we walked/rain: hide

i spent weeks trying to find a mysterious man named komol isaach.

i found him; he remained mysterious. my sister created a brilliant charcoal of him.

i met him in the back of a land cruiser. he was working on a road construction project (lobalangit-kaceri)

we rode back to lobalangit together. he wanted another day or two before he would come to karenga to work with me.

he came; i was happy, and wrote one of my most successful blog posts yet.

keinana/ðɛke nanuloŋorokɛt/auɠɛðɛgɛ kʷaɟaðak mutʊ nazan dʷaqare

then he was gone. i had a trip to timu forest scheduled, where i would relax with terrill and amber schrock. i had little to do until then (except occasionally to distract myself with ketebo when i should have distracted myself with karamojong/adeuŋolenan izi ŋolekru).

so we walked/cause you walked/though i won't probably get very far. south along the front of the nyangea mountains.

those who suddenly turn around and start retracing those steps which had just been taken frighten the children who follow too closely.

ants! they march. (i'm allergic). we pick cotton in uganda. perhaps it will rain. this is better than sitting in the mission/stale air replaced with fresh/why was this not a daily occurrence? to read my blog, all i did in uganda was walk. all i do since returning is complain that i didn't walk more.

i should run more.

in any case, we walked. and it was nice.









i don't know what nyang'i/dodos/karamojong/ketebo folks would do if they knew how much orchids like this one that i found growing in a field sell for in america.









it rained when i walked through karenga. a quarter mile from the mission, i would take shelter in a dive bar/karenga style. cameras aren't subtle/i got the photo i wanted.



Nederland
i’m only thinking
about a small window
as i hear the sound of my tea
splashing on the floor
(and my toes are wet now).

Rain that falls here
(that doesn’t tricklve through my hair
and into my skull)
will end up in the Atlantic
(where you were)
but the rain over there
(i tell myself that i can see it!)
will end up in the Pacfic
(where you are).

But i can’t see either
(the Atlantic or the Pacific)
from here.
From here,
through this small window
(my toes are still wet),
i can just see a few trees.

Trees are ok.
(i actually rather like them),
but for me to dare to throw myself
onto the mercy of that great divide
i think i might need to see a little more.

So stay, calm window—
linger a while
i fear you’ll be too quick to close
(or i too slow to act).

it rained at the house of lokuju

Things went slowly slowly in Karamoja. Bits and pieces of Nyang'i hide in tired huts at the foot of nameless, overgrown hills (they harvest marble here, too--and even incense). Ketebo (or Mening, or any of plenty of other names) has a whole quarter (a quarter would get you at least 600 shillings these days, although the guy who tried to give me a quarter surely wanted more than that for it). Nobody's ever free, though, and devoting time to that which isn't my main research agenda probably wasn't the most advisable thing. Although it was probably better to work on something else than to work on nothing at all.

Or to try to work on something else, at least. Yoda wouldn't like Karamoja very much. In Karamoja, I assure you, there certainly is 'try'.

Augustine Lokuju: a man who has perfected the art of being precisely what he is--i've never met a man who was Augustine Lokujuer.

We were going to work for a while in his orchard, but he invited us into his hut. It was raining. Karenga huts are much nicer than Kakingol huts.

Children came to the door. Sometimes the children picked on me. Sometimes I picked on the children.











We played soccer in the evenings, clear through sunset. The sun set over the Nyangea Mountains. They were dark and backlit, regal and mysterious. i let them be mysterious. Attempts at demystification would have required too much energy.

i believe that to have begun to explore them would have added to rather than subtracted from their mystique.





Euro 2012 in a shed with a generator. The field is green; the light is green; the photo is green.



You photo me! They carried things back home. The sun set. i did as i was told.







Camaná (idealized)
Desert fog—
a mockery,
a contrivance of the conflict of a cold current
(like the Humboldt)
and tropical heat.
We, who thirst on land (where rain can’t fall),
awake each morning in hope—
thick air—
sweltering promises of water-at-last suspended
(unavoidable),
and each new day i trust their suspended promises
(i dared to hope to drink my fill).
i know that this water will fall
(but not to quench this parched land).
It will only fall when it becomes cold again
(you see, cold air cannot hold so much humidity),
and it will not cool until it has left this tropical heat
(and i will watch it drench the mountains).
Better men than i have
(in succession)
waited 500 years for this fog to become rain.
In a sense, it always has
(but never here).
So i should know that it’s senseless
to trust this fog to treat me any differently
(to rain anything but coldness).

all that's left

there are a month of pictures and a poem from a small series i scrawled in a forgotten notebook nearly sixth months ago. my life, august-september 2012.























