snapshots

through my eyes, partial and culturally framed,
I see a wonder land, I see a broken land, I see a glimpse of a specific piece of Africa, I see Mukono town

bicycles with long poles of sugar cane hanging off the back
balancing at least a half a dozen full geri-cans
tall with a tall man waving an evening greeting

large trucks full of long horned cattle or squealing swine (men riding on top)
full of women and children singing as they roll down the road
with hundreds of bundles of bright green matooke

men carrying bed sheets on top of their head
opening the morning butcher shop, displaying fresh intestines,
chopping Lake Victoria's latest tilapia
carrying heavy loads of concrete from the truck to the shop, dragging long cables
working
shouting and making kissing faces
sitting astride their boda boda, waiting on the street corner for a passenger

women sweeping the dirt
nursing their babies or carrying them on their back
selling fruit outside the house from dawn until dark
always greeting me and betsy with the few luganda words we have come to
know so well: “kulikyo”—welcome back…”nvudeyo”…thank you, I’m back!
peeling matooke, chasing the chickens, chopping wood, stirring the katogo

children in their florescent school uniforms
those in purple climb the hill to school with me
wheeling their wire cars down the road
running to greet me with a bonja (hitting of the fists)
waving mzungo and shouting "good-bye"
working dutifully to avoid a beating
gnawing on sugar cane
playing in an abandoned taxi
barefoot and beautiful

chickens that never cease to strut their business
that may become the street vendor's chicken on a stick
crouching upon one another in their wired cage
goats tied here and there
a cow that stands upon a garbage heap (that still smokes from when it was last burned)

sitting outside with mama discussing politics (whether obama or clinton will win their latest campaign effort) while we gaze at the full moon (which did you know, bears not the "man on the moon" but rather “the lady with firewood on her head and a baby on her back”)

sitting for some three hours (the second day) while my hair is braided by the neighbor…as she braids, her daughter and two other friends “assist”. I watch through a curtain of braids as little Brenda continues her mother’s braid down to the very tip. She smiles proudly. The mama of Brenda (known as mama Brenda) continues even past nightfall, the power is out and yet the moon shines brightly. She finishes, after pausing only to nurse her baby, her shadow is cast before me as she wraps the mass of braids into a bun. While I awaited my transformation into a true African lady, I observed the tenant community as they observed me. the children work tirelessly, washing clothes and dishes, mopping the concrete porch…one girl bathes with her mother’s help, the food for the evening steaming beside her. Boys crash their toy cars along the obstacle course they have set up. Children climb the tree beside me. They stare. They smile.

Slipping in the mud, dirty shoes are appalling.

Walking to school I greet those I pass…an elderly woman beams, her beauty radiating in the wrinkles that crease her worn cheeks. How warmly some receive the stranger that I am…and yet others are embarrassed to associate with me, those that do may face harassment from their peers.

I turn up the road toward home and a dozen children come running…shouting some version of “herin, Helen, or perhaps an uncommon erin” We can’t very well communicate beyond “how was your day” to which the response is always “fine”, but how we have fun playing follow the leader, running relays or just holding hands and mimicking each other…


Students preparing for the culture gala…singing and dancing out a story in their native tongue...moving in sweet rhthym to the beat of the drum while the students at the primary school where they practice look on….many of whom are deaf students…one girl in particular is entranced…seeing a beauty I can not, hearing a rhthym in the movements while I am consumed by the drum, caught in the movements myself as I sway next to Lilian, my friend, my translator



**I will be gone for a week and half…gone for my rural home-stay in Kapchorwa will also be visiting Seroti and Sipi Falls; I will touch base soon with much anticipated adventures to share!**

bummer

the circumcision ceremony has been canceled. i was supposed to go with my religion class today near the kenyan border, to the mbali region to see a boy become a man. unfortunately, with much grieving and bereaved disappointment, there were circumstances that prevented us from going...there are only certain times of the year that the circumcision ceremony is legally allowed to take place (some government schedule)...there was inadequate communication with our contact..etc, etc. supposed to go rafting on the Nile tomorrow instead...that should be wildly fun (much adrenaline secretion).

last weekend i ventured out to entebbe with a few muzungos and a few host fam' siblings. walked through a marvelous garden (where the first Tarzan movie was filmed) and splashed a bit in the grand Lake Victoria. Fed monkeys too..oh and there were these wee lil' twin monkeys born the day before...clinging to their mommies in dear love!

What a glamorized picture! Truly, truly much of life is routine here, yet I still find myself thrilled with the chance to walk down the main street and buy chipatti from a street vendor, or an avocado from the market! Much of my time this week was focused on school work, what an unfortunate obligation; yet in making more friends on campus life is made more cheery.

Valentine's Day was another normal day...spent the evening with my host family (after the daily run around with the neighbor children who come and play nearly everyday now) sitting outside the compound laughing about our missing valentines. My host brother said he was going to walk through the streets and ask the first lady, opening his arms to her, "will you be my valentine..." It was a comical scene truly...especially after which they all mentioned how Ugandan men aren't very forward..I chuckle to myself to think that earlier that day a gent came up to me in the library and asked for my number, convinced that he always wanted to have a "friend like me"...

Met some missionaries in one of my classes, one of whom is a nurse, that are working in northern Uganda. It somehow "encouraging" to hear how the need I had presumed Africa to have does exist, with significant challenges alongside when it comes to the question of "betterment" or change. Imagine...a community where the English Bible is more practically used than the one they have in their own language (largely a spoken language), where there are some 1,000 children in a single church with little childcare help, where a hospital run only by one nurse, who has to ride 5 hours one way to pick up medicine stock (cutting two days out of caring for patients)....pray for allan and annie in arua.

