I apologize profusely for not updating my blog in a couple of weeks. It’s not that I haven’t been thinking of you. It’s just that so much has been going on, the shock of living in Uganda is wearing off and living here is becoming normal, and I have been personally reflecting on many things and well it’s personal and I don’t really want to post it on the internet. So bear with me while I try to bring you up to date.
Well, I have continued to deepen my friendships with the Ugandans and Americans alike. Through Christ I have been accepted and welcomed by the Christian community on campus. I am invited to different prayer meetings, which has been so exciting and revealing. I am slowly comprehending the vastness and diversity of the body of Christ. The five of us girls that live in Sabiti Hall, apart from the rest of the Americans, have really developed a strong sisterhood. We have adopted the African way of communal living and share everything: clothes, food, medicine, money, etc. everything short of deodorant, razors, and toothbrushes. We have never experienced this sense of communal living before and we are all buzzing with contentment in how freeing sharing is. We unanimously agree that it will be difficult to go back to living individually in the United States. I hope that I can continue living in this fashion.
I find myself quite busy with a pretty full class schedule, extra curricular activities, and socializing. School is relatively easy; there is just a lot of reading. All of my classes thematically overlap and I am gaining a better perspective on the African worldview. To be honest, I’m most occupied with socializing, which is something I’ve never really experienced before because I am usually always busy with schoolwork. I’m realizing how important relationships are and no matter how independent I might be it is always better to have friends around. My days are truly filled with laughter, smiles, memories, and new adventures. I prayed for just one really good friend but God has provided so many great friends; I feel truly blessed.
I have started my service project. I am serving at a blind school called Salama. A conversation with the headmaster was extremely eye-opening as he explained how marginalized blind children are. He said that if a parent of a blind child was asked how many kids they have, they would answer “I have four kids, and one blind child.” The blind children are not even considered children! I’m not exactly sure to what capacity I will be helping the school, but I am hoping to work with the children in their classes. One of the directors said that I could possibly teach a class, so we’ll see. (The girls and I serving at Salama might be fundraising for the school. There are in desperate need for funds. I will keep you posted.) On Fridays, we help with gardening. Last Friday, we started to clear the garden to begin planting. There was about ten of us clearing the land with a hoe. Within an hour, my precious middle-class American white hands blistered and oozed, meanwhile a 60-something year old man never took a break. Besides the children, I think the most memorable part of my time at Salama will be the journey there. It’s about at 40 minute drive. Ten minutes of the drive is on the paved road, the rest is a dirt road. To say the road is bumpy is an understatement; it is like a roller coaster. Though it is terrifying, there is something so exciting and adventurous about is. I now look forward to drive as it provokes reflection. Below is the list of things that I see on my way there and back:
Absent eyes.
Weathered faces.
Beaming smiles.
Attractive faces.
Braless women.
Naked children.
Bumpy roads.
Exotic beauty.
Breathtaking creation.
This past weekend I went to a wedding. We had quite an adventure getting to the wedding. First, we waited two hours for the driver. Second, we had to pack in 8 passengers into a 4 passenger car… you figure that one out. We ended up missing the ceremony, and we got lost on our way to the reception. However, the reception totally made our strenuous travels worth it. It was an elaborate reception with over 500 guests. There was a wide selection of food and beverages and everything tasted great. The couple getting married was of Rwandan decent. (Historically, Rwanda is a tribe and didn’t become a state until later.) So, there were Rwandan tribal dancers that ushered the couple into the tent, and danced and sang throughout the evening. It was really cool to see, except no one else seemed to be as enthralled.
Next Friday, we leave for rural home stays. We’re going to a village called Seroti, which is about 5 hours away. It should be really interesting. I’m not exactly sure what to expect, but I’m sure it will be an experience. For my birthday, we will be at a resort in Seepi (spelling?) Falls. I think there is a waterfall and we’ll do some hiking. I think that will be nice a way to celebrate my 21st.
The food is kind of growing on me. Rice and beans everyday - it gets really boring. We usually go to a stand outside the campus gates and get something to eat. I forget if I mentioned the rolex in a previous blog, but it is a staple street food. It is two fried eggs with cabbage and sometimes onion and tomato wrapped in a chapatti. In my tour guide book, it describes the rolex as “exactly the sort of street food your mother warned you against eating in Africa.” It’s quite delicious and I’m doing just fine (I don’t know about my heart though), so I will continue to eat it. Whenever we get a chance to go into Kampala, we seek good restaurants. My friends and I went to Sam’s Restaurant, which was a gold-mind! We all shared cheesy garlic bread. I ordered a salad, a steak, mashed potatoes, and steamed veggies. I cleaned my plate; it was delicious. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. One of our friends in the dorm told us about a good Mexican place in Kampala; I’m pretty sure that will be our next restaurant excursion.
