Tuesday, March 1, 2011

When Time is Too Fast and Too Slow at the Same Time

It's been nearly four months now in Uganda and I am feeling simultaneously like time is going by way too fast and I wonder if I will be able to finish everything in time and like time is too slow, that I still have half a year of this life before I'm out of here.

I think I'm in a funk where the moods and feelings change with unforseeable circumstances.  When the day is productive and I'm moving through these beautiful landscapes, I'm so happy to be alive and to be here and to be doing what I'm doing.  But then there are these days when the work is raising challenging questions I have no answers to (in fact, I feel only more confused about all my theories and ideals that seem to have no reconciliation with political realities) and the car is having problems and the food is scarce and the weather could care less that I'm having a rough day, so it's pouring down on me and what little I have...and I just want to go home.

But where's home?  Home in Kampala, a city I can't say I'm really even fond of?  Home in California, where I haven't lived in years?  Home to that vast place called the United States where a lot of the time I feel acutely aware that I'm different from people I've known for years, even those I've grown up with.  I don't quite know how to live that sedated life of job, car, rent, tube and consumerism.  What's new on TV?  Who wore what to some award ceremony?

Meanwhile, Northern Africa is burning and people are dying for "freedom".  We gave our governments exclusive control over armies, weapons and law enforcement so they could turn it right around and use it against us....in the name of peace.  The logic is so twisted I'm disgusted.  Police, alleged officers of peace are the ones with guns, batons, shields, bullet-proof vests, tear gas and the law behind them to abuse, quash and silence the so-called public.  Then there's the military and national security.  Even more well-equipped to deal evermore torturous, cruel and widespread death and suffering.  Torture condoned by political leaders and silently by the masses who fail to stop them...for what?  For peace and security.

I see no light ahead for the DRC, it's all warlords and corruption poisoning the forests and spilling across these borders I'm so close to.  There, I'm not a researcher, I'm ransom.  I see people here take harems of wives, raise numerous children and I can't bring myself to look at them and think, "oh, how cute".  All I can think about is how many people are eating this planet, what kind of a world are these children growing up in, what future will they have?

They give wild tigers less than 20 years on this planet....in less than 20 years they will be completely extincted from their natural habitats!!  The only ones that will remain are those in forced imprisonment, slavery to show and tell through bars and cement compounds.  It's depressing to even think about, especially after you've seen these ancient majestic animals move through wide open wildernesses.  That's the future children of today will know?

Nature, Mother Earth, the environment, the so-called natural universe is one of the most inspiring things I know.  But the human dimensions that suffocate it can be a real killer.  I came out here equipped with my dreams and ideals, ideas and theories, that compilation of experiences and information unique to my being from other far but near corners of the world....but somehow they're getting all confused and muddled.  So many nay-sayers.  I'm beginning to wonder if what they say is true.  It's not possible.  Impossible.

Impossible as in they've never even tried....never even tried.

A friend of mine once told me I'm too idealistic.  I asked him if that's a bad thing.  He said, it just means you're going to fall further and harder.

I don't want to fall.

But when I've spent the last months trying to learn about community participation in transboundary conservation only to find that it's not happening.....that I'm told "it's too early, the communities haven't been sensitized"; sensitized as in, they haven't been told that transboundary conservation is happening in the Central Albertine Rift, in the very mountains and forests and grasslands they live in...I get a little disillusioned.

If community participation in transboundary conservation means that you do something and then tell the communities about it later so that they accept and understand, then I'm lost as to what community participation is truly about.  I thought it had something to do with "broad and meaningful participation" in all stages of a decision-making process.  Something like true democracy or anarchy, ownership of environmental governance, real and effective contribution to a collaborative conservation process.

I checked in briefly with a man who's been living here for decades, fighting for wildlife and wild places.  He said sometimes you want to go looking for the rocket launch button (a.k.a. the red escape button), but somehow he stays.  I wanted to know how he does it; truly, I admire that resilience.  There must be a tremendous amount of hope, somehow unstifled despite.  It's bad he says, but it's been worse.  Maybe I haven't seen worse, but I think it exists just across that border with DRC. Most of all, I know that after 10 months I will hit that rocket launch button and leave....only 6 months to go.

So the time will come, fast or slow.  I will part with this place, but the problems will stay.  The question is whether or not what I'm trying to do while I'm here is contributing or meaningful in any way.  Is this just a mental exercise?  Will I just write some paper, try to present it, publish it maybe even and then pat myself on the back for this wonderful accomplishment that will somehow advance my personal career?

Am I just chasing wind in the marketplace? 

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