Louise and Jason in Uganda

immense

Here's an article that just came out in the Monitor, a Ugandan daily paper.  I hope all our players get to read it--though most of them either don't get the paper or they've been out of the country for Christmas Break.

Journalism has a long way to go in Uganda, but this story's not too bad.  Although the quotes are not quite direct.  I don't think I've ever said the word 'immense' in my life.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200701020849.html

These stories show up rather frequently--especially during the season.  The Monitor and New Vision (the other Ugandan Daily) are tough to get outside of East Africa.  If you're intersted in following UCU basketball in the news, you can set a Google Alert for UCU Basketball.  Everybody's doing it.

Maggie

What'll tear you out of blogger's block funk and make you set aside the to-do list for a few morning minutes?

A puppy.  A fantastic little sleepy puppy-smelling puppy named Maggie.

It's the day after thanksgiving and I'm sore from playing football for the first time in about 12 years.  We had a thanksgiving day game of two-hand-touch beside the "football pitch" on campus (the UCU football team was practicing)--22 americans (mostly college kids here on their study abroad semester with the Uganda Studies Program) sliding around in three rainy days worth of mud trying to score in four downs.  Good times.  Maggie watched with Louise.  Louise didn't fancy learning a new kind of football in the middle of the mud with dozens of Ugandans looking at us with wonder.

Louise and I aren't over-the-top puppy owners--nothing against over-the-top puppy owners.  We've agreed that it's o.k. to have koochie-koo voices talking to Maggie, but that we can't use those koochie-koo voices (or any voices) to refer to each other as "mommy" or "daddy."  But truth is, we love having wee Maggie around and she is teaching us a few things.

Maggie came to us through one of the American students who was out on a run one morning and stopped at a squirming plastic grocery bag on the side of the road.  She opened up the bag and there was Maggie.  The students took her in for a night or two, but had to pass her along to avoid developing too much of an attachment--they're going back home for good in three weeks.  Yada, Yada, Yada ... we're cleaning puddles and piles every morning, and some afternoons.

Check out a few Maggie photos in the photo album.  I've also added a few photos from our basketball party after the men won the championship and the ladies finished 2nd in a recent University Championship tournament.  I'll do my best to get back on here and write more about all that stuff as well as other things that've been happening since July.

Uniformity

I just made a few changes so that all the posts on this here blog look alike.  Sometimes uniformity is good.

What's not good is I lost a few comments.  Sorry to those who commented, thanks for your kind participation.

for the record, Joe Jarvis would maim for an "adibas" jumper, and Edward Kimbowa and Paul Otim (two Ugandan basketball players who played ball and got a good education at Savannah College of Art and Design) checked in to thank me for keeping it real--that's real nice.

It's Friday night.  Louise is in the living room watching "24" with her sister Denise who's visiting from Northern Ireland--they're late in season one. (If you want to participate in our work out here, send scholarship money for UCU athletes, basketballs, good shoes, packets of sloppy-joe seasoning and seasons 2-5 of "24").  I'm gonna join Louise and Denise and Jack.

That's Uganda

Back in Uganda.

Been back in Uganda for a week now.  While in South Africa, the only energy I had was energy to come back home to Louise and Uganda and sit write about everything:

the deep-soul confusion that results when you’re a 1st world native as adjusted as possible to living in the 3rd world, suddenly walking around a 1st world mall full of fashionably bored people with 1st world concerns, while your lungs are still full of 3rd world air, your shoes still carrying 3rd world dust, your wallet light with converted 3rd world currency

realizations that are real but impossible to explain, realizations that result from watching the faces of Ugandans walking through a University campus on paved roads cutting through well-groomed lawns surrounding a man-made pond made by men for no purpose other than being nice to look at--nice to look at the geese swimming and waddling around the pond, nice to look at the South African students lounging around with their ipods, nice to look at and listen to the geese flapping and squawking across the pond from the students to the picnicking family with blonde kids tearing bread into pieces and throwing it into the water--you wonder what a 21-year-old Ugandan (who’s never been out of his country except to play basketball in Nairobi, never been on a plane, never seen an ipod before exhausting the battery on yours listening to your wife’s praise and worship music, never seen more than 30 white people in one room before, never been in weather where he can see his breath) thinks about seeing people throw away food, but you don’t wanna ask a biased question so you just ask, “What do you think.” He says, “This place is too beautiful.”

