A Day in Uganda

The following (l.o.n.g.) post was actually written by my mom, as an update which was sent to our supporters back in Canada and various places around the world. It is a very accurate, evocative picture of our life here in rural Uganda, and I thought that it would be valuable to share. I know it is long, but every word is worth reading, every picture worth gazing at. Please take the time to read this post, and experience a day in Africa with us.

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“Before my eyes even open, there are the sounds of Africa. Sometimes they comfort. Often they intrude. Cockerels crowing. Birds chirruping. Dogs barking. Cows mooing. Pigeons cooing. Wood being chopped. Water being pumped from a borehole with a rusty pump, squeak, squeak, squeak. People calling out greetings or instructions in a language unknown. Flies buzzing. Chickens flapping their wings furiously. The smell of smoke from the morning fires being lit outside every home also invades my morning without permission. These noises and the pungent smell of smoke. They signal me to open my eyes.

 And so begins another day in rural Africa.

Will I ever get used to the sights in the myriads of small villages dotted around us?  On the one hand, it is interesting how you become accustomed to a life that is so vastly different than what you have previously considered the norm. Yesterday Megan and I walked down into Kibaale “town”…a row of little huts situated on either side of the red dirt road. It was hot and we were sweaty. Cows and goats wandered up the road alongside us and we wove our way in and out and around the potholes and deep  ruts, waving to the little groups of curious children that suddenly appear whenever a mzungu is in town. Boda bodas (motorcycle taxis) slowly weave past with women perched side saddle on the back, some dressed in incredibly ornate traditional dresses, some holding sleeping babies, and some balancing enormous loads on their heads. We approached one of the little stalls and bought a bag of local tomatoes, piled up in little ruby pyramids on a wobbly tiny table.  

I guess I have been in Africa for a while as I was slightly surprised at the price…

“…a bit expensive isn’t it?” I asked Megan. “Well, they are only about 5 cents.”  She replied.  Right.

But as we drive along, I often feel like a royal spectator, one that will never really enter this world. I just race by and wave.  Will we always be apart? Them and us?  You and I?  There is a part of me that feels good as I wave and that enjoys the attention, I have to admit this. And yet the rest of me revolts against that. Who am I to get attention as I zoom along? What have I done to deserve recognition?

 Rows of completely ramshackle buildings with wisps of cloth hanging in the open doorways. Crumbling mud exposing stick frameworks. Dirt, uneven floors that are patchy with hardened ground and partially covered with woven mats unravelling at each end and edge. And the children. Everywhere there are the children, some clad incongruously in fancy bridesmaid dresses, now torn and dishevelled, obviously barrel donations from the well meaning West. Out of place and slightly inappropriate here. Yet more children in old t. shirts, bare bottoms, snotty faces and oversized clothes, wide eyed and sucking their little fingers. Their skin looks like a strange mix of black and white ash as the dust settles into ever crack and pore. Delighted grins spread across their faces as they spot us- a prized mzungu spotting!- they jump up and down waving furiously and scream with joy if we happen to wave back.

Who am I? I drive by never to see them again as they return to their lives. Sitting in the dirt, playing with sticks, chewing on little chunks of woody sugar cane. They are oblivious to the outside world of internet and lattes. My close African friends assure me as they teach me about culture and life here that this is normal.  Just life.  Don’t impose my views, my culture, my observations. They are living their lives and it is normal. It is not sad or to be pitied. It is just life. Just different.

And so I try not to compare. Who am I to compare anyway? Surely making comparisons is the worst offense. We rarely “just” compare, we inevitably start to rank and judge. Who am I to judge?

As I sit here, writing in the afternoon of another long and hot day, breezes are blowing and the emerald mango tree is rustling, waving and shuddering. Plump avocados are dropping to the ground with loud thudding regularity. The grass is brown and scrubby; it crunches as people drift by with the familiar wave and shy smile. A cowherd wanders by slowly, the classic African saunter. Why rush? He stops and openly stands staring at me as I sit and write. Whatever am I doing? I can almost hear the questions racing round his mind as he silently observes. As he catches my eye he grins sheepishly, and wanders off behind his herd of long horned cattle.

There is a young boy here that contracted meningitis at the tender age of two. Feverish and lethargic, he was taken to the nearest clinic an hour and a half away. He was placed on a thin mattress on a cement floor. A makeshift I.V was tied with a rag to the window bars and he was spared from death. Five years later he is completely deaf and partially blind, he runs around from morning until evening uttering the alien moans and grunts of the totally deaf. I hate myself when I get annoyed with him. When his noises irritate me. Why would he irritate me? And yet after months and months of this, I find myself having less tolerance. I send him home when he has been playing at the back of my house for hours, just shouting out his curious utterings. Who am I to send him home in annoyance?

 And yet I do and then I head inside to boil water over the stove for a hot cup of coffee in the hope that it will thaw my hardening heart.

I never realised how tiring it is to live in the rural African countryside from morning to night, day in and day out, week after week, month after month. Even getting water is a chore. What am I doing here? I decide to walk around the school grounds again. What will be different today? Same groups of people, same greetings, same questions.

