My Last Post

This post has turned into a final summary of my experience. It’s a bit raw and unfiltered, and I thought about keeping it to myself. It is honestly what I have experienced in four months’ time, and I understand that it is my opinion and it is not without limitations and personal biases. I am open to the thoughts and perspectives of differences of opinions, in fact I would greatly appreciate them. That is one of the greatest ways in which I grow and learn. To be closed to differences of opinion, is to be closed to growth and knowledge, and that is exactly the opposite reasoning for which I came to Africa in the first place.
What should I say? Where do I start or end? I suppose here is as good a place as any. Many times on vacation I approach the end of my time and I secretly perseverate about all the things I wish I could still do. I know this to an unhealthy habit, but honestly, it happens. I remember and cherish all the experiences I have been lucky enough to have as well, but part of me can’t help but fantasize about all of the adventures I have heard tale of but for one reason or another, won’t be able to experience. The city in the south, that beach on the coast, historic isolated islands, remote waterfalls, ancient ruins, beautiful museums, a nameless mountain on the horizon. Not enough money, not enough time, the area is inaccessible or too dangerous. Blah blah blah…there is always something.
I know this is an inevitable challenge about traveling to wonderful places with wonderful people. I always leave happy, but there is a small tickle of regret that I couldn’t do it all. I smile to myself and say “It’s Ok. It gives you a reason to come back!” I know that to be only a half-truth consolation prize I often tell myself to fight-off unwanted feelings of regret or disappointment. I think maybe the only notable exceptions to this experience have been Latvia and Florida. I went, I left; and there were no regrets.
I have never been anywhere quite like Africa. Or maybe, more accurately, I have never had the opportunity to get to know someplace quite like Africa. Either way, the fact remains that my experience here has been different than any place I have ever been. Most of my travels have been transient whirlwinds, racing through a land with a backpack and a sense of adventure. I rarely stayed in the same place for more than a couple of days before moving on. I got to experience a little about a lot.
This trip has been quite different. I was able to tap into the flow and pace of daily life in a small village tucked away in the luscious green mountains of the east. Here, I was able to experience a lot about a little. As a result, I have come to be a part of the community and experience it in a way I could never have imagined or anticipated. Though truthfully that was partly what I came seeking in the first place.
The cultural difference I experienced in the first 72 hours was enough to make me dizzy and short of breath. The inner city squalor is impossible to ignore or avoid like in the US. It’s right there in the open with not even a hint of shame. No cover-up campaigns. Shoeless people, dressed in rags, mill about everywhere. Not all are poor. Plenty have jobs in the capital. It’s just that there are so many that are poor, and have nothing. The streets in and out of the city are lined with shanty towns like an almost endless unemployment line.
At first glance, it almost seems to be a country populated by children. Like Lord of the Flies, without the white children lawlessly killing one another. The average mother is roughly 25 yrs old, and already has 4 children. 50% of the population, currently at 33 million, is under 15 yrs old, while 69% is under 27 yrs old. Try to imagine what that looks like. Furthermore, AIDS is devastating the population, and a lack of education and honesty is preventing efforts to help.
And in spite of this, Ugandan’s, more than any culture I have met, approach life with tremendous optimism. They smile, laugh, dance, and sing with such energy you would think those are the only weapons they have to fight with. In many cases they are, but what surprises me most is how often those tools work. Most people are happy and light hearted; quick to joke and dance.
Where the people may be sick, the soil is still healthy. Winston Churchill, after a trip to Uganda prior to WW II joked: “…the soil is so fertile one could leave a walking stick stuck in the ground, and by the end of the day, it will have sprouted roots!” With my own eyes I have seen this to be not so far an exaggeration. The land is magical. Everything grows and it grows quick! The vibrant contrast of the rich red-brown soil and lush tropical green is so starkly different from any environment I have ever seen.
