April 6, 2010
Istanbul, Turkey

Jordan

Sitting in a café in Istanbul nestled between the Aya Sofya and the Blue Mosque—a Spring rain imminent, birds chirping, tulips in bloom. Our trip to Jordan seems like a dream…..

After an annoying overland crossing from Egypt back through Israel and into Jordan, our first stop in Jordan was, of course, a relatively quick tour of Petra……sublime colored sands dripping down pink marbled rocks….magnificent ruins of an ancient civilization carved into desert rocks, partially protected from the chaos of history, vulnerable to the chaos of nature….. a beautifully preserved testament to thousands of years of change…..a true wonder of the world….

….watched sun set over a canyon almost as vast as the grand canyon itself…..

From Petra, we left for an overnight camping trip in Wadi Rum (fk)…..packed into a SUV, we ploughed through the desert sands in two trucks, the surreal rock and sand lunar landscape illuminated by the stark light of a full moon…After three hours of driving (with occasional moments of panic as we got stuck in the soft sand and one flat tire), we settled on a small alcove camping area and started a fire–it was my first true camping experience (complete with roasted marshmallows). Morning greeted the day with a dying fire, a bedouin visitor with a herd of wandering goats, and sun baked mountains rooted in a vast, seemingly unending world of shifting sands, sprinkled with delicate purple flowers. It was breathtaking. Deserts are generally not my favorite landscape—they often invoke feelings of desolation emptiness—but not Wadi Rum….I left the park with an intense feeling of immense freedom from my life….

From Wadi Rum, we traveled to Amman. As the guest of one of Jake’s friends, who was born and raised in Jordan, we had the pleasure of seeing Amman from the windows of an air-conditioned luxury car, the glittering white mansions and glowing green gardens of the hills of West Amman rising above the surrounding desert landscape. With an iced coffee from a drive thru window in hand, we cruised around the rotaries in West Amman, slightly baffled by the Beverly Hills-like neighborhoods. In the distance, the crumbling apartment buildings of East Amman were stacked haphazardly up the hillsides surrounding old Amman and the concrete impenetrable refugee cities spread out into the suburbs. The difference between traditional East Amman and modern, wealthy West Amman was extraordinary and I felt like I was experiencing two different cities at the same time. With a car and a local host, we were able to move in and out of these two cities, observe and experience, enjoy traditional Jordanian cuisine in locally famous restaurants and enjoy huge cups of American coffee.

Our final day in Jordan was spent traveling to the roman ruins at Jarash, which were perched above the modern city of Jarash. Compared to sites in Egypt, Jarash was blissfully quiet with the exception of groups of young Palestinian boys playing games on the ancient theater stage. For sunset, we raced to the Dead Sea, sneaking into one of the many beautiful resorts that blanket the banks of the Sea on the Jordanian side. Across the sea, the West Bank twinkled and Israel was dark.

Our time in Jordan was brief but wonderful—not long enough for me to really get a feel for the country and landscape, but long enough to become aware of its extraordinary natural beauty, appreciate all the glorious pictures of the King around the country, and become intensely interested in the complexity of its contemporary history and its relationship to its bordering countries (especially in regards to refugee policy).

wake up…..big buffet breakfast…..little nap….swim…read….little nap…..swim….read and eat….little nap….swim….read…..big nap…eat….read….bedtime…..
and so went my three days in dahab. amazing. amazing enough to extend stay for 2 extra nights.

last three days spent exploring the region around dahab. rented 4×4 quad bike for trip into canyons…zooming along the ocean roads with the sinai mountains stretching out before me, turning off road to wind through sunset frosted rocks and sand….also went snorkeling (a big deal for me because of my ocean fears)….the colorful red sea reef cascading into turquoise and azure oblivion, teeming with tropical aquatic life, complete silence……it was a fantastic two days.

last day in sinai spent climbing mount sinai for the sunset. started the day with a brief tour of Saint Katherine’s monastery, which is dramatically tucked into the base of the mountains. Thought to be the oldest monastery in the world, it was built by order of emperor Justinian I between 527 and 565. it encloses the chapel of the burning bush ordered to be built by Helena, the mother of Constantine I, at the site where Moses is supposed to have seen the burning bush (there is a living bush on the grounds, which is thought to be the original). Despite the fact that the monastery is a holy site for Christians, Muslims, and Jews, I detected nothing holy about the dense sea of tourists in tour groups pushing and shoving and the tour company video cameras filming the tour groups pushing and shoving. If I blocked out the world around me, I could almost appreciate the peacefulness of the old chapel, the rare byzantine art, the dusty and age-faded religious relics. I watched as crowds of people reached up to get a picture of themselves touching a “part” of the burning bush. It was like watching people going through the motions of faith, photographing themselves expressing faith in a very artificial way. Although I had a difficult time applying any personal religious meaning to the monastery, I was very disappointed that I allowed my annoyance and frustration with the crowds take away from my appreciation of the beauty of the monastery, of its dormant solitude, of its historical significance….

