24 August 2008 14:20

For the first time since I arrived in Africa I have my headphones on and I am basking in the american glory of... Hannah Montana? Who the heck loaded this iPod? The random shuffle started with Usher. It was a little too african. Now that is pathetic.

This morning we went to church at faith mission. It was everything you would expect a north Ugandan charismatic church service to be. Esther and Felix graciously took us to the early "English" service, which, I have a feeling, is also the service for the upper class and more well educated congregation. It is nice to see the caste system alive and flourishing somewhere.

(author's side note: after a having been saved from religion and then suddenly re-immersed in it, it is an ongoing war with the jaded cynic in my head.)

24 August 2008

Akello Livia. This is my African name. "One who follows" like a younger sibling. I am Carolyn's protegé.

Favour

Yesterday, after Carolyn and I took Sarah shopping for school clothes, Felix dropped Esther, Favour, Carolyn and I off in Anyanga Puc, the village that Felix and Esther are from. We were greeted at the church by a swarm of dancing, singing people, waving flowers and leaves at us as we climbed out of the vehicle. Very few of the villagers spoke English, except to say "You are Welcome!" again and again and again. Carolyn is like a celebrity here. Her faithfulness to these people seems to surprise them. We had come to meet with the people and see the women's gardening project. We were guided by some of the pastors as well as Esther since they spoke English. Esther gave a mini sermon about it being the day for women, and the time for women to start changing their own lives. When one of the pastors interjected that the men were there to step in as support when the burden got too heavy, Esther quickly exhorted the women that the women needed to strengthen themselves to move their own burdens. Esther was in her element. This is a woman who grows almost all of her own food, while raising about 16 children, some of her own, and some adopted, and runs several different households. She is also an expert seamstress, a teacher and an amazing leader in her own right. She is the right hand to her husbands work, without seeing any financial compensation. Esther, more than anyone I have met so far, has earned my love and respect. She is a great lady.

Our afternoon in the village ended at Esther's new house, which by Ugandan standards is nearly a palace, even without a water system installed. They plan to move there in a couple of years, after the major obstacle of water supply is overcome.

Selfishly, I have to admit that I find myself retreating into my own brain to count the days, hours, minutes until I am on American soil again. I am so far outside of my comfort zone that I feel at a loss to describe it, and even so, Carolyn says I seem at ease and like I fit in. I must be a better actress than I thought. The interesting thing is that the discomfort isn't because of the rustic surroundings, quite the opposite. I would almost feel better staying in one of the mud huts and living like so many of the villagers. There is something about watching the middle class struggle to have indoor plumbing and electricity against so many different oppositions. It feels almost like an unnatural and forced transition.

The little children here are fascinated with me. They love to touch and pinch my pale skin. The parents swell with pride when one of their children gets to sit in my lap and I pay attention to them. I feel like some sort of rock star, bending to the adorning masses. This must be what Angelina likes so much. It makes me so sad when they come and kneel in front of me, head bowed, for the chance to shake my hand. Who taught them that? Shame, shame on them. The tyrants of inequality. Is it once again, our pasty white religious influence, kissing the ring and all of that? I wish I could undo the centuries of brainwashing and condemnation.

I am trying to figure out why the oldest country in the world (Adam and Eve?) are in this place. Why aren't all of the modern conveniences here? Why didn't they originate here? They have had thousands of years, and amazing resources with which they could have developed all kinds of technology and better ways of doing things centuries, even thousands of years, before we did. Why didn't they? It makes no sense. Masses of intelligent human beings, natural and cultural resources any nation would envy - Where is the productivity? I am sure religion would protest that it is the lack of god in the nation that impedes their progress. But Africa has had the earliest possible exposure to almost every religion in the world. Why hasn't African education and technology evolved to surpass all the other cultures of the world? What is the hang up? I can't find a good reason in my very small mind.

Back to complaining...

I have to confess, there are moments when I think that if I have to eat one more bite I will not be able to keep it all down. I am such a spoiled American child.

22 August 2008

Today we visited Dr. Opio's clinic. It was sobering. No running water, sparse lighting, filthy, dirty surroundings. The pharmacy was barren, championed by a single bottle of Kirkland Acetaminophen. Go Costco.

(author's side note: I feel like a piece of American crap. I am attributing it to my period and all of the fruit that I have been eating, but it makes me so thankful for good old american drugs. Ahhh pharmacopaea.)

I am a cynic. I think the depth of my cynicism was fully revealed to me as we lurched along a series of ravines that someone thought to call a road, listening to optimistic christian banter about the inevitable success of god centeredness. It's not that I am anti-god. To the contrary, I am pro god and pro religion as long as it is getting something done, which in this case I guess it is, so I won't raise an issue. But I am still cynical. And I believe that there must be more than one way to skin the proverbial cat, or in this case, make a difference in war ravaged and parched villages. It really has nothing to do with believing in god. I believe just fine. I don't think this amazing world could have made itself on an accidental whim. But I am not convinced he is really all that interested in what we do to screw things up . He wound the top and set it spinning, and he's got a lot of crazy stuff to entertain him. Sure, he can raise people from the dead, flood the earth, part the seas, or he can (and usually does) not. Not to worry though, I am sure that he knows we can handle issues like overpopulation with our penchant for violence and filthy diseases. I am sure he figures he can sit back and wait for us to destroy the planet, melt the polar ice caps, annihilate civilization with nuclear holocaust, and then heave a big sigh and watch earth regenerate itself as it was so brilliantly designed to do. All the while future Noahs and their descendants will be writing down a bunch of superstitious rituals that they will be able to sell as absolutes, since, being survivors, obviously they have an "in" with the big man.

All of that religious falderal aside Felix took Carolyn and I out to the projects that MTI has been working on since April. Three clinic/maternity wards, all funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and a youth center, which, in Africa, is actually an HIV/AIDS clinic. Felix is a mover and a shaker. He has accomplished all of this after returning from a fundraising trip in March. This is where I see god - specific people who will take action for their own land and people.

This morning we had lunch with Felix and David, the clinical officer, David told us that while most of the IDP camps have been disbanded, there are still armed land mines and hand grenades floating randomly throughout the war torn north country. He told us the story of a person in a village who found a mine, claimed it as scrap metal and attempted to pound it into a compressed and sell able form. He detonated it, killing himself and 8 others. David also told a story of two children playing catch with a grenade. It went off and incinerated both children and injured several others. These are daily realities that we cannot imagine in the US.

22 August 2008

I slept like a baby, in spite of the family of mosquitos inside my net all night. This morning Esther gave me two grass baskets that the women in the villages made. They smell like a sweet hay barn and they are beautiful.

 

Carolyn mentioned doing devotions together in the morning and asked if that was ok since she didn't really know where I was spiritually. Where am I spiritually? There's the question of the decade, or maybe even century; not that anyone else would ask it, or even care. Or as if it has any historical significance whatsoever, so I should probably just be content with decade. But who knows. If I had to sum up my "spiritual condition" or "place" in one word, I would like for it to be: open. But as I consider that, I realize that there are actually a great many religious ideas I am fairly well closed off to. And if I was perfectly honest, the repercussions of "christianity", in whatever form it was presented, on this small, overpopulated nation goes, are questionable. We have taught these expressive, beautiful, alive cultures the fine art of repression, condemnation, shame, and best of all prudishness. Their resilient spirit and ethnic beauty sparkles from underneath the pious and dowdy exterior, masked in proper western business suits and silly sunday dresses, and in the worship of this "civilized" god, they are still joyful and exuberant.

At any rate, I am doing devotions with Carolyn.