Saturday, February 8, 2014

Peace Corps Update from Paul in Uganda

“If you have come to help me you can go home. But if you see my struggle as part of your own survival, then perhaps we can work together.”

-  Australian Aborigine Woman


Hi Everybody!

Here’s hoping that the Grace and Light that brings Peace and Joy is guiding you with Warmth through the first season of this cold New Year

For those of you who didn’t get my pre-Christmas update we did a real quick luggage split during training in which half of my stuff (many e-mail contacts included) were sent to a storage room in Kampala.  Beyond that the internet and whatever chance may be decided that half the e-mail list I actually did send the letter to would result in postmaster failure.  All Apologies.  I have a blog, paulybenz.blogspot.com, which hopefully all my Updates from Uganda will go to but my internet connection while in country has been frustrating to say the least so right now the only thing up there is the post I made just as I was leaving Philadelphia for a long drive to New York and an even longer flight from JFK.  We did have a nice sunrise in Belgium though before our flight to Entebbe, Uganda.

You can send me email and it’s not too difficult to view, but internet is so slow I have to travel to a hub to reply.  If you really want to call me let me know and I’ll send you my number out here is +256787690497 on MTN and +256790518268 on Orange.  Think it’s weird that I have two phone numbers? Some people here have five.  You get airtime on a little scratch card and there are different providers with different promotional deals and different areas where one  network might have no service and another will.


Jan 26 2014

The drums start just before 7.  I later learned that the drums were for church in Africa similar to what bells are for church in the states and much of Europe.

Somehow I’d slept beyond my usual wakeup time and this is my second morning here in Buyanja Village.  I opt out of my typical prayer and meditation, which tends to become prayer and whirling extended thought period.  I hope Hue Shou, the good-humored monk back in Taiwan wouldn’t be too disappointed, but I haven’t given up on listening just yet.
I step out side into the mist and birdsong air to glimpse the splendor that is dawn through the maize sugarcane and banana trees that stand between our house and the green hills of Southwestern Uganda on my way to the latrine.  I have hacked a bit of the avocado tree away from the roof to limit easy access to rodents.  Never would have thought “sharpening the machete” would end up on my list of things to do before I moved to Africa.  We haven’t put a lock on the latrine yet and despite my kneejerk reaction from being told over and over to keep things inside under lock and key at night the toilet paper has not been stolen… just moved.

I came back and lit some incense purchased by our Indian neighbors in Mbarara who taught me how to say thank you in Hindi (which I forgot) Man I'm glad they are here there food is the best. 

 My desire for self discipline would have me restart the morning routine, but I’ll pray in church today and there is so much I want to tell you.  So with the candle on the table I improvise and as the Bible holds down some incense I sit down to chat with you.

After 11 weeks of training 42 of us were sworn in at the Ambassador’s house in Kampala that third week of January as Volunteer Education Officers with the United States Peace Corps.  We repeated the oath as read by the ambassador in unison with our right hands raised and swore to protect the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic so help us God.  It was all very official.  Honestly made me feel like I was apart of something much greater and stronger than I in a very good way. Funny how ceremony and ritual offer that kind of grounding structure.  We were reminded of the importance of education in Uganda with 80% of its population being under age 30, 50% under 15 and 36% believed to be under age 9.  We were reminded that a country’s economy is directly related to its education.  Our chief mentor and leader from the night we landed in November reminded us to work with people who wanted to work with us, that if something doesn’t make sense it probably isn’t true, and that when hunting an elephant it’s best not to throw stones at birds.  We represented Washington, Oregon, California Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Vermont.  What we look like as a representation of Americans you’ll have to see the photo. =) We were reminded that Our group had reconvened 3 days before at a lovely Conference Center with monkeys playing in the foreground as a large banyan tree oversaw the whole affair from the middle and a quaint, grass-roofed gazebo that I never actually sat down in offered a view of Lake Victoria between the trees.   We hadn’t all been together for just over a month where we had been separated by region for Language Training and cultural immersion where we stayed with host families.
It was here I heard a description of myself I’ve been excited to tell you about since the day I heard the story.    

Word travels fast in the village.

We stayed at a place called Kyamugasha. 5 of us each with a different family and we all walked the same road to language classes through the village.  The village children would always chase after us and call out, “Muzungu, Muzungu!” meaning “white person, white person.”  After days of introductions and a few sing-a-longs of “This Is the Day” (harkening back to Sunday school with Dad at St. Peter’s) though it the cacophony became “Paul!” (pronounced ‘Pa-ool’).  Funny how being called by your name just feels better than a nickname, however non-malicious, that denotes the color of your skin how being called a name.  The walk, which started with me at 7:30, added Matthew, being furthest out, then we usually sat down at Cody’s for a while and then went on to pick up Amanda. One particular day Amanda was excited to tell me that her host father had mentioned me in conversation saying, “Paul, yes I know that one. He is the one wearing spectacles who loves God and is fingerless.”  “Fearless,” I miss-repeated to myself with a smile beginning the internal self-congratulation.  “No, FINGERLESS,” Amanda repeated.  “Oh FINGERLESS,” I chuckled to myself; yeah that too.  I can just imagine Kaare Haga laughing in his chair after hearing that story. 
            I can show you the many pictures of the green rolling hills we looked out on our walks to class and where my family farmed and I can show you their faces.  I can tell you what I know of their story, but really theirs is not so different from ours in the most fundamental aspects of hard work to better one’s own life and that of one’s family, to ensure a decent home and education for one’s children.  I learned how to milk a cow from them and the pictures are there.  But what I can’t show you in pictures are the sunrises I saw over the steep ridge that encircled the farm tucked in its nook as it spread out to the vast valley below like some giant divine horseshoe.  I can’t show you how the stars looked when I took my bucket bath every night before supper but I can tell you that the word ananooze means both firefly and stars in Runyankore/Rukiga.  I can’t show you how the full moon looked between the acacia trees over that same ridge but I can tell you it was a cinematographer’s dream come true let your imagination go to work and keep the rest for my own memory.  I can’t show you what my shadow looked like in the moonlight on the grass and hard pack path returning from fetching water as it trudged between the large banana leaf shadows on the ground under my feet but I can tell you it was quite something to see and know that my 17 year old host brother was several paces behind me.  If I ever make it to frail 70’s I’ll smile on that memory, those jerry cans from the waterhole are heavy.  And after 30 years of processed high fructose corn syrup and plastic packaged granules, my host father took me into the planation to harvest sugarcane with a machete, carry it home and cut it up and enjoy. Dusk never tasted sweeter.