the awkwardness of wanting your basketball team to have the chance to play for the chance to win a gold medal, but knowing the only way to get that chance is by begging people who’ve been doing their job, to make an exception for you and the country you represent--an exception that will bail government officials of that country out of a very embarrassing situation they deserve to be in

the sickening disappointment you feel in the middle of the night in the silent hall of a strange dorm on the way to get a set of basketball uniforms out of the dryer, after falling asleep with your shoes and hat on and waking up an hour after midnight, and you hear a door open down a flight of stairs and a voice says, “shh! this is where Jason sleeps” and you turn to walk down those stairs toward the laundry room and you see five of your players--who’d agreed not to leave the university campus without permission and signed a contract at the Nairobi airport saying they wouldn’t drink alcohol while in South Africa--walking up the stairs with the beer smell of trash barrels outside the student section entrances at college football games

the even more sickening disappointment you feel when the Ugandan Ambassador to South Africa comes to greet the contingent of 60 University Athletes from Uganda, who sat in the Nairobi Airport and listened to your five minute lecture asking them not to drink beer while in South Africa (a lecture you gave reluctantly, knowing you had no way of keeping anyone except the basketball players accountable--but a lecture you gave because you were asked to give it by the President of NUSFU), and the ambassador (with the consent of the President of NUSFU) offers them crates of cans of Castle Lager and Amstel Light that are ravaged like leaves in a locust storm

the absurdity of the Federation de African Sports Universiade announcing to jubilation at the closing ceremony of the Games, that Uganda--the country that arrived three days late and begged people who were doing their job to make exceptions for them--would be the next host of the FASU Games

But that energy soon faded into energy to sleep for two days and talk to no one but Louise.  Then that energy faded into energy to get back to work and talk to everyone who talked to me.

The newspaper version of what happened in South Africa is:  Uganda finishes 2nd overall in FASU Games.  Uganda captured (something like 50) medals to finish 2nd place to host South Africa in the fourth edition of the FASU Games in Pretoria.

When I walk around campus at UCU and even around town in Kampala, people come up and say, “Welcome back!  Well done!  How was it!”  Most of them look surprised when I tell them “It was a circus.  Disappointing.”  I explain a little and then they say, “By the way, that’s Uganda,” or, “That’s Uganda, by the way.”  Like so many meanings of so many things out here, it’s hard to know exactly what that “by the way” means.  I don’t try to interpret the different inflections and gestures that come with the “by the way”--I usually just shake my head and shake their hands.

We're #6!

So intent on making sure people don’t walk away from me thinking the South Africa trip was good or hopeful or exciting, I really haven’t talked much about the basketball.  We finished 6th out of 7 teams but some subtle, between-the-lines, good things happened.

The only win we had was against Zimbabwe 103-89.  We were originally told we lost our first two games by forfeit, but in a late night decision (after my previous Authenticity post) Senegal and Zambia were pressured into letting us play those games.  I was disappointed in the organizers, but excited for our guys, who were thrilled.  We were scheduled to play Senegal at noon the next day and Zambia at 4:00.

We played fantastic basketball the first quarter and were down 30-22 at then end of it only because we made silly mistakes and they hit a three and two lay-ups in the last 30 seconds.  The second quarter they outscored us 31-8.  In order to move on to the semifinals, we had to beat either Senegal or Zambia.  I knew it was nearly impossible to beat Senegal (they ended up losing to Angola in the championship game) by 16 points in two consecutive quarters.  I told the guys we had to be realistic and shift our focus to beating Zambia.  But that we had to play the next two quarters hard and concentrate on doing the simple things right and not making silly mistakes.  I sat our starters for most of the half, we played a good third quarter, a terrible fourth quarter and Senegal beat us 109-67.

We were the smallest team in the tournament (Senegal and Angola had 4 guys each over 6’10” and they were all big--our tallest guy was 6’7” and he’s a skinny shooting guard).  But we were also the quickest team.  When we first started working together, I told guys the only way we were going to be able to beat people was by beating their defense down court.  The first night, against Zimbabwe, our guys were disoriented playing on the huge wide-open indoor court with volleyball and badminton lines criss-crossing and paralleling the larger-than-what-they’re-used-to basketball boundaries.  We ran a lot, but made several bad passes, missed several good passes, guys caught passes standing with one foot out-of-bounds and then looked blankly at me when they heard the whistle.  But by the end of the game, about 8 of the 13 guys had become familiar with the court and were playing confidently and we were able to run past Zimbabwe easy in the second half.  We ran early against Senegal and were able to beat them down the court, but as they got wise and stole a few passes and we had to slow things down, they beat us.

