I had a dream when I arrive to sleep at Ndere Centre that I am in the village and a woman has come through, who I come to learn is a medicine woman. Many people have gathered around her and I go too. She is younger than I expect. I ask her if she can make me stop having strange dreams. She said, it’s possible. Also the possibility of living in them fully. The very center as a way out.
It’s just past midnight and quiet – occasionally crickets or the sound of cars. Thursday. Coming to the end of the first week of rehearsals for Cooking Oil.
The adjustment has been a little rougher than I anticipated. Struggling with digestion. The only days I don’t feel sick (fever, nausea, I wake up and my clothes are soaked through) are the days I don’t eat. For some reason, I am craving peanut butter. Why? I don’t usually eat that in the states.
I’ve made a couple trips to the doctor. He fascinates me. A British version of the doctor character in House, but working in a developing country/former colony for 18 years. In the waiting room the first time I went, I met a peace corps volunteer who is working with small communities setting up grassroots savings and loan projects. She was telling me that many local organizations vying for international aid struggle with mission drift. I think this is similar to small arts organizations in America. But she noted that in America small arts organizations have the ability to apply to many different sources for funding. She says small organizations in Uganda will get access to very few funding sources, so you try to make your project sound relevant to whatever you can get your hands on. The waiting room has a fishtank with tiny striped fish.
It turns out the doctor directs – what is it – a British theatrical tradition – pantomime? Like a serial comedy performance. It’s for a group of resident mzungus (white people) called KADS. They are the only group that sells out the National Theater, he tells me. I tell him he should come see Cooking Oil, and he responds – not likely. But I think that’s just his character. He talks to me for 20 minutes about funny moments in pantomime, the acoustics of the theater, the problems with parking.
I found a budget sheet of the National Theater lying around. The theater makes its money off of first renting out offices, 2nd parking, 3rd wedding meetings. Revenue from productions wasn’t even a line item, it was written in the margins. Shannon, the scenic designer, points out that – how great that space is used/useful and not empty – and then also, I’m tearing my hair out in the tiny room I’m given to rehearse in. I don’t do table work. I’m having to make up a process of carving emotional anchors through sound and rhythm because I can’t put anything on its feet. And however creative constrictions can be, I’m nervous that I’m going to be expected to “block” a show two weeks before we open with people who have no training in the physicality that I work inside of. We’ll have to find a way to make this work.
On Monday I will move into the house where I’ll be living. Looking forward to cooking my own food. I haven’t imagined past oatmeal and peanut butter. And being able to boil water to drink and not drinking bottled water all the time. I am living with a Ugandan fashion designer who I met in the Newark airport. Stella Atal. The flight kept getting delayed and we were both afraid we would miss our connection in Belgium, so we met at the gate desk. She had a beautiful African bag. And then the next week in Kampala, I called her by accident – cause I had saved her number as someone else in my phone – we got to talking and it turned out she had a roommate moving out. She lives walking distance from Ndere Centre – which is one of the places I’ll be working here in Kampala. She designed the furniture and the artwork in the house – a coffee table filled with dark coffee beans under glass – and she has dogs that are pets. One of them is a little shitsu. I’ve never met anyone in East Africa with a lap dog. That one is Puppy, she says. It came with the name.
This is the village inside Kampala, she says. I walked through there today, also by accident. Dirt roads. Her road is a dead end road. It stops 20 feet from intersecting with another dirt road. She says people hire men to come and dig the roads in the middle of the night so they meet each other. Because the government is supposed to do that, so they don’t like people doing it for themselves. But then the government doesn’t do it.
Along the road – low, orderly houses. A little boy pouring water out of a small hole he’s punctured in a water bottle. Tiny shack-built shops that sell food, cell phone cards to top up your minutes. I am lost so I pick a road and walk straight – I am trying to meet Stella for lunch by her studio.
An older gentleman stops me on the road. What are you doing here? he asks me. Who do you work for? I stop and suddenly realize how sick I feel. I’m trying not to throw up. I’m an artist. I’m working at the National Theater. Where are you from? I tell him I’m from the United States. It must be very hard for you being here in Uganda, he says. (Don’t throw up.) Well, sure there are things I’m used to that I don’t have here, but I also get to work with talented people and am met with incredible hospitality, and those are real gifts to me. Where are you from in the United States, he asks? I tell him California. He says his son lives in California. He drives a truck. (I want to lie down on the dirt.) I say, Ah, California is a beautiful state to drive in. And, as we part, he says “Thank you.” but earnestly. For stopping to talk to him. I want to learn this capacity for gratitude.
It turns out I walk back to Ndere, which is good because I lie down. I wake up and it’s late, late. I’m supposed to meet Deborah at 3pm in the National Theatre. The US Embassy in Uganda has given us a grant for Cooking Oil that we need to process and we’re also trying to see if we can travel to UN refugee camps in the south west to learn more about distribution of food aid and how it impacts local communities/economies. Bodaboda to the theater. Meeting. Rehearsal. Comedy Night. Night. Right to Ndere.
1:30am. A noise I can't identify.
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