What's in a Name? (Hint: people's opinions about your life choices)

Loved being back with this guy for a few days

I just completed a 10-day trip with the Americans—the boss, a colleague, and two video guys. It has left me considering early retirement on a deserted island in a secret location, but I haven’t even been able to convince myself to take a day off, even though I worked straight through two weeks and technically earned a weekend.

The trip was the first for the Neverthirst team back to Africa since before my dramatic evacuation from South Sudan. Consequently, I really wanted it to go well, and I had grandiose plans for its success. Yes, I had plans. In advance (!). I was uncharacteristically prepared for this trip. Mostly the Chad part, but also the Uganda part.

Ice cream selfie

On my end, the trip started out in the usual way, excessive immigration flirting to score some extra re-entry forms for the team on the return trip earned me a marriage proposal that I pretended not to understand.

Got to see this cool girl since I got to Uganda
before everyone else. We always have fun.

Once I arrived in Addis, made my way to the Silver Lounge, snuck over to the Gold Lounge through an open connecting door to steal diet cokes, and parked myself in a wifi accessible location, the fun started. I had messages from the Americans that their first flight was canceled due to hurricanes and they were driving and hoping their second flight wouldn’t be canceled. I informed them that it was too late for me to back out now, but a small part of me thought it might be nice hang out in the comfortable Entebbe hotel, complete with wifi and hot baths for a few days waiting for them to be re-routed. Then I had a message from Emelie telling me that there was a new immigration officer in Chad who was not giving her the visa she thought she’d have for Emmanuel who was supposed to be arriving from Kenya later that night and could we postpone his flight? Answer: no. He was already flying on that flight… I then spent the rest of the airport time trying to deal with that unsuccessfully and also eating ice cream at 11:30pm because they now have ice cream in the Addis airport! And years of digging out forgotten ice creams from the bottom of my grandparents’ freezer has made me appreciate the delicate cardboard aftertaste of slightly freezer-burnt confections, so I was able to enjoy my midnight snack.

I made him a nice two-layer cake
to celebrate his birthday late, here in NDJ.
It was a really good cake too, though not pretty.
It doesn't make up for all the pain and agony,
but Emmanuel is great and very forgiving.

(In case you are interested in the outcome, Emmanuel arrived in Chad, they sent him back to Douala the next day, but he is Kenyan and didn’t have a visa for Cameroon either and he had to stay in the airport while we waited to see if Emelie got the last signature she needed so he could make the 23:15 flight. She did at the last minute and he made it, but not before I realized that it was his 40^th birthday that day he spent sitting with Douala Airport Security—Amanda=World’s Worst Boss.)

Everyone ended up making it to Uganda for our trip. We were able to ease the Americans into Africa life—Uganda is much more developed than Chad, though we did have to take those vans with the side-bench seats that can be a bit uncomfortable for trips over unpaved roads. The following conversation happened many times:

Mark/John/Kyle/Nathan/Whoever: How far is this next drive?

Local partner: 30-45 minutes.

Reality: 30 minutes to 2 hours drive. But the important thing is that we made it to every village on the list. This would not be the case once we arrived in Chad…

Uganda was particularly memorable for me in that I received two new tribal names and a chicken. After translating interviews for a South Sudanese woman talking about how her biosand filter benefits her family, she pulled me aside and told me that she would like to give me a Kuku name (Kuku being her tribe, no need for “punny” jokes).

“I will called you ‘Kiden,’ “ she said. “It means ‘the one woman with all the men.’” So, basically accurate, though not exactly beneficial to me, as they are all married, but I do like having my own room in hotels when we travel.

Filming the biosand filter bit with Esther,
just before she renamed me "Kiden."

When you carry a baby girl through a warzone,
you have an unbreakable bond.
Love this girlie.