I knew the guys’d be tired after Senegal, but I also knew and told them that we’d have to run to beat Zambia.  The guys came back from lunch looking sleepy.  Our play-maker and top-scorer, Ken (32 against Zimbabwe, 20 against Senegal), had a bruised thigh that tightened up over lunch.  Everyone warmed up and broke a new sweat, and looked better, but it was clear guys were gonna be getting tired.  The first quarter we ran and led most of the way, until we got silly again in the last minute and Zambia scored quick easy baskets including one at the buzzer and we were down 33-26 after the first quarter.  I tried to rest our comfortable guys.  A couple guys came off the bench and contributed well, but the others were bobbling passes and tipping rebounds instead of grabbing them and making bad passes on fast breaks and I had to get the comfortable guys back in even though they were getting tired.  We were back to within 4 at halftime.  I gave one of those, “all we’ve gotta think about is twenty minutes of hard, intelligent basketball” speeches in the locker room (some guys, including me, were still awed that we were in a locker room).  We stayed within 8 points the rest of the way, tied the score at one point, but were never able to regain the lead.  The last minute-and-a-half of the fourth quarter, we had to foul to stop the clock.  Zambia hit free throws, we couldn’t hit any three’s, they hit a three at the final buzzer and beat us 100-88.

So, the games that we’d already lost by forfeit, and then were allowed to play, we lost by playing.  The next morning we were playing Mozambique for 5th or 6th place.  The night before Mozambique, five guys (including Ken and two guys who’d come off the bench and played well against Zambia) decided to break team rules.  I found them on the stairs, and told them they wouldn’t play the next day.  I told them that if they wanted to sit on the bench with the team, they’d need to apologize, each one individually, to the entire team in the locker room before the game.  The next morning, everyone was more sluggish than usual walking to the gym.  We met in the locker room, the five guys apologized, the other guys nodded, we went out to warm-up.  The five guys sat on the bench with their headphones on, most of them borrowed, looking as cool as they could.  The other 8 warmed up looking down the court at huge guys from Mozambique.

On paper, Mozambique was easily one of the top four teams in the tournament.  But the pools were put together by random selection and Mozambique fell into the three-team pool with Angola and South Africa (two of the other top-four teams).  Senegal (the other top-four team) fell into our four-team pool of relative weaklings and breezed through to the semifinals.  Mozambique lost to Angola by 16, and lost a tough game to South Africa by 11.  I figured, even with all our guys, we’d have to play almost perfect to beat Mozambique.  If we didn’t play perfect, we’d lose by at least 20.

Since they were so much bigger than us, especially at the guard position, we played them in a 3-2 zone.  They scored easily.  We switched to 2-3, they hit open three’s.  We were sluggish and discouraged and were blown out in the first quarter 32-18.  It was ugly and I was afraid we were all going to be very embarrassed.  I didn’t say anything about the score or about the guys with headphones on the bench.  I told guys that they could play basketball but that they weren’t doing it and that they had to decide to do it or they’d have nothing to feel good about for a long long time.  And I told them we had to play man-to-man defense--that our guards were quick enough to stop anyone from driving to the basket and our big men were quick enough to get around their big men and front the post.  Mozambique came back in the second quarter with their bottom five guys.  Our guys woke up.  Guys who’d been bobbling passes and making bad decisions the day before, stepped up and played.  Mozambique couldn’t get the shots they wanted and started taking bad ones, we rebounded and beat them by 5 in the second quarter and were down 48-39 at halftime.  In the locker room we all agreed that we kept playing good defense and ran and made good decisions.  The five guys took off their headphones.  We continued to play well in the third quarter.  We got within two and the Mozambique coach called a timeout and went nuts on the guys and put the starters back in.  They added to the lead, but we were still within 8 at the end of the quarter.  The beginning of the fourth quarter, everyone had at lest three fouls, four guys had four.  I sat the foul trouble guys as much as I could.  Their strongest guys were on the court the whole fourth quarter.  Our small, skinny big-men, danced their way in front of their big strong big-men and helped each other and they couldn’t get the ball inside, and they couldn’t hit shots from outside.  We kept playing hard and taking good shots.