After the tour of the monastery, we started the summit to the top of Mount Sinai (the supposed site where Moses spoke to God and received the 10 commandments). The most popular thing to do (and arguably the most beautiful) is to visit Mount Sinai for the sunset, starting the hike at 3am. Due to scheduling, we had to settle for the sunset hike. There are 2 ways to summit Mount Sinai–the camel trail, which is a sloping trail of rocky, sandy switchbacks (easier trail) and the steps of penitence (3,700 stone steps carved out of the mountain by a repentant monk)…..our guide left us no choice-we took the camel trail. After the first 3 km moving up the mountain, I was happy with his executive decision. We reached Elijah’s basin at around 2pm, at which point we started the 750-step climb to the summit of Mount Sinai. It was a brutal last step. We had at least 2 hours before the beginning of the sunset, but the wind was picking up and I was starting to get cold and tired. We reached the summit around 3pm and it was breathtaking…..below us was a sea of barren mountains stretching as far as the eye could see—as series of a sharp peaks rising from a billowing cloud-like rocky infinity, shadowy and sun drenched…..again, there was the silence. A cold yet comforting silence.

As we waited for the sun to set, I was hoping to feel something, some sort of pang of spirituality, some small whisper of faith in the divine….I looked around me and inwardly smiled at the others around me talking about the accomplishment of climbing to the top and suddenly I was overwhelmed by the world around me….Overwhelmed by the seeming endlessness of the mountains, by the landscape of light and shadows, by the increasingly icy winds….by my stiffening muscles, my inability to get warm, my hunger, my fatigue……The sunset became a time of both existential wonder and temporal discomfort. I felt no whisper of the divine, but I did experience a deep appreciation for the certainty that the sun rises and sets over these mountains every day and every day people will use their strength (physical and spiritual) to summit this mountain to become part of a shared human experience. Instead of feeling a sense of “something greater”, the existence of something divine, I felt more tethered to the earth than I ever have.

Right at the last moment of day, a group of strange Western pilgrims dressed in designer Clorox-bleached white pseudo-Bedouin gear gathered in a circle and began to sign a quiet chant, extending their necks to stare intently into the night sky. The signing was a bit pretty but eery, disruptive, ridiculous…..It broke into my thoughts, my experience in a way that frustrated me…..I lost my calm contemplative connection to the mountains and grew impatient to descend….I was unable to block out their intrusive presence.

We descended by the light of a full moon and a sky full of stars, slowing slipping down the mountain, carefully following the flickering flashlights of other groups in the distance. The descent was exhausting, but incredibly peaceful—with spectacular moonlit mountain views. At the base of the mountain, Saint Katherine’s monastery stood silently, imposing, emptied of people.

It finally seemed holy.

Sitting here in Dahab in the Sinai Peninsula, overlooking the Sea of Aqaba, not quite believing where I am or what I am doing…..It has been a long time since I have had days to just sit and sleep and think….A much needed vacation from traveling, a vacation within a vacation. Although I have my usual relaxation-associated guilt, I do feel we deserve this luxury, this quiet applause for finishing medical school and successfully matching, for our 30th birthdays, for our 7 year anniversary, for remaining as psychologically intact as possible after the immense emotional challenges we have faced through it all…..