The second new name was one I received after a long grateful ceremony to Neverthirst in thanks for the wells we funded in the area. It’s a good thing that I’m not one of those people who is afraid of public speaking because I made many spur of the moment speeches at various and sundry ceremonies across Uganda and Chad while I was with the Americans. In Chad, I speeched in French and/or Arabic and then translated them back for the monolinguals, but in Uganda I had to work with translators (unless I was with South Sudanese refugees) because I don’t speak those tribal languages. I prefer to do my own translating, but I’ve not gotten the chance to learn Logbara (yet). I did pick up a few useful words to throw in when I am searching for loud applause and laughter (I like to work the crowd). At the end of the last (and longest) ceremony, Mark, John and I were called up to be given our Logbara names. Being Kiden, I was given mine first (chivalry). I had to quickly put down the origami animals I was making for all the kids sitting around me and pretend I’d been paying attention the whole time as I smiled and walked up to the front of the room (where we’d moved when a huge downpour did not, as I’d hoped, finish off the ceremony early).

“Your Logbara name is called ‘Itoru’! This name is the female of the name that means ‘Savior’ in English because you have brought water to our people!”

Ribbon cutting ceremony before the name-giving ceremony

I felt my smile sticking to my face and I begin hoping for a God-sent lightning bolt to zap me off the face of the earth for blasphemy. They literally made me into a White Savior, which is an actual type of person you find out here in the development world, and one I’ve spent my adult life trying to avoid becoming. It’s been a process and it’s involved listening to the superior wisdom of people in whose countries I’ve had the privilege to work and constantly reminding myself that I don’t automatically know better because of my educational background and then apologizing for the times when I thought I knew better and screwed something up. It’s the reason why I like working with Neverthirst and IAS because I rarely even see other white people when I’m working and I know how much more important all my people here are to the success of our work than I am. I’ve met plenty of people with White Savior Complex in my time in Africa and Asia, some I’ve tried to gently steer into reality, others I’ve tried to gently avoid at all costs in conversation and general proximity. And now I am one. Dammit. Well, let me know if you need anything, I guess. Apparently I’m in the business of saving the world. I don’t work week-ends, though. It’s important to have boundaries.

 Here are a few more Uganda Photos:

I'm super proud of this photo. See the billboard advertising "Sky View," Uganda's answer to Mountain Dew, as the
bus with the Mountain Dew advert on the back goes by...I should win the Nobel Photography Prize for this genius shot.

Joy made all my favorites for lunch chez Repent.
Everyone acted like the peanut butter greens were so weird,
and then all the Americans loved them, even
"I'll Just Eat a Power Bar" Mark.

Can you feel the hatred that this child has for me?
I think she heard about the whole "White Savior" thing.
I feel you, kid. I deserve that look.

Repent testing out the virtual reality headset,
which we are using to show Americans a bit about life in Neverthirst countries.
Here is Repent looking at snow. Works both ways.

Day 1: Mark and John twinning.

Day 2: did it again. Two days in a row in the same shirt.
This is the problem when all your clothes are Neverthirst swag.

The Americans have a dedication to getting the perfect shot,
no matter what the cost. Not pictured: Amanda untangling Nathan's foot
from the grass or Amanda walking behind Nathan as he walked backwards,
steering him onto the road. I saved his life so many times.

The lovely long-suffering Safia, allowing Kyle to
strap her to the 3D camera.

There must have been a moment when Safia regretted letting
it slip to me that she speaks Arabic because I made her be the video subject.
It's easier if I translate because I know what the video guys are trying to do.
Safia is a Ugandan who has spent much time with South Sudanese, and so she
speaks Arabic as well as several other tribal languages. She is a genius.
And now she's also a movie star. Coming to a theatre near you in 2018.

Chicken selfie. Yes, the people gave us a live chicken
that then had to ride with us in the car for two days until
Repent took it home for dinner...
(sadly for the chicken, he probably won't get the peanut butter greens)

Here you see him looking calm and quiet under my seat.
That is deceptive. He kept poking at my ankles, making me scream.
Hey-when it's dark and something under your chair touches your feet,
you scream. That is just logical.

Me and Abui in front of the hot air blowing out of the compressor.
I was freezing most of the time. Here I'm wearing John's jacket over Golda's cardigan
and my own sweater--still in imminent danger of hypothermia.

Photo with Loguya and Repent and someone's thumb.
Still wearing John's jacket. Said Kyle or Nathan or someone:
"Of course you need the jacket with a windchill of 90 degrees."
I agree with that.

Peanut butter milkshakes in the Entebbe Airport are the best.
Next post Chadisasters and Chadventures.

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