My Final Thoughts by Therese Mergen

As I return from Africa and settle back in my life lots of feelings and thoughts flood my mind. It is hard to sort through all of them and try to sum up my experience of the last four months in a simple and reflective blog. So here are some of my thoughts and my opinions, as they flow freely from my mind to the page. Some of them are raw and real but their expression is necessary for me in recounting my experience and what I have learned.

I have to be honest. The first night that we spent in Uganda and at least once during the first week, I balled my eyes out. Not out of fear or homesickness, but because the culture shock was so strong and it was everywhere I turned and affected all 5 senses. There was also this sense of feeling out of place and being uncomfortable and I cried because I had no idea how long this feeling would last. If you have never been to Africa it is impossible to know what to expect and to prepare yourself for such a trip. I knew this was the case when I decided to go but of course I was still a little anxious about it because I was going into something that was completely unknown. Part of the reason we traveled to Africa was to experience a new culture and this was just part of the drill. I knew it wouldn’t last forever and I knew that no matter how tough things got I would be able to get through it. That was part of the adventure though and the reason why I was expecting it to be an unforgettable experience from which I would gain a lot.

Over time the way I approached the unknown and uncomfortable changed and doing so enriched my experience. The uncomfortable factor became more bearable and life became more interesting and invigorating. This is how I explained it in another post I wrote for a blog called Adventures With Intention… One reason why we came here is to engross ourselves in new and uncomfortable situations and you can’t escape those situations when traveling in a foreign country. When you are in them there is a little voice in your head that’s super cranky saying “What the hell is going on? When is this going to be over?” Well, I haven’t shut that voice up but I have learned to either ignore it or better yet embrace it. Embracing it is an important tool here because THIS IS AFRICA(TIA) and things NEVER happen how or when you expect them to. Someone who is living in the moment is not wasting time and energy thinking about outcomes, they are just trying to live and hopefully learn from their experience. I saw more, did more and learned more than I ever could have imagined or expected.

Another reason why it was difficult at the beginning was because it took a few weeks to figure out what the heck I was doing there, how I could positively impact the community. Also for the first time in my life I stood out in a crowd because of the color of my skin. It was obvious that I was a visitor and was not familiar with their culture. I did not want to offend the entire community or step on anyone’s toes, so it took a few weeks to settle in and become acclimatized to their way of life before becoming actively involved in the community. Time definitely helped with this but so did meeting people, going places, seeing how they lived and learning a tiny bit of the local language. Once we learned how to greet someone in Lugisu, the local language, we used it whenever we could. Folks were often surprised and thrilled that we were speaking their language. The funny thing was that once we greeted them in their language they rambled on in Lugisu and we had no idea what they were saying. The other odd thing about standing out in Africa is that most of the time we were received as welcomed visitors, not unwelcome outsiders. And although many people saw dollar signs when they saw mzungus (white people) and asked us for something, many of them were grateful just to have us visit and thanked us for coming and for our work.

Slowly we found ways to be active members of the community and we helped a lot with promoting the vocational school and organizing things for the orphans program. When we weren’t working with the program or reminiscing with the other volunteers about the cultural differences of being in Africa we sought out adventures. Adventures such as climbing over mini-buses in a jam-packed taxi park, white water rafting class 5 rapids on the Nile, getting too close for comfort to a hippo, going 40mph on dirt roads and getting stuck in the mud, killing my own dinner or watching it get slaughtered, bushwhacking over numerous mountain tops and experiencing first hand the intense role religion plays in their culture. (During my time there, two seemingly opposite things happened to me both having to do with religion. My spiritual side was reinvigorated and became more at peace, while I was also turned off by organized religion even more after experiencing its presence in Africa.) I also saw some pretty odd things, such as a girl peeing in a plastic bag on a bus, a beggar on the streets of Mbale that had no pelvis or legs and creepy marabou storks that stand 1.5 meters tall and are probably capable of eating a baby although their diet consists mostly of garbage.

Our time in Uganda quickly came to an end and just like I expected it was bittersweet. Before we left the States a friend told us that once we go to Africa we won’t want to leave. I can’t say there was ever a point where I wanted to stay in Africa forever because my family and my life are in the states and always will be. I don’t love Africa enough to totally redefine my life but I am definitely a different person then when I left. This place is so beautiful and unlike any other place in the world and for that reason it changes people and their worldly perspectives. The people are amazing and the relationships that I made with them will always live in my memory. Also this continent needs so much support and help that once you have seen it with your own eyes it becomes impossible to forget or ignore. Even though I only experienced a fraction of the adventures that one can have in Africa and only scratched the surface of how I can help out the people of Uganda, I am leaving with a sense of fullness, gratefulness and a wider and clearer perspective. I do not regret doing anything or not doing anything while I was there. My experience was so unforgettable and powerful that there is no need for disappointment or regret. Sure there are things I wish I could have done, both for my own adventures and ways to help out the people, but that just gives me a reason to come back someday.

