Hello! I feel like I needed to start this blog with an informal “hi” because it has been so long since I have updated this page. Well, where do I start? Here is just a summary of what I have been up to in the past 3ish weeks.
Homestays are over, but as you know, I love my family so much here. It is hard to describe how comfortable I feel when I am with them and how much I miss them when I do not see them in a few days. One of my favorite moments in Uganda so far occurred on my last official night at home. I brought brownies home to my family, which they kept calling cake—they were amazing due to the lack of anything sweet here which made the taste savory. My last night at home was just splendid. I made chapotes with my sisters on our little coal outdoor stove and just bonded with my siblings. But, my favorite moment came a little later when my cell phone (mobile) rang. My sister Patience brought me my phone and the screen read that “Home” was calling. I was so confused because I was at home so how was home calling me? I cannot describe this feeling, but it felt like everything was coming full circle. I was talking to my real mom at my Ugandan family’s house. Weird, Special, Beautiful, Unique. The best part of the conversation was that my real Mommy Dearest got to talk to my Patience and Irene. I could hear her on the other end asking Patience questions, and my 11 year-old sister answering in her cute, little, innocent voice.
Last night (February 17th) I spent the night at home. It was beautiful and I am a sister and a daughter in that family. I made dinner with Irene (rice and spaghetti with cabbage) and we just talked for 2 hours as we cut, sliced, and prepared dinner which we ate at 9pm. From our cooking time, I basically got to hear my family’s life story. I am not going to lie, it shook me up pretty bad. These are my sisters, brothers, and Mama who I am listening about truly horrible situations. Stories of rape, witchcraft, poverty, sickness, cancer, and abuse permeated the room. But out of it rang the story of reconciliation, hope, and joy. In my Faith and Action class we are reading the book When Helping Hurts it discusses how poverty is the absence of shalom; it is in broken relationships with yourself, others, God, and creation. To even begin to start to alleviate poverty you cannot just provide relief, the band-aid fix to stop the bleeding, but must reconcile the broken relationships.
After homestays were over we went on an Honors College retreat to Jinja, Uganda. Here is the source of the Nile River. How crazy is that? I got to go on a wooden boat ride to the source of the 2nd largest river in the world? The source of the Nile is actually now an underwater waterfall due to a man made dam on Lake Victoria. King Fisher was beautiful and it was just one of those..”Am I really here?” on Lake Victoria/ Nile River where so much history has taken place? Not to mention the events happening in Egypt are right up the river?
Here’s a little update on current events in Uganda.
If you have been following international news in the past few weeks Uganda has been on the scene for two main reasons. 1. Gay and Lesbian Rights and 2. Presidential Elections TODAY! FRIDAY 18TH
A few weeks back, David Kato, a gay rights activist and supporter was murdered in Mukono, where I live and attend school. BBC News reported that he was murdered due to his open participation in gay rights in a country that is very strict and traditional when it comes to sexual orientation. From what I have read here and talked to with people, there is no strong evidence that links his murder with his activity with gay rights. Kato was killed by iron clubbing. It is a very common thing here at night. It is a reality that people are clubbed in order to steal money and possessions that the person may have on them. (Again, not trying to scare you!) Ugandans were upset that this “normal” death made BBC news and caused a spotlight on Uganda. Furthermore, President Obama gave an apology speech to the Gay/Lesbian community and openly condemned Uganda’s extremely strict and scorning view on this issue. It’s very interesting to see how events are portrayed in world news (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2044925,00.html) Though I have my own views about treating everyone with value, dignity, and worth-from being made in the Image of God-including the gay/lesbian community, I have been able to see why Ugandans were disturbed with the negative attention. Iron clubbing is a reality. It happens here all the time. Because Kato was an activists all of a sudden its international news. Why not when it happens every other night? Is that enough to get the President of the US to give a speech? Furthermore, living in Uganda has shed more light on iron clubbing and what people “need” to do to survive. Uganda is an extremely community oriented country which has been a blessing to be part of. What is yours is also your neighbors. The best way to portray this communal orientation is how the USP director explained a situation in class. He said that here in UG, if you had $5,000 in your bank account and your roommate was in debt and had loans of maybe $20,000 and you did not give him/her that money then that is just not acceptable/ understandable.