I have friends at the supermarket. Kristy and Flavia. I love going in and chatting with them. They work from 7:30 to 10:00 everyday...they are fixed there. They are wonderful sisters, they make me smile...they would make you smile too :D

Okie dokie folkie....peace like a river to you (oh and you guys...two other usp students here use the same phrase...imagine! pass it on!)

a very happy birthday.

so thank you for all your happy birthday-facebook wishes my dear friends!! how i love you and miss you!

my birthday was fantabulous and a half! 21 years now. weird. no banana beer...shoot. a group of students went out for lunch..for these egg chipatti things...scrumptious. then i went to the market..crammed with people selling and buying miscellaneous merchandise, american t-shirts and skirts, and everything from strainers and old teddy bears to watches--and then there was a food market section where we saw our neighbor's dinner fish get chopped up with a machete...so beautiful and colorful though (the tower of pineapple was magnificent)! then, best of all, on the way home I met the neighbor boys (dennis, mickey and job..oh and their sweet sister madu)...we started a small football game and the whole neighborhood came...watching from the gate and then flooding in when we welcomed them with "yangu"...there must have been a couple dozen of them...so adorable..such a blessing to finally play with a group of children...to hold them and run around with them...they spoke very little english...but it was fun to just dance and play a version of sorts of follow-the-leader. as much as I adore the children and was so very blessed by them...can't help but remember that one of the main reasons they want to play with me is because i'm a different color...and yet I'm grateful.

then dinner with the family was very special..we ate early (around 8) and had two kinds of meat..a chicken sauce, fanta, and a cake (that we're still working on)! there was much laughter and family fun. so grateful for my family's generosity!

oh and then the next day...
visited this rehabilitation center up on a hill just above campus...they are doing casting and physical therapy for children with disabilities..so excited to keep going..to shadow nurse joyce and spend time with the children!!!!! they are doing great things there...helping children with cerebal palsy...club foot, rickets, osteomalitis, and burns. it's called CHERUB, pray for their work! It is wonderful!
and then upon returning home...the kids were back and we played a sweet game with a big red balloon!! joyfulness!

tried making kettle corn for the family yesterday...partially successful...my brother sechii was like..."americans like what, sweet."

this week has been golden! today we are going to some burial site place...should be good...hopefully it will stop raining!

thank you for your love...I send mine to you!
JOY TO YOU THIS DAY!

the romantic world falls subject to questioning

another monday already. feeling better. my "dog" as we called it (my cough) has almost lost his raspy voice! thank you friends, for your prayers.

today has been an interesting day. my heart and my mind have been burdened...perplexed as I wrestle with issues that are emerging...in class and in the context of life in Africa. wondering since this morning's politics class how an african mind can conceive to shed his neighbor's blood for the sole sake of tribal heritage? in my old testament tutorial, a class full of pre-law students mind you, heated, heartless and seemingly unchristian arguments arose from scenerios presented by our lecturer. in thinking about joseph for instance, and the betrayal of his brothers, the question was posed, what would you do if a man who had betrayed you lay dying and you were the only one who could help him? interesting that the fact that this dying man wasn't kin made it a while different issue. i do not want to present these classmates as brutish, for african students as i have known them these last few weeks have been very hospitable (and even after class I had a lovely introductory chat with one of the most pronounced, and opinionated students in the tutorial), but good grief, there was no sense of compassion, or grace to be felt in that classroom, "eye for an eye" was shouted from one end to another, with few suggesting the idea of forgiveness! from here, i met with a class to discuss the matter of Christ's relevance in our world, and in light of a traditional african world view. oh and the questions flowed...questions that have too easy of an answer in a western university theology classroom. what would one say of God's love and providence to a starving child, to a mother who has lost a handful of children, to those now in kenya who are caught in the midst of horrific atrocities? I delight in the fact that Christ is present, that he not only sympathizes, but understands suffering. yet...it doesn't make the problem of evil any less difficult...and it doesn't necessarily make a sufficient response when, as a white want-a-be missionary, i may be asked to explain Christ to someone who as KNOWN suffering as I have only had nightmares about. And how does one explain affluence in one hemisphere and poverty in another? Where is God's hand in that?
I don't know. I don't have answers to so many questions, questions that take on a whole new character when you see Africa outside the windows of your eyes. I don't expect you to answer these questions for me...but seek them out...don't be satisfied with a complacent faith! Dig into the issues of the world and ask why! Pray, discuss, and ask where that discussion should end, and where action in response should begin! I'm frustrated a bit with Uganda today, with the world, with God and my finite being. I pray that God would meet me, and so many other students who are wrestling with these very relevant and at-hand issues, that He would show us Himself in the midst of suffering here, would show us how we might possibly have a hand in it, that He would grant my mind and heart peace about my rational for "coming in" as one who is privileged to share Christ's compassion, that I would have a better hope and idea of what it means to truly do His will (whatever that means, since oh how colored our theology is by our culture and perception of the world).

May God bless you this day, I pray that you might see how truly blessed you are, and that you might ask why...are we blessed solely to bless others? is following Christ, and understanding His relevance, expressed in living completely for others? what do we do in light of the fact that such a mission is impossible? I don't know...ahh...I just pray (and sincerely so even in thinking about how we may really not deserve it because of our abundance to begin with...)that you are blessed today.