            And late at night several days later as Thursday becomes Friday this last Day of January I should like to tell you a few things about life here in Uganda.  While by western standards a new calendar day begins at 12 midnight or 0000 hours, here the day starts at sunrise. Clock Time also begins then, as does the day. So 7AM for us is 1 here and if it were 12 noon the Ugandan time it would be 6.  And here just below the equator the sun rises and sets at 7AM and 7PMevery day.  It is considered very rude to eat while you are standing up or walking, but picking your nose in public even while in mid-conversation is quite normal and is done often.  People walk slower, listen better and therefore talk softer and more quietly here.  Often to say ‘yes’ they will not speak, but only raise their eyebrows, so if you are not giving full attention or at least looking at the person you are talking to you will not know they have heard you.  It is also common to hear a closed mouth “hhnnnhh” for an affirmation of sorts similar to what I encountered in Norway.  English is their official language, but it’s British English so they eat “biscuits” not “cookies” and if your are dressed well and looking good you are “smart.”  I love the British influence of Break Tea in the morning at 10ish and in the evening at 5ish but as for the steering wheel on the right and driving on the left hand side of the road… not so much.  But don’t worry we’re not allowed to drive and that’s a rule I don’t intend on breaking. 
            As I’ve observed before and have likely stolen the description from literature or cinema, “people are people wherever you go.”  In the best here, there is among Ugandans a deep and overflowing joy and readiness to laugh that I doubt I could ever tire of: the kind that gives you hope for humanity and inspires you to give thanks.  A hospitality and a generosity matching the best of my country.  Rev. Sam who studied at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena for 8 years told me on a car ride home one day when talking about American and Ugandan hospitality said, “No one is better than you.”  We had talked about how the two countries were equal in their peoples’ hospitality as we had just left a baptism and graduation celebration where I experienced some of the very best that Ugandan village hospitality has to offer. 
            Greetings are of great importance here.  It is considered rude to approach someone and ask them for something (even if they are on the job and you will pay for what you seek) without first greeting them.  If you are walking and see someone on the path and you fail to greet them, it is thought that you are either not a good person or that you do not like the person you have failed to greet.  Sometimes if you see them passing by a Ugandan’s exterior demeanor may seem, austere, stern, detached or even slightly intimidating, but all you need do is smile and try to greet them in their mother language to bring a full and beaming smile to their face and your day that I can not adequately describe.  And as people are people while those in my host family and the Peace Corps Uganda employees who overwhelmed us with their near angelic grace, the dignity and perseverance with which they worked and generosity to their guests that match any I have known others, well, are reactive and opportunistic like people anywhere can be.          The sense of personal space is very different in that it is really nonexistent here which translates into a persistence that sometimes can seem pushy or over-crowded and very unsafe taxis with up to 24 people in a Toyota minivan.  I’m not exaggerating and it was one of the more miserable 3 hours on a road whose pavement has been utterly neglected since the British left in the mid 1960’s.  I doubt I’ll ever be comfortable with the insects but I sleep under a mosquito net and take Malarone daily to stave off Malaria and honestly the mosquito’s here are nowhere near as bad as Taiwan; I’ve only put on bug dope 2 or three times during my first week in country and I‘ve rarely been bitten.  They eat very large portions at lunch and late in the evening.  And I mean large.  As my friend Kenneth who lives right behind us on the compound put it today, “For us Africans, we are very good at eating.”  The diet is higher in starch than anything I’ve ever seen or heard of.  Potatoes (which they call Irish Potatoes) rice, beans, matooke, cabbage, a green leafed vegetable called dodo, and boiled beef, millet, and posho are the most common main courses. Then for desert fruit, usually pineapple or for lunch breakfast and break tea it can also be mangoes and banana.  The fruit here is amazing similar to Taiwan and the taste is several notches above what I’m used to in the states. (Although here instead of saying “used to” they drop the “to” and just say “used” to describe when one is acclimated to something.

And they are incredibly sharp dressers in Uganda. A people so keen with style and fashion and united in taking pride in their personal appearance, I would put them second only to the Italians for fashion consistency. The exception here would be those working hard labor or found deep in the village without means or concern to adhere to fashion and sharp personal appearance. In my duties as a teacher I have to honor this sensibility to be respected and show respect. I do my best. Never in my life have I worn such snazzy shoes as part of my daily work attire. Ironing clothes, I do hate it. 

            There is here a toughness and durability among the people the likes of which I’ve never seen before.  It sometimes reminds me of the toughness I saw in my Grandpa Benz but even he as a midwestern farmer raised out of the American Depression, even he wore shoes when he worked the fields.  It is very common to see people ranging from young children to people into their seventies digging or other hard farm labor in bare feet.  As my host father said more than once, “Here in Africa, everything must be tough, the plants are tough, the animals are tough, the people are tough.”  And he’s right even the grass is sharp and can cut like small knives; there is a plant that has leaves that come to a point and poke good if your not paying attention; these are a favorite food of the goats who often roam freely from yard to yard but have a system where they are herded and kept which I haven’t quite learned yet, but many are simply tied with a rope by leg to a cluster of grass.  But the toughness of the flora and fauna of nature here are reflected in the people who lived and work directly in with it and depend on it for sustenance.  A common perception of white people, and we are called “Muzungu” by nearly everyone who sees us walking by on the road, is that we are incapable of doing any physical labor at all and that we all have a plentiful reserve of money at our disposal.  As for the former I had a hilarious and wonderful moment when one day after language training I was going for a jog with a friend from Nebraska and while waiting for my friends to grab jogging shoes I was chatting with the neighbor next door who I’d greeted on days before.  She was well past 60 working with a heavy garden hoe in bare feet.  “You, you help this,” she said playfully.  I proceed to take the hoes from her and go to it after figuring out that she wanted topsoil cleared of the weeds and did a small patch in here garden. She howled with laughter and said with great surprise, “This one, he knows how to dig!”  Some of the skills developed here are strange in their reconnection to the individual human experience.  I know by the liter how much pee will fill the night bottle in a go and roughly how much water I use for drinking, laundry, bathing and dishwashing as I carry it from the borehole (waterhole) in 20 liter jerry cans.  I can aim well enough to poop in a small hole in the ground without missing or soiling my pants and feet in dim light… very dim.  I held a duck with a red rooster’s mask before I watched it slaughtered and helped pluck its feathers.  This was Christmas dinner for our region.  One of my goals while here is to slaughter and animal myself that I will later eat.  We also watched a goat slaughter and learned that here in Uganda Muslims generally slaughter animals that are sold to the public as Muslims are not permitted to eat animals slaughtered by non-Muslims.     

