This was what's called a "directed response" and the question was: How has your service learning experience met or changed your expectations?
Obviously mine is at CHAIN, which i guess some blog readers might not know, but i still thought this could be a cool update for people. Voila:
My expectations for working at CHAIN were that it would be the stereotypical Western-African interaction. I was working in an orphanage, for goodness sakes! I thought the environment would be difficult, full of sick children, burnt-out workers, and gloomy classrooms. I expected myself to struggle with the reality of such poverty, to have to set my teeth and smile despite my overwhelming sadness. However, anyone who has been to CHAIN knows that description is entirely wrong.
Our first day at CHAIN, we were dropped off to the sound of children singing on their way home from school, swinging backpacks and jostling each other out of thee way of the oncoming car. I thought to myself, “Oh, OK, these are the kids that get to go home to their families, not the orphans I am going to work with.” That was indeed the case, but inside the gates of the compound lay my real surprise. Children laughing, playing, blind ones being pulled good-naturedly along behind their brothers and sisters. The physical deformity of some of the little ones was a little overwhelming at first, but when they began to speak English to us and tug at my hand, it was impossible not to forget oozing eyes or bumpy foreheads in favor of smiles and shy good will. The orphanage itself was the most idyllic place I have yet to see in Mukono District, a balm to the soul of anyone who passed there. The rolling hills, buildings painted with animals and smiling children, the smooth grass and neat bunk beds, all combined to combat every image of an African orphanage the Western media has ever projected upon us.
I know the fact that my sweepingly depressing stereotypes were wrong does not imply that the children at CHAIN lead a painless existence, at all. My friend there, Shakira, explained to me haltingly the death of her father and illness of her mother in Kampala. Her story is not unique, and the presence of her sister at the orphanage actually gives her more comfort than some of the little ones have. Yet, I did learn a solid lesson from the shock of realizing what I had expected and what was actually the case. I had expected God to throw down a gauntlet of acclimation, of realization of the truth of poverty. I had expected to struggle to simply be present there, to withstand the onslaught of sadness. However, my challenge is not to manage to stay in the presence of my friends at CHAIN, it is to be fully present. The soothing sound of birds and children playing disavow any excuse I might have had of it “being too much.” No, my course is to engage, to draw out the little ones in a way that shows them their value and lets me learn from their stories and experience. This is so hard for me, knowing that I can’t resort to a lesson plan or devotional, that it isn’t enough to just “visit the orphans” and pat their heads, retreating to the role of the shocked American. I have to step up and be the 20 year-old that I am, making the effort to talk to the kids and to get them to play, even though it’s hard.
This lesson has changed my perception of how God wants me to interact with poverty. It is not enough to visit the sick or the poor like you are watching them on the evening news, with guilty detachment or the vague inclination to act. It is not enough to visit thinking that by standing in a corner you are helping them realize their “value.” That is too easy for the visitor, and too futile for the visited. If you want to make any sort of effect, you have to step outside your comfort zone and engage your surroundings while maintaining the humble attitude of an outsider, a learner. I am so thankful for my time at CHAIN and my opportunity to practice this difficult job of moving beyond the audience, into the action.
-Emmes
Monday 20 April 2009
Tuesday 24 March 2009
Rafting down the Nile & a common day 24-03-09
So I haven’t written in a while because since rural homestays, life in Uganda has been pretty normal. It’s that phenomenon: if you don’t take pictures in the first 6 months of living in a place, you never will! Except it’s only been 2.5 months, of course.
So I’ll just give some well-illustrated highlights, and maybe (this is ambitious) what a typical day looks like for me. :)
Two weekends ago most of us went white water rafting on the Nile! As expected, I was really anxious about the whole endeavor, mostly because I thought I just wouldn’t be able to hold my own in my raft. I’ve never been rafting before, and I thought I was going to start on the NILE?! Yeah. Right.
My roommate, Kelsey, planned the whole thing –organizing transportation, talking to the hostel we stayed at, getting us group discounts, everything. She did an absolutely fantastic job and we all had a wonderful experience.
The hostel we stayed at was one of the most comfortable lodgings we’ve had all semester, though that was because of the atmosphere more than anything else. It seemed to be co-owned by an Australian man and a Kenyan, both of whom were fairly young and obviously weather-hardened adventurers. They were so nice, and it was such a blessing to be in a place that broke down the pervasive stigma of white/African separation in businesses. We weren’t treated as intrusive strangers, like sometimes happens in Kampala or in Soroti, but neither were we rich customers to be catered to. Praise God for such an example of partnership, to a degree I haven’t seen even in churches in Uganda.
On top of the relaxing atmosphere, we also had yummy food, mostly free with our rafting, comfortable beds, hot showers, and fans. I haven’t seen a fan since I left the states! Lying in a cool, clean bed (be it ever so hard) and having a gentle breeze blow through your mosquito net is a sensation not to be belittled.
Rafting itself was one of the hugest adventurers I have ever had in my life! The entire time I feared for my life, but trusted our guide absolutely. He was a crazy Ugandan named Nathan who has rafted and kayaked all over the world –such knowledge and confidence! Actually, this is kind of embarrassing, but one of our exchanges with Nathan is just such an accurate picture of my gratefulness for him that I have to record it for you:
He had just had us jump out of the raft and float down a small rapid on our backs, to get us used to the sensation of being a bit pushed by the water. Afterwards, I struggled to swim back to the boat and had to be hauled back inside by Nathan, with one hand, of course. We caught our breath and talked over how it felt to be at the mercy of the current, but then Nathan asked, “So, did you love your first experience in the water?” And as everyone chorused, “Yes!” I just sat there, winded, not really sure how I felt. So Nathan looks at me and goes, “Emily, did you love your experience?” And out of nowhere I felt the words leave my mouth: “I love… you.”
I didn’t even mean to say it, he was just my hero at the moment! I immediately turned bright red at the raucous laughter of my boat-mates and Nathan himself, but it was too funny to be embarrassed about for very long.
That first experience was tame in retrospect, but it definitely did the trick in getting me acclimated to being thrown into the water. Our boat actually only flipped once, but that was enough, believe me. Other than that, we credit our “upright-ness” to our superior paddling skills and the expertise of Nathan, who was obviously the best guide on the river that day. We’re bought one of the videos that a crazy kayaker made of our day on the Nile, and we’re going to make copies. So hopefully I’ll be able to share that when I get back, as the experience as a whole is really indescribable.
Aside from rafting, we’ve had a pretty tame 3 weeks since homestays, interspersed with visits to Kampala on the weekends and a field trip to Luweero for our HIV/AIDS unit. I’ve loved the normalcy of it all, but I’ve had to readjust my perspective a few times. This trip is no longer like a vacation, or even like an adventure, it’s more just, life. But completely transforming, vacation-esque life, so of course it is still wonderful. We’ve finished discussing Compassion, HIV/AIDS, poverty, and Ugandan politics, and now we’re beginning “debt, aid, and trade” and Mere Discipleship, by Lee Camp. I also have to keep attending my other classes, unfortunately, and they are very frustrating! I have not yet gotten the hang of Ugandan-style classes and I truly don’t expect to. This is rather hard for me to handle, especially because I am continuing to not get the kind of grades I’m used to getting. However, I’m doing my best and trying to take it all in stride, though that doesn’t always work I think it is going to be good for me in the long run, to release me from a bit of the obsession I have with getting “straight A’s” all the time. I know good grades are a legitimate thing to strive for, but everything in moderation.
So, a typical day in the life of me. Actually, I think I’ll do a week. No. a day. Let’s pick a Thursday, one of my favorite days of the week.
5:51am – the “morning glory” fellowship starts beating a drum to call us all to worship.
5:53am – I fall back asleep after getting mad at the drum
6:10am – the “morning glory” fellowship starts beating the drum again, because not enough of us responded to the call to worship.