We were down 6 with 1:30 left and Mozambique was running down the clock.  We had to foul to stop the clock.  In the next minute, we fouled three times to stop the clock.  Each time, one of our guys fouled out.  Each time Mozambique shot free throws and missed and one of our big men, Carroll got the rebound.  The first time Carroll got the ball to our third-string shooting guard who’s strength is defense--he threw a long pass way over our point guard’s head, out of bounds.  The second time Carroll threw the outlet to our point guard and he drove and missed an easy lay-up.  The third time Carroll got the ball to our reliable shooting guard who dribbled up, took a three and missed--Carroll got that rebound and put it back in.

28 seconds left, we were down 4.  The third guy fouled out stopping the clock, and I called a timeout, smiling.  I told the guys we’d just made two terrible mistakes, but they weren’t hitting free throws and there were still 30 seconds left and we could still win.

This tournament was my first experience of coaching, and the first experience for almost all my guys playing, with a shot clock and a game-clock that was visible to everyone--in Uganda, if you’re down 4 with “seconds” left (whether it’s 4 seconds or 59) you get the ball in as soon as possible and shoot as soon as possible and pray).

In the time-out, I told the guys we didn’t need to shoot three’s, we just needed to continue fouling anyone from Mozambique who gets the ball, we get the ball back off a make or miss, make one pass to a guard and he drives all the way to the basket and scores and then we foul again.

28 seconds left, down 4.  The Mozambique guy misses.  Our point guard gets the rebound, makes a couple moves, drives the length of the court to basket and scores.  We’re down 2 with 16 seconds left.  They inbound, one of our guys reaches out to foul the dribbler, barely reaches the guy’s jersey and his belly.  The ref, standing right there, calls it an intentional foul: giving Mozambique two shots and the ball. 

The refs had been great the entire tournament, making mostly good calls, accepting that they’d made some bad ones, explaining international rules to me that I’d never had explained in Uganda.  But this call was terrible.

I go nuts on the guy, storm onto the court toward him.  He walks toward me, with a little grin that kills me, pointing me back to the bench, knowing I deserve a technical foul, but knowing he shouldn’t’ve made the intentional foul call so he’s not going to give me a tech--also knowing he’s not going to reverse the call.  I back up but continued yelling at him that he’d taken the game away from the players.  Our guy who’s committed the foul fouls out and walks to the bench.  The other ref comes to me like he’s on my side and says quietly, “Coach, you need a fifth player.”  I tell him I don’t have one and look down at the bench--only one of the guys in street clothes with headphones around their neck looks back at me, the others turn away.

I talked to our guys while the Mozambique guy shot.  Told them the plan was the same whether the guy hit both free throws or not.  The guy hit one.  They got the ball on the side, in-bounded to a guard on our end of the court, he dribbled for 8 seconds before we could foul him, he hit missed the first free throw, hit the second one.  8 seconds left, we’re down 4.  Our point guard takes two dribbles, makes a long pass that’s stolen their guys dribbles to the basket, is fouled shooting.  4 seconds left.  He misses both free throws.  Carroll rebounds, passes to our shooting guard who gets a good shot at a 3, misses it, time runs out, we lose to Mozambique by 4. 

Everyone shook hands with everyone else.  The ref came to me smiling and nodding at everything I said to him.  Our guys exchanged the NBA thug-style hand-shake-and-hug with their guys and we went into the locker room.

It was our last game, it was our best game.  But really, because of those five guys with their headphones, it was our worst game.  Live in Uganda for a while--live in the world--and see if you don’t contradict yourself a time or two.

Authenticity

I'm in a basement computer lab in a dorm at Pretoria University.

Those of you following this thing know it's a minor miracle that I or anyone else from Uganda am/is in South Africa.

The good news is we just beat Zimbabwe 103-89.  The really really bad news is, we lost our first two games by forfeit.  Only 7 teams showed up to play, we were in a pool with 4 (Senegal, Zambia, Zimbabwe and us) so we come out with 2 losses.  Senegal and Zambia also beat Zimbabwe so, after playing only one game, we're finished with the preliminary rounds of the tournament.  Tomorrow at 2, we play Mozambique to see who finishes 5th and 6th.  They don't have a saying for finishing 5th and 6th--normally I'd rather kiss anyone's sister than play for such an honor, but everything changes when you look at working like crazy for weeks to put together a trip that allows you to only play one game.

The thing that's bothering me right now is that the other Ugandans on the organizing committee which is now all here in South Africa are complaining that Zambia and Senegal are not accommodating us.  Senegal is strong and hasn't lost, so they have nothing to lose by playing us, but Zambia isn't as strong and if they play us and we win, we go to the semifinals and they don't.  In the interest of "sportsmanship" and "may the best man win," maybe you could make a partial case for playing against us.  But both Senegal and Zambia said no.  I don't blame them.  If it was Uganda on the way to a semifinal game, I wouldn't want the distraction of playing a game to make the other team feel good.  Apparently, someone in Africa is willing to say not, "may the best man win," but "why can't the best man be on time if he's so the best?" 