So we went from an organic farm outside Kampala called Kulika for 3 weeks to a Primary Teacher’s College compound called Shimoni for another 2 weeks.  This was the first phase of training also known as teacher boot camp. Then we were split up by language groups and sent to 5 different regions to stay with host families and take language and culture classes for phase 2 of our training, which lasted roughly 5 weeks.  In my group for southwestern Uganda there are 9 of us and 5 went to the village of Kyamugasha.  And now with the midnight oil burning, the electricity and internet fickle and floating in its tease between available and frustratingly slow I enter my 9th day on site.  I wish I could watch the Seahawks play in the Superbowl, but the game will end hours before I walk to my first day of school at Nyakaina Primary as Teacher Paul for the next 2 years.   I hope I do well, that the prayers of the community that I be a blessing will be answered.  I have spared you my trepidation but I know I am in the right place. 

Peace, Cheers, Blessings and Until Next Time, Farewell from Uganda just under the Equator,

Paul  
Matsiko
Mbabazi
Benz

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Christmas 2013


Merry Christmas and Seasons Greetings Friends and Family!

Rather than an update on the last year... or two (forthcoming when I have those quiet nights with no electricity on site). Here is an update and some sharing from my time thus far in Uganda.  It's a lot, so read it in pieces, when you're bored, or wondering what I've been up to.  Worshiped this morning with our catholic brothers and sisters at Church of the Martyrs in Namagongo.  I've been told it is a historic landmark from the 19 century when missionaries first came to Uganda.
Love you all!

Paul Benz the Younger

Saturday Nov, 30 2013
It is Thanksgiving weekend here in Uganda and I wanted send a long overdue thank you to all of you for your help in the process, which has brought me here.  Some of you as current or former Peace Corps Volunteers answered my many questions throughout the lengthy application process, some of you wrote letters of recommendation or agreed to have your name submitted as a reference for work or volunteer activities over the years, some of you have offered me constant counsel and good company, some of you have employed me or prayed for me, and some of you have even offered contacts here in East Africa.  To all of you I say thank you, and for all of you I am grateful.

My official title is Literacy Specialist and the United States Peace Corps has assigned me to a community in Southwestern Uganda for the next two years where I will report sometime in late January or early February after training is complete and we are all sworn in as volunteers.  There are 44 in our training group, all assigned as Education Officers either Primary Teacher Trainers or Literacy Specialists and we’re 3 weeks into a 3 month training period.

I'll be sent out so a community in a remote area of Uganda as an Education Officer.  The idea is that I do more capacity building and development than merely functioning as a substitute teacher.  So the details of my work activity will be more clear once I arrive at site and assess what exactly the school and community need particularly regarding literacy.  Once I have a clear picture of what the need is I begin the task of working with the school and community to set goals on meeting those needs in a sustainable way.  The notion is that if you can improve the classroom culture and approaches to learning you can change and entire school and empower people who will one day lead their communities and country.  How would you define community? This word is thrown around a lot and like many other words (critical thinking is a great example) I think it’s worth while to hone our bs detectors from time to time and think about words we use and that others use to better understand what others are actually saying or trying to say and to make attempts that we are clear in our own words.  I'll just pose the question and let you ponder as you wish as I surely will in the coming months.

Here in a hodgepodge way are some of my moments thus far I hope this finds you well and living:

Tuesday November 11, 2013 
This morning looked out my Hotel window at the snow blowing gently into the streets of Philadelphia and occurred to me I might not see a scene like this for quite sometime. I smile into the quiet of Philadelphia’s morning.  A few blocks away is that old cracked bell I wondered at when Mom and Dad brought us to see all the History America’s East Coast has to offer.  Didn’t make it to Independence Hall on this trip.

A two hour bus ride from Philadelphia to NYC and looking at old pictures from Italy to Vienna to Cambodia I remember well Brian’s words a lifetime ago driving down a sunny street in Southern California, “Life is not a right, it’s a gift.”  I have been given so much and I do feel a duty to give back, this is a big reason why I find myself here now on a bus with 43 other USA Americans going to Volunteer with the Peace Corps for the next 27 months.  I look back at the smile of my first Tuk Tuk driver in Pnohm Penh and imagine what his life has been like.  Many things we might shudder at dealing with daily or going without, yet he smiles so fully.  Imagine what it might be like if we all could have smiles like that, giving up so much cherished luxury so others might be able to smile like that with just a few more basic things.  I don’t know if it’s possible and if it’s forced it definitely won’t work, but it’s worth working for even if all you achieve is to let folks know out there that there is love on the other side of the world and that they too are remembered.  Also worth the forthcoming effort I feel is to help show friends back home what it’s like to be over there reminding always how strong our most common bonds are.  For who, that has food to eat, a place to live in and healthy children in school does not have cause to smile and give thanks for life? 
This is part what the Peace Corps does. Created by and Executive Order (that’s right an executive order ;-) in 1961 by President JFK established with the mission statement to promote world peace and friendship through the service of American Volunteers abroad. 

