Dolphin in a Desert

Looks pretty ridiculous, doesn't it?  My crazy little house brother Jack comes up with these hilarious Australian analogies all the time.  His latest, a dolphin in the desert, basically means how at times we feel out of place, foreign, or long for the familiarity of our home countries.  Everyday has at least one dolphin in the desert moment whether it is good or bad.

I never realized how much I thoroughly enjoy and crave introvert hikes out in the wilderness or a lone sit on the beach.  Some of my best conversations with God have been on a walk around Thetis Lake or a run up Mount Doug.  I am missing my independence to walk freely and alone.  Last Monday, I lay on a picnic blanket out in my yard, cranked the Elizabethtown soundtrack and pretended I was at Willows Beach feeling the salty ocean spray on my face and sand between my toes.  As pathetic as I may sound, I really needed that hour.

On Tuesday, my team headed out to a prison for ministry.  The prison we were at is a small jail yard where men and women who committed petty crimes reside.  In Uganda, it is common for people to be guilty until proven innocent rather than the opposite, so some of the prisoners there were wrongly accused and innocent.  Our team split apart into two groups, one to the men’s side and one to the women’s side to share a word on discouragement, sing some songs, and pray with the prisoners.  I went to the women’s side, where I met a group of twenty women sitting on a blanket in the grass.  It was challenging for me as the lesson was spoken in Luganda.  Despite the challenge, the one on one prayer time with the women was so worth it.  Holding the hands of these prisoners, I asked God for favor and justice in the lives of these women.  They have as much dignity and worth as the next person.

Our classes are on the second floor of the Watoto Central Church building and on our breaks, we sometimes look out off the balcony to the busy streets of Kampala.  On Wednesday, a few of us were out on the balcony and witnessed below, a man caught stealing something from a vehicle.  A man held tightly to this thief as other men gathered around the scene, cussing and a few punching the thief.  Eventually a police officer dawdled over to arrest the man and take him off on a boda boda.  After the whole episode, my friend Ritah turns to me and says “Thank God that police officer was there.  The mob would have killed him.”  They would have taken the law into their own hands and would have beaten the thief to death.  I talked to Mamma Shirley about this after and she explained to me that it is almost normal and what is expected.  I can’t even find the right words to describe how repulsive and corrupted that idea of that behavior being normal is.  Please pray for this “eye for an eye” mentality to completely cease to exist here in Uganda.

On Thursday, our team was assigned to visit two women from the Living Hope ministries at their homes.  Living Hope ministries empowers people living with HIV to provide for themselves and their families.  As we taxied and walked along the busy streets of Kampala, I felt an eruption of frustration and hurt by the stares and calls at me because of my race.  I truly am the Kermode bear of Uganda, a spotting of a white person is rare.  I understand the judgments and stereotypes that come along with people from the western world but it still hurts.  I am an ordinary person, not any different or have anything more special to me.   Please do not give me any special privilege, or target me because of my skin color.  As we were walking to one of our client’s homes, we passed a school for deaf children.  The students were out for recess and were smiling and making signs at us.  My friend Rosemary translated that the kids were saying “hello, how are you” to me the mzungu.  As precious as that moment was, I was hurt by the reality that those children probably wouldn’t have greeted my team of amazing individuals the same, if I wasn’t there.  

Even though I feel out of place at times, my Ugandan friends have been very supportive, whispering translations in my ear and getting to know me for my character.  Actually my friends have been way better than I could ever deserve.  I could honestly tell you the number of times a foreign exchange student came to Victoria and I didn’t give them the time of day or didn’t make much of an effort to make them feel comfortable or welcome.  That is one thing I will make a major improvement on when I get back to Canada as I now have some experience as a visible minority.  Another encouraging thing has been church ministry days.  Every Sunday, I have been helping out in the Children’s Church services with assistance in teaching the class, helping with the activities, and taking kids to the toilet. HA!  The children are actually getting to know and remember Auntie Emily… rather than the mzungu teacher.  I am really enjoying the kids in children’s church.

I will leave you with words from Callie’s mom, “For any of you struggling with culture issues… remember that '…all unity will one day be restored.' That's the beauty of heaven.”   In the meantime, we have to show God’s love the best that we can in this world.