6:12am – I fall back asleep after wondering why they are still drumming (stupid question, as this happens every day)
6:20am – (on a bad day) the “morning glory” fellowship starts beating the drum again, because apparently, still not enough of us responded to the call to worship.
6:22am – I fall back asleep, rather grateful by this point that I’m mostly awake, since my alarm’s going to go off soon anyways
6:25am – wake up, get dressed and washed in the dark because Kels and Ash are still sleeping, unless they are going running that morning. No, I do not join them in their athletic endeavors because frankly, I have no desire to.
6:55am – walk in the growing dawn light to Honors college, which is about 3 min across campus.
7:00am – get online (this early in the morning is one of the only times the internet moves at anywhere near a humane speed). Usually I’ll chat with Andrew on Skype, download emails, do any business-y things I need to take care of, and upload pictures.
8:25am – sometimes I go to breakfast around 8, but usually not. At this point I leave Honors College to go to “African Christian Theology”, my class with two other USPers and about 30 middle-aged Masters of Divinity students.
8:30am- sitting in the classroom with Ashley and Naomi, wondering if we actually have class today or not.
8:45am – “Are they coming?” “Did the prof say yesterday he was not coming today?”
9:00am – “Did he say class starts at 9:30?” “Man, why do we never catch these things? I could’ve sworn he said 8:30.”
At around this point one of our classmates might trickle in or we might work up the nerve to ask someone sitting in the room if there is a class in there today or not. Usually the answer is a shrug, but sometimes it is, “Oh, he said yesterday we weren’t having class today” or something of that sort that somehow we managed to miss during lecture.
Sometimes class actually does start at 8:30am, but the kind of waiting-game experience described above is guaranteed to happen at least once a week, in some class or another.
10:30am – get out of class in time for morning tea. Head to “Touch of Class” (a canteen) or to the dining hall for a cup of African tea and perhaps a “pancake” (not what you think) or a chapatti. African tea is half milk, half water, and half sugar. Figure that one out.
11:00am – sometimes I go take a nap, sometimes I read a letter I got that morning from Ands while sipping a smoothie at the Guild Canteen, sometimes I read for class. Usually I don’t have too much to do, though.
12:00pm – Community worship (kind of like chapel at Messiah College) or continued naptime. Community worship usually consists of some sweet praise songs, mixed English and Luganda words, a long prayer session, and an even longer message. I enjoy it, but sometimes the humor in the sermons just goes way over my head. They’ll say something like, “And the wife failed to get matoke for dinner!” And the room will explode in laughter, for no reason I can fathom. There’s always something to learn, though, so I try to go pretty often.
1:00pm – lunchtime at the dining hall, on a good day (and Thursday usually is a good day), we’ll have irish potatoes (small, boiled, then fried), brown beans in a vegetable sauce, and pineapple. This is a seriously good meal.
1:30pm – go back to my room, get my stuff for literature class, and talk to Kels, Ash, Kristen, or Katie for awhile.
2:00pm – “African Literature” for two solid hours. I like this class because the material offers real insight into African culture. We’ve read Things Fall Apart, Mission to Kala, Upon this Mountain, and Grain of Wheat, among other short stories and poems. The great thing about having this class here in Uganda is that I actually have time to read and enjoy the books! Having very little homework makes for a very sparse grading method, but a more relaxed atmosphere, the glory of which is not to be belittled.
4:00pm – finally get out of lit, usually I go to the Children’s library to check out the next Chronicle of Narnia (my current obsession) or something else frivolous to read.
4:30-6:30pm – go back to the room, hang out, do laundry, eat bread and butter or jam, drink hot chocolate (weird in this heat, but really good), iron clothes (takes forever), read for Faith and Action class on Friday, go down to the football pitch to watch some of practice, etc.
6:30pm – recently we’ve dubbed Thursday night our official roommate dinner night, on which we have PIZZA. Mark and Abbey (the USP director and his wife) taught a young Ugandan woman to make American-style pizza and sell it to the American students. It’s absolutely divine and the highlight of my week. For about $5 a pizza it’s totally affordable and fairly filling. Yum.
7:30pm – usually we go to Honours College at this point to do homework or research whatever paper we’re supposed to be doing on the internet. There’s always a ton of people in one of the dorm lounges, so it’s a fun time to hang out, listen to music, and chat with some of the Ugandan Honours College students or other USPers.
9:00pm – head back to our dorm, Sabiti Hall, and get ready for bed. I know this is early, but I absolutely love going to bed at a ridiculously early hour. It’s magical. It’s seriously one of the great joys of my “vacation” here and luckily my roommates are on the same page. Sometimes I end up reading until about 10:30, but that’s late for us.
*getting ready for bed:
1. change into a big t-shirt and shorts for sleeping
2. gather toothbrush, retainers, toilet paper, toothpaste, face wash, contact stuff, etc., to tote to the bathroom
3. cram all the above stuff onto a little bitty sink with water that is not quite clear, but oh, Praise the Lord for running water! Use the only “western style” toilet in the bathroom, that doesn’t have a seat but is better in my opinion than the “squatty potties.” Katie and Kristen are both advocates of the squatties but I just find them uncomfortable. Anyways.
4. wash hands and face, brush teeth, wash feet. Yes, feet. They are always covered in red dirt and if you forget to wash them you will certainly be washing your sheets next week.
5. Head back to the room, stash all my toiletries, climb onto our one desk and from there into my bed
6. rearrange sheets, get out ear plugs, arrange various books and flashlights so they don’t fall down onto poor Kelsey during the night.
7. pull out mosquito net, drape it over bed frame, tuck in to mattress sides, and use clothespin to clip the section above my face to the curtains. It is quite a process.
8. insert ear plugs and GO TO SLEEP!
So that’s my day, I hope you found it interesting because it’s pretty typical.
So I’ll just give some well-illustrated highlights, and maybe (this is ambitious) what a typical day looks like for me. :)
Two weekends ago most of us went white water rafting on the Nile! As expected, I was really anxious about the whole endeavor, mostly because I thought I just wouldn’t be able to hold my own in my raft. I’ve never been rafting before, and I thought I was going to start on the NILE?! Yeah. Right.
My roommate, Kelsey, planned the whole thing –organizing transportation, talking to the hostel we stayed at, getting us group discounts, everything. She did an absolutely fantastic job and we all had a wonderful experience.
The hostel we stayed at was one of the most comfortable lodgings we’ve had all semester, though that was because of the atmosphere more than anything else. It seemed to be co-owned by an Australian man and a Kenyan, both of whom were fairly young and obviously weather-hardened adventurers. They were so nice, and it was such a blessing to be in a place that broke down the pervasive stigma of white/African separation in businesses. We weren’t treated as intrusive strangers, like sometimes happens in Kampala or in Soroti, but neither were we rich customers to be catered to. Praise God for such an example of partnership, to a degree I haven’t seen even in churches in Uganda.
On top of the relaxing atmosphere, we also had yummy food, mostly free with our rafting, comfortable beds, hot showers, and fans. I haven’t seen a fan since I left the states! Lying in a cool, clean bed (be it ever so hard) and having a gentle breeze blow through your mosquito net is a sensation not to be belittled.
Rafting itself was one of the hugest adventurers I have ever had in my life! The entire time I feared for my life, but trusted our guide absolutely. He was a crazy Ugandan named Nathan who has rafted and kayaked all over the world –such knowledge and confidence! Actually, this is kind of embarrassing, but one of our exchanges with Nathan is just such an accurate picture of my gratefulness for him that I have to record it for you:
He had just had us jump out of the raft and float down a small rapid on our backs, to get us used to the sensation of being a bit pushed by the water. Afterwards, I struggled to swim back to the boat and had to be hauled back inside by Nathan, with one hand, of course. We caught our breath and talked over how it felt to be at the mercy of the current, but then Nathan asked, “So, did you love your first experience in the water?” And as everyone chorused, “Yes!” I just sat there, winded, not really sure how I felt. So Nathan looks at me and goes, “Emily, did you love your experience?” And out of nowhere I felt the words leave my mouth: “I love… you.”