The bus through Manhattan began a fitting farewell as we trudge down 42nd street through the neon throbbing pulse of Times square.  My friend Dave in the seat across the aisle, himself from Long Island explains to another in our group the insanity that is New Years Eve at Times Square and that New Yorkers generally try to avoid the fiasco all together.  All the while I’m looking at a giant Leonard Cohen billboard advertising his presence here next April. Sisters of Mercy plays in my head and I think you should all try to see him,  "and I hope you run into them you who’ve been traveling so long."  Neon lights at McDonalds are silly and excessive and Vegas has never been one of my favorite destinations,  and deep down I realize that the neon lights on our city streets are really not so different from those of the others cities I’ve walked, bussed or scootered thru at night but…. perhaps New York is simply what I hold as the greatest city in the land I call home.  At JFK it was becoming clear to all of us, I think, how soon we would be calling a very different place home far, far away.  Good conversation with Joseph, who later became my roommate, insulates me from the hour-long security wait where we are all crowded under some steel disc modern art piece. A few hundred of us dressed for November in New York are assaulted by the chic advertisements for designer clothes and perfume on a screen the size of a world series score board: BUY EXPENSIVE STUFF AND YOU WILL LOOK COOL AND HAVE A SUCCESSFUL LIFE WITH LOTS OF MONEY FANCY CLOTHES SURROUNDED BY SEXY WOMEN LIKE NATALIE PORTMAN AND CHARLIZE THERON AND THAT ONE GIRL AND ALL THE MODELS THAT LOOK SO SERIOUS  AND BORED FOR SOME REASON.  Yuck.

They wouldn’t let me strap my yoga mat to my checked bag so I brought it on the plane and as took my window seat facing the west I looked out at my last American sunset for quite sometime.  A solid pink cloud blanket covers the New York Sky line flanked by dark outlined smaller clouds, the George Washington Bridge, the Empire State building and to the left the sharpest diagonal line across the sky holds the dark of night on the other side.  Quite a contrast, fitting huh =) my camera didn’t quite capture it, but I have my memory.  We flew into the night.

Why did I decide to join the Peace Corps?

I knew it would be an extreme challenge and that’s always been appealing to me.

A strong sense of calling to serve the most vulnerable in our world that comes from my faith and teachings in scripture.  And as Steve was to put it later You Only Live Once.  Also wrapped up in the decision to answer this call is my identity as a USA American: to serve as a volunteer for my home country.  As a citizen of the United States of America I recognized how much I have been given in abundance compared to millions of the world’s inhabitants and that to whom much is given much is expected.  For the last 8 years or so from time to time I’ve watched Ted Kennedy’s Eulogy of his older brother Bobby at St. Patrick’s in Boston.  When I was angry, disillusioned, depressed and cynical about the world and our government and the seeming futility, corruption and mendacity of it all these words gave me hope, inspired me even and made believe that it was still worth it to work for justice.  I’d always thought joining the Peace Corps would be a good way to put this belief, this inspiration into action.  While I don’t harbor any illusions of grandeur I know fully well that I would regret it if I didn’t do.  Most warm and fuzzy remarks come across as trite because they are grounded in a disarming truth we tend to want more from, but I know full well that to the world any one of us may only be one person, but to one person any one of us may be the whole world.  “Until a person becomes a part of a cause greater than themselves, he or she is never truly whole.” –Richard Nixon

The sun rose in Belgium .
Hours later from the middle of the plan I looked out at my first african sunset.
A dark pink orange divide with darkness under the horizontal line below.
I couldn't tell whether the sunset was into a blanket of clouds, the sea,
or the vast Sahara desert somewhere over Sudan.
Getting off the plane we walked into Ugandan night air which smelled like the wooden
or charcoal cooking fires of Cambodia and rural Taiwan.

We got in Wednesday night after a 3 hours bus ride from the Entebbe Airport.  I remember after my first two weeks at the Mt Clef dorm at CLU that college dorm life was like a combination of High School and Summer camp.  I’d follow that in description of the dynamics here being something like college meets summer camp, but make no mistake this is no vacation, this is training and all this was soon apparent, but the long session days with more information than I can retain were conducted with windows open facing the garden, the birds that sang and occasionally dropped in for class.  The intensity and pace of the information coming at us to prepare for the two year task ahead was matched by a near angelic grace and dignity of our hosts.   

Thursday November 21, 2013
In one week we’ve had a one site visit and took a trip to church and already I’ve had a half dozen experiences that tell me clearly I am in the right place.

Thanksgiving Nov 28 2013
Today was thanksgiving. Wow. Went to Peace Corps Headquarters in Kampala and feasted with close to 80 folks.  Sunday we leave to complete teacher bootcamp.

Saturday Nov 30
17 days, 3 hot showers, a dozen sunrises and sunsets to add to the subconscious memory beauty queue.
Wrote a poem about honeysuckle scent that I can't find now.  Those mornings we went jogging on the trail thtough the farms seeing the homes of our neighbors and the greetings of their excited children.  The roosters had bright feathers like the ones from the road to Hana and the cows and pigs were all similar as were many of the flowers and all the corn.  What was different at first sight was the houses.  Mud brick, with seldom a window and the cooking was done in a separate structure out to the side with a fire. Water was carried from a nearby boar-hole.

Tuesday Dec 3 
Today I asked a classroom of Ugandan children the same question our 6th grade science teacher put to us nearly 20 years ago, “What does the word science mean?”  Thank You Mrs. Kizer.  Passing on to others what you passed on to us.  Happy Advent Everyone.

PS Joseph says to say that he’s awesome (which I vouch for completely) and that I’ve been a positive influence. We’ve done a lot of praying together, text study and passage readings from the Bible to Tich Naht Hanh to The Tao te Jing.

Wed Dec 4

Just Before Sunset

I washed my hands in the rain today
In conversation with a roommate he said “I’d rather be uncomfortable in Africa than uncomfortable in the States… or comfortable for that matter.”
There is in our group often an absence of the need to explain statements like this. We are on the same page.
I took a shower in the rain today washed some clothes in a bucket and hung them on the line after the rain storm ended.