Even the senses are overwhelmed upon arrival. The market is possibly one of the best examples, with its smells of slaughtered animals hanging in the sun, wood-smoke, sweat, and urine. Hard to describe really. I hardly notice it at all now, but at first, it was nearly enough to send me scurrying to the trees with my hand over my nose and mouth. Now I walk through the market and take long deep inhalations for memory’s sake. The markets are wonderful. Huge fields where you may buy anything from cattle to shoe polish. Road’s lined with families selling their wares; sugar, salt, cabbage, tomatoes, bananas, mangos, fish, potatoes, flour, or maize. The selection and variety goes on and on. The colors are a great mix of natural earth tones and vibrant African fabrics.
Then the hawkers sell their locks, ropes, polish, candles, bowls, cups, knives, soap, lanterns, shoes, sandals, hats, and racks of second hand clothes from the West. In rural Uganda, it is a Free-market economy in the truest sense of the word. I have come to the conclusion that regardless of where you are, if you lose something in the world, inevitably it makes its way to Africa and ends up in a community market. You can buy anything in Africa. This unfortunately includes things that should not be purchasable. Use your imagination…or nightmares.
Then there are the machetes. I can’t describe the cultural differences without mentioning them. They are everywhere and they are used by everyone to do everything. They are Africa’s multi-tool. It is not uncommon to see children under the age of eight with machetes almost as long as they are, dragged laboriously behind. They cut grass, hunt rats, trim hedges, chop wood, split bricks, butcher meat, harvest crops, heard cattle, even discipline children. They cost about $1.50 and can be purchased almost anywhere.
I am reminded of the cultural differences with every handshake. I notice it when I eat my lunch and realize I am the only person in the room eating steaming hot rice and beans with a fork. The differences are present at the construction site where bricks are made by hand and extensive foundation excavations are dug by three men with hoes for 8 days. Rain here means roads turn to Willy Wonka’s Milk Chocolate Rivers.
Music is everywhere! Africans seem to always have a song or rhythm in their heads while they go about their day. I can wake to the singing voice of a women digging in the fields at dawn (usually with an infant tied to her back) and close my eyes to far off drums at night. Song and dance is in church and school; birth and burial.
My time in Uganda has been uniquely different from any other trip before. On one hand it is a place with limitless opportunity for adventure. You could spend your whole life here and never do or see everything. Maybe it is that fact that contributes to my feelings of contentment with leaving. I have done less than a pin prick of what is possible to experience, and I am strangely ok with it.
But my time in Uganda was not just about adventure. There is a greater understanding that has come from it as well. A broader perspective perhaps. You can argue that every day, every minute, has the capacity to open your mind and expand your perspective. Regardless of where you are. While this is true, I have found that new experiences have the capacity to accelerate that process. Life and death experiences even more so. Life is sharper, clearer. I came to Africa thirsting for it. I came looking for it in every handshake, raindrop, and sun beam. I found it in places I wasn’t looking, which, in my experience, is often how that works.
I came to Uganda with a teacher’s role and a student’s mind. What can Africa teach me about the world? About myself? I feel like I have accomplished more than just travelling to Uganda. I have actually lived here, among its people and its land; triumphs and failures. I have seen some of the best and worst its people have to offer. I have seen the sites of mass executions by the Lord’s Resistance Army in the North and deadly mudslide memorials in the mountains to the east.
I have seen children raising children and have been treated with more respect and honor than I deserve. I have often tried to take the advice of a mentor of mine and a progressive wise educator named Leah Mason, who has taught me many valuable lessons. One such lesson came by way of introduction to a quote by Albert Einstein that reads: “There are two ways to live your life: one is as though nothing is a miracle; the other is as though everything is a miracle.” While this is often very challenging at times, it has allowed me to see the glory and beauty in any given moment. It is always there if you look.
Everyone knows that Africa needs help. That’s one reason, there are many by the way, why the continent receives more aid than anywhere else on earth. It is often labeled as “Third World”. Third World, in my opinion, is somewhat of an outdated term and has a negative, almost disrespectful connotation, like “step-child” (of which I am and never openly referred to in person). Most folks opt for the more politically correct term of “Developing”. Africa is the Developing World and the West is the Developed World. Right? Almost like it’s a race with a finish line. The West won a long time ago and we are sitting back enjoying the spoils of victory while the rest of the world chases after us hoping to “Make It” to the finish line.