“Good morning, afternoon, evening…how are you?”

“I am fine thank you, how are you?”

“I/we are fine thank you madam/sir”

And I walk onto the next group.

“Good morning, afternoon, evening.”

“How are you…..”

I sit in the little dirt homes of friends and I smile and chat and hold babies and play with grinning beautiful little children. 
I go to the staff daycare next door and get mobbed by naughty little urchins, trying to pull out my earrings and pinch my strange white skin.

Living in a rural setting, I have often thought that as long as I have water and electricity, I could cope. I am not so sure now but I have discovered that electricity is an amazing thing! Don’t you think? J For days now we have been without power because the generator has broken down yet again. Kibaale does not have electricity but the centre here has a generator, which immediately places us in a privileged position.

 But when the generator breaks down, we are plunged into the world of no power. This does not mean a quick call to a repair shop. No. It means a truck load of people driving in from Kampala- a 4.5 hour drive away- to gaze at the generator and realise that they have brought the wrong parts. It can’t be fixed today. Maybe tomorrow?  Maybe. Shrug. And tomorrows come and go as more wrong parts appear. Will this work now? No. Maybe tomorrow?  Maybe. Shrug. Finally yesterday another truck pulled up and the generator was loaded up and taken to Kampala to be fixed there. When will it be back? Tomorrow?  Maybe. Three days?  Maybe. 

And all the while there is no power. Evenings are long and stretch out like elastic. It is dark. Pitch black. You cannot see your hand 6” in front of your face. Candles are placed everywhere and our family experiences a Little House on the Prairie feel as we sit around and read to each other. Anne of Green Gables springs to life by candlelight in a darkened Ugandan living room. (Surely this is one of the most beautiful and funny books ever written?)

Our computers slowly run out of battery charge and our cell phone bars drain away as we watch in despair. If it is cloudy and rainy (as is often the case in rainy season of course) our solar lamps only charge to a weak and anaemic glow. And we are annoyed. Why? Because surely we have the right to fully charged computers and phones? Surely we have the right to flick a switch and have light surge around us?  Don’t we?  But do we? One of my student friends here asked how we were coping without power.

“Auntie, I was wondering if mzungus can live with only candles?”

 I smile.

“Yes we can…don’t you use only candles?”

He laughs.

“Of course!”

Of course.  And not just until a generator is fixed.  All the time. Like most of the people in the world. So next time you flick a switch or turn your computer on, do me a favour? Smile and think of us and acknowledge that electricity is an amazing thing! J

Who am I? Why am I here? What am I meant to be doing?

These questions have haunted and stalked through my sleepless nights and over the many hot shimmering days during the last year. They still hover around the edge of my conscience like annoying mosquitoes. I try to swat them away but they return regularly to irritate and madden. They demand an answer. They persist until I acknowledge their validity.

One word drops like a shooting star into the blackness of my mind.

Money.  Am I here to dish out money?  No. I can sit anywhere and dish out money and that is certainly not the long term answer here anyway.

Answers? No. I don’t have any answers for the things that I see around me every day.

Solutions? No. I don’t have any solutions for the many dilemmas and problems that present themselves to me.

Love?  Yes. What forcibly pulled the Lord of all creation from his magnificent, heavenly throne room to the dirt, depravity, desperation and stink of humanity? What on earth…?  Love.

 I am here to love. It seems so very s.i.m.p.l.e.  Such a little realisation.

I have been pulled from my life of luxury to the harsh reality of Africa to love. My dear friend in South Africa informed me when I left that I did not come here to save Africa. To rescue people. To give glib answers. To hand out money.

“Why am I here?”  I asked in anguish during one of my times of despair.

“If you love people the way that you have loved me, you will make a difference. That is what we need here,” was the profound and impossible reply.

But that takes so much. Doesn’t it? It is draining. Isn’t love excruciatingly hard? We don’t have that much capacity within us all the time do we?  It requires every bit of strength within me and when I fail and love drains out of me…which happened so fast when I got here that it completely shocked me…when I fail… God has to step in and love through me. That is what he is waiting for. For me to stop. For Him to start. There is no other way.  I do not even pretend to suggest that I have mastered this. That I understand it.

Who am I?

Nobody.

What have I done?

Nothing extraordinary.

Why am I here?

I am here to love. It seems so very c.o.m.p.l.i.c.a.t.e.d.  Such a huge realisation.

Who is God?

He IS love.

What has he done?

“For God so LOVED the world… ”

And the sun sets in a showy blaze of crimson and nectarine…a typical stunning African sunset… and evening drops down, forcing shadows to creep. Cicadas shout, lizards dart, and mosquitoes whine. Blackness.  Deep smooth night. Brilliant stars unfolding at the very edge of the world as far as I can see, as far as I can dance. 

And so ends another day in rural Africa.

 And these three things remain. Faith. Hope. Love.

 But the greatest of these is …

From me to you,

Lesley"