My Hero Patrick

So despite being under pressure to complete the daunting task of preparing a workplan for my as-yet-unspecified project by the end of today (yikes...), I felt compelled to write a post while I have internet access (haha the procrastinator in me will never -- I repeat, never -- die). Anyway, as fate would have it, my new best friend is named Patrick, and his awesomeness (though, unfortunately, not his hip swiveling) rivals that of our very own hero himself, the one-and-only Patrick Hernandez. I'm serious, he is that cool.

Patrick is the leader of the Budondo sub-county food security group for people living with HIV/AIDS, which has 144 members and runs its activities out of borrowed government land and space at the Budondo Health Centre. He got infected with HIV when a witch doctor used the same razor blade to make cuts in him, his mother, and his father (who had AIDS). Those darn witch doctors, always up to no good. Recently the TV news has been following the story of these witch doctors who performed a ritual human sacrifice, and the latest news is that the prime suspect died in police custody and the police have found the chopped up body of this woman but are still looking for her head. They even found a head in a dumpster somewhere, but it alas belonged to another woman. But I digress. Here's the story of how I met My Hero Patrick:

Yesterday, upon dragging my sick little self out of bed to get to work (yeah... I finally got sick... but it's all good now; nothing that couldn't be cured by a couple days spent in bed relistening to all my podcasts and reveling in the soothing sound of Ira Glass' voice), I was indescribably excited to finally get out and meet the community group I will be working with on organizing income generating activities and generating sustainable livelihoods. These past few days I've mostly been doing "research" for my project at the office (read: doing absolutely nothing), so you can imagine how exhilarating it felt to be out from behind a desk and sitting on the back of my boss Robinson's motorcycle -- no jacket or helmet to protect me from the dirt and wind and bugs -- and speeding down the bumpy road to Budondo while holding on to my seat for dear life. Upon arriving Robinson introduced me to Patrick, with whom I spent the rest of the day learning about him and his group and their activities. I proceeded to meet lots of women from the group, one of whom upon meeting me instantly hugged me and proclaimed that we were now "best friends." Those are two things I really really love about elderly Ugandan women: the hugs and the instant friendships (friendships which sadly have a general lifespan of five or ten minutes because I rarely see them ever again after we have a conversation). Patrick and the women showed me the group's garden, which was really really really wonderful to see because it was thriving and I could tell immediately how much work they'd put into cultivating it. Patrick plucked off some fresh basil (yummy!) and mustard (so spicy I had to spit it out) leaves for me to try, and also dug out a carrot for me (which I took home and am going to try to replant in our backyard). He was so kind and the garden that they'd managed to develop with absolutely nothing but their own initative was so amazing that I kept trying to compliment the group and commend his own personal leadership, but every time I attributed positive feedback he would just shake it off and say "With God, everything is possible. We have been able to accomplish everything through God." Yep, there is no avoiding God or Jesus in a single conversation -- any and every occasion is an occasion to praise God and I am right there with them, praising God day and night. So after spending the day digging plants, praising God, and doing numerous things around the centre, Patrick, his orphan companion Job, his right-hand man Kah-bee, and I took a walk back to Patrick's home, where he has many more gardens and grows an unbelievable variety of different crops in addition to keeping chickens, ducks, and pigs (which had escaped from their little pig-hut and were running wild in the forest so we had to go chase after them).

Patrick then very generously offered to give me a live hen to bring back to America with me. When I tried to explain that I live in an apartment and there would be nowhere to keep the hen, he was very confused at the prospect of not having space outside to farm poultry but finally just laughed and said, "You will just have to slaughter it and eat it immediately then." So if I arrive back in America with a living, breathing, clucking hen, somebody with a yard is going to have to adopt it for me because there's no way I'm slaughtering it and/or keeping it in Brynna and I's apartment -- I learned from the "Poultry Slam" episode of This American Life that keeping chickens in apartments is not the best of ideas, and anyway I am refraining from taking in animals of any form after the tragic Crusty incident. Chris and Erica, I nominate you to keep it at the Manor with your kitties. I'm sure they'll get along famously!

Alright, now that I've officially wasted about an hour of my day writing about Patrick and simultaneously trying to figure out via Google how to plant 500-1000 mango trees (Patrick really really wants to grow mango trees), I am signing off. I encourage you to go make friends with a Patrick -- I hypothesize that anyone with the name Patrick is destined to be awesome.