I didn’t even mean to say it, he was just my hero at the moment! I immediately turned bright red at the raucous laughter of my boat-mates and Nathan himself, but it was too funny to be embarrassed about for very long.
That first experience was tame in retrospect, but it definitely did the trick in getting me acclimated to being thrown into the water. Our boat actually only flipped once, but that was enough, believe me. Other than that, we credit our “upright-ness” to our superior paddling skills and the expertise of Nathan, who was obviously the best guide on the river that day. We’re bought one of the videos that a crazy kayaker made of our day on the Nile, and we’re going to make copies. So hopefully I’ll be able to share that when I get back, as the experience as a whole is really indescribable.
Aside from rafting, we’ve had a pretty tame 3 weeks since homestays, interspersed with visits to Kampala on the weekends and a field trip to Luweero for our HIV/AIDS unit. I’ve loved the normalcy of it all, but I’ve had to readjust my perspective a few times. This trip is no longer like a vacation, or even like an adventure, it’s more just, life. But completely transforming, vacation-esque life, so of course it is still wonderful. We’ve finished discussing Compassion, HIV/AIDS, poverty, and Ugandan politics, and now we’re beginning “debt, aid, and trade” and Mere Discipleship, by Lee Camp. I also have to keep attending my other classes, unfortunately, and they are very frustrating! I have not yet gotten the hang of Ugandan-style classes and I truly don’t expect to. This is rather hard for me to handle, especially because I am continuing to not get the kind of grades I’m used to getting. However, I’m doing my best and trying to take it all in stride, though that doesn’t always work I think it is going to be good for me in the long run, to release me from a bit of the obsession I have with getting “straight A’s” all the time. I know good grades are a legitimate thing to strive for, but everything in moderation.
So, a typical day in the life of me. Actually, I think I’ll do a week. No. a day. Let’s pick a Thursday, one of my favorite days of the week.
5:51am – the “morning glory” fellowship starts beating a drum to call us all to worship.
5:53am – I fall back asleep after getting mad at the drum
6:10am – the “morning glory” fellowship starts beating the drum again, because not enough of us responded to the call to worship.
6:12am – I fall back asleep after wondering why they are still drumming (stupid question, as this happens every day)
6:20am – (on a bad day) the “morning glory” fellowship starts beating the drum again, because apparently, still not enough of us responded to the call to worship.
6:22am – I fall back asleep, rather grateful by this point that I’m mostly awake, since my alarm’s going to go off soon anyways
6:25am – wake up, get dressed and washed in the dark because Kels and Ash are still sleeping, unless they are going running that morning. No, I do not join them in their athletic endeavors because frankly, I have no desire to.
6:55am – walk in the growing dawn light to Honors college, which is about 3 min across campus.
7:00am – get online (this early in the morning is one of the only times the internet moves at anywhere near a humane speed). Usually I’ll chat with Andrew on Skype, download emails, do any business-y things I need to take care of, and upload pictures.
8:25am – sometimes I go to breakfast around 8, but usually not. At this point I leave Honors College to go to “African Christian Theology”, my class with two other USPers and about 30 middle-aged Masters of Divinity students.
8:30am- sitting in the classroom with Ashley and Naomi, wondering if we actually have class today or not.
8:45am – “Are they coming?” “Did the prof say yesterday he was not coming today?”
9:00am – “Did he say class starts at 9:30?” “Man, why do we never catch these things? I could’ve sworn he said 8:30.”
At around this point one of our classmates might trickle in or we might work up the nerve to ask someone sitting in the room if there is a class in there today or not. Usually the answer is a shrug, but sometimes it is, “Oh, he said yesterday we weren’t having class today” or something of that sort that somehow we managed to miss during lecture.
Sometimes class actually does start at 8:30am, but the kind of waiting-game experience described above is guaranteed to happen at least once a week, in some class or another.
10:30am – get out of class in time for morning tea. Head to “Touch of Class” (a canteen) or to the dining hall for a cup of African tea and perhaps a “pancake” (not what you think) or a chapatti. African tea is half milk, half water, and half sugar. Figure that one out.
11:00am – sometimes I go take a nap, sometimes I read a letter I got that morning from Ands while sipping a smoothie at the Guild Canteen, sometimes I read for class. Usually I don’t have too much to do, though.
12:00pm – Community worship (kind of like chapel at Messiah College) or continued naptime. Community worship usually consists of some sweet praise songs, mixed English and Luganda words, a long prayer session, and an even longer message. I enjoy it, but sometimes the humor in the sermons just goes way over my head. They’ll say something like, “And the wife failed to get matoke for dinner!” And the room will explode in laughter, for no reason I can fathom. There’s always something to learn, though, so I try to go pretty often.
1:00pm – lunchtime at the dining hall, on a good day (and Thursday usually is a good day), we’ll have irish potatoes (small, boiled, then fried), brown beans in a vegetable sauce, and pineapple. This is a seriously good meal.
1:30pm – go back to my room, get my stuff for literature class, and talk to Kels, Ash, Kristen, or Katie for awhile.
2:00pm – “African Literature” for two solid hours. I like this class because the material offers real insight into African culture. We’ve read Things Fall Apart, Mission to Kala, Upon this Mountain, and Grain of Wheat, among other short stories and poems. The great thing about having this class here in Uganda is that I actually have time to read and enjoy the books! Having very little homework makes for a very sparse grading method, but a more relaxed atmosphere, the glory of which is not to be belittled.
4:00pm – finally get out of lit, usually I go to the Children’s library to check out the next Chronicle of Narnia (my current obsession) or something else frivolous to read.
4:30-6:30pm – go back to the room, hang out, do laundry, eat bread and butter or jam, drink hot chocolate (weird in this heat, but really good), iron clothes (takes forever), read for Faith and Action class on Friday, go down to the football pitch to watch some of practice, etc.
6:30pm – recently we’ve dubbed Thursday night our official roommate dinner night, on which we have PIZZA. Mark and Abbey (the USP director and his wife) taught a young Ugandan woman to make American-style pizza and sell it to the American students. It’s absolutely divine and the highlight of my week. For about $5 a pizza it’s totally affordable and fairly filling. Yum.
7:30pm – usually we go to Honours College at this point to do homework or research whatever paper we’re supposed to be doing on the internet. There’s always a ton of people in one of the dorm lounges, so it’s a fun time to hang out, listen to music, and chat with some of the Ugandan Honours College students or other USPers.
9:00pm – head back to our dorm, Sabiti Hall, and get ready for bed. I know this is early, but I absolutely love going to bed at a ridiculously early hour. It’s magical. It’s seriously one of the great joys of my “vacation” here and luckily my roommates are on the same page. Sometimes I end up reading until about 10:30, but that’s late for us.
*getting ready for bed:
1. change into a big t-shirt and shorts for sleeping
2. gather toothbrush, retainers, toilet paper, toothpaste, face wash, contact stuff, etc., to tote to the bathroom
3. cram all the above stuff onto a little bitty sink with water that is not quite clear, but oh, Praise the Lord for running water! Use the only “western style” toilet in the bathroom, that doesn’t have a seat but is better in my opinion than the “squatty potties.” Katie and Kristen are both advocates of the squatties but I just find them uncomfortable. Anyways.
4. wash hands and face, brush teeth, wash feet. Yes, feet. They are always covered in red dirt and if you forget to wash them you will certainly be washing your sheets next week.
5. Head back to the room, stash all my toiletries, climb onto our one desk and from there into my bed
6. rearrange sheets, get out ear plugs, arrange various books and flashlights so they don’t fall down onto poor Kelsey during the night.
7. pull out mosquito net, drape it over bed frame, tuck in to mattress sides, and use clothespin to clip the section above my face to the curtains. It is quite a process.
8. insert ear plugs and GO TO SLEEP!
So that’s my day, I hope you found it interesting because it’s pretty typical.