In our brief meeting after supper, I reported the situation.  Everyone was aware of it all day and was waiting for me to report what was decided.  I did and a few of them complained, "Ah, why can't these ones assist us?"  I told them, "Because we're 3 days late to an event that's been scheduled since last November."

Of course, if someone relented and let us make up games, I'd be ecstatic for the guys.  But it could be much better this way.  At least we have a documented case of our results being drastically affected by the government not releasing the money they promised.  If we use the frustration and anger in the right way, it can still make a difference in the future.

Another thing brought up at the meeting was a general question of how to handle the press (by the way, there's virtually no press around).  I was approached, right before the Zimbabwe game, by a reporter who wanted me to give him a little interview after the game about coaching basketball in Uganda.  I said, o.k.  After the game, the guys found me and we stood by the court with a light and camera and microphone and the guys asked me questions about the good and bad of basketball in Africa and especially Uganda.  They were most concerned about the future of basketball in Africa and asked a couple questions about what I thought the government's role should be in developing basketball and sports.  They also asked why we were late getting down to the games.  I told them we were promised money by the government that took three days to come and referenced the government making us wait when talking about the role of government in developing sports.

The point of the guy talking about handling the press was to say that any questions about our coming late, in regard to government, should be directed toward the President of the Federation or the Treasurer.

I asked him if he wanted me to brief everyone in the meeting on what I talked about.  He said that wasn't necessary.

Sitting here in the basement computer lab, before I started writing on this, I checked the blog of Joe Jarvis as I often do while waiting for this or that window to fully open, to see how Joe’s tending and recycling the soil in the garden of Truth with which he’s been entrusted. (again, www.joejarvis.typepad.com)

Just so happens he spent a few lines telling people that Louise and I have this blog.  In his few lines he calls me authentic.  Although I can point anyone back to many times when I’ve been as fake or phony, I’ll take the huge compliment, and acknowledge that there’s no other one-word description I’d aspire to.

But I’m struggling a bit wondering if one can be too authentic--wondering if I’ve been too authentic.  But can there be degrees of authenticity?

There’s a definite correlation between wisdom and discretion.  Is there wisdom and discretion in my authenticity?  When the guys were interviewing me I didn’t say “the minister of sports” or “the president”, I just said, “the government promised us money and it came three days late.”  Is that discretion?

Was there any discretion involved when I was ejected from the championship of the YMCA Gala last month?  My first technical foul came because, when loudly complaining about a terrible call, I addressed the ref by his first name.  The second technical foul came when Geoff, our very good but very volatile point guard was blown for his fifth (final) foul while he was in the middle of being hacked by two guys in a trap and he took a step back with his pivot foot and cleared space with his elbow.  I walked onto the court, first to keep Geoff from punching either of the guys who’d been flailing at him.  Then when other guys pulled him back to the bench, still holding the ball, I asked him to throw it to me.  He threw me the ball and the ref asked for it and I threw it across the court into the crowd and told him that was the worst call I’d ever seen.  I went and sat with Louise.  I know there was some discretion missing that afternoon.

Authenticity can be easy--say what you feel.  But authenticity with discretion isn’t as easy--and that’s what I’m trying to achieve walking around down here in the cold South Africa late-winter.

NUSFU, Minister of Sports, adidas, adibas

I don’t know who’s supposed to care, but there’s gotta be someone.

I suppose there are handfuls at least of people who care, but the challenge is really finding someone who cares who can actually do something.

NUSFU (National University Sports Federation of Uganda) is trying to send a contingent of 60 athletes to Pretoria, South Africa to compete in the All-Africa Games.  The All-Africa University Games happen every-other-year, in the off years, it’s World University Games.  NUSFU has never tried to send more than a few runners to these competitions--mostly because of money.

There is no money in Uganda.  You want an ambulance?  You’ve gotta gas in the tank first.  You fall off a boda-boda (motorcycle taxi) and bust your head open on a pot hole.  You gonna reach into your wallet and pull out a 10,000 shilling note ($5) and give it to another boda-boda driver to take to the hospital and have him bring it to the hospital and send the ambulance?  No, you get back on the boda-boda and bleed a trail to the hospital and then pay the guy 500 shillings (25 cents) when you come out bandaged.