I have found traveling in Egypt surprisingly difficult and intense—in part because it has been one of the most unfriendly places I have been in my life. When I close my eyes and think about the past 2 weeks, I remember the wonder associated with wandering around dimly lit ancient temples, the eery claustrophic awe of climbing into the tombs in the Valley of the Kings, the breathtaking exhale of light as the sun sets over the Nile and the desert, the constant frenetic sensory explosion of daily life in Cairo, the seemingly desolate solitude of a settlement nestled in the harsh sand and rock mountains between Sharm el Sheik and Dahab, the sparkling water of the Sea of Aqaba…….but I also remember the aggressive demands and expectations for baksheesh, the uncomfortable and unfriendly stares, the disbelief of Jake being spat on in Cairo, the choking storms of pollution, dirt, and sand, the terror of attempting to cross a Cairo street, the hoards of pushy self-righteous tourists, the constant feeling of being taken advantage of……

In any case…..I am glad to be out of Cairo and a bit disappointed that I didn’t have a better experience with it. In theory, I love the city—an overwhelmingly immense metropolis where ancient and contemporary history, culture, and religion collide in a way that I am struggling to understand. We spent our first full day in Cairo exploring Coptic Cairo, negotiating the metro and the crowds of tourists (again) to tour Saint George’s Cathedral, the Hanging Church, and Ben Ezra Synagogue (which was by far the most beautiful, interesting, and heavily fortified place of worship). Escaping the tourists, we spent the afternoon wandering around the quiet tree-lined streets of Zamalek. We started our second full day in Cairo with a walk from downtown to Islamic Cairo, stopping for croissants and for a tour of the Shar Hashamaim Synagogue. That morning, I opened the NYTimes to find an article about an unnamed synagogue in Cairo. The article focused on the restoration of the synagogue and what it means in the context of contemporary Egyptian-Israeli politics (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/world/middleeast/22egypt.html?emc=eta1). As we approached the synagogue (which I don’t think was the one referenced in the article but was the only one listed in our guidebook) we were slightly unnerved by the number of security forces surrounding the structure. In order to visit, we were forced to hand over our passports and answer questions about where we were staying and if we spoke Arabic. I am not quite sure how Jake felt, but I found the experience uncomfortable. There have been certain moments during the past few weeks during which I have felt acutely aware of the possibility of violence, of the reality of an underlying current of threatening religious and cultural fundamentalism, of a distinct feeling that I am hated for what I represent (even though I don’t even know what that is). Jake and I (I think) have experienced this country somewhat differently and central to the space between our experiences is Jake’s unquestionable Jewish heritage…..

The other thing that is central to the space between our experiences is gender. Once again, I feel like I don’t know enough to make any informed commentary on this issue…but what the hell….. Coming from a month in Uganda, where sex and sexuality is as central to life as food and water, where reproduction is an essential part of daily life, the role of female sexuality and sex in this culture confuses me…..Intensely conservative, many women here seem to move through the streets like shadows, hidden behind burqus. I use the word “seem” because I feel like we are taught in the West to think of things like burqa and headscarves as oppressive towards women. I do think that there is a degree of power and control associated with the use of these garments and that, in some cases, this level of control is violent, but I have been very surprised by my walks through Cairo—there are so many cultural contradictions (for example, stores that stock (side by side) burqus and extremely explicit lingerie and girls in skin tight clothing topped with glittering headscarves). It is just a different expression of sexuality……more elusive, more private…. but maybe that is only in more modern, more liberal Egyptian Muslims…..I still find burqas a little frightening—that a woman disappears from the outside world, that they are potential cages…

The rest of our day was spent mainly spent in Islamic Cairo, which was one of the most intense city areas that I have ever been in. Small, winding streets packed to capacity with human traffic and commerce with what seemed like hundreds of minaret soaring above the chaos—as we walked, I struggled to push back against the current of movement and unfamiliar sounds and smells. I felt something similar to cultural claustrophobia….it was figuratively and literally hard to breathe. We, of course, briefly visited the Khan Al-Khalil, the medieval (although now touristy) bazaar, carefully admiring and avoiding the tightly packed stalls of Egyptian tourist paraphernalia before heading to Al-Azhar Mosque (one of Cairo’s earliest mosques). This was my first time in a Mosque and I found it to be an incredibly peaceful place of worship with young Muslims reclining in shady corners, in deep discussion and prayer. On the one hand, I could have spent hours in the mosque watching people, but on the other hand, I couldn’t wait to escape……

As much as I hate to admit it, Cairo is not a city for me—although I suspect it might grow on me with time….. That said, I think it was an important city to experience and I don’t regret our time there. One of the goals of this trip was to try to build a foundational layer of experience to help me better understand the world around me. I am not sure if I am achieving this goal, but I definitely think that our time in Israel and Egypt has provided some sort of a reference….an explosion of condensed imagery and experience that has forced me to look at the world around me differently….