Thursday 12 March 2009
Musings on the book "Compassion" 10-03-09
This morning I went to tea by myself, and I was kind of reading Compassion, kind of just thinking about things, and I realized something about my experience here. I think things have shifted from being a “cross-cultural experience,” you know with culture shock, and feeling uncomfortable, and just learning from things being so different. I think I’m ok with that kind of stuff now, or at least I’ve built up my own little walls and mental pathways around things (which may or may not be good, I’m sure staying sensitive is a continuous process). Now, it seems that God is really working on me. On the inside of me, on my identity.
But not in the way you’d expect.
I don’t know any more about what I want to do, or the things I want out of life. I feel that instead of tacking things onto my “to-do list” of life, God is pulling things off. It’s like my whole life I’ve been trying to figure out “who I am” and “who I want to be” by figuring out what I like and don’t like, where I want to go, character traits I want to possess, things I want to accomplish, how I want to be looked upon. That journey of self-discovery has its merits, but has completely defined my identity. I think God is saying, “My child, all these things are manifestations of who you are, but why do you cling to them?”
This is hard to explain.
I felt that I’ve been trying to plan, to make things go my way, and all of a sudden I realized I didn’t need to struggle so hard. I didn’t need to know everything in advance, to lay my future out in a way that is comforting not only to me, but to my parents and family as well. I feel as if I can just be. And have confidence in the fact that when decisions come, they will have been brought by God, I will have been prepared to make them by God, and they will progress in the hand of God. I can’t believe it’s taken 21 years (almost) for such a fundamental spiritual truth to sink in.
I think this has been dawning on me gradually, especially when issues come up like marriage, relationships, children, career, grad school, etc. My reaction lately has not been, “Oh my gosh, I have no idea!” It’s been this strange disinterested confidence, knowing that when those decisions come, I am fully equipped to experience them in the hand of Christ. Do you know what I mean?
I feel compelled to defend the way I have been brought up and all those points which are usually raised in response to these kinds of musings: “God helps those who help themselves,” “How can God work in you if you don’t prepare the field for harvest?” etc etc. But none of my most recent revelation negates those things. Yes, I strive for excellence, as any one who knows me is more than aware. But how many times has that striving blinded me to the movements of God, crowded out the whisper of the Holy Spirit? How little I have valued silence, all these years.
I feel now that spiritual retreats are such an essential part of growth, and confidence in Christ. I have always known the wisdom in seeking out guidance from other, older Christians and friends, of making your decisions not in isolation, but in community. Yet, I have never felt the intense calm brought on by silence before the Lord. I’ve read, “When you come into the presence of a King, do you jabber or wait in stunned silence?” And I’ve said, well of course- everyone knows you can’t just talk in prayer, you have to listen, too. But I have experienced the rewards of “waiting upon the Lord” to an amazing degree here. God’s so good. : )
Oh, this is not even the beginning of what God is showing me… Just silly things like having to teach that class, or being away from engineering for a semester, or reading all these deeply theological books, have really affected where I find my identity. I had this mental image of my soul, my essence, being a glowing coal, an orb, at the center of my being. All these other things like my major, my “vocation”, my family issues, my hobbies, my pursuits, my friends, were pieces of rock or wood stuck to the sides of the glowing ember, built up around it in a sphere. This semester God is pulling those things off, not to devalue them, but to reveal my soul, my center, as the most important, the only reality of who I am –held in the hand of Christ. “if God is for us, who can be against us?” How can I make decisions outside of my faith? Who I am if not defined by Christ?
This seems so heavy and so… ambitious, but how I really feel! I have that rational impulse to label this as a “Mountaintop moment,” but I also believe this is a paradigm shift in my identity, in how I move forward in life. You know what it is? It’s that these kinds of words, these declarations, come from “spiritual heroes,” not from people like me. But Compassion is showing me how there really is no dichotomy or gradations of spirituality- those are imposed by us and our fallen nature. God is teaching me to value my identity in Him as the greatest of gifts, not somehow fallen short because I don’t have a passion for missions or preaching. I think that allowing ourselves to separate from the “spiritually great” is just an excuse for mediocrity. Saying, “oh, I just feel called to minister in my office by being a Christian, or by going to church –I’m no missionary.” Is something I’ve fallen prey to my whole life. I still have no idea how to be truly passionate, truly living transparently for God in an “ordinary” setting, but I think that’s what makes it such a challenge, such a noble pursuit, in chasing that elusive road to the heights of living like Christ.
--Emmes
But not in the way you’d expect.
I don’t know any more about what I want to do, or the things I want out of life. I feel that instead of tacking things onto my “to-do list” of life, God is pulling things off. It’s like my whole life I’ve been trying to figure out “who I am” and “who I want to be” by figuring out what I like and don’t like, where I want to go, character traits I want to possess, things I want to accomplish, how I want to be looked upon. That journey of self-discovery has its merits, but has completely defined my identity. I think God is saying, “My child, all these things are manifestations of who you are, but why do you cling to them?”
This is hard to explain.
I felt that I’ve been trying to plan, to make things go my way, and all of a sudden I realized I didn’t need to struggle so hard. I didn’t need to know everything in advance, to lay my future out in a way that is comforting not only to me, but to my parents and family as well. I feel as if I can just be. And have confidence in the fact that when decisions come, they will have been brought by God, I will have been prepared to make them by God, and they will progress in the hand of God. I can’t believe it’s taken 21 years (almost) for such a fundamental spiritual truth to sink in.
I think this has been dawning on me gradually, especially when issues come up like marriage, relationships, children, career, grad school, etc. My reaction lately has not been, “Oh my gosh, I have no idea!” It’s been this strange disinterested confidence, knowing that when those decisions come, I am fully equipped to experience them in the hand of Christ. Do you know what I mean?
I feel compelled to defend the way I have been brought up and all those points which are usually raised in response to these kinds of musings: “God helps those who help themselves,” “How can God work in you if you don’t prepare the field for harvest?” etc etc. But none of my most recent revelation negates those things. Yes, I strive for excellence, as any one who knows me is more than aware. But how many times has that striving blinded me to the movements of God, crowded out the whisper of the Holy Spirit? How little I have valued silence, all these years.
I feel now that spiritual retreats are such an essential part of growth, and confidence in Christ. I have always known the wisdom in seeking out guidance from other, older Christians and friends, of making your decisions not in isolation, but in community. Yet, I have never felt the intense calm brought on by silence before the Lord. I’ve read, “When you come into the presence of a King, do you jabber or wait in stunned silence?” And I’ve said, well of course- everyone knows you can’t just talk in prayer, you have to listen, too. But I have experienced the rewards of “waiting upon the Lord” to an amazing degree here. God’s so good. : )
Oh, this is not even the beginning of what God is showing me… Just silly things like having to teach that class, or being away from engineering for a semester, or reading all these deeply theological books, have really affected where I find my identity. I had this mental image of my soul, my essence, being a glowing coal, an orb, at the center of my being. All these other things like my major, my “vocation”, my family issues, my hobbies, my pursuits, my friends, were pieces of rock or wood stuck to the sides of the glowing ember, built up around it in a sphere. This semester God is pulling those things off, not to devalue them, but to reveal my soul, my center, as the most important, the only reality of who I am –held in the hand of Christ. “if God is for us, who can be against us?” How can I make decisions outside of my faith? Who I am if not defined by Christ?
This seems so heavy and so… ambitious, but how I really feel! I have that rational impulse to label this as a “Mountaintop moment,” but I also believe this is a paradigm shift in my identity, in how I move forward in life. You know what it is? It’s that these kinds of words, these declarations, come from “spiritual heroes,” not from people like me. But Compassion is showing me how there really is no dichotomy or gradations of spirituality- those are imposed by us and our fallen nature. God is teaching me to value my identity in Him as the greatest of gifts, not somehow fallen short because I don’t have a passion for missions or preaching. I think that allowing ourselves to separate from the “spiritually great” is just an excuse for mediocrity. Saying, “oh, I just feel called to minister in my office by being a Christian, or by going to church –I’m no missionary.” Is something I’ve fallen prey to my whole life. I still have no idea how to be truly passionate, truly living transparently for God in an “ordinary” setting, but I think that’s what makes it such a challenge, such a noble pursuit, in chasing that elusive road to the heights of living like Christ.