This year NUSFU got ambitious.  I got back to Uganda in late April and soon received a call from, Penny, the president of NUSFU.  Penny asked if I’d select a basketball team of University students and coach them in South Africa for the All-Africa Games.  She showed me the list of teams they wanted to send and the total number of 120 student/athletes.  I asked her, “Where’s the money coming from?”  She told me, “We’re hopeful of sponsorship from the ministry and others.”  I then told her, “We’ve gotta decide soon who gets cut if all the money doesn’t come in.  There’s no way we raise all this money.”

If I continued chronologically, I’d be here all night (and I can’t be here all night because the power’s going out at around midnight because Uganda can’t afford to keep anything but President Museveni’s house on full power for longer than 36 hours).

I told Penny I’d select the team and coach (I was devastated when I found out they all had to be Ugandans--left off my best three players who are Kenyans).  And I told her I’d be part of the organizing committee.  Over 6 weeks I balanced training between my UCU team in Mukono and the NUSFU team in Kampala--driving back-and-forth everyday at least once, sometimes staying in for organizing committee meetings scheduled to begin at 7, that begin at 8 and go until 10 … I had to shed a student from Makerere University who’d appointed himself team captain and coach and felt slighted because he wasn’t selected for my team and offered his assistance as a coach and I politely turned him down about 12-times-a-day for two days, then stopped being polite … had to tell two of the best basketball players in the country they couldn’t play because they’ve never taken a class at the University where they’re “provisionally enrolled” … had to figure out how in the world it’s possible for another guy (who hasn’t taken classes in almost a year and has been playing professionally in Qatar and apparently spending all his money on earrings and huge shirts) to be eligible to play in any inter-collegiate competition--his Athletic Director was guaranteeing me that it he’s eligible--I emailed a guy in South Africa and he told me he is eligible--it’s not “how in the world” it’s “where in the world” -- AFRICA … had to try to keep students hopeful that they’d be granted a passport by their country, after they come to you telling you the people at Immigration were telling them they were really Sudanese--all because some Immigration officer in 2001 or something granted a Ugandan passport to a one of the Hutu leaders fleeing Rwanda because of his involvement in the genocide--the guy was picked up in the Netherlands or something with a Ugandan passport--so now, Richard Khemisi one of UCU’s top footballers, is Sudanese even though he’s never been farther north than Luwero … had to run around town trying to find the cheapest place to get a yellow fever vaccination for three of my players from UCU, found a place that did it for 33,000 shillings ($17 )--30,000 for the shot, 3,000 for the vaccination card--went to the meeting the next night and told the other NUSFU folks who are all working for different universities where they could get the shot for the same price and they all laughed at me, “You don’t get the shot, you get the card for 5,000 shillings only.  No one here has yellow fever.”

Louise and I have been seeing less of each other as a result of all the craziness.  And when we’re together, I always end up talking about some kind of crazy imminent organizational nightmare.  One night we met for dinner after a meeting.  I was sitting bitching about everything.  By the time our second-rate personal pizza’s arrived, it was 10:45.  The cornerstone of a good marriage is middle-of-the-week dates for second-rate chicken pizza as close as possible to midnight.  Louise has been on me to “not do this again next year.”

I’m trying to figure out what “this” is first.  I think “this” is: being played by the system.

This is Sunday night.  Thursday night the Minister of Sports agreed to release $60,000--enough to cater for the expenses of HALF the number of people we originally asked for.  No contingency plan was in place.  We sat at meetings trying to cut from teams, calling coaches the night before we’re supposed to fly, asking them to cut players.  I had to cut three guys.  It was a ridiculous circus of unfairness with dozens of hope-filled university students being led around the three rings with tears in their eyes and nothing to do with their newly acquired passports and visas and fake vaccination cards.  So, with teams necessarily though unfairly trimmed, we were supposed to fly on Friday.  Long story, no money.  We were supposed to fly on Saturday.  Long story, no money.  We were supposed to fly today.  We were all ready, packed, the soccer team had been dropped, the folks in South Africa agreed to push our games back one day, we had guys waiting to be picked up along the road at different spots between Kampala and Entebbe, I was about to pop a Dramamine, then … no money.  I got on the phone and begged the guy in South Africa to give is one more day.  He conceded.  We announced to the students, again, that we’d be flying tomorrow.  They only believe us because they want to.  I called the Minister of Sports (can’t explain why now, but this is the first time I talked to him through the whole process).  He assured me we’ll be flying tomorrow.  I asked him to come and assure the students.  He said, “How can I come now, I’m far away.”  I told him, if he didn’t come, the student would be forced to draw conclusions about his commitment to them and the country, and that they were already drawing negative conclusions.  I asked him if that’s what he wanted.  He said, “How can I come now?  You tell them.”