Another long car ride….this one in a convoy through the Sahara Desert….destination Abu Simbel. The desert is endless, inhospitable, threatening, dotted with camels and abandoned concrete shacks….

In Aswan, we are staying at the Pyramisa Isis Island Resort, an Egyptian “four star” resort located on its very own island in the middle of the Nile River, a dumping ground for the large tour groups who are bused in from Luxor…..I have never been anywhere quite like it…..a flamingo pink palace rising from the Nile with a tobacco-stained terraced lobby draped in fake hanging vines teeming with sun scorched (literally) Western tourists adorned in exotic mass-produced Nubian necklaces….it is a sprawling compound littered with waterfall pools surrounded by palm trees and lobster-colored, pealing sun worshipers; multiple restaurants, including the most popular buffet of inedible delights; an empty disco with walls painted with bright yellow stars and purple planets; a shopping arcade advertising over the counter Viagra and Septrin; and rooms well-equipped with ashtrays (more than 5), faded flowery bedspreads, showers that refuse to drain, and incredibly beautiful views of the sunset over the Nile…..it is the island love child of Atlantic City, Boca Raton, Reno, and a nursing home…….It is a place I will not soon forget….

So far, our stay in Aswan has been a little rocky….we are all a bit tired and missing good food, good coffee, drinkable water, and the ability to flush toilet paper….That said, it is a fascinating place…a place of historically strategic importance and the gateway to Nubia. I don’t know much of the history of the Nubian people, but I do know that the construction of the low and high Aswan dams have quite literally destroyed most of the Nubian villages in the region. Just like in SE Asia with the Hmong and Uganda with the Twa, there are organized “tours” of the few remaining surrounding Nubian villages….The tours take boatloads of tourist into the villages to observe and take pictures of traditional Nubian life…true people tourism…which I find quite disturbing…I know that these “cultural tours” are sometimes theoretically started in order to preserve dying cultures, but in reality they are exploitive and ridiculous. That said, I guess we are all kind of cultural tourists when we travel, but it is different when you pay and it is a “tour”…..These tours are like people zoos, where you can snap a few pictures, have people dance for you, and purchase a cheap souvenir that somehow validates your cultural sensitivity…..I don’t mean to be so incredibly nasty and cynical…but it really bothers me. Anyway….speaking of being a person/cultural tourist, I saw the most amazing cultural event in the hotel lobby last night.….a traditional Egyptian wedding party! The guests started arriving in waves around 10pm by ferry (the only way to reach the Pyramisa Island), men dressed in suits and traditional robes (I have to look up the correct terminology for what I mean by robes) followed by the women, a mix of women in full burqa and modern dress (albeit conservative). Around 11:30pm, I heard the jubilant sound of traditional Nubian music and song and then the ululating began….as the wedding couple approached, people danced and sang and ululated, holding hands, laughing, hugging, children running in and out of the crowd….The lobby of the great Pyramisa suddenly became a palace of celebration of modern Egyptian love and marriage and not just an absurdly tacky tourist hotel. I felt honored to be able to observe this important day in the lives of these families…..

On a personal note, this wedding celebration came on a night of personal celebration. Jake and I matched for residency in Philadelphia, an event that ended a period of great uncertainty and homelessness. We found out the news over coffee as the sun was setting over the Nile, the wind and sand blowing around us—we hugged each other quietly and celebrated with a terrible dinner and a cup of tea, which somehow seemed like the perfect ending to a long and difficult path………

Now on the way back from Abu Simbel (which was, once again, a spectacular monument by the shore of Lake Nasser), watching the sunset over the Sahara, the sand and sky melting into each other, a sherbert colored sigh at the end of a long day……

On the bus heading from Luxor to Dendara to explore the Temple of Hathor and Abydos, the main cult center of Osiris….

Trying to write whenever I can, but it is difficult. I keep wondering why it was so much easier in Uganda….I think I had more time, but I also think it is easier to write about places that you are familiar with. Everything here is new and different….so much to see in so little time, leaving no time to process the experiences let alone write about them.

We have had an intense tour of the monuments and temples around Luxor, including Luxor and Karnak Temples, the Valley of the Kings, Temple of Hatshepsut, Medinat Habu, Abydos and Dendara….

Some general thoughts….
Valley of the Kings. Three tombs—Ramses IX, Ramses III, Tuthmosis III. Spectacular-I can almost imagine what it would have been like to descend into the tomb along passageways completely covered with pictures and text, the ceiling painted with golden stars, into a chamber that glitters with gold, containing all of the material objects one needs to live in the afterlife….

