I've Been Tagged: The Scarlett Lion Off the Record

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.

2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

4. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

AND NOW....

1. I don’t like shoes and socks. My feet feel confined. I’ve always like wearing flip flops and sandals. The real reason I moved to Uganda was so that I could go without proper shoes and socks All. Year. Long. Every. Single. Day. I love it. That, and the avocados.

2. I really enjoyed watching 27^th, the ultimate Sinophile, macking on the Chinese girl who showed up for BHH. He was in his element. Plus, it kept us from arguing too much. The most interesting thing was the disconnect the girl felt from a dictator like Chairman Mao who probably starved her grandpa and 27^th saying NI-HAO! They got along well, as she practiced her English and 27 imagined what their children would look like. He promised to look at her blog, even though it’s in Chinese.

3. I’m glad I work for local media to have that experience, but I don’t plan to do that forever. I would like to get one of those fancy jobs one day.

4. Also at BHH, some told me that they thought the Scarlett Lion was a man. What to make of this? I thought the header was pretty girly, but then it occurred to me that it’s such a heavy graphic that maybe it doesn’t even load on some people’s computers. And maybe it isn’t even that girly. Anyway, here it is… (with Davey)

5. Nga obuze, you are lost. Ugandans know it: a common expression that they say even when they haven’t seen you in some few days. But someone once said it to me in a different way. You are lost, not you are lost you’ve been away, or you can’t find the way from one place to another, but you are lost here, in Africa, waiting to break a big news story to help you find your way, waiting for something or someone to anchor you in the process. It was true and not true. It hasn’t been one big story, but a series of small ones, mpola mpola, slowly by slowly. And then when the noise and chaos was so much I thought I was too lost to find my way, there was a punctuated quiet. And now if someone said to be nga obuze, I might say neda, but that would be true and not true. I’m waiting not for a better job, but to be a better writer. To live a more confident and adapted life here. But nga obuze? Neda, I’m finding my way.

6. I don’t just write and take pictures, I make jewelry. I scrapbook. I make collages. I do all sorts of projects. I’m not a sitter. I’m a do-er. I like having something in front of me that I’m engaged in.

7. Sometimes I think my friends at home have forgotten about me, but in some ways, I fear it’s my fault for not writing to them enough. I don’t know why I don’t do it more, I can make excuse after excuse, but I think of them all the time – and if any of you are reading this back in New York, or California, or wherever life has taken you – I miss you, and I think of you, and I mean to write you and I feel horrible for not writing and the more time that passes the worse I feel. I feel out of sight and out of mind. America feels a million miles away and coming home even in December so long from now. But life here feels enveloping and inexplicable to you who doesn’t live here and hasn’t been here, who only knows what can be known when the images in the media are so limited. It’s not that I miss things from home – milkshakes or scotch tape that actually sticks – I miss all of you. I miss being there for the life experiences that are making you who you are because when I get back there will be a part of you I won’t know, just like there will be part of me you won’t know. This one especially goes out to Zhanna, you’re in my thoughts dear, and I know a milkshake won’t erase time passed, but it will make things feel like we’re picking up where we left off. Okay, we probably won’t have a milkshake. We’ll probably have Thai food.

8. Lots of people ask me about the lion. I’ve done enough explaining here, so the lion, well, the lion’s the lion.


AND NOW...

TAGGING: David, Pernille, Kelly, Timothy, Ishta, Rebekah, Dennis,
Hannah.