I don’t know what else to say so I will stop. I would try to upload pictures but the internet is painstakingly slow and I don’t really want to wait 3 hours for pictures to load. Maybe if the internet is fast one day I will try.
I’ll blog soon.
Love,
Kristen
Psalm 150:6 “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.”
Monday, February 16, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
I saw Ghandi!!!
This weekend was absolutely marvelous. I spent the weekend in Jinja on a retreat with the USP students and the Honours College Ugandan students. We ate great food, relaxed by Lake Victoria, swam in the pool, played card games, and really got to know each other better. I took a boat ride to the source of the Nile, which was pretty unimpressive on the surface, all you see is bubbling water, but apparently if you looked underneath the water you will see what was once a waterfall. The neat thing about the area is that some of Ghandi's ashes were spread there.
I am really feeling at home here. Things are becoming not so different and I'm getting used to Ugandan living, though the food could always improve. I am making more friends both Ugandan and American and it's so awesome to hear all their different stories. I have a sneaking feeling though that time will go by so fast. So, I'm really trying to be in each moment. Unfortunately, I'm also here to do schoolwork, which I have to keep reminding myself. I would much rather be making memories than writing a 6 page paper on East African history (I'm supposed to be doing that right now). But all the students are in the same boat so I'm hoping once I get some structure to my life here it will be easier to do my studies.
Below is a reflection paper that I had to write for one of my classes. I'd thought that I would share it with you.
Prior to coming to Uganda and even prior to my home stay I maintained two primary stereotypes. First, I believed that all Africans live in destitute conditions. Second, I believed that sanitation and hygiene are lacking from African daily life. Through my experience at my home stay my preconceived notions have been challenged and validated.
A child in a government camp from the documentary “War Dance” articulated African poverty well “not everyone in Africa lives this way.” The images of shanty towns, forlorn children, etc. saturate the Western view of Africa. While there is undoubtedly severe poverty in African, it does not permeate every village in Africa. The people of Mukono, for example, enjoy a comfortable life. However, if I were back in the United States viewing their lifestyle including simple daily chores like bathing, sweeping, or cooking, I would have been deeply disturbed by their apparent poverty. Now having personally lived in an African village, I realize that Africans simply have a different way of doing things. It is neither wrong nor right, it is just different. For Americans, we view our life as “normal;” we can not imagine life without our modern conveniences and pity the people of the world who do not have same technology. Conversely, Africans who have not experienced living with modern conveniences can not imagine the American “normal” lifestyle.
Furthermore, the idea of economic classes existing in Africa never entered my thoughts prior to coming here. I had always viewed Africa with no middle class, just the rich and the really poor. From speaking with other USE students, I have noticed that each family is in varying economic classes just like the United States. For example, my family had meat three times while I was there, but another family had not eaten meat for five years due to the cost until their host student made them hamburgers. The USE students living across the road from me stayed with an affluent family. The family enjoys a widescreen TV, three cars, a house girl, and a personal manicurist that comes to their house to do their nails. What is even more surprising is that both parents are teachers. As I have come to learn, teachers and preachers are well-paying, prestigious jobs, which drastically contrasts from the United States.
The sanitization and hygiene in Africa has surprised me both positively and negatively. First, it was pleasing to learn that Ugandans prize personal cleanliness and bathe up to twice or three times a day. However, cleanliness, in my opinion, stops there. I struggled a lot with sanitization on my home stay. Dishes were cleaned in cold dirty water, gnats hovered and ants crawled around the food, mice frequently visited the sitting room, dirty rags were used repeatedly to wash and dry dishes and used for messes, children didn’t wash their hands before or after they ate and became sticky messy instantaneously after bathing, garbage and food built up on the sitting room floor during meals and throughout the day and was left to be cleaned up after the meal or in the morning, and the list goes on. The lack of sanitization is blatant to me, but I am learning in my Health and Wholeness class that proper cleanliness isn’t taught in primary or secondary school; the Health and Wholeness course at UCU is the first formal hygiene and sanitization education many Ugandans receive.