Walked to the end of the road just before sunset hens, and brightly colored roosters walked all around me.  A couple children kicked a red ball and their apartment reminded me of many of the buildings in Taiwan. Across the street the brilliant sun reflected on the tin siding of a building that once was.  Through the treeline of trees I’d only seen in movies and pictures the she became pink and orange.  Walked back up the road and talked with Dennis trying to pick up some Lugandan and Runyankore as students walked all around us to their dorms and to the chowlines.

I pointed to the sun, just before sunset.  The sky made me still. The sky made me smile.
Dusk had arrived.

Sunday Dec 8
I worshipped with my Anglican brothers and sisters today.  The day before while we were all taking a day off at Entebbe visiting the zoo and having pizza on the shore of Lake Victoria the Primary Teacher College students were preparing for Sunday worship services. There was a Catholic, a Born Again and an Anglican service.
I walked in and a dozen or so had gathered and started to sing as more trickled in.  Soon to young men were instructed to grab the drum and play.  The music picked up and when they sang Hosanna I strained to sing along with them as memories, feelings and that which is pure in worship flooded forward.  “Hold it together Benz: you can’t crack up in front of all these folks- you’re their visitor,” the voice inside me (which for some reason sounded like Uncle Tom’s) seemed to say. Sure enough as the song ended and a new one began, the young seminary student was leading worship and wearing a black robe came up to me.  She introduced herself as Irene and asked me to preach the gospel.  It was hard to hear with the music and part of me was hoping she just meant read the gospel but I had a feeling I’d been asked to do more than that.  I’ve been taught in recent years not to refuse requests such as these no matter how under prepared you feel. So I agreed and she motioned me to sit up front with her.  They were dancing with their praise songs!
After 2 other students read the scripture and the Gospel my suspicion was confirmed.  The gospel was from a part of Matthew where Jesus was angry with Pharisees touting all their fancy garments and wealth while widows went hungry. He was denouncing hypocrites.  So when I was told I walked up and stood at the podium in this cement classroom with barred windows converted into a chapel for the day. I talked about gratitude and said thank you, reminding them that I too was a student and that one among them was my teacher and I pointed to Agry whom I’d met my first day at the complex and who on follow up days had joked with others gathered around while I was doing laundry about teaching me for money. Just as that day I talked about the wealth of friendship, on Sunday I thanked him for being my teacher as I was going to a region he was from and his instruction in the local dialect would be quite helpful.   I called to attention the fact that Jesus was angry, angry at hypocrites and shared with them that hypocrisy in the church is why many people in the USA left church or avoid it completely.  I said it was not blame them as hypocrisy is an understandable reason to avoid something: it is not my place to judge only for me to remember what it says in Joshua that’s hung over our kitchen as long as I can remember, “As for me and my house, we shall follow the Lord.”  I spoke then about leader ship and leaders and that Nelson Mandela had reminded us that the strongest form of leadership was is by example and that none us was born hating another person.  We may be born sinners but we had to be taught the kind of hatred he spoke against and if we could learn that we could in turn learn to love.”  I told them of how my father and mother taught me to follow great leaders and that not long after I was born my father had been arrested for protesting apartheid.  I asked them to remember the love of Christ and to be the kind of leaders he would have us be.

Afterwards we sang “What a Friend We Have In Jesus” and I thought of my Grandpa Benz and of Dad, my uncles and childhood.  What a sacred place music holds in our world, what power to bring forth memories, to comfort, to transport and to bring hope.   The way they do music here is not something I’ve seen anywhere else.  It does not seem to be learned. It is not an extension of the individuals or people, it is a part of them.  It is not burdened with the pretense and polish of performance, yet from what I have seen and heard exceeds what I’d seen most of my life.  They make sounds seemingly effortlessly that bring to mind the word exaltation and if it were ever possible this is the kind of music that can carry us to triumph with the melodies and harmonies of their a cappella voices.   The only thing I could compare that first encounter in Africa with her peoples music at the Catholic church only days after we landed would be to summon or direct anyone to the score of The Thin Red Line where I think Hans Zimmer had found some a cappella choral arrangement and just knocked it out of the park.

After the service the campus retired and all the students prepared a performance for us their visitors.  Who knew what a treat was in store.  It was a celebration of culture with music, a special gift from them to us their teachers.  I wish I had it on tape for you.  They used only the drums, their voices and their hands for the accompaniment. There were a number of local dances and few songs in English. “Give Me That Old Time Religion.” How could someone forget a gift like that. 

Dec 13, 2013
Throughout Teacher Bootcamp I have watched the ideas and output with some admitted envy. Then I ask for this to be removed and replaced with admiration as this is more fitting with who I'd like to be. Then I consider the fact that I had diarrhea nearly the whole time and pat myself on the back as I've never been so productive with a rough case of the tummy squirts. After all, my feelings are not facts and the results were that the kids loved it. They loved the guitar and were sad as we left. During picture/farewell time one of the youngsters in a red shirt demanded I come down to hear him whisper something in my ear, "REMEMBER US." Question of the week friends and neighbors: "How do we remember our loved ones and those who touch our lives?"


Some of these children don't have shoes and wear torn clothes to school.  Many of them walk a distance that takes us 15 minutes to cover on a bus.  They choose to come, they are happy when they are there and they work hard.  Two of them even came to visit us the following day an they got a song on the guitar and Madison, Vanessa and I walked them back to the road where they walked on to dinner and home.


Teacher Paul is back =)  Hope the New Year is Good to You and Yours and until the next update: "Webere Mononga!"

Christmas Greetings from Uganda


Merry Christmas and Seasons Greetings Friends and Family!

Rather than an update on the last year... or two (forthcoming when I have those quiet nights with no electricity on site). Here is an update and some sharing from my time thus far in Uganda.  It's a lot, so read it in pieces, when you're bored, or wondering what I've been up to.  Worshiped this morning with our catholic brothers and sisters at Church of the Martyrs in Namagongo.  I've been told it is a historic landmark from the 19 century when missionaries first came to Uganda.
Love you all!