Random notes that are completely irrelevant to the theme of this post:

+I have become a hairdresser (stifle your laughter please)…. Me of all people?!  I am currently working on making a single dreadlock in Natalie’s hair.  It’s a working progress…. 

 

-   I have noticed many funny faith-proclaiming names for local stores and things, such as God is Good Taxi, the Gracious Medical Center, and my personal favorite, Jesus Cares Pork Joint.

Peace and love

YOLO

Yolo defined as “you only live once” (for those old folks who may not know the term) has been our house motto over the past week.  I have been living in Africa for over a month now and let’s just say my limits have been tested and daily, I find myself out of my comfort zone in some shape or form.

We have now integrated fulltime ministry into our class schedule which means every Tuesday afternoon and all day Thursday, our groups rotate through various ministries.  This Thursday the Central team bussed to the south part of Kampala to Retrack, a transition home for street boys ages 6 to 17.  The boys live in Retrack for four to six months where they are given responsibilities in their assigned homes, go to school, and maintain their own personal gardens, in which the money they earn is theirs to keep when they finish at Retrack.  The boys are taught life skills and trained in how to make good choices and decisions independently from their families.  Under a large gazebo, we had the privilege of having the boys sing and dance for us.  We then taught the boys a lesson (mostly in Luganda), sang with them, and taught a memory verse.  Random side note: As I went to the washroom at Retrack, I was surprised by a lizard trapped in the sink!  As a token of their appreciation, the boys at Retrack thanked us with some sugarcane.   They hacked it into a bunch of foot length pieces as a treat for us on the way back to the church.  I was the source of entertainment for my friends Andrew, Sunday, and Lillian as I painfully attempted to rip off the outer layer of the sugar cane with my teeth.   The time it took me to eat one piece of sugar cane my friend Andrew ate two, (meanwhile my friend Emmanuel was secretly devouring eight).  

Another YOLO moment would have to be the whole Valentine’s Day experience in Africa.  My week started off with a surprise picnic for our house by Natalie, Jack and Thomas, complete with artistic watermelon, fancy dessert, awesome music (Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros!), everyone dressed up and a scavenger hunt around our yard.   It was a fun time for our little family to celebrate together.  My housemates are simply the BEST!  On Valentine’s Day, all of us girls were very taken aback by the very sweet surprise planned by our male classmates.  We also were informed by our course coordinators that our class had been asked to usher the church’s extravagant red carpet Valentine’s dinner and dance at this elegant hotel.  It was a mad rush as all of us girls had one afternoon to find black or red dresses and the guys to find shirts, ties, and pants for the event in the streets of Kampala.  The day of the dinner, we were given about 45 minutes to get ready at school before we headed over to the hotel.  Now you can only imagine thirty girls getting all dolled up in a conference room, cramming around mirrors, swapping make-up, ironing clothes, and doing each others’ hair in the space of 45 minutes.  Not an easy feat.  What a gong show but my oh my were we ever a good-looking class that night!  I was assigned the task of greeting people as they walked down the red carpet into the beautifully decorated room.  It was the fanciest thing I had ever been to with all the rose petals, live jazz music, lavish gowns, and elaborate decorations.  I have never celebrated Valentine’s Day to that extreme and probably never will experience it with the same excessiveness ever again. Not really my style...

And then there was dance class… Every Friday afternoon, our class is given dance lessons of various types of dance.  Many of my Ugandan friends were ecstatic for our dance lessons while the internationals were mostly dreading the day.  With the help and much patience of my friend Moses, I learned the style of dancehall, a genre of Jamaican pop music. Let’s just say I am forever grateful for my Zumba classes, and days of ballroom club.  SO OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE!!

I don’t even know where to begin or how this even came about but on Saturday night, Natalie had this idea that she wanted to pierce the top of her ear Parent Trap style.  Since apples are too expensive, we used frozen watermelon to numb her ear instead.   We googled how to properly sterilize and how to do piercings at home.   It was a family bonding moment for us all watching Thomas pierce Natalie’s and then Callie’s ears with a safety pin.  Those brave souls! 

So yes, there are many new experiences coming my way.  The best advice I could give to anyone when trying new things would be to be the loudest person laughing at yourself! 