So I walked back to the bus where the TV camera who was supposed to film us being “flagged off” by His Honourable Minister, was instead asking students how they felt about being left waiting again.  He asked me my feelings.  I said something about the example the current administration is leaving for university students who are the future of the country.

I didn’t try to watch the evening news.  I sat and ate a salami sandwich and watched an episode off a Seinfeld dvd.  Louise is up hosting a ministry team in Luwero.

Tomorrow morning we leave campus at 8.  We’re gonna sit in our newly acquired track suits advertising UTL, with UGANDA printed on the back.  UTL is the telecommunications company that rivals the monopolistic MTN.  MTN told us they were gonna sponsor the entire basketball team, then called Tuesday and said they can’t do anything.  UTL is good for now, but they probably spent their entire budget on the silly track suits.  They’re actually pretty nice--some are PUMA some are ADIDAS, but some of the pants are ADIBAS--not so noticeable in lowercase.  We’re gonna sit and wait for tickets and wait for the Minister of Sports to flag us off.

After tomorrow, whether there’s money or not, someone’s definitely gonna get flagged off.

Tomorrow is today, tomorrow is tomorrow

I doubt this is going to be an everyday update/chin-tucked operatic/these are the thoughts in my head blog.

But I'm sitting at a computer at the Fields of Life guest house in Muyenga (a section of Kampala, not South Africa) waiting for Louise to arrive.  She's somewhere between here and Luwero, a town about an hour and a half north of Kampala, in the back of a pick-up truck sharing a blanket with a couple of Ugandans, while they all watch the stars.  She's rushing back to Kampala with an Irish kid who's visiting with an Irish team and somehow today, broke his ankle.  They were supposed to leave Luwero when it was 5:00 and light out, they just left about 8:00 in the dark.

So I'm here in Muyenga because, once again, the Ugandan government didn't come through when they said they would.  Today started at Kampala City Council--the Mayor's office.  For some reason they give shots there, and until the last few weeks, it was the place in town to get fake vaccination cards for cheap.  One of our players was refused a visa to South Africa because there was no day and month on the date of his vaccination card--only "2004."  His story was he was vaccinated for real two years ago but he lost his passport after that and had to get a new passport and he went to get a fake one when he heard about the South Africa trip--he just got a really bad fake.  And, he'd lost the original, real, vaccination card.  He was going to be left behind if we flew yesterday, but since we thought we were all going today, we went in to straighten things out.

I drove in early to pick him up and asked him on the way to KCC, "So you were vaccinated last year?  You just lost your card?"  "Yeah," he said.

We got into the nurse's office.  I started to tell them his story, the nurse asked him a question, he finished the story, they didn't believe him.  Another nurse came in and asked him, "You were vaccinated here last year?"  "Yes."  "In this same room?"  "Yes."  "Do you remember the person?"  "No."  "But you know it was a male doctor?"  "Yes."  "You were not vaccinated here.  You pay 33,000 and get the vaccination."

I sat next to him and stared at him.  He was dazed and stoic.  The nurse didn't say anything about lying or anything, and wasn't going to.  I said to her, "So there are no male doctors who give these shots."  She said, "Never."

So the dude goes into the next room for the shot, I go with him without saying a word, pay the 33,000 and he gets up on the table and unbuttons his shirt.  She comes at him with the needle and cleans a spot on his arm and he moans.  The nurse laughed then gave him the shot.  No moan or flinch, apparently it hurt more to be cleaned than to be pricked.

When we got out to the car, I was pretty hard on him, told him I was considering not letting him go on the trip because he lied to me, talked about the difference between Grace and Mercy and told him I was gonna let him go and it was gonna be all Grace.

Took his vaccination card to the South African High Commission, filled forms, begged and three hours later his visa was stamped in his passport.

The rest of the day was waiting waiting waiting.  We thought we'd be flying at 3.  I was sitting with Vincent Kisenyi, the Sports Tutor at UCU (officially he reports to me, but we're really working side-by-side), outside the travel abent's office waiting for some confirmation from the Minister of Sports or the Minister of Finance to be sent to us to send to the travel agent.