Paul Benz the Younger

Saturday Nov, 30 2013
It is Thanksgiving weekend here in Uganda and I wanted send a long overdue thank you to all of you for your help in the process, which has brought me here.  Some of you as current or former Peace Corps Volunteers answered my many questions throughout the lengthy application process, some of you wrote letters of recommendation or agreed to have your name submitted as a reference for work or volunteer activities over the years, some of you have offered me constant counsel and good company, some of you have employed me or prayed for me, and some of you have even offered contacts here in East Africa.  To all of you I say thank you, and for all of you I am grateful.

My official title is Literacy Specialist and the United States Peace Corps has assigned me to a community in Southwestern Uganda for the next two years where I will report sometime in late January or early February after training is complete and we are all sworn in as volunteers.  There are 44 in our training group, all assigned as Education Officers either Primary Teacher Trainers or Literacy Specialists and we’re 3 weeks into a 3 month training period.

I'll be sent out so a community in a remote area of Uganda as an Education Officer.  The idea is that I do more capacity building and development than merely functioning as a substitute teacher.  So the details of my work activity will be more clear once I arrive at site and assess what exactly the school and community need particularly regarding literacy.  Once I have a clear picture of what the need is I begin the task of working with the school and community to set goals on meeting those needs in a sustainable way.  The notion is that if you can improve the classroom culture and approaches to learning you can change and entire school and empower people who will one day lead their communities and country.  How would you define community? This word is thrown around a lot and like many other words (critical thinking is a great example) I think it’s worth while to hone our bs detectors from time to time and think about words we use and that others use to better understand what others are actually saying or trying to say and to make attempts that we are clear in our own words.  I'll just pose the question and let you ponder as you wish as I surely will in the coming months.

Here in a hodgepodge way are some of my moments thus far I hope this finds you well and living:

Tuesday November 11, 2013 
This morning looked out my Hotel window at the snow blowing gently into the streets of Philadelphia and occurred to me I might not see a scene like this for quite sometime. I smile into the quiet of Philadelphia’s morning.  A few blocks away is that old cracked bell I wondered at when Mom and Dad brought us to see all the History America’s East Coast has to offer.  Didn’t make it to Independence Hall on this trip.

A two hour bus ride from Philadelphia to NYC and looking at old pictures from Italy to Vienna to Cambodia I remember well Brian’s words a lifetime ago driving down a sunny street in Southern California, “Life is not a right, it’s a gift.”  I have been given so much and I do feel a duty to give back, this is a big reason why I find myself here now on a bus with 43 other USA Americans going to Volunteer with the Peace Corps for the next 27 months.  I look back at the smile of my first Tuk Tuk driver in Pnohm Penh and imagine what his life has been like.  Many things we might shudder at dealing with daily or going without, yet he smiles so fully.  Imagine what it might be like if we all could have smiles like that, giving up so much cherished luxury so others might be able to smile like that with just a few more basic things.  I don’t know if it’s possible and if it’s forced it definitely won’t work, but it’s worth working for even if all you achieve is to let folks know out there that there is love on the other side of the world and that they too are remembered.  Also worth the forthcoming effort I feel is to help show friends back home what it’s like to be over there reminding always how strong our most common bonds are.  For who, that has food to eat, a place to live in and healthy children in school does not have cause to smile and give thanks for life? 
This is part what the Peace Corps does. Created by and Executive Order (that’s right an executive order ;-) in 1961 by President JFK established with the mission statement to promote world peace and friendship through the service of American Volunteers abroad. 

The bus through Manhattan began a fitting farewell as we trudge down 42nd street through the neon throbbing pulse of Times square.  My friend Dave in the seat across the aisle, himself from Long Island explains to another in our group the insanity that is New Years Eve at Times Square and that New Yorkers generally try to avoid the fiasco all together.  All the while I’m looking at a giant Leonard Cohen billboard advertising his presence here next April. Sisters of Mercy plays in my head and I think you should all try to see him,  "and I hope you run into them you who’ve been traveling so long."  Neon lights at McDonalds are silly and excessive and Vegas has never been one of my favorite destinations,  and deep down I realize that the neon lights on our city streets are really not so different from those of the others cities I’ve walked, bussed or scootered thru at night but…. perhaps New York is simply what I hold as the greatest city in the land I call home.  At JFK it was becoming clear to all of us, I think, how soon we would be calling a very different place home far, far away.  Good conversation with Joseph, who later became my roommate, insulates me from the hour-long security wait where we are all crowded under some steel disc modern art piece. A few hundred of us dressed for November in New York are assaulted by the chic advertisements for designer clothes and perfume on a screen the size of a world series score board: BUY EXPENSIVE STUFF AND YOU WILL LOOK COOL AND HAVE A SUCCESSFUL LIFE WITH LOTS OF MONEY FANCY CLOTHES SURROUNDED BY SEXY WOMEN LIKE NATALIE PORTMAN AND CHARLIZE THERON AND THAT ONE GIRL AND ALL THE MODELS THAT LOOK SO SERIOUS  AND BORED FOR SOME REASON.  Yuck.

They wouldn’t let me strap my yoga mat to my checked bag so I brought it on the plane and as took my window seat facing the west I looked out at my last American sunset for quite sometime.  A solid pink cloud blanket covers the New York Sky line flanked by dark outlined smaller clouds, the George Washington Bridge, the Empire State building and to the left the sharpest diagonal line across the sky holds the dark of night on the other side.  Quite a contrast, fitting huh =) my camera didn’t quite capture it, but I have my memory.  We flew into the night.

Why did I decide to join the Peace Corps?

I knew it would be an extreme challenge and that’s always been appealing to me.