--Emmes
Friday 6 March 2009
10 days in the bush, 20-2-09 to 1-3-09
Rural homestay = lots of relaxing, very slow pace of life.
Stayed with mama Constance, whose husband passed away in 2006 and whose only son is at Makerere University. So it was just Joy, myself, and her, which was awesome and so peaceful. Mama just wanted to take care of us, but in a very gentle way that is not typical of most of the “mamas” we’ve met here. She made us our favorite foods (rice, beans, chicken, goat, cabbage, and irish potatoes), and let us help her cook and keep the fire going. We also washed dishes and fetched water, shelled groundnuts, and gardened (a bit). But our lifestyle was so relaxed, especially compared to some of our friends that worked so hard.
We spent a lot of time just sitting in these little wooden chairs, “watching the road.” Sometimes we would talk, especially about Mama’s story –how she got engaged, about her family, about Ugandan customs and iTeso ways (iTeso was the ethnic group in Soroti). Most of the time, though, we’d just be quiet, which was so refreshing. I got to think about so many things, seriously God brought things up from years into my past and just, talked to me about them. I developed such a sense of peace and much more of an ability to just be quiet, and to be alone with God. It’s helped my time here in a lot of ways, particularly with interacting with other USP students and really prizing the quiet time I get to spend with my Father. Such a blessing.
There’s much more to write, but it was such a huge experience I can’t hope to commit it to paper. I am going to post pictures, and I look forward to sharing more about how my rural homestay affected me when I get home.
After 6 days with Mama Constance, we went to Sipi Falls. It was a much less posh resort than at Jinja –I actually found myself really homesick for Mama Constance and our comfortable little grass hut. But the real point in us being at Sipi was to go hiking! The hotel/hostel thing was perched on the side of these sweeping mountains, that were more like cliffs. Our cliff swept down the mountain to this valley that the falls dumped into, and then raced up the other side. Our hike was to go all the way to the bottom of the falls and then back up to their source. When we got back and looked where we had gone –I could not believe it. One of the best parts was Sunday morning, when we had worship at 7:30am on the highest hill in the area. The hike up there was pretty intense, but the view was completely amazing. I didn’t even take a picture because to downsize the effect would’ve been so paltry. We sang, “Behold he comes, riding on a cloud, shining like the sun, at the trumpet call!” and it was so moving! You looked out over the cliffs and into the fields that went on forever and they just faded into the cloud line. I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed by the thought that if Jesus came, that moment, riding on a cloud, we would be the first ones to see Him! I could just feel the possibility of something great sweeping towards us out of the vast horizon. So crazy.
Now that we’re back at school, things are very much normal again. We’re halfway through the semester and the staff keeps encouraging us to stay present and not let our time slip away. I already feel like this week has flown by, which is always the case with school weeks. This weekend we’re going to Kampala to meet Ashley’s sister who is in the peace corps here for the next two years, and next weekend we’re going white water rafting on the Nile! Pretty much when we don’t have trips, our time is bookmarked by weekends. Classes are just mundane, and the workload is light, thank goodness.
We’re having a few struggles with the culture still, mainly learning how to deal with our Ugandan friends feeling comfortable asking us for money, but it not being appropriate to give them any. That’s hard, especially when it’s something as trivial as $15 to a girl who has done so much for us. However, it only perpetuates a stigma of separation between Americans and Ugandans in a way that is actually detrimental to our relationship and the prospects of any future USP students. It’s hard to think that long-term when you know you have the money in your back pocket, and they know it too. Pray for those kinds of difficulties, if you have a spare moment.
We are still learning a ton, especially in our Faith & Action class –about poverty, simple living, development, and politics. We’re currently reading Compassion, by Henri Nouwen, which is a great read. Not quite as challenging as John Taylor, but more readable. A lot of the students are really enjoying it, including me. I have a few papers and short things to write, and I’m looking forward to working with an on-campus drama group to choreograph a ballet piece for their spring performance. Nothing fancy, just expressive and worshipful.
--Emmes
Stayed with mama Constance, whose husband passed away in 2006 and whose only son is at Makerere University. So it was just Joy, myself, and her, which was awesome and so peaceful. Mama just wanted to take care of us, but in a very gentle way that is not typical of most of the “mamas” we’ve met here. She made us our favorite foods (rice, beans, chicken, goat, cabbage, and irish potatoes), and let us help her cook and keep the fire going. We also washed dishes and fetched water, shelled groundnuts, and gardened (a bit). But our lifestyle was so relaxed, especially compared to some of our friends that worked so hard.
We spent a lot of time just sitting in these little wooden chairs, “watching the road.” Sometimes we would talk, especially about Mama’s story –how she got engaged, about her family, about Ugandan customs and iTeso ways (iTeso was the ethnic group in Soroti). Most of the time, though, we’d just be quiet, which was so refreshing. I got to think about so many things, seriously God brought things up from years into my past and just, talked to me about them. I developed such a sense of peace and much more of an ability to just be quiet, and to be alone with God. It’s helped my time here in a lot of ways, particularly with interacting with other USP students and really prizing the quiet time I get to spend with my Father. Such a blessing.
There’s much more to write, but it was such a huge experience I can’t hope to commit it to paper. I am going to post pictures, and I look forward to sharing more about how my rural homestay affected me when I get home.
After 6 days with Mama Constance, we went to Sipi Falls. It was a much less posh resort than at Jinja –I actually found myself really homesick for Mama Constance and our comfortable little grass hut. But the real point in us being at Sipi was to go hiking! The hotel/hostel thing was perched on the side of these sweeping mountains, that were more like cliffs. Our cliff swept down the mountain to this valley that the falls dumped into, and then raced up the other side. Our hike was to go all the way to the bottom of the falls and then back up to their source. When we got back and looked where we had gone –I could not believe it. One of the best parts was Sunday morning, when we had worship at 7:30am on the highest hill in the area. The hike up there was pretty intense, but the view was completely amazing. I didn’t even take a picture because to downsize the effect would’ve been so paltry. We sang, “Behold he comes, riding on a cloud, shining like the sun, at the trumpet call!” and it was so moving! You looked out over the cliffs and into the fields that went on forever and they just faded into the cloud line. I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed by the thought that if Jesus came, that moment, riding on a cloud, we would be the first ones to see Him! I could just feel the possibility of something great sweeping towards us out of the vast horizon. So crazy.
Now that we’re back at school, things are very much normal again. We’re halfway through the semester and the staff keeps encouraging us to stay present and not let our time slip away. I already feel like this week has flown by, which is always the case with school weeks. This weekend we’re going to Kampala to meet Ashley’s sister who is in the peace corps here for the next two years, and next weekend we’re going white water rafting on the Nile! Pretty much when we don’t have trips, our time is bookmarked by weekends. Classes are just mundane, and the workload is light, thank goodness.
We’re having a few struggles with the culture still, mainly learning how to deal with our Ugandan friends feeling comfortable asking us for money, but it not being appropriate to give them any. That’s hard, especially when it’s something as trivial as $15 to a girl who has done so much for us. However, it only perpetuates a stigma of separation between Americans and Ugandans in a way that is actually detrimental to our relationship and the prospects of any future USP students. It’s hard to think that long-term when you know you have the money in your back pocket, and they know it too. Pray for those kinds of difficulties, if you have a spare moment.
We are still learning a ton, especially in our Faith & Action class –about poverty, simple living, development, and politics. We’re currently reading Compassion, by Henri Nouwen, which is a great read. Not quite as challenging as John Taylor, but more readable. A lot of the students are really enjoying it, including me. I have a few papers and short things to write, and I’m looking forward to working with an on-campus drama group to choreograph a ballet piece for their spring performance. Nothing fancy, just expressive and worshipful.
