the truth.  I went to summer camps dedicated to journalism and was the editor in chief of my school paper.  

Luckily I was too oblivious and happy to know just how nerdy I was.

On this day I was sitting in the salon chair when a local reporter burst in.

“Bill Clinton is walking down the street!”

This is my chance.  MY CHANCE TO EXPOSE THE TRUTH.

I jumped out of the chair, borrowed a clipboard and camera, and ran off toward the former President.  He was surrounded by Key West tourists in their parrot shirts and bodyguards who stood out in all black. 

“I’m a student reporter!  I work for the newspaper! I’m a student reporter!” I screamed, wet hair flying.

Then, former President Bill Clinton said, “Let her through.”  Like Moses parting the damn Red Sea.

Bill, Billy, put his arm around me, and we walked and talked for 3 blocks.  I asked him how he was liking Key West and what advice he would give to aspiring young politicians.  He told me he liked my name.  I blacked out with happiness.

When it was time for him to visit Margaritaville for a burger (poor choice President Clinton) I left him to get the second part of my hair cut.  The journalist from before met me in the salon. 

“Chelsea!  You were the only one to get the story!  Can you write it up for ALL THE PAPERS?”

And I did.  After that, the local paper hired me and I wrote from them every summer until I graduated high school.  And I realized, I gotta get some kind of specialty because general journalism is not nearly as sexy as I thought it would be.  And so I studied health.

Now, 9 years later, I work for a public health NGO owned by Bill Clinton. 

Isn’t that something?

Check out my two-lengthed hair

Moms

I have two mothers.  Two mothers, one sister, one female dog and one female cat.  There’s a lot of estrogen and that’s the way I like it.  I never really noticed that I grew up in a “nontraditional” family.  It was never a thing.  My parents were proud but not loud.  Generally. 

I grew up in Brooklyn.  Coney Island then Park Slope then Red Hook.  These days, Brooklyn is almost oppressively liberal.  If you’re not seeing through rainbow glasses you are shunned as close minded and obsolete and worst of all, unhip.  As it should be.  But growing up in the nineties, there were still a few kinks to be worked out.

My kindergarten teacher in P.S. 321 was Trudy.  Trudy had a beehive grey haircut and smoked like a chimney.  She liked yelling at us and telling us the raunchy parts of Greek mythology.  I was 4.  We had to share a picture of our family.  I drew one with three cats, one curly haired mommy and one blonde mommy. 

“Where’s your dad?” She rasped.

“I don’t have a daddy, I have two mommies.”

“That’s impossible. You’re a liar.”

I went home and told my two lesbian mothers.

They came in the next day, in their nineties high rise jeans and cowboy boots, and went straight up to Trudy in the middle of the classroom. 

“Hi.  We’re Chelsea’s moms. She has no dad.  Don’t ever fucking call her a liar again.”

Generally not loud.

In the 6^th grade I learned how to make the genetic predictor tool: Punnett squares.  My mother has blue eyes, I was told my sperm donor had blue eyes, and I have brown eyes.  I worked and reworked my Punnett squares.  This can’t be right, could it?  Two blue eyes and a brown eyed child?

I AM A MEDICAL MIRACLE.

I went home and told my mom.

“Eh, maybe he had brown eyes.  I don’t really remember.  But I know he was a doctor.”

Growing up with two moms was never a thing because they never made it a thing.  But being a doctor was a thing.  Is still a thing even though I’m not a doctor.

“Chel, I have this rash.  Take a look at it and tell me what to do.  You’re the doctor.”

My mom gets naked.

“Ma, the rash is on your arm, why are you naked?!  Also, I’m not a doctor.”

It’s cool, I can be their daughter who is a doctor in Africa.  As long as I keep getting hip points for having lesbian mothers.

You’re a queer, Sudanese refugee who speaks 5 languages and has her own urban garden?

I have two mommies.

BOOYA.

Climbing Luwazi Rock

I carried a Jansport with my sleeping bag, tent and climbing gear dangling from the bag with carabineers, one arm supporting a grocery bag with beans and booze, and the other a gallon of water and a large saucepan on my head.

I hiked with 9 other people knee deep through rice paddies, through the weedy farmland and up onto Luwazi Rock.  The famous Ugandan rock is higher than anything else around it for as far as the eye can see.  The sides are scraggly and jut out into deliciously shady and climbable overhangs.  The top is smooth and clear except for the few collected raindrop puddles.  I’m with a group called the Mountain Climbing Club of Uganda: young, fit, stupidly attractive men and women from all over the world.

The sun was scorching and slapped me silly.  We pitched our tents toward the center of the rock—so as not to roll off in the middle of the night.  With nothing to directly stake the tents, we piled our bags into them and hoped they wouldn’t fly away.

After a few bites from a hunk of cheese and loaf of bread (when I’m camping, the only thing that satisfies me is to eat like a peasant), we set up our climb.  Those more experienced, knotted the ropes around the bolts in the rock.  I leaned over and tested my bravery.  I put on my harness, grabbed the rope, and literally stepped off the cliff, repelling down.  So. Much. Fun.  Once down, the point was to climb back up.  Village kids came to watch us and think “only white people.”

I love rock climbing.  It’s adrenaline inducing.  It’s a riddle to try to figure out where to place your weight, your foot, your hand.  At the bottom of the rock all the beautiful people are cheering you on, then at the top they get bored, and you’re alone with your heartbeat and the sun. 