At 1:30, nothing had come and we knew we weren't going.  We sat, talked and thought.  I called the organizer guy in South Africa and he told me that if we came late, we'd be able to play our scheduled games, but we'd lose our first games by forfeit.  All I wanted was for the Minister of something to lose his job by forfeit, but we talked to a few student captains and they said they wanted to go play.  So we talked to the travel agent and she told us, if we got our confirmation by the end of the day, we'd be able to fly tomorrow afternoon.  She told us that at 2.  The office closes at 5.  We sat on the sidewalk, in plastic chairs in the shade, waiting.  We talked.  Wevealed to each other that neither of us has ever been in a fist fight, but that we'd wanted to ...  Vincent revealed to me that he had a lot of trouble reading Luganda even though he's been speaking it since he could speak ... Vincent bought a pair of fake Italian fashion boots for 30,000 ($15) off a kid who was walking up and down the road selling them.  After he bought one pair, kids kept coming by with more his size and he kept trying them on.  Finally, at 4:15 his phone rang and it was the guy who'd been "chasing" the confirmation all day.  He had it.  It wasn't a letter on State House stationary, it was a phone number Vincent scribbled down with my pen on the margin of the Luganda newspaper he'd been struggling to read.  We walked into the travel agent, gave her the phone number, she called, was all sweet to the guy on the other end, he was all sweet to her, she started typing in names for tickets.  When the guy who'd called and to give Vincent the number arrived, he was all smiles--he told us he'd given up at 4 and called the girl he's started working with last week on all this ticket mess.  She told him last week all the letters and signature he needed to get.  He called her and told her he'd gotten she said and he was still left with nothing.  She gave him that phone number to call.  That was that.

I'll never understand it.  I don't think I want to.

We fly at 3:00, tomorrow.

Blog

I can't say I was country when country wasn't cool.  But I can say I was blogging before blogging was cool.

At least I can say I feel like I was blogging when blogging wasn't cool.  When I came to Uganda in 2003 I had a friend offer to set up a "website" for me.  On this "website" I would be able to write things for anyone to read whenever they were interested or wasting time or ready to leave the office at 4:25.  I never heard of a blog until I got here to Uganda, and I got an email from someone who'd read something on my "website" and responded by saying, "I read your recent post on your blog..."  I didn't like the sound of that.  A couple months later I met a guy who was here on a three week missionary trip to Uganda.  We were drinking coffee after someone had had both of us for dinner--he preceded his exit from the evening by saying, "Well ... gotta go blog.  I've been blogging everyday."  I think the woman who'd prepared us dinner was trying to figure out a polite way to offer him soft toilet paper.  He noticed it too and went on to explain exactly what a blog is and what it means to be blogging.  I didn't like his explanation.  It sounded like a blog was a personal journal--a notebook (purchased at Borders) made from recycled paper bags from WholeFoods--you sit with at a table outside Starbucks and you write in it.  But as you write your words, you also sing them--with a huge, chin-tucked, deep opera voice, looking up from the paper every-other-note to make sure the people who are staring at you are staring at you.
I explained my prejudice to Mark Bartels, a good friend missionary here at Uganda Christian University--he said, "but that's what your blog is."  I said, "Mine's a website."  Mark said, "O.k."

Mark's got a way with saying things like, "O.k."  I realized in a few minutes that I'd been blogging all along.  I tried to justify myself, to myself.  I looked at a couple other blogs out there and found all kinds of ways my work was different from their blogs.  I thought about it.  I did other things, of course--between my silly blog thoughts I was teaching Dostoevsky and drop-steps and eating my weight in rice and beans--but I did think about it.  I finally realized that, by thinking at all about it, I was being chin-tucked and operatic in my own idiotic way.  I accepted the fact that I was blogging, and that I had been for quite some time.
I met Louise, I got busy, I got distracted (from blogging) and just continued to live.  Every now and then Earl, my dad, would email me and say, "I think it'd be a good idea to put something up on the website."  (God bless Earl for never saying blog or thinking anyone would care about saying it or not) 

Then Joe Jarvis (a good friend and different type of missionary, in Chicago) started a blog.  (http://www.joejarvis.typepad.com)  Then I relaxed.

Now, Louise and I are married and we're one and we're in Uganda.  I spent about 30 seconds trying to figure out if "Louise and Jason" sounds more natural than "Jason and Louise."  That's one way Louise is helping me--a year ago I would've spent at least 30 minutes trying to figure that out.

Louise and I are out here now--out here in Uganda and out here on this blog.

We hope you'll come visit us--both places.