A strong sense of calling to serve the most vulnerable in our world that comes from my faith and teachings in scripture.  And as Steve was to put it later You Only Live Once.  Also wrapped up in the decision to answer this call is my identity as a USA American: to serve as a volunteer for my home country.  As a citizen of the United States of America I recognized how much I have been given in abundance compared to millions of the world’s inhabitants and that to whom much is given much is expected.  For the last 8 years or so from time to time I’ve watched Ted Kennedy’s Eulogy of his older brother Bobby at St. Patrick’s in Boston.  When I was angry, disillusioned, depressed and cynical about the world and our government and the seeming futility, corruption and mendacity of it all these words gave me hope, inspired me even and made believe that it was still worth it to work for justice.  I’d always thought joining the Peace Corps would be a good way to put this belief, this inspiration into action.  While I don’t harbor any illusions of grandeur I know fully well that I would regret it if I didn’t do.  Most warm and fuzzy remarks come across as trite because they are grounded in a disarming truth we tend to want more from, but I know full well that to the world any one of us may only be one person, but to one person any one of us may be the whole world.  “Until a person becomes a part of a cause greater than themselves, he or she is never truly whole.” –Richard Nixon

The sun rose in Belgium .
Hours later from the middle of the plan I looked out at my first african sunset.
A dark pink orange divide with darkness under the horizontal line below.
I couldn't tell whether the sunset was into a blanket of clouds, the sea,
or the vast Sahara desert somewhere over Sudan.
Getting off the plane we walked into Ugandan night air which smelled like the wooden
or charcoal cooking fires of Cambodia and rural Taiwan.

We got in Wednesday night after a 3 hours bus ride from the Entebbe Airport.  I remember after my first two weeks at the Mt Clef dorm at CLU that college dorm life was like a combination of High School and Summer camp.  I’d follow that in description of the dynamics here being something like college meets summer camp, but make no mistake this is no vacation, this is training and all this was soon apparent, but the long session days with more information than I can retain were conducted with windows open facing the garden, the birds that sang and occasionally dropped in for class.  The intensity and pace of the information coming at us to prepare for the two year task ahead was matched by a near angelic grace and dignity of our hosts.   

Thursday November 21, 2013
In one week we’ve had a one site visit and took a trip to church and already I’ve had a half dozen experiences that tell me clearly I am in the right place.

Thanksgiving Nov 28 2013
Today was thanksgiving. Wow. Went to Peace Corps Headquarters in Kampala and feasted with close to 80 folks.  Sunday we leave to complete teacher bootcamp.

Saturday Nov 30
17 days, 3 hot showers, a dozen sunrises and sunsets to add to the subconscious memory beauty queue.
Wrote a poem about honeysuckle scent that I can't find now.  Those mornings we went jogging on the trail thtough the farms seeing the homes of our neighbors and the greetings of their excited children.  The roosters had bright feathers like the ones from the road to Hana and the cows and pigs were all similar as were many of the flowers and all the corn.  What was different at first sight was the houses.  Mud brick, with seldom a window and the cooking was done in a separate structure out to the side with a fire. Water was carried from a nearby boar-hole.

Tuesday Dec 3 
Today I asked a classroom of Ugandan children the same question our 6th grade science teacher put to us nearly 20 years ago, “What does the word science mean?”  Thank You Mrs. Kizer.  Passing on to others what you passed on to us.  Happy Advent Everyone.

PS Joseph says to say that he’s awesome (which I vouch for completely) and that I’ve been a positive influence. We’ve done a lot of praying together, text study and passage readings from the Bible to Tich Naht Hanh to The Tao te Jing.

Wed Dec 4

Just Before Sunset

I washed my hands in the rain today
In conversation with a roommate he said “I’d rather be uncomfortable in Africa than uncomfortable in the States… or comfortable for that matter.”
There is in our group often an absence of the need to explain statements like this. We are on the same page.
I took a shower in the rain today washed some clothes in a bucket and hung them on the line after the rain storm ended.

Walked to the end of the road just before sunset hens, and brightly colored roosters walked all around me.  A couple children kicked a red ball and their apartment reminded me of many of the buildings in Taiwan. Across the street the brilliant sun reflected on the tin siding of a building that once was.  Through the treeline of trees I’d only seen in movies and pictures the she became pink and orange.  Walked back up the road and talked with Dennis trying to pick up some Lugandan and Runyankore as students walked all around us to their dorms and to the chowlines.

I pointed to the sun, just before sunset.  The sky made me still. The sky made me smile.
Dusk had arrived.

Sunday Dec 8
I worshipped with my Anglican brothers and sisters today.  The day before while we were all taking a day off at Entebbe visiting the zoo and having pizza on the shore of Lake Victoria the Primary Teacher College students were preparing for Sunday worship services. There was a Catholic, a Born Again and an Anglican service.
I walked in and a dozen or so had gathered and started to sing as more trickled in.  Soon to young men were instructed to grab the drum and play.  The music picked up and when they sang Hosanna I strained to sing along with them as memories, feelings and that which is pure in worship flooded forward.  “Hold it together Benz: you can’t crack up in front of all these folks- you’re their visitor,” the voice inside me (which for some reason sounded like Uncle Tom’s) seemed to say. Sure enough as the song ended and a new one began, the young seminary student was leading worship and wearing a black robe came up to me.  She introduced herself as Irene and asked me to preach the gospel.  It was hard to hear with the music and part of me was hoping she just meant read the gospel but I had a feeling I’d been asked to do more than that.  I’ve been taught in recent years not to refuse requests such as these no matter how under prepared you feel. So I agreed and she motioned me to sit up front with her.  They were dancing with their praise songs!
After 2 other students read the scripture and the Gospel my suspicion was confirmed.  The gospel was from a part of Matthew where Jesus was angry with Pharisees touting all their fancy garments and wealth while widows went hungry. He was denouncing hypocrites.  So when I was told I walked up and stood at the podium in this cement classroom with barred windows converted into a chapel for the day. I talked about gratitude and said thank you, reminding them that I too was a student and that one among them was my teacher and I pointed to Agry whom I’d met my first day at the complex and who on follow up days had joked with others gathered around while I was doing laundry about teaching me for money. Just as that day I talked about the wealth of friendship, on Sunday I thanked him for being my teacher as I was going to a region he was from and his instruction in the local dialect would be quite helpful.   I called to attention the fact that Jesus was angry, angry at hypocrites and shared with them that hypocrisy in the church is why many people in the USA left church or avoid it completely.  I said it was not blame them as hypocrisy is an understandable reason to avoid something: it is not my place to judge only for me to remember what it says in Joshua that’s hung over our kitchen as long as I can remember, “As for me and my house, we shall follow the Lord.”  I spoke then about leader ship and leaders and that Nelson Mandela had reminded us that the strongest form of leadership was is by example and that none us was born hating another person.  We may be born sinners but we had to be taught the kind of hatred he spoke against and if we could learn that we could in turn learn to love.”  I told them of how my father and mother taught me to follow great leaders and that not long after I was born my father had been arrested for protesting apartheid.  I asked them to remember the love of Christ and to be the kind of leaders he would have us be.