--Emmes
Sunday 1 March 2009
Return to UCU campus, 1-3-09
I wanted you all to know that Emily safely returned back to campus today (Sunday) with the rest of the USP students. From talking with her, it sounds that she had a wonderful time at her rural home-stay and God really blessed this experience, which is truly an answer to prayer. She will hopefully be able to post something soon, though tomorrow she is serving at the local Orphanage through a school program so she may not be able to put up a new blog entry till Tuesday.
--Andrew
--Andrew
Thursday 19 February 2009
Rural Home Stay, 19-2-09
Emily starts her rural home stay this Friday. She will be away from the college till March 1st. From February 20th to the 27th she will be staying with a local family out in the bush near Soroti. Then Sunday night (the 27th) she will travel with the USP students to some Falls [I think it was CP falls] and camp till Sunday, when they will return to campus.
This entire time Emily will be without technology whatsoever, no internet, phone, etc.
This is a very exciting experience that Emily is able to have, though it will be trying at times I am sure. We ask that you would continue to keep her in your prayers, that she would connect with God in a whole new way and grow even more into the Woman that God desires. This will be an anxious time for all of us, whom are used to being in some form of contact with her. But I pray that God would allow her family and friends to also grow closer to God as we trust Him to guide and protect Emily.
"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." -- 2 Timothy 1:7 [KJV]
"Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."-- 1 peter 5:7 [NIV]
--Andrew
This entire time Emily will be without technology whatsoever, no internet, phone, etc.
This is a very exciting experience that Emily is able to have, though it will be trying at times I am sure. We ask that you would continue to keep her in your prayers, that she would connect with God in a whole new way and grow even more into the Woman that God desires. This will be an anxious time for all of us, whom are used to being in some form of contact with her. But I pray that God would allow her family and friends to also grow closer to God as we trust Him to guide and protect Emily.
"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." -- 2 Timothy 1:7 [KJV]
"Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."-- 1 peter 5:7 [NIV]
--Andrew
Thursday 12 February 2009
Walk back to homestay after school, 28-7-09
A blog about my walk home from school:
Our walk to our homestay from UCU each evening was a beautiful adventure.
We left campus usually around 6pm, but I want to tell you about one particular walk that was just the epitome of a Mukono Town experience.
It was a Wednesday, I think, the 2nd to last walk of our homestay experience, since we were leaving on Friday. It was a little after six, and unfortunately Christine and I were both really hungry, having suffered through a particularly fishy lunchtime experience. Days like this one were never designed for success, because the period between lunch and dinner seemed to stretch interminably. One could justify “grabbing” a snack on the way home because we knew dinner wouldn’t be until after 9 at night. However, such rationalization conveniently failed to include the fact that we would also be served evening tea at about 7:30 or 8, which was usually a fairly large pastry or pile of the local nuts. But anyways, this particular night we persuaded ourselves that tea would probably be small and dinner late, so we had better help our hungry tummies out while we still could.
So we went out the Old Gate at UCU on purpose, to pass by the Rolex stand. I can’t believe I haven’t described these before, because we probably eat three a week, but they are an amazing piece of street food. Basically the guys operating the stand have piles of chapatti (that is finally the right spelling), fairly hot off of their tiny charcoal griddles. The griddles are flat, round pieces of metal that slope towards the center with hot charcoal underneath. When you say, “One Rolex, please,” the Rolex-makers crack two eggs and chop some onion, tomato, and cabbage all into a plastic mug. They then make a sort of un-folded omelet on the charcoal griddle and when it is cooked through, throw a chapatti on top. The whole pancake is then flopped off onto some newspaper, rolled like a jelly roll, and popped into a small paper bag or tucked into a scrap of paper. Hm this is making me hungry.
Ok so the point being, Christine ordered a Rolex, but I was trying to hold out. Not for any righteous motive such as “Saving room for dinner,” but because of a higher street food purpose.
It was my intention, upon this night, to purchase: meat on a stick.
Unfortunately, but predictably, I got too hungry watching Christine’s Rolex being made and bought two sumbusas (pastry triangles with a yellow-pea paste in them, much better than they sound) from the stand next door. They were awesome, and renewed my determination to make it to the meat stand without getting over-full, let alone have room for dinner. So since we had gone out the old Gate, we had to walk for about 15 minutes down the main road from campus to town, with cars whizzing by and boda bodas (motorcyclists with passengers) competing with us for “sidewalk” space. However, it really wasn’t that bad, the only dicey moments were when a particularly stubborn Ugandan (there’s no such thing as courteously walking off to the side, to let someone else pass, here, it’s always a competition!) would inadvertently force us to tight rope walk the edge of the drainage ditch. But by this point we were used to all this and could bully along with the best of them.
Actually getting into Mukono town was always fun, but always overwhelming. At 6:30-7pm the big tractor trailers are out in full force, filling the air with diesel fumes. I used to be pretty intimidated by how close cars will come to you, without a second thought, but now it just seems normal, once you understand how little road space there is to be had. Pedestrians can jump, for goodness sake! What car could do that? Naturally, those who can jump the most nimbly must give way first. There’s also dust in the air, the smell of the guy walking in front of you wafting back, the occasional hot breeze, and the tantalizing scent of street food.
Oh and let’s not forget the boda boda men and Matatu (taxi) drivers. Every boda boda man (the name for the motorcycle drivers, insane, the lot of them) is convinced that you are a damsel in distress and he is your knight in shining armor, mounted upon a glorious steed, ready to carry you off to wherever you wish for a fairly reasonable fee. The worst part is, they are convinced that you are also laboring under this delusion. Thus, winsome smiles, friendly hands, courteous addresses usually to the tune of, “AYE MZUNGU! YOU COME WITH ME! I TAKE YOU THERE!” are without cessation thrown your way. It takes some getting used to, believe me. They really don’t mean anything by it, though, just looking for any new customer. Plus, unbelievably, they are a completely acceptable mode of transportation here (not for USP, though, of course). I personally will never trust them because of the UCU student I went to shake hands with, only to find his right hand looked like a cantaloupe with little nub fingers, due to a nonchalantly expressed, “boda boda accident.” Yeah…
The taxi drivers just go, “Kampala Kampala Kampala Kampala Kampala?” But they have enough people looking to catch a ride to pretty much leave us alone. We did learn not to walk between the taxi stand and the taxis, though. Large crowds are never a real comfortable idea, especially not when you are between them and their object.
About 5 or 10 minutes after getting into Mukono, if we went the long way to get Rolexes, we would pass by our host father’s work. He’d greet us, ask, “How has been your day?” (the grammar is on purpose, and this particular syntax is the only thing most older Ugandans understand) and ask us if we would like to buy milk for tea. We’d say yes, of course, and then he’d promise that if we successfully made the tea, he’d sing us a song upon his arrival at home. Enough motivation for me –I’ve yet to hear an African who couldn’t carry a tune. We would take the milk money (haha… oh elementary school) and go a bit further down the street to probably the only guy in town who owns a refrigerator (except for the restaurants and supermarkets). He kept a big bucket/vat/tub of milk in this fridge (one of the ones that opens from the top), ready to ladle out. He got to know us after a few days and it was nice to have him greet us with a smile and an, “Olyotya?” (how are you?). Our father would usually have given us the all-too-frequent black plastic bag (they’re all over the ground here), and the milk man would ladle our two litres into a clear plastic bag which he would carefully place in the black plastic bag. If you’re starting to think there’s a lot of plastic bags here, there are. On the plus side, they’re reused like a million times. But when they are thrown away, they’re burned, which is awful for the air quality and the environment. Then again, they burn all their trash, and have probably not a single landfill, though I don’t really know.