Denver
A seasoned smile—the first i’d seen in weeks
(it could have been ever),
and eyes, and the eyes spoke
(silent mouth)
‘no verbs
(but mine, of course)—
first nouns
(with adjectives, if well chosen).’
The eyes spoke!
(silence)
A rail, and its cold steel
(footsteps)
strangers’ faces
(footsteps)
brown.
(silence)
eyes.
(silence)
awake.
(silence)
A seasoned smile—first overlooked
(i saw just eyes).
Awake!

coming

by many standards of should, i should be working right now, and probably for (minimally) the next 10--leaving aside the fact that those 10 are perhaps the greatest 10 hours which God provided to humankind for the purpose of sleeping. in 9 hours i will be giving my first lecture of a new semester of LING 1020: Languages of the World. in the meantime, i should be polishing up that lecture a little bit and panic-writing/revising two grant applications for lots of money with which to go to uganda and become nyang'i, or something like that.

i got lunch with the two professors from my undergrad department last wednesday. 'what will you do if you aren't able to get any funding to go back to uganda?', they asked once.

'well, probably before too long i'd just call it quits.'

they were a bit surprised, and i justified my statement surprisingly well, considering that it wasn't a statement i was particularly confident of when i made it. and it felt really good to justify it. it felt good because i was making an assertion. that assertion was that my identity is not entirely consumed by linguistics or by a particular degree. i would like to get funding, and i would like to do this research, but i'm not sunk forever if it doesn't happen.

the process has been frustrating and has gone too slowly. i got a late start, and a few things have happened that have made it hard to work on the applications. suddenly it's just a few days until they're due, and it's hard to think particularly clearly about either application, much less about my class.

'if you dont sleep, youll write a crappy proposal tomorrow'
--Nick Williams

i have a bowl of ice cream. i'm going to bed. early. i'll wake up a little earlier than normal and finalize my lecture. then i'll spend most of tomorrow finishing up my applications. maybe i won't get either grant. maybe i won't even get one or both of them submitted in time--i haven't submitted either one yet, so that remains a possibility.

but if i don't, that's ok. or at least the me that had lunch with dr. dylan herrick and dr. marcia haag on the 9th of january thinks that it's ok. and that was a pretty worthwhile me to be.

----------------



on the way back! a time of reality and weariness. it is unlikely that the muze understood, and surely i didn't understand him. perhaps i learned a new word--perhaps one.

on the way back! feeling my face burn in the sun--so bright, so merciless, so real.

oh, white sign with your label 'longoletyanga'! there will perhaps be a car, maybe two, that passes as i walk. maybe i will be given a ride. maybe not. surely i will sleep for most of the next 48 hours.

going

backlogged ugandan photos foreverrr

after a few days of a relentless sinus infection (or something of that sort), said sinus infection relented enough for me to set out for that mythical and fabled land: lobalangit.



i didn't know what a lobalangit was or how to find them, but 'head west, young man!' echoed in my perfect ears--THAT is what 'to the pain' means. oops. sidetracked.

i headed west, young man. retrospectively, i'm shocked that the first vehicle that i was able to hitchhike on (an ambulance) was going through lobalangit. nobody goes through lobalangit. they hit pire, and then they just keep right on going, through orom to kitgum. they're wise--you can get indian food in kitgum, but definitely not in lobalangit.

these are some photos on the way.

on the way! a time of hope and expectation. maybe the muze will understand me this time! maybe i will understand him! maybe he will teach me a new word, rather than the same ones. maybe if i ask really nice, there will be a brilliant karamojong/english translator around. maybe if i just speak in so, the nyang'i will understand.

on the way! watching clouds all along the route--so dark and beautiful, like bittersweet irony or whatever--and feeling their first bemused drops.

oh, lightning-struck tree! big and majestic. rain? thunder? lightning-struck tree, you are surely sam beer-style shelter.

some of these photos are repeats from this summer. that's ok. they're good, so just like them.