Afterwards we sang “What a Friend We Have In Jesus” and I thought of my Grandpa Benz and of Dad, my uncles and childhood.  What a sacred place music holds in our world, what power to bring forth memories, to comfort, to transport and to bring hope.   The way they do music here is not something I’ve seen anywhere else.  It does not seem to be learned. It is not an extension of the individuals or people, it is a part of them.  It is not burdened with the pretense and polish of performance, yet from what I have seen and heard exceeds what I’d seen most of my life.  They make sounds seemingly effortlessly that bring to mind the word exaltation and if it were ever possible this is the kind of music that can carry us to triumph with the melodies and harmonies of their a cappella voices.   The only thing I could compare that first encounter in Africa with her peoples music at the Catholic church only days after we landed would be to summon or direct anyone to the score of The Thin Red Line where I think Hans Zimmer had found some a cappella choral arrangement and just knocked it out of the park.

After the service the campus retired and all the students prepared a performance for us their visitors.  Who knew what a treat was in store.  It was a celebration of culture with music, a special gift from them to us their teachers.  I wish I had it on tape for you.  They used only the drums, their voices and their hands for the accompaniment. There were a number of local dances and few songs in English. “Give Me That Old Time Religion.” How could someone forget a gift like that. 

Dec 13, 2013
Throughout Teacher Bootcamp I have watched the ideas and output with some admitted envy. Then I ask for this to be removed and replaced with admiration as this is more fitting with who I'd like to be. Then I consider the fact that I had diarrhea nearly the whole time and pat myself on the back as I've never been so productive with a rough case of the tummy squirts. After all, my feelings are not facts and the results were that the kids loved it. They loved the guitar and were sad as we left. During picture/farewell time one of the youngsters in a red shirt demanded I come down to hear him whisper something in my ear, "REMEMBER US." Question of the week friends and neighbors: "How do we remember our loved ones and those who touch our lives?"


Some of these children don't have shoes and wear torn clothes to school.  Many of them walk a distance that takes us 15 minutes to cover on a bus.  They choose to come, they are happy when they are there and they work hard.  Two of them even came to visit us the following day an they got a song on the guitar and Madison, Vanessa and I walked them back to the road where they walked on to dinner and home.


Teacher Paul is back =)  Hope the New Year is Good to You and Yours and until the next update: "Webere Mononga!"

Monday, November 11, 2013


Facebook and General Correspondence Disclaimer:
Between the Birthday, Preparations for the 2 year+ departure to Uganda, the party and getting out here to Philly, I haven’t had much time to check the FB.  This may be the case for a while so sorry for those of you I’ve been meaning to write back to.  So if I haven’t yet responded to the thoughtful messages from you please know how much they mean to me and how much I love you all.

Should you ever wonder what the heck I’m up to and not know cause I haven’t told you, just be patient, remember all the happy things about acceptance and mindfulness:  Think about the last time I did something that frustrated you or the last time I made you laugh and remember the 4 nicknames I’ve responded to with a smile from many of you over the years- “Paul the Younger,” “Pauly B,” “Stinky,” or “Alcopaul” (although in the last 5 years ‘alcopaul’ has no longer been immediately relevant.  Think of these things and think of this phrase that made me laugh today but might make me cry in a few months:

“Every fart’s a gamble”
Peace Corp  Narrative
Sunday Morning Nov. 10, 2013
Somewhere over the USA bound for Philadelphia

It begins with gratitude.  For my parents, for all of you who helped me in the application process, whether it was perspective in discernment first hand advice on Peace Corps details, or letters of recommendation.
For those who came out at last minute’s notice from the varying chapters of my life to bid me farewell at church.  For those who Reading your words on the plane this morning was a beautiful thing. Thank You.

Certainly we are all standing on the shoulders of Giants. Today I said goodbye to my parents at the gate.  A wonderful young woman let them check in through security and we had coffee while awaiting boarding.

So many people helped me get to this point it is overwhelming in the best possible way, and to whom much is given, much is expected.  I don’t know what exactly lies ahead, many questions are either unanswered or have not been asked, but with the help of so many friends, employers and strangers along the way I feel prepared. And here is the wonderful thought from Chris McCandless and John Krakauer and Sean Penn that it’s been written somewhere how it’s not so important to BE strong, but to FEEL strong.   Here in this place listening to music  at the beginning of an incredible, life changing and perhaps life defining journey, basking in the love of friends and family’s kind words now in cards and in memory I feel the presence of God and find the source of all gratitude and grace embodied. Dad always used to talk about the 3 F’s: Faith Family and Friendship.  =)

And here in Philadelphia after a full day of orientation I must go to spend a few hours in very comfortable bed for the last time in quite a while.  Here’s hoping I get to spend some time tomorrow at the airport writing more observations from the last few days.  There is among our group of 44 individuals such energy, diversity, such laughter, such a vocalized shared purpose and such hope that I feel excited and at ease knowing I am in the right place at the right time. I go to join 136 other Peace Corps Volunteers in Uganda and 8,600 Peace Corps Volunteers serving around the world.

The next entry will be from closer to the equator than I’ve ever been in my life in the land Winston Churchill called, “The Pearl of Africa”   UGANDA

Peace, Cheers and Blessings,

Paul