I don’t believe growth and development to be fixed, finite, or linear beginnings or endings. It might be a race, but only because we make it so. If it were a race, we (the West) actually started real late, comparatively with the rest of the world. We made up for it by hopping on the backs of others, sometimes half-heartedly convincing them that we were actually trying to help them, and let them carry us a good distance to where we are today. All the while complimenting ourselves on our hard work, ingenuity, and superiority. When we really take a look at ourselves, how developed are we really? I still think we have a long way to go. That’s not pessimism; its realism.
My time in Uganda, has shown me that most Ugandan’s want to be uniquely African and have what the West has. I think there are misconceptions of both: What does it mean to be African? And what exactly does the West have that they want? I am not referring merely to material wealth and possession, although many desire after those allures as well. Most Ugandans want what many of us take for granted every day. They want a trustworthy government; fairly elected by the people, for the people. They want police and military that protects and defends, not a king’s private security force to ensure his claim to the throne. They want a health care system that takes care of its people; all of its people, without prejudice or corruption. Good education and reasonably priced healthy food. Safe roads and environmental protection.
The truth is Uganda does not have these things. They look to the west as a model, even a provider. Before coming to Africa, I could have written a very similar list of problems facing my own country, but as I sit and talk with the people of this land it gives me that greater perspective I came to find. I am not so disillusioned to believe that we are the “Developed” world. Done. Game-over. Race won. Hamburgers and Coke-cola for everyone! We are struggling just as our brothers and sisters are in Africa. But I do see how much we have grown. What headway we have made. I can’t tell you how often I have had that realization here. How often I have silently appreciated the fact that my time here was temporary. That I would eventually return to America.
Uganda is developing. It is “behind” the West. This term is often meant or understood from a political or economic stand point. While this is absolutely true in most cases, my own experience has shown me that they are “behind” in many other areas. Its religions, which it defends strongly, influence every aspect of life from governance to sex (and are almost entirely adopted from the “developed” world) are divisive, repressive, and ignorant. I have witnessed its ministers, preachers, and priests openly condemn homosexuality and the use of condoms as perversions against God in feverish sermons that last for hours. While they themselves, many of which practice polygamy, choose which parts of the Bible they follow and which they conveniently ignore. Women are second class citizens, children are slaves, and homosexuals are demonic perverts, worthy of capital punishment.
It is the same with nearly every aspect of society; education, healthcare, environmentalism, even transportation. Children are still caned for misbehavior, doctors steal free medicine and sell it and there service to desperate patients requiring immediate care. Trash and waste clog gutters and burn for hours in huge piles. Traffic accidents are a leading cause of death due, in part, to deteriorating roads and little governance.
So where are the miracles? They are in fact everywhere, every day. They are easy to miss, and are often over shadowed by the daily horror. Ugandans, however, are committed to developing. They want it more than anything. They work hard given the chance and show compassion when it is needed. They see all their short comings and, rather than point the finger at their neighbor or the West for its hand in making the mess, they smile, sing, dance, play and carry on with undefeatable spirit. Sometimes it is this impression of acceptance that frustrates me. They put up with unspeakable hardships that the Western world would never stand for. We have had our revolutions and we have made our mistakes. Our history is not much different from Africa’s present. We are all trying, questioning, and growing. We are all developing. Or at least we should be.
My time in Africa has given me the space to think about my life. It has also given me the space to understand the lives of others. This quest for greater perspective has enlightened my sense of self, others, and place and the responsibility I have to each. I am so grateful for the opportunity to come teach and learn. Thank you to everyone who encouraged us before we left, followed our adventures while we were here, and to all our loved ones who will support us when we return. I have gained much and I have no regrets! Wanyala Nabi!