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Uganda is quite interesting with respect to it's views of sexuality and male friendship.

It is fairly well known that Uganda is quite strict on their lack of understanding for LGBT rights. When I came there was even a section in the newspaper that outed homosexuals in the community, in a way condemning them to possibly fatal mob violence from their neighbors. When I speak to people about it here, they brush off the issue without too much trouble. "We don't have gays here," they say. In fact, its one of the few faults that they find with America. "It's a great country," they'll say, "but at least here we don't have that gay problem."

Not getting into my responses to these comments, there is an ironic presence of affection shown by males to other males in this country. The guys that know each other and greet, and want to show respect, will touch their foreheads together, and hold in an embrace for a good 10 seconds. There are probably only a handful of days out of my some 160 here that I have NOT seen two men holding hands, with inter clasped fingers, walking around town. I have come to think that it is a good judge of how well I'm integrating into my community; the more adults that shake my hand and then hold on to it as we talk and walk around, the better I'm getting at becoming accepted. Today was a good day. I snagged 3 prolonged handshakes, and a hug-turned hand hold for about 35 meters. I even started sweating, and he didn't let go. That's true friendship.

I guess it is just a little odd to me that the country where they consider homosexuality to be an abomination is the same country where I've had to expand my comfort zone with male contact. Like it or not, Uganda, you've made me more comfortable about touching guys than in America. And we've got a gay problem, for god's sake.

Keeping it in the family

I have struggled a lot with trying to feel like I deserve all of the things that I've been given here at site. They have put me up in the equivalent of a baller house in Uganda, and have continued to offer me meals every day, even if they know that I'm planning on cooking my own. They have been as nice as any group I've ever met. With that, I really want to give them something so that they feel like it was worth it, in the end. It took a friend of mine within PCV visiting to remind me that, sometimes, it's the things that you would never consider important that are exactly the things that they are hoping to get from you.

With that said, there are a few things that I shared with my surrogate family that I thought they may enjoy, because if nothing else they were most definitely hits in my family reunions. These two things went especially well:

1) Spoons
In 3 months, I have literally never seen the parish priest laugh harder than when we were playing this game. The coolest part though was that the chef, the parish priest, the youngest son of 12, and I were all sitting at the same table. In Uganda, that rarely EVER happens, for anything. Indirectly teaching them a silly American game, I also saw my first true signs of equality at home. Pretty cool.

There is also one kid who always, always cheated. I named him Stephen.

2) Sound of Music
I took this to the convent, after purposefully buying the illegal copy in Kampala while I was in In Service Training. For the first time ever, I saw Ugandan's get up and leave the room when they had a phone call, and even tell people to be quiet at certain parts of the movie. Unbelievable. The nuns gave it to the parish priest, who last night stayed up with 5 or 6 others until 2am watching it. How cool is that!

So, thanks family. It seems some of our traditions are powerful enough to transcend cultures, language barriers, and the Atlantic Ocean.