This relates to something I mentioned earlier in a previous blog, but is definitely an ongoing theme. Through many conversations with my sister, at my practicum, and in class, I have been learning more about girls having sex to pay for their school fees. It is so common that it is actually accepted. At my practicum at Off-Tu, I work at a drop in center called Retrak Refugee Center where there are all street boys who find safety in this place. There are NO girls because they are being taken care of by older men. So, as I have been processing this and really thinking about this issue, I have come to this conclusion. From a Western perspective, and more specifically, a Western Christian view, we have what we consider the two most polar opposite values at a point of intersection. On one hand is education. The US is built on “pulling yourself up by the bootstraps”, getting an education, and becoming successful. These are the pillars of which the US stands-whether it is realistic or not. Then, on the other hand the Western church escalates sexual sins to an intensely high level, along with a very negative view of prostitution and sugar daddies. In Uganda, the value of education is in a head to head battle with sexual sins. Which one wins? Which one is the least harmful? If you look at the extremes I do not know the answer. Consider an uneducated woman who has not engaged in prostitution. She now does not fit in socially (did not receive an education), economically, and even culturally. She now is poor and cannot find a job. She turns to prostitution to make a little amount of money to buy food. Next, we have the educated woman who had to sleep with a sugar daddy for school fees. She is pregnant with his child, possibly became HIV+ in the process, and now has to drop out of school to give birth or give up her job for her new life as a mother. Thoughts?????
Sorry this blog post is all over the place, I need to do a better job updating this. I hope you are still reading this even though it is really long J
I am doing my practicum at Off-Tu Missions in Mukono, Uganda. It is wonderful. I am learning a lot about social work in Uganda-more specifically what social work is not. In Uganda a social worker plays all the roles. You are not just an enabler, case manager, facilitator, broker, etc., but are everything in one. I quickly learned that I am an educator, a bike fixer, a singer, a dancer, and everything else. Two weekends ago I slept over at the kids residential at Off-Tu. It was tons of fun to see the kids and just be present with them. When I go there the 12 kids all had just received used bikes from Germany. Each child was given a bike-some mountain bikes and others those really old school ones with the high handle bars. As a social work intern in Uganda, I spent two hours putting together rusty old bikes with half a tool box with the founder of Off-Tu. The other day I fixed a bike tire with one of the boys, Solomon, with super glue and DIRT! (I don’t know how long it will last, but hello Uganda resources) I have definitely acquired a useful skill and the kids love their bikes J We watched a rerun of America’s Got Talent at night wit the kids and I am in the process of planning Off-Tu’s got talent. I am thinking of doing a song or some sort of gymnastics routine haha.
Another really special aspect of social work in Uganda has to do with Uganda being a “developing” country. Unlike the US, Uganda does not have 10000 of resources to connect children with. If I was in this practicum at home, I would be connecting the kids to additional resources like foster care, adoption agency, support groups, therapy sessions, etc. In Uganda those resources don’t exist. This is not necessarily a bad thing, just a different thing. At Off-Tu the kids are at the best place. They are at the end of the chain of resources. They have reached the place that social workers want the kids to reach. Thus, I am in a unique position as I am working with kids that are at the best place possible for them. Even better than that, I get to be the resource for the kids. I am something different, I am someone special, outside the realms of typical Uganda resources, yet I am just me and that is enough. This has been a wonderful realization, that I am getting the opportunity to be a resource for the kids, and just by being there, and being me is enough and all that is needed. I do not need to worry about paper work, adoption agency, or connecting kids with additional resources, I just need to show up, be present, love them, sing songs, fix bikes, and just be me. This has definitely helped when I am at Off-Tu on Wednesdays for 7 hours when I am teaching “A sounds” in a school. I love working at Off-Tu and I am so glad I got placed here. It has made the balance between trying to navigate being in Uganda first as a student, but not feeling like I am doing enough- like a missions trip. I love my P1 class (first grade) that I teach. On Thursdays I go to Off-Tu Academy from 7:45am-10am. I lead physical education class to the nursery than to P1/P2. It is possibly the cutest thing in the entire world. We pretend to be elephants as we stretch and reach our long trunks down into the watering hole. We also sing a lot of “Funky Chicken.”