Carrying our milk, we would proceed to complete the first of two street crossings. These were seriously harrowing affairs, though more to my mind than Christine’s. Every time I said a prayer, convinced that I might as well be ready for the inevitable. But every time we made it without a scratch, the only close calls being when those stinkin boda bodas snuck out from behind a semi. But really, it’s not that big a deal, we’re just very careful. As I said in my other note, things became easier once we learned you can totally stop in the middle of the road, sometimes it’s actually safer than the curbs. Nobody wants a head-on collision, go figure, so they leave the center alone. My strategy was usually to stalk a Ugandan for a little while who looked like he/she wanted to cross, then follow them from a bit downstream. Then you were guaranteed a fairly wise timing.
After the milk, on this night our next goal was the meat-on-a-stick stands. This was just something I had to do, having walked past the tantalizing smell of just-butchered, grilling meat so many times. The meat here may be tough, but it’s certainly fresh and I have yet to have any unpleasant side effects. I know, Mom, I know, but that’s not gonna stop me. So we approached the long-admired stands of chicken, beef, and some other unidentifiable varieties laid out in steaming rows on newspaper. I asked about the prices (really stupid move, but sometimes you can’t help it) and decided to cough up the 700 shillings (about 30 cents) for some chicken. Much to my dismay, the guy made me remove the stick from my piece of chicken! That seriously was like the whole point, to eat this chicken right off the stick. But I had a big enough challenge as it was, with the bones and ligaments and whatnot. I think it was probably a thigh/breast type piece, but honestly I don’t really remember. It was really good, though, much better than our dining hall chicken. The best part was the outside, all crispy and charcoal grilled. However, probably not a do-again, because I can buy a Rolex for the same amount and those are more filling.
So at this point we’re still carrying the milk and fending off the boda boda men (which means pointedly ignoring them), about two-thirds of the way home. We crossed the street for the second time, but this section was usually quieter and thus less intimidating. Once we got to the other side, we had a difficult decision. Walk in the street, boda bodas and cars whizzing by too close for comfort, always looking over our shoulders, or walk up by the stores, feeling all the while like we were walking through someone’s front yard. We usually (this night included) chose to walk up by the stores, because it was quieter. However, there were always little kids playing and women cooking and men moving around rebar or bunk beds (both very common items to be just laying by the street) that we had to pick our way through. It felt intrusive, but that’s pretty African in itself. On this night (the night of being so full, though that may not be as poignant throughout this account as it should be), for the second time we heard a man behind us, speaking Luganda. Again with the, “aye, mzungu, olyotya? Mzungu? I am your friend, how are you?” We always ignored this, but we were getting worried because he wasn’t going away, like usual. But then all of a sudden we heard with an American accent, “Jeez guys, turn around!” And it had been our USP friend Jeff, the whole time! He was walking home the same way and doing a really good Ugandan man impression. He felt bad, though, when he heard that that had actually happened to us for real before.
Jeff got to accompany us on the best part of our walk –Sumbusas! There’s this one stand on our walk home that makes really big, bean-filled sumbusas (there’s meat, pea, and bean varieties) for 200 shillings each (about a dime). Our father buys them for us for tea, sometimes, but they’re not his favorite. He said he likes something that “occupies his mouth” for longer (aka takes longer to eat, like tiny little sim sim seeds). So this night, it being one of our last, we decided to get them for ourselves in case our father didn’t pick them up on his way home. They’re so awesome, how could we not? So we did, and ate them while walking with Jeff, who had a chapatti. Actually, eating while walking is really taboo here, because is shows a lack of respect for food. Drinking or eating in class is also a faux pas, for the same reason. But at that point we didn’t really care, so we chewed happily while talking to Jeff about his family.
You have to keep in mind that at this point I had had two pea sumbusas, chicken off a stick, and a large bean sumbusa. Definitely not set for success when it came to dinner that night. We finished our walk home in peace, with the remaining 15 minutes or so being in our “village” and off the main Mukono road. The best part was at the end, when our little friends from the village would run out to grab our hands, try to carry our bags for us, and clamor loudly, “How are you?” If we by any chance tried to say, “Hello,” first, it was almost always responded to with, “Fine!” As if there was only one acceptable line of greeting and the proper answer would be given whether we behaved correctly or not.
Despite the massive quantities of street food, at dinner I ate like a champ. I believe our father did, in fact, bring home sumbusas and we enjoyed them with tea of my making. Father sang a “thank you Emily, thank you Christine” song to the tune of “Happy Birthday,” a classic. Then about an hour and a half later, we had smoked fish, matoke, and rice. Somehow I was just still really hungry, and ate a respectable portion of everything. And that is no laughing matter. Here, a respectable portion is about 5 lbs. No kidding. And to eat anything less (as unfortunately Christine usually did, not her fault) was a crime of the most insupportable nature. Our poor Mama would be convinced we were sick and our father would rack his brain for menu options that would be more suitable for us. Needless to say, the people pleaser in me made me eat way more than I wanted or needed every night. I was getting pretty good at shoving it down, though, until we came back to eating dining hall food all the time. It’s just not the same.
Anyways, that was our walk home, an incredible cross cultural experience, the vividness of which I don’t ever want to forget!
--Emmes
Our walk to our homestay from UCU each evening was a beautiful adventure.
We left campus usually around 6pm, but I want to tell you about one particular walk that was just the epitome of a Mukono Town experience.
It was a Wednesday, I think, the 2nd to last walk of our homestay experience, since we were leaving on Friday. It was a little after six, and unfortunately Christine and I were both really hungry, having suffered through a particularly fishy lunchtime experience. Days like this one were never designed for success, because the period between lunch and dinner seemed to stretch interminably. One could justify “grabbing” a snack on the way home because we knew dinner wouldn’t be until after 9 at night. However, such rationalization conveniently failed to include the fact that we would also be served evening tea at about 7:30 or 8, which was usually a fairly large pastry or pile of the local nuts. But anyways, this particular night we persuaded ourselves that tea would probably be small and dinner late, so we had better help our hungry tummies out while we still could.
So we went out the Old Gate at UCU on purpose, to pass by the Rolex stand. I can’t believe I haven’t described these before, because we probably eat three a week, but they are an amazing piece of street food. Basically the guys operating the stand have piles of chapatti (that is finally the right spelling), fairly hot off of their tiny charcoal griddles. The griddles are flat, round pieces of metal that slope towards the center with hot charcoal underneath. When you say, “One Rolex, please,” the Rolex-makers crack two eggs and chop some onion, tomato, and cabbage all into a plastic mug. They then make a sort of un-folded omelet on the charcoal griddle and when it is cooked through, throw a chapatti on top. The whole pancake is then flopped off onto some newspaper, rolled like a jelly roll, and popped into a small paper bag or tucked into a scrap of paper. Hm this is making me hungry.
Ok so the point being, Christine ordered a Rolex, but I was trying to hold out. Not for any righteous motive such as “Saving room for dinner,” but because of a higher street food purpose.
It was my intention, upon this night, to purchase: meat on a stick.
Unfortunately, but predictably, I got too hungry watching Christine’s Rolex being made and bought two sumbusas (pastry triangles with a yellow-pea paste in them, much better than they sound) from the stand next door. They were awesome, and renewed my determination to make it to the meat stand without getting over-full, let alone have room for dinner. So since we had gone out the old Gate, we had to walk for about 15 minutes down the main road from campus to town, with cars whizzing by and boda bodas (motorcyclists with passengers) competing with us for “sidewalk” space. However, it really wasn’t that bad, the only dicey moments were when a particularly stubborn Ugandan (there’s no such thing as courteously walking off to the side, to let someone else pass, here, it’s always a competition!) would inadvertently force us to tight rope walk the edge of the drainage ditch. But by this point we were used to all this and could bully along with the best of them.