One of our tour guides suggested that the Pharaohs lived during their earthly life in mud-brick homes, focusing all of their energy constructing exquisite homes for the afterlife….I think I find that hard to believe (and will look it up)…….Sadly, I do not know enough about ancient Egyptian culture to really talk about temporal life and its relation to the afterlife, but I find the whole concept of an afterlife fascinating. Once again, this place (similar to Israel) is really making me think about religion and religiosity and the many ways in which we try to understand pain, suffering, happiness, and beauty in life and then the finality of death. Death was so central to ancient Egyptian culture—life, at least for the ruling elite, was consumed with preparing for death–true everlasting life was in death. I like that the Egyptians included tools for daily living in their tombs—it makes me feel like they recognized the physicality that is essential for life……I don’t know—I feel quite frustrated about my lack of knowledge of religion and history. I desperately want to understand it. Although raised in the Episcopal church, I have never really understood the Christian ideal of an afterlife, a spiritual place or state of being devoid of suffering and pain. To me, that state of being sounds profoundly upsetting. Suffering and pain as well as pleasure and love and happiness—these things make us human, make us real, allow us to appreciate the world around us…blah, blah, blah….I can’t write about this stuff anymore. I simply don’t know enough and don’t know what I believe in yet. My thoughts on the issue of religion are built upon layers of beliefs that I have culturally inherited….layers that I cannot excavate right now.

…What I can comment on are the people. I am a people tourist and I find the people watching at these monuments as interesting as the sites themselves. There are so many different types of tourists here in Egypt…..people from all over the world, from every religious and ethnic group….all coming to appreciate the wonder of one ancient civilization. Similar to Uganda, my favorite part of Egypt has been the long drives from monument to monument. I love the colors—the verdant Nile Valley fields dotted with flowers, faded concrete buildings with pale pink and orange and green doors interspersed with mud-brick homes, the desert stretching out in the distance…..traditional women shopping at markets dressed in all black, groups of men gathered smoking sheesha and drinking tea and playing backgammon, cars and trucks loaded with men and women traveling alongside donkeys and carts loaded with palm leaves….the rhythms of daily life that reveal a culture and a people that I want to know more about… a country of contradictions—both developed and developing, modern and ancient, friendly and hostile….

On to Aswan…..

Sitting here watching the sun set over the Nile—the sound of the call to prayer and a cool breeze carrying fallucas down the river, the Valley of the Kings fading into darkness. It is unbelievably peaceful—a peace that is much needed after our first few frantic days in Egypt. On our first full day in Cairo, we joined the hoards of tourists to explore the Pyramids of Giza, Dashur, and Saqqara—the iconic symbols and images of Pharaonic Egypt. They were everything I expected—a magnificent testament to human accomplishment and our desperate need to deal with our own mortality. We only entered one of the pyramids, Dashur, and that was enough for me…..As I slowly descended into the pyramid, crouching to fit into the 4 foot high passageway, fighting ascending tourists, the light slowly disappearing, the stale air becoming thick with human sweat and motion, I felt claustrophobic for the first time in my life. The passageway was 60 meters long, opening into a series of three chambers…although quite large, I felt like I was being asphyxiated by ammonia fumes (they fill the chambers with ammonia to discourage bats from nesting inside the tombs)….I scrambled up the steep passageway to the exit, desperate to escape the fumes and oppressive heat into the overpowering desert sun…even thinking about it makes me feel a little anxious..

The one thing that really surprised me (and probably made more of an impact on me than the pyramids themselves) was the location of the Pyramids of Giza—they are nestled between the great expanse of desert and city slums. The bus route to the pyramid site is along a small river choked with garbage and sewage…it was upsetting–It seems so strange to me to be visiting the monuments of a highly complex and advanced ancient civilization while modern-day Egypt is considered a “developing” country….

We finished the day with a brief trip to the incredible Cairo Museum—a virtual warehouse of antiquity….room after room of spectacular artifacts, amazingly displayed mummies, and thousands of tourists….It was fantastic.

March 13, 2010
Cairo, Egypt

Outside our windows, Cairo inhales and exhales urban chaos….human noise exploding through the call to prayer….It has been more than 36 hours since I slept….the lush, verdant hills and mountains of the Golan Heights and the comforting familiarity of the street scene of Tel Aviv a distant memory. I am feeling both the need to curl up in silence and rush out into the streets to absorb the energy around me…..It is the kind of place that requires a deep breath before stepping out the door…. a crumbling city of cultural contradiction unified by religiosity….