Needless to say, my experience on my home stay has been revealing and enlightening in so many ways. I have learned that Africans are more than capable of making a comfortable living. Their way of life is different from the American way, but it is not wrong. This observation convicts me to question the presence of Westerners that insist Africans must become westernized. There are numerous benefits to technology, but by forcing Africans to adopt Western ways demeans their way of life, which as I have mentioned is neither necessary nor appropriate. However, I have gained a much greater appreciation for health professionals that educate and set up institutions to promote hygiene and sanitization. I believe that proper education is the building block for a bright future. Something as basic as proper cleanliness can save thousands of lives and ensure the health of the future generations, which can ultimately lead to development.
I'll blog soon.
Love,
Kristen
I am really feeling at home here. Things are becoming not so different and I'm getting used to Ugandan living, though the food could always improve. I am making more friends both Ugandan and American and it's so awesome to hear all their different stories. I have a sneaking feeling though that time will go by so fast. So, I'm really trying to be in each moment. Unfortunately, I'm also here to do schoolwork, which I have to keep reminding myself. I would much rather be making memories than writing a 6 page paper on East African history (I'm supposed to be doing that right now). But all the students are in the same boat so I'm hoping once I get some structure to my life here it will be easier to do my studies.
Below is a reflection paper that I had to write for one of my classes. I'd thought that I would share it with you.
Prior to coming to Uganda and even prior to my home stay I maintained two primary stereotypes. First, I believed that all Africans live in destitute conditions. Second, I believed that sanitation and hygiene are lacking from African daily life. Through my experience at my home stay my preconceived notions have been challenged and validated.
A child in a government camp from the documentary “War Dance” articulated African poverty well “not everyone in Africa lives this way.” The images of shanty towns, forlorn children, etc. saturate the Western view of Africa. While there is undoubtedly severe poverty in African, it does not permeate every village in Africa. The people of Mukono, for example, enjoy a comfortable life. However, if I were back in the United States viewing their lifestyle including simple daily chores like bathing, sweeping, or cooking, I would have been deeply disturbed by their apparent poverty. Now having personally lived in an African village, I realize that Africans simply have a different way of doing things. It is neither wrong nor right, it is just different. For Americans, we view our life as “normal;” we can not imagine life without our modern conveniences and pity the people of the world who do not have same technology. Conversely, Africans who have not experienced living with modern conveniences can not imagine the American “normal” lifestyle.
Furthermore, the idea of economic classes existing in Africa never entered my thoughts prior to coming here. I had always viewed Africa with no middle class, just the rich and the really poor. From speaking with other USE students, I have noticed that each family is in varying economic classes just like the United States. For example, my family had meat three times while I was there, but another family had not eaten meat for five years due to the cost until their host student made them hamburgers. The USE students living across the road from me stayed with an affluent family. The family enjoys a widescreen TV, three cars, a house girl, and a personal manicurist that comes to their house to do their nails. What is even more surprising is that both parents are teachers. As I have come to learn, teachers and preachers are well-paying, prestigious jobs, which drastically contrasts from the United States.
The sanitization and hygiene in Africa has surprised me both positively and negatively. First, it was pleasing to learn that Ugandans prize personal cleanliness and bathe up to twice or three times a day. However, cleanliness, in my opinion, stops there. I struggled a lot with sanitization on my home stay. Dishes were cleaned in cold dirty water, gnats hovered and ants crawled around the food, mice frequently visited the sitting room, dirty rags were used repeatedly to wash and dry dishes and used for messes, children didn’t wash their hands before or after they ate and became sticky messy instantaneously after bathing, garbage and food built up on the sitting room floor during meals and throughout the day and was left to be cleaned up after the meal or in the morning, and the list goes on. The lack of sanitization is blatant to me, but I am learning in my Health and Wholeness class that proper cleanliness isn’t taught in primary or secondary school; the Health and Wholeness course at UCU is the first formal hygiene and sanitization education many Ugandans receive.
Needless to say, my experience on my home stay has been revealing and enlightening in so many ways. I have learned that Africans are more than capable of making a comfortable living. Their way of life is different from the American way, but it is not wrong. This observation convicts me to question the presence of Westerners that insist Africans must become westernized. There are numerous benefits to technology, but by forcing Africans to adopt Western ways demeans their way of life, which as I have mentioned is neither necessary nor appropriate. However, I have gained a much greater appreciation for health professionals that educate and set up institutions to promote hygiene and sanitization. I believe that proper education is the building block for a bright future. Something as basic as proper cleanliness can save thousands of lives and ensure the health of the future generations, which can ultimately lead to development.
I'll blog soon.
Love,
Kristen
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