Just like Mike, I was reminded of all the cultural differences at every handshake, interaction and introduction to a new place. Two things stand out for me from all the differences we experienced. The first has to do with the attitude the people had towards life and the second is how much help Africa needs to improve the everyday life and well being of the people. In general Africans live day to day. They live in the moment and they do a wonderful job at being present and seeing life as a gift rather then miserable hard work that’s full of struggle. This attitude of being present is a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because they have an incredible ability to let struggles and hardships roll off their back as if they are ordinary parts of life. It is a curse because they are in a way completely accepting of their situation and are stubborn towards making change, especially if that change doesn’t involve immediate gratification.

This attitude can be seen in their land ethic. They are closely connected to the land because they depend on it for food and therefore survival. Almost everyone in Bududa grew what they ate and ate what they grew, with a few exceptions being staple foods like rice and flour. Everyone at some point in their lives worked on the land either to eat or make a livelihood. Their concern is for food today, so their relationship with the land in other aspects is very poor. For example they just toss their trash into giant holes, into the street or they burn it. A sad sight that I often saw was children playing close by to giant piles of garbage or people scrounging the rubbish piles for food. Another example is that eucalyptus is grown everywhere because it grows quickly and straight and it is used for timber and firewood. Eucalyptus is not a native species and it soaks up all the water in the soil making it hard for other plants to grow under it and decreases the integrity of the soil. The extensive planting of eucalyptus trees and cutting down natural forests on steep hills to plant crops are the two biggest environmental factors that contribute to the deadly mudslides in eastern Uganda. These mudslides are tragic but this system is working for them because they are more concerned about eating today then the mudslides that might happen in the future. I don’t blame them for having this attitude; many of them are grateful for everything they have now and aren’t concerned with the future consequences. The down side is as their population continues to grow it is going to have more affects on the environment and Uganda doesn’t have a perfect system to look to when it come to environmental ethics.

This attitude of living life day to day without concern for consequences can also be seen in almost every aspect of their lives. We as westerners see the consequences this attitude is having but the Africans don’t see the effects as consequences because they have accepted them as everyday parts of their lives. The consequences I am talking about are environmental degradation, sexual abuse, political corruption, gender inequality, overpopulation, poor education and health care, HIV/AIDS, etc. This attitude is why Africa needs so much help, but it is also this attitude that makes cultural change very hard.

I won’t go into all the sad stories I heard from women and families in Bududa about how they are dealing with life, but I would like to share with you one. On Saturdays we had about 160 children come for the Children of Peace Program, so Saturdays are always hectic. One Saturday as the program was coming to an end, I noticed a little boy vomiting behind the bushes so I went to go help him. This boy’s name was Isaac, he was about 10 years old and you could tell he was very sick because he was weak and very skinny. Isaac had been very sick a few weeks earlier and we gave his mother money to take him to the hospital and get care. As we were waiting to be seen at the hospital we figured out why he was still sick even though he had received treatment. Isaac had malaria and was taking antibiotics. He was supposed to take the antibiotics everyday for three weeks but he stopped taking them once all the symptoms of malaria cleared up. His mother stopped giving them to him because she believed he was better and she wanted to save the medication for the next child who gets sick.

Isaac needed our help and we were going to leave the hospital until we knew he was in good hands and getting the right treatment. This was not an easy task. Our trip to the hospital highlights how bad the corruption is in Uganda. Many of the staff looked like they didn’t want to be there including the man behind the reception desk who was drunk. If we weren’t persistent about asking for care they would have sat there and done nothing. It is common fact that the hospital staff steal supplies so they can sell them and get money. We found this to be true because they didn’t have the medication Isaac needed, so we had to go across the street to buy it. We went to visit Isaac in the hospital the next two days to see how he was doing and it was a good thing we did because we found out that the nurse never gave him his second dose of medication. A few days later we had made it over all the hurdles and Isaac was in good hands, getting the right treatment, feeling better and going home with his mom.

This story makes me sad because even though we were able to help Isaac there are probably hundreds of children in Bududa dying of malaria because their families can’t afford medical care. It is difficult to figure out the best solution for problems like these. The easy answer is money, resources and education but corruption and cultural attitudes often prevent those things from getting to the people that need them the most. Having said that, there are hundreds, probably thousands, of NGOs in Uganda that are working on changing that. They are making a difference on a small scale since it is hard to make a difference on a big scale when corruption is everywhere and cultural attitudes run very deep.

Looking back on my experience I ask myself “Did I make a difference? Did I help this community?” I went hoping to having an unforgettable experience but also to see if I could help. I mean whenever you volunteer the hope is to leave the place a little bit better then when you came. There were times when I asked myself this and I would pessimistically answer no because I feel like the change I want to see is impossible for one person to accomplish. I know that that is not true; one person can start a movement and in that way change cultural perspectives. But I didn’t start a movement and the change I hope for Africa can not happen in just four months.

If I take a closer look at the people I met, the conversations we had and what I taught them, the answer is yes I made I difference, even if I can’t see it or measure it. I brightened the kids’ lives every time I waved to them or gave them a piece of candy. Or if I helped one of the teenage girls in our program from not getting raped or having an unwanted early pregnancy I made a difference. Over all this trip was an amazing experience and I am left with some great stories and a better understanding of our global community. It taught me to think a little more deeply about what kind of world I want to live in and what can I do personally to make it a better place.