Peace and love

Life as a Rollercoaster

This week has been up and down, full of joy and sorrow.  It makes you realize how precious life truly is and how quickly it can change with a snap of the fingers. 

Some of the many moments of the week:

This Tuesday, we celebrated Callie’s nineteenth birthday by bringing cake to class to share with all of our lovely classmates.   The tradition in Uganda is to dump water on someone on their birthday.  Naturally, I wanted to see this one happen and schemed with some of my Ugandan friends to swarm Callie.  (Ok, I am not that evil.  I knew ahead of time that Callie was expecting to get wet and was so prepared as to bring a change of clothes).  I contemplated doing the Canadian tradition of birthday bumps but decided against it.  Anyway, we had a sweet morning celebrating Callie’s birthday.

SNAP*

  

That Tuesday afternoon, each group went back to visit their family living in the slums.  We hadn’t been back to see our families for almost two weeks so we were all looking forward to spending more time with them.  Upon our arrival, we find out that the oldest daughter, who is thirteen years old, has been missing from their home for nearly two weeks.  The day after we last visited them, Finah went out around 10pm and has not been seen or heard from since then.  Finah took with her the books, school supplies, and sandals that we purchased for the family.  Her mother, Harriet, shared with us that she has no idea where Finah might be and that she contacted the police and searched everywhere.  She thinks that Finah was either taken to become a house girl for someone or might be in contact with someone who she met somewhere.  Finah is a beautiful 13 year old girl who loves math and science.  She is her mother’s right-hand girl as she looks after her younger sisters and runs to the store to purchase things for the family.  She was supposed to start Primary 7 right after she went missing. I was absolutely overwhelmed by it all as I realized I really do not know anything about this family.  I really do not know the entire situation in which Finah was in.  Did she escape something or now is she in a worse situation?  I can never truly understand the life of living in an African slum.  I will forever be foreign.  The best I could ever do is to love compassionately and share life with them the best I can.  It was a very hard and painful day for me but I am so thankful that out of all the possible families I could have adopted, this was the one that I was meant to spend time with.  I ask that you pray for Finah’s safety wherever she is right now.

SNAP*

On Thursday, our whole class changed into our grungy clothes, the internationals lathered on the sunscreen and we all bussed out to a farm to help with the harvest.  Watoto is working towards becoming self-sustainable and so this farm provides food for the Watoto villages.  We helped out harvesting pumpkins, tomatoes, and rice.  The media team shot clips of us working for the welcome message at church for next week.  By the end of the day, us internationals had nice dark tans… well actually… we were filthy dirty!  It was a fun day working alongside my classmates and getting to know them all better.  I thoroughly enjoyed getting out of the city away from the boda bodas, and busy streets of Kampala, into the serene and peaceful country.  (This is the small town kid talking here).  We finished off the day, under cover from the rainstorm eating rice, beans and chapati with our hands, with exhausted bodies from the long day. 

On Saturday, we headed to Bbira village for our weekly sports days with the children.  There is organized soccer, volleyball, and basketball for us all to get involved in and for the children from the village to partake in or watch.  I did play volleyball with some of my classmates and the teens in Bbira, however my top priority was to spend time with my sponsor child.  I walked over to his home and was kindly greeted by his whole family.  Polar showed me the new playground behind his home that was built by a team from Texas last week.  We played on the slides, and monkey bars with many of the other kids in that cluster.  (To give you a clear picture, the cluster that Polar lives in is heavily concentrated with young children.  The playground was spilling over with children!)   His shyness began to break as we took goofy pictures and joined a soccer game.  I LOVE that kid!  Once the sports day came to a close, I was invited to my awesome friends, Gloria and Lillian’s, home for lunch.  Lillian showed me how to make real passion fruit juice.  We then changed out of our sports clothes and into our church clothes for the evening service. 

SNAP*

One group made a pit stop at the hospital before going to church.  During the week, they found out that the woman in their slum family was taken to the hospital as she has been quite ill, malnourished, and is suffering from HIV and tuberculosis.  As we waited for the church service to begin, we were given the news that upon the team’s arrival to the hospital, they were rudely informed that this woman had passed away.  This lady faced many hardships in her life.  Even though it has been so painful for many of my classmates as they mourn over her loss, I am so thankful that this woman was cared for and loved in her final days by these incredible individuals.

