Dark Under Kiganda Stars

by Hegnauer, Lilah

• ISBN13: 9781931337236
• ISBN10: 1931337233
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-01-01
• Publisher: Ausable Pr

Summary

This book is a startling lyrical account of a young Catholic American student's summer in Uganda, where she taught English to adults and assisted at a medical clinic in a remote country village. Written while the author was still in college, it is an astonishing debut, richly musical and descriptive, confident, unpretentious and bursting with new experience: love, identity, religious faith and the complex collisions of culture and language. Hegnauer's book will appeal to several different audiences. Poetry-readers will discover the precocious work of a very young writer-only 21 when the book was completed-and be struck by her technical virtuosity and the emotional and intellectual depth of her poems. Those interested in multicultural issues will find a wealth here; the poet's exploration and assimilation of Ugandan culture, people and language is an insightful and memorable record of her experience, told in language that's lively and entertaining. Catholic readers will be fascinated by the quandaries with which she was faced and how she reconciles her actions with her very strong faith. Lilah Hegnauer completed her undergraduate degree at Portland University, a small Catholic college in Portland, Oregon. She taught English in the Kiganda Highway Secondary School in Uganda and worked in the local medical clinic during the summer of 2003, living with the family of a Ugandan priest, Father Achilles Kiwanuka. She was given several classes of students, a caning stick, and was told to "teach anything." In the clinic, she was soon helping deliver babies and tending to people with AIDS. Lilah Hegnauer is now a graduate student in creative writing at The Ohio State University.

Table of Contents

I. SEEING THROUGH
Headshapes	3	(1)
Teach Anything	4	(2)
Seeing Through	6	(1)
Milk	7	(2)
On Not Caning My Students	9	(1)
Agnus Dei	10	(4)
Proverb I: Chewing Thorns	14	(1)
Avoidance	15	(2)
Hut Hurt Hat Heart	17	(1)
Proverb II: It Is the Grass	18	(1)
Kiganda Women: Secondary School	19	(1)
Fildah With Stanley Kunitz II	20	(1)
Proverb III: The Blind Mother	21	(1)
Walking With Jude and the Chicken	22	(2)
Proverb IV A Problem Shared	24	(1)
Proverb V: Nose and Eyes	25	(1)
Failure	26	(2)
Proverb VI: Caution is not Cowardice	28	(2)
Angel Saint	30	(2)
Almost	32	(5)
II. THE FIREFLY
Batume	37	(1)
Pair I: On My Knees	38	(1)
Peonies	39	(1)
Katende Passion Fruit ad Ground Nuts	40	(1)
Eating White Ants	41	(2)
Sunday Children	43	(1)
Gospel and Offertory	44	(1)
Backless Pews	45	(1)
Wednesday Morning Charisma	46	(2)
Raphael's Prayer in Kyakatebe	48	(1)
Proverb VII: The Chicken	49	(1)
Pair II: The Firefly	50	(1)
Bees	51	(1)
Taxi Conductor and Driver	52	(1)
Proverb VIII: A Strawberry Blossom	53	(1)
Turning Ugandan	54	(2)
Antenatal Clinic	56	(2)
Immunizing in Bukoba	58	(4)
I Thought She Was Singing	62	(2)
I Give Thanks for Excesses	64	(2)
The Artist, The Art	66	(5)
III. CONSTANT
Washing Day with Gerald	71	(1)
Walking to the Well	72	(1)
Scythe Singer	73	(1)
Luganda Lesson	74	(2)
Chewing	76	(2)
Gerald of Kiganda	78	(1)
Constant	79	(1)
Betrayals	80	(2)
Dark Under Kiganda Stars	82	(1)
When Gerald Beats the Bean Pods	83	(2)
Every Time	85	(1)
Twenge, Tu'zi, Gulu	86	(1)
To Comfort	87	(2)
Proverb IX: Forewarned, Forearmed	89	(1)
Fried Talipah in Ggaba	90	(3)
I Woke This Morning	93	(1)
Slough Stray	94	(1)
Proverb X: The Lame Horse	95	(2)
Of Magdalene	97	(2)
Gerald's Prayer in Gulu	99	(1)
Gerald: Sleeping Most Nights Under My Bed	100	(2)
Mornings with the Calf	102	(2)
Proverb XI: The Whiteness of my Teeth	104	(1)
Blacker	105	(1)
Layers	106	(1)
Proverb XII: The Hunter	107	(2)
Fixing Liver	109	(1)
Sometimes Now	110	(1)
People Are Allowed to Do This	111	(4)
Glossary	115	(2)
Notes & Acknowledgments	117