I am spending this first night in Cairo psychologically hiding inside of my fatigue, too tired to process the unfamiliar world around…too lost in all of the questions about religion, history, and identity that Israel forced me to contemplate (which I promise to write about eventually)….

I find it frustrating that I have had a difficult time writing about our week in Israel….It is an overwhelmingly complicated place for me to understand and I don’t think I have ever felt like such an outsider….(strange to say considering that I arrived in Israel from Africa)….It was a place in which I just didn’t fit in—a country of profound cultural and religious expression (and tension), where I could not access a sense of belonging…not at all. It made me sad, but it challenged me to think about who I am, where I come from, and who I want to be….

Happy 30th birthday to me!

I feel I must write a brief goodbye post, but part of me feels like my mind is already gone…I am distracted by the unfamiliar and new, nervous and excited about Israel. I think I will not try to process the ending of Uganda, not yet, not now. I want to be totally in the present, not looking back and not looking forward…..i know that the meaning of the experience in Uganda will surface as it always does, revealing itself slowly and carefully, changing as I change…..

Hello, Israel☺

Have not posted in a while secondary to being without electricity (and without water, yes water) for several days…..My apologies if this post is pretty bad…Currently in transit en route to Tel Aviv…

Last two days at RHSP spent with circumcision services department and the SHARE project (Safe Homes and Respect for Everyone)…..

In 2007, the RHSP published results from a randomized control trial of 4996 uncircumcised, HIV-negative men aged 15-49 years showing that male circumcision reduced HIV incidence in men without behavioral disinhibition. Data from the work at Rakai, as well as results from similar randomized control trials in South Africa and Kenya, have demonstrated that circumcision reduces male acquisition of HIV by 50-60% (need citation here). Based on this data, the World Health Organization now recommends male circumcision be part of global HIV prevention packages. Although the clinical trial of male circumcision for HIV prevention at Rakai was stopped prematurely in 2006 after interim analyses showed significant efficacy of the intervention, RHSP now provides comprehensive circumcision services for all RHSP cohort participants. Through this program, male cohort participants have access to circumcision surgery, post-op care, HIV testing and counseling and prevention education free of charge. Men who seek out surgery are transported to and from the Project facilities and provided with 4 weeks of home-based post-operative care. Currently, the RHSP has the capacity to perform seven concurrent procedures and completes an average of 30-40 circumcisions daily. Of course, all of the foreskin is banked and is currently be used for research purposes. The Program has also become a Center of Excellence and procedural training for local, national, and international health practitioners. It is an impressive package of services and, according to the department coordinator, community participation has been extraordinarily high. When asked about barriers to elective medical male circumcision, the coordinator discussed two main community misconceptions; 1. circumcision was an attempt at Islamic conversion, and 2. circumcision caused men to become sterile. Ongoing extensive education campaigns are aimed at clarifying these common misconceptions. Another interesting issue with circumcision came up during my afternoon with the community education team—according to the health educators, many women are discouraging their partners from having the procedure secondary to post-op restrictions on sexual behavior (i.e. the 3-6 week period of abstinence that is required after circumcision surgery is seen as prohibitively long or suspicious for sexual activity outside the partnership). I found that anecdotal evidence a bit difficult to believe, but I am sure I will read about it soon (there is ongoing qualitative research at RHSP exploring these very issues).…..

The most powerful experience that I had at RHSP was on my last day, which I spent with Project SHARE, a domestic violence prevention and education program born out of research demonstrating an important relationship between intimate partner violence, sexual coercion, and HIV transmission in Uganda. Project SHARE focuses on education around economic, physical, sexual, and psychological violence, empowerment exercises for girls and women, education of religious and community leaders on issues of womens’ rights, reproductive health, and gender-based sociocultural behavior change. From the moment I walked into the SHARE office, I felt engaged, impressed, and inspired by the work……As I was reminded of the grueling struggle that is daily life for the majority of Ugandan women, I felt overwhelmed with anger and frustration about the world in which these women live and die. According to the SHARE project staff, many women in rural areas of Uganda prepare for marriage at age 15. Traditional gender role education (conducted by Ssengas—or “aunties”, who are female community members who provide marriage instruction) dictates that women are singularly responsible for the household, should never complain, and must at all times acquiesce to a husband’s sexual demands without question. SHARE is addressing these traditional beliefs and practices through encouraging education for girls (girls who leave school early, much like in the U.S., are at a much greater risk of early sexual debut, adolescent pregnancy, intimate partner violence, HIV/AIDS, and adverse reproductive health outcomes) and through organized trainings for local Ssengas and traditional birth attendants. During my day with Project SHARE, I was very lucky to be invited to one of their weekly community educational dramas….