Actually getting into Mukono town was always fun, but always overwhelming. At 6:30-7pm the big tractor trailers are out in full force, filling the air with diesel fumes. I used to be pretty intimidated by how close cars will come to you, without a second thought, but now it just seems normal, once you understand how little road space there is to be had. Pedestrians can jump, for goodness sake! What car could do that? Naturally, those who can jump the most nimbly must give way first. There’s also dust in the air, the smell of the guy walking in front of you wafting back, the occasional hot breeze, and the tantalizing scent of street food.
Oh and let’s not forget the boda boda men and Matatu (taxi) drivers. Every boda boda man (the name for the motorcycle drivers, insane, the lot of them) is convinced that you are a damsel in distress and he is your knight in shining armor, mounted upon a glorious steed, ready to carry you off to wherever you wish for a fairly reasonable fee. The worst part is, they are convinced that you are also laboring under this delusion. Thus, winsome smiles, friendly hands, courteous addresses usually to the tune of, “AYE MZUNGU! YOU COME WITH ME! I TAKE YOU THERE!” are without cessation thrown your way. It takes some getting used to, believe me. They really don’t mean anything by it, though, just looking for any new customer. Plus, unbelievably, they are a completely acceptable mode of transportation here (not for USP, though, of course). I personally will never trust them because of the UCU student I went to shake hands with, only to find his right hand looked like a cantaloupe with little nub fingers, due to a nonchalantly expressed, “boda boda accident.” Yeah…
The taxi drivers just go, “Kampala Kampala Kampala Kampala Kampala?” But they have enough people looking to catch a ride to pretty much leave us alone. We did learn not to walk between the taxi stand and the taxis, though. Large crowds are never a real comfortable idea, especially not when you are between them and their object.
About 5 or 10 minutes after getting into Mukono, if we went the long way to get Rolexes, we would pass by our host father’s work. He’d greet us, ask, “How has been your day?” (the grammar is on purpose, and this particular syntax is the only thing most older Ugandans understand) and ask us if we would like to buy milk for tea. We’d say yes, of course, and then he’d promise that if we successfully made the tea, he’d sing us a song upon his arrival at home. Enough motivation for me –I’ve yet to hear an African who couldn’t carry a tune. We would take the milk money (haha… oh elementary school) and go a bit further down the street to probably the only guy in town who owns a refrigerator (except for the restaurants and supermarkets). He kept a big bucket/vat/tub of milk in this fridge (one of the ones that opens from the top), ready to ladle out. He got to know us after a few days and it was nice to have him greet us with a smile and an, “Olyotya?” (how are you?). Our father would usually have given us the all-too-frequent black plastic bag (they’re all over the ground here), and the milk man would ladle our two litres into a clear plastic bag which he would carefully place in the black plastic bag. If you’re starting to think there’s a lot of plastic bags here, there are. On the plus side, they’re reused like a million times. But when they are thrown away, they’re burned, which is awful for the air quality and the environment. Then again, they burn all their trash, and have probably not a single landfill, though I don’t really know.
Carrying our milk, we would proceed to complete the first of two street crossings. These were seriously harrowing affairs, though more to my mind than Christine’s. Every time I said a prayer, convinced that I might as well be ready for the inevitable. But every time we made it without a scratch, the only close calls being when those stinkin boda bodas snuck out from behind a semi. But really, it’s not that big a deal, we’re just very careful. As I said in my other note, things became easier once we learned you can totally stop in the middle of the road, sometimes it’s actually safer than the curbs. Nobody wants a head-on collision, go figure, so they leave the center alone. My strategy was usually to stalk a Ugandan for a little while who looked like he/she wanted to cross, then follow them from a bit downstream. Then you were guaranteed a fairly wise timing.
After the milk, on this night our next goal was the meat-on-a-stick stands. This was just something I had to do, having walked past the tantalizing smell of just-butchered, grilling meat so many times. The meat here may be tough, but it’s certainly fresh and I have yet to have any unpleasant side effects. I know, Mom, I know, but that’s not gonna stop me. So we approached the long-admired stands of chicken, beef, and some other unidentifiable varieties laid out in steaming rows on newspaper. I asked about the prices (really stupid move, but sometimes you can’t help it) and decided to cough up the 700 shillings (about 30 cents) for some chicken. Much to my dismay, the guy made me remove the stick from my piece of chicken! That seriously was like the whole point, to eat this chicken right off the stick. But I had a big enough challenge as it was, with the bones and ligaments and whatnot. I think it was probably a thigh/breast type piece, but honestly I don’t really remember. It was really good, though, much better than our dining hall chicken. The best part was the outside, all crispy and charcoal grilled. However, probably not a do-again, because I can buy a Rolex for the same amount and those are more filling.
So at this point we’re still carrying the milk and fending off the boda boda men (which means pointedly ignoring them), about two-thirds of the way home. We crossed the street for the second time, but this section was usually quieter and thus less intimidating. Once we got to the other side, we had a difficult decision. Walk in the street, boda bodas and cars whizzing by too close for comfort, always looking over our shoulders, or walk up by the stores, feeling all the while like we were walking through someone’s front yard. We usually (this night included) chose to walk up by the stores, because it was quieter. However, there were always little kids playing and women cooking and men moving around rebar or bunk beds (both very common items to be just laying by the street) that we had to pick our way through. It felt intrusive, but that’s pretty African in itself. On this night (the night of being so full, though that may not be as poignant throughout this account as it should be), for the second time we heard a man behind us, speaking Luganda. Again with the, “aye, mzungu, olyotya? Mzungu? I am your friend, how are you?” We always ignored this, but we were getting worried because he wasn’t going away, like usual. But then all of a sudden we heard with an American accent, “Jeez guys, turn around!” And it had been our USP friend Jeff, the whole time! He was walking home the same way and doing a really good Ugandan man impression. He felt bad, though, when he heard that that had actually happened to us for real before.
Jeff got to accompany us on the best part of our walk –Sumbusas! There’s this one stand on our walk home that makes really big, bean-filled sumbusas (there’s meat, pea, and bean varieties) for 200 shillings each (about a dime). Our father buys them for us for tea, sometimes, but they’re not his favorite. He said he likes something that “occupies his mouth” for longer (aka takes longer to eat, like tiny little sim sim seeds). So this night, it being one of our last, we decided to get them for ourselves in case our father didn’t pick them up on his way home. They’re so awesome, how could we not? So we did, and ate them while walking with Jeff, who had a chapatti. Actually, eating while walking is really taboo here, because is shows a lack of respect for food. Drinking or eating in class is also a faux pas, for the same reason. But at that point we didn’t really care, so we chewed happily while talking to Jeff about his family.
You have to keep in mind that at this point I had had two pea sumbusas, chicken off a stick, and a large bean sumbusa. Definitely not set for success when it came to dinner that night. We finished our walk home in peace, with the remaining 15 minutes or so being in our “village” and off the main Mukono road. The best part was at the end, when our little friends from the village would run out to grab our hands, try to carry our bags for us, and clamor loudly, “How are you?” If we by any chance tried to say, “Hello,” first, it was almost always responded to with, “Fine!” As if there was only one acceptable line of greeting and the proper answer would be given whether we behaved correctly or not.
Despite the massive quantities of street food, at dinner I ate like a champ. I believe our father did, in fact, bring home sumbusas and we enjoyed them with tea of my making. Father sang a “thank you Emily, thank you Christine” song to the tune of “Happy Birthday,” a classic. Then about an hour and a half later, we had smoked fish, matoke, and rice. Somehow I was just still really hungry, and ate a respectable portion of everything. And that is no laughing matter. Here, a respectable portion is about 5 lbs. No kidding. And to eat anything less (as unfortunately Christine usually did, not her fault) was a crime of the most insupportable nature. Our poor Mama would be convinced we were sick and our father would rack his brain for menu options that would be more suitable for us. Needless to say, the people pleaser in me made me eat way more than I wanted or needed every night. I was getting pretty good at shoving it down, though, until we came back to eating dining hall food all the time. It’s just not the same.
Anyways, that was our walk home, an incredible cross cultural experience, the vividness of which I don’t ever want to forget!
--Emmes
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