Last week when I was at the drop in center in Kampala I got to witness the giving end of Operation Christmas Child (Christmas Shoe Boxes). This was an amazing experience and it was really comforting to know that the boxes do get to the kids! After we were done singing song, giving the Word, and dancing, we carried in the huge brown boxes filled with little Christmas boxes. As soon as one of the boys Jacob saw the boxes he grabbed my face and gave me a kiss on the lips. Watching the kids receive their boxes was beautiful. The boys were all smiles as they opened up boxes filled with baseball cards, toy cars, t-shirts, baseballs etc. The kids deserved these gifts. All the boys have been through so much, and as I have got to know a few of them and hear their testimonies I am astonished by how much a 13 year-old boy has gone through. Thank you to everyone who has filled a shoe box. They make it around the world and bring joy!
Lastly, things are really becoming normal here. I do not notice the red dirt roads or the massive storks that fly around Kampala. I am getting used to being called “Mzungu” everywhere I go and having little kids want to touch my skin. Washing clothes by hand is still annoying, but much more doable, and I am slowly beginning to befriend the lizards that run our hallways. The last two weekends have been tons of fun here. I have headed into Kampala both weekends. Last weekend we celebrated a Ugandan friends birthday with bowling and Veggie Pizza. I almost died when I tasted the pizza. Seriously it was that good. On Sunday I took a mutatu (taxi van that holds 15ish people for only 1,500 shillings = about .75 cents) into Kampla for church. We went to Watoto Church which is pretty famous. They sing hillsong and the attendance is around 2,000 people. It was a nice change from the very Anglican services I have attended at UCU. Due to the elections on Friday, we are not allowed to venture into Kampla until further notice. The elections are not suppose to get too crazy, but I guess you never know and they just want to take safety precautions.
Things are good here. I still think the time difference from here to home is strange. There is a rat loose in our building and I just pray it does not come near our room. My roomie and I have a “pet” lizard and cockroach. Except for the fact that they are dead and are stuck between the screen of our window. They are the easiest pets ever to take care of. We love them, they add character to our room. Oh, and mail, I can receive it! So if ya want send me some. Thank you Kerry for the beautiful pictures, letters, and such—they are hanging on my wall. Also, thank you family members for the Valentine’s day card. We had an honors college Valentine’s day party on Monday night. We each got a slice of banana bread which equals heaven. Along the same line of banana bread are Rolexes that I mentioned earlier. There are rules to rolling and one is “thou shall never leave a fellow roller behind.” We take that seriously here. Oh, also, I was able to get the whole complete six seasons of Sex and the City and “Life as We Know It” for a total of 8,000 shillings. That is about $4! Incredible! I can’t wait 202 (and I also heard you got the DVD player to finally work). TODAY is the Presidential Elections. They are long awaited for and supposedly fair, though my Mama was getting texts from Museveni’s political campaign last night asking her to vote for him. We shall see how/ if it gets crazy here. We are pretty much on lock down for the next few days and it will take about 48 hours for the results to come in. I hear the Musevini the current president has a good chance of winning. He’s already been in power for 25 years so what is another 5 to make it 30?????? Well I am sure that there is much more to write, there always is, but this is my little update on glimpses from Uganda for you all. I will try better to update so there are not these ridiculously long posts. Kuagala Nyo (I love you very much in Lunganda)
No comments:
Post a Comment