I climbed up a few times but couldn’t climb up the hard one.  “The Crack.”  Kept swinging off the rock when I jumped to reach this one grip.  I’m going to go back and I’m going to climb it.  Might need to beef up a bit first though.

We climbed until the sun set.  We set up a big roaring bonfire and I cooked my signature: beans and bacon stirred with an oversized spoon in an oversized pot directly nestled in the fire.  We drank whiskey and beer.  The kids stole our speakers so we had to dance to the frog croaks.  I snuck away to quiet spot of the mountain, laid out my sleeping bag on the rock, under the stars, and fell asleep.

At 3am I awoke to a crack of thunder.  All the late night dancers peeled themselves from the rock around the fire and ran to find shelter in the tents.  There were far more tents than people so we crammed in.  The sky was dark green.  I picked up some friends who were too drunk to make it into a tent.  I was afraid they would walk right off the cliff in the night.

“Come with me!” I screamed in way of nurse during wartime battle.

The thunder got louder and the people in my tent started to count the thunder from the lightning. 

“It’s getting closer,” said my German friend in a doomsday voice.

Should we pack the tent and run off the rock?  We were in structures with metal poles, on the top of a rock, in a lightning storm. 

But I was too tired.   Eh, if I die, I die, but at least I’ll be well rested.

We woke up at 6am.  I hadn’t been drinking heavily the night before and was too chipper for some people’s liking.  I’M ALIVE!!  I made some bonfire coffee, my fave, and went to a secluded part of the rock to look out on the villages’ own fires starting up and dotting the green farms far below us.

We spent another day climbing on the cooled down rock.  On the way home we stopped at a village to share a warm beer from a bar without power.

Death

One of my supervisors in the field was using a car with a driver to go into the field to help collect data for our study.  The driver hit a boda (motorcycle) that had a mother and her two children on the back.  4 people on one motorcycle.  The mother died and one of her children is in critical condition.  Our supervisor is a physician and she stayed with the family in the hospital for days.  I feel sick.

Travel tips for solo female travelers

I have been traveling alone since I was 19.  I love it.  I feel it’s the best way to actually see and experience where you are.  That being said, being a solo female traveler can be risky and tricky.  I’d like to share a few tips that I’ve learned over the years:

1)      Carry a roll of toilet paper.  Because drip drying is the worst.

2)      Bring a fake wedding ring.  This is a really god trick to avoid unnecessary attention.  I usually just switch over my thumb ring I always wear.

3)      Be compact and sensible.  Don’t carry a big sloppy purse.  Carry a little messenger bag that latches, an organized wallet, a watch, minimal jewelry, shoes you can run in, hair pulled out of your face.

4)      Always wear a scarf.  The perfect lady companion.  To cover your head if in a mosque, to cough into, to dry your hands, to cover your boobies, to crumple up into a pillow.

5)      Don’t give away money.  The kids are cute.  And they have no arms.  And that’s sad.  But don’t give away money.  The act of taking out your wallet in public is always a bad idea.  Even if the kids are harmless, look at the periphery, they are often being watched and so are you.

6)      If you are taking public transportation and you are in a car with only men, get out and switch transportation.

7)      Don’t hook up when you’re traveling.  You don’t want to be in that kind of vulnerable position and you don’t know what kind of creepy crawlies he/she has. Thas nasty.

8)      Protect yourself physically.  Mace, alarm, self-defense.  Personally I’m afraid to carry mace or a knife because knowing me I’d fuck it up and spray myself.  But I do carry a rape alarm with me at all times and in my hands when in a scary situation and I plan on taking a self defense course.

9)      Don’t drink past tipsy, don’t do any drugs.  Watch your drinks and always have enough cash for a lengthy cab ride home.

10)   Ask for help.  It’s ok to rely on the kindness of strangers.  I think it’s inevitable.  But don’t be simpering.  Power stance, clear voice, directive.  Always be gracious.

11)   Don’t pack a bag too big for you to carry.  Even if that means you have to buff up a bit for travel.  I have actually done this for this reason.

12)   Mosquito repellent, wet wipes, sunscreen, fluconazole. 

13)   Always let someone know where you are at all times.  Email your itinerary, give numbers of your friends.  I called my parents before following a new friend into the red light district in Bangkok.  They had his phone number, place of work, and his medical history.   

14)   It’s ok to be pushy.  Don’t be worried about people perceiving you as a bitch.  Fuck them.  It’s ok to speak up and push back for what you want, especially if you feel uncomfortable.  Don’t let anyone make you feel guilty for putting them out.  Guilt is a wasted emotion and often acts as permission for unwanted situations.

15)   It’s ok to be nice.  Be friendly, be polite, be kind, make friends.  Just because you’re cautious doesn’t mean you have to be cut off.  That being said, men, just because woman is nice to you doesn’t mean she wants to sleep with you/give you a green card.  Doesn’t mean you can follow her and doesn’t mean she owes you a phone number/email/Facebook.

Enjoy. Write. Take pictures.  Try everything.  Open your eyes, mind and heart. You’re going to end up taking shelter in a hut with five men, one armed with a rifle, no cell reception, in the middle of nowhere.  This is not a controlled environment.  It’s probably the farthest thing from it.  This is the adventure.  This is living.  Scary shit happens, gender based and otherwise, so protect yourself where you can.  And then just wing it.  It also helps to have a family who would cross the world to cut someone for messing with you. 

I’d rather be out here than in there, wouldn’t you?