Life is tough.  My hope is that the tough stuff that I see and experience will forever be real or in Hannah’s words, “raw and real”.  Never will be the day in which I get used to the daily sufferings around me.   A life lost is a life that shall be mourned over, and never ignored. 

SNAP*

Not Wrong, Just Different

The title of this blog comes from the letter my friend Jill Church wrote to me to read on the plane ride over to Uganda.  She basically reminded me that just because people in a different part of the world do things in a way that you are not used to, it is not wrong.  It seems to be this week's theme as I have experienced things are unusual or foreign to me while being here so far and with this week's classes on culture.  Here are a few cultural differences I have had to learn.

Public Restroom Etiquette:  So naturally wherever you go, there is ALWAYS a line up in the women’s washroom.  In Canada, we line up single-file and wait our turn for the few stalls.  Here in Uganda, I have come to realize that instead of making a line and waiting your turn for the next available stall, you must stand directly in front of the stall you will go to next.  The first time I encountered this, I was waiting in what I thought was a line and a woman cut in front of me.  I thought to myself how rude that was.  Then soon after that, another woman grabs the next stall, followed by the other.  I humbly came to the conclusion that they don't follow the same rules.

African Tea: One of our teachers this week shared with us her experience of when her husband, who is African, asked her to make him some tea (she is British).  When she served him tea from a kettle with boiled water, he was not impressed.  African tea is half water, half milk (or sometimes all milk) mixed together with tea.  It’s really good :)

Food:  There is something about food from your own culture that can be so tantalizingly comforting.  For my Ugandan friend Rosemary, her favorite dish is posho (a mashed type of corn meal with zero nutritional value) and beans.  Matoke, a mashed fried bland type of banana,  and rice are staple side dishes in Ugandan cuisine.  For my Australian friend Jack, he couldn’t wait to sink his teeth into a good ol’ western burger.  See some of the internationals devouring their burgers below.

Music:  For me personally, when I get even a remotely bit homesick, I have to listen to my music.  Artists that remind me of home include Mike Edel, Hey Rosetta!, Dan Mangan, and in desperate times, the Rankin Family or Great Big Sea.  Click on the artist names to hear some of my go-to songs.  

If you know me, then you know my eclectic taste in music and passion for folk music.  As far as international music that comes to Africa, it is mostly the top 40 pop music.  My taste in music is painfully foreign!  Yesterday, I was sharing music with two of my Ugandan friends.  I showed these guys Mumford and Sons’ The Cave and I kid you not, they laughed!  One expressed that “this slow country music, is what you would listen to at a funeral.”  THAT’S SOOOOOO WRONG, IT’S A CRIME…. Just kidding, again it’s not wrong, just different.  That genre of music with its banjo and driving folk beat is nowhere near the cultural music of Africa or the standard international pop music that is played here in Uganda.  I secretly think that one day they will learn to love Mumford and Sons.  I will make it my secret mission… 

Adopted behaviors/Phrases of Ugandans

1) “You look smart” : means that you are dressed well, fancy, or fashionable.

2) “Sorry”: So say I accidentally spill my glass everywhere or I trip over my feet.  The immediate response is for someone else to say “sorry”.  My impulse is to always say ‘Oh that’s okay, really’.  I’m getting used to that one.

3) “You are most welcome”:  You are not just greeted with a handshake and a ‘welcome’

4) Holding hands:  Everyone holds hands and by everyone, I mean everyone.  All ages, couples, friends, heterosexual guy and guy.  Sorry guys but I am bringing this one back to Canada!

5) Raising eyebrows: Instead of answering ‘yes’, all you need to do is raise both eyebrows

6) “Wow”:  response to pretty much anything…

7)  Auntie and Uncle:  Anyone who would be your elder, you call them your auntie or uncle.  I was chatting with some of the choir children and they were calling me Auntie Emily

Strange, awkward, or funny experiences aside, I love living in Uganda.  It has almost been a complete month since I set foot on the red dirt of Kampala.  The “honeymoon period” or “vacation mode” has come to a close and I feel quite at home here thanks to the help of all my amazing new friends.  Kingdom culture trumps all minor differences with the major similarity of wanting to follow Jesus with our entire hearts.

Peace and love