It was pouring when we piled into a truck (Maria, the main coordinator; Matilda, the nurse-midwife who runs all of the reproductive health training and education (and who also runs her own clinic and school); and 3 young female interns) and pulled up to a mud thatch home close to Kalisizo to pick up the professional drama, dancing, and and music group, who climbed into the back of the truck (with drums). We started to move down very rural roads to announce the drama, Matilda yelling into a microphone hooked up to a loudspeaker hanging out of the car window while the drummers in the back began to play and the dancers began to move their hips (the dancers were hanging off the back of the truck). Everywhere, villagers came out into the smoke-filled rainy afternoon to hear the music and see the dancing….some just stared, others danced, everyone was smiling. We drove around “mobilizing the community” for about 45 minutes and then returned to our starting point, where the drama team was setting up the stage. People began to slowly congregate, children in school uniforms taking the front row, the anticipation palpable…..

The story of the play was as follows…[mother of two children married to an alcoholic man who sells all of the family’s food and belongings to buy alcohol for himself and his local “women” and beats his wife decides to leave husband after son runs away and daughter is raped and impregnated, mother and daughter return to maternal grandparent’s home where daughter gives birth with a traditional birth attendant who is unable to control postpartum hemorrhage with local herbs, trained midwife comes in and saves the lives of mother and baby, husband falls apart without wife and attempts to get wife back, police are involved and trial happens, wife eventually goes back to husband with an agreement of “mutual respect”—]….As the scenes of violence were played out, the audience reacted with laughter. It was very hard for me to understand the humor in the violence and I alternated between wiggling uncomfortably and laughing with the crowd. Although I was a little horrified by the fact that the wife returned to her abusive husband at the end (SHARE has to be very careful in their messaging—originally, communities were resistant to the Project’s work because they felt that it was encouraging wives to leave husbands), I felt great hope in the fixated expressions of all of the schoolchildren who will internalize these messages and be the agents of the small, incremental changes that will lead to better lives for women in Uganda.

The drama ended with more drumming and dancing…explosions of sound and movement and life and sex and family and community…of course, I was pulled up to dance, shaking my ass ridiculously while everyone laughed and clapped….it was the perfect way to end the month. …

[BY THE WAY, as I write this post, I am sitting on a flight to Tel Aviv, listening to Jake arguing with another American–evangelical, very conservative Christian Republican who doesn’t believe in evolution, global warming, or Western medicine while the people around us either sleep, pray, intermittently interject opinions or just stare…….sigh….big, huge sigh…….this is going to be a very, very interesting trip…….more on that later…..]

On a more personal note, I have finished medical school.

I walked into the kitchen last night to find Jake standing over the stove with Farida and Zainab, watching as a fresh chapati sizzled and snapped in the frying pan….For the past week, Jake has been wanting a cooking lesson or two from the most amazing sisters in Uganda, Zainab and Farida. Originally from Northern Uganda, Zainab has had a life marked by tragedy and loss that spans the globe from Sudan to Cypress…..She has spent her life as a cook, in and out of several embassies (including the American embassy), traveling around the world, a student of many kitchens and many different types of cuisine…..She is larger than life in her traditional African dress and head scarf with an infectiously kind smile and laugh. Farida is her younger sister, who lives here with her 2 year old daughter, Najjat, who runs around the compound naked, chattering and laughing, poking and pulling at every little curious thing she can find….. Anyway, last night Jake learned to make chapati’s under Zainab’s careful instructions. As they kneaded the dough and sprinkled the flour by candlelight (the electricity was out AGAIN), Zainab told Jake the story of her life, starting with fleeing her home in the North for the Sudan, her emotions unfolding, uncontrolled for a rare and quiet moment…. The master of the Ugandan chapati, the Zainab chapati, instructed Jake like a son while she told the story of her own son’s death….It was a profound and routine at the same time…..and I don’t think Jake will ever forget how to make Zainab’s chapatis….