Uganda Dispatch # ... 8, as it turns out
It's been a while since I wrote a proper update about my life, probably because I find my life rather mundane compared to the circumstances in which it's taking place. But some have asked that I give a bit more information about what's happening with me. As you'll soon see, it's hard to separate me from the circumstances just now.
Gulu has changed a lot in the past six months, and my perception of it even more. The fear that once pulsed out from the bush is gone. The child specters coming over dark, muddy roads in the night have dwindled to a laughing band of sleepers. Even my home has changed. What at first was an empty house, holding only my few cohorts and an echo has become a bustling hostel – cook in the kitchen, strangers on the couches, toilet clogged. And me living down the road.
Lately the LRA and Uganda's government have begun the fragile courtship of peace talks. Neither side wants to give too much or admit wrongdoing, but still hope is growing. White flags fly from offices and cars in Gulu, hanging limp and radiant in the hot midday sun. We hope that their stillness is a sign of confidence, but fear that it might be resignation: a concession to history as it repeats.
I have found life in Uganda challenging. Days are rarely easy. But then, should they ever be? Occasionally I'll find my bed on a night sans electricity and crawl in as if it holds some healing salve, some rare nectar to restore my heart. Other times I'll sit in the waning light, watching lightning jostle the horizon's clouds, and I'll wonder if this land ever rests.
Rest is hard to come by here.
The other day in Kampala I went out for an evening walk to clear my mind, breathe some better air. I followed my instincts towards the nearest hill, which was guarded by an overhanging cliff blazing orange in the sunset. Its beauty, though, was tainted. The cliff was the prey of a bustling rock quarry, impoverished families pounding at the stone with improvised hammers and wedges. Instead of a comfort my walk was a challenge: a challenge to my worldview and my posture in respect to this life and its people.
And in the midst of the challenge I mourned the rest and relaxation that I had expected. Then I realized that it was not I who did not have rest, but rather the people pounding out a living from the patient hill. They would go home to a shack in a murky slum of Kampala, worrying about the thin shilling coins that they had earned, knowing that they aren't enough to feed the family.
For all its difficulties, though, life in Uganda is marvelous, that is, something to marvel at. And I often do. My friend Ilea and I often ask each other, "How is it that we get to live here and do this?" I work directly on behalf of the neediest people I have ever known. My work lets them pay for their food, their homes, their children's educations. I give them big, dirty stacks of cash, and they give me more thanks and praise than I'll ever earn.
It's a privilege unlike any I've known, worth most any cost that it could exact. And it's a responsibility that I still can't sound the depths of. Bigger than me: this I know. But together we can fill it.
I think life in Africa is best summed up by its sky: vast and varied, powerful and dangerous, beautiful, colorful, whimsical and constant in its flux – perhaps more aptly described as indescribable.
I have come to some conclusions, though, in the midst of all my questions and ponderings.
One: you can never know whether you are helping someone unless you love them, and even then it's tough.
Two: loving people in need is a painful undertaking.
Three: it's a dangerous thing trying to reach someone across the socioeconomic divide; the gap is wider than you think.
On the topic of the last one Jesus said (in very rough paraphrase), if you can't reach them, join them. Go live on their side; then you can reach them. It's harder than he made it sound, though, or at least it is for me.
Gulu has changed a lot in the past six months, and my perception of it even more. The fear that once pulsed out from the bush is gone. The child specters coming over dark, muddy roads in the night have dwindled to a laughing band of sleepers. Even my home has changed. What at first was an empty house, holding only my few cohorts and an echo has become a bustling hostel – cook in the kitchen, strangers on the couches, toilet clogged. And me living down the road.
Lately the LRA and Uganda's government have begun the fragile courtship of peace talks. Neither side wants to give too much or admit wrongdoing, but still hope is growing. White flags fly from offices and cars in Gulu, hanging limp and radiant in the hot midday sun. We hope that their stillness is a sign of confidence, but fear that it might be resignation: a concession to history as it repeats.
I have found life in Uganda challenging. Days are rarely easy. But then, should they ever be? Occasionally I'll find my bed on a night sans electricity and crawl in as if it holds some healing salve, some rare nectar to restore my heart. Other times I'll sit in the waning light, watching lightning jostle the horizon's clouds, and I'll wonder if this land ever rests.
Rest is hard to come by here.
The other day in Kampala I went out for an evening walk to clear my mind, breathe some better air. I followed my instincts towards the nearest hill, which was guarded by an overhanging cliff blazing orange in the sunset. Its beauty, though, was tainted. The cliff was the prey of a bustling rock quarry, impoverished families pounding at the stone with improvised hammers and wedges. Instead of a comfort my walk was a challenge: a challenge to my worldview and my posture in respect to this life and its people.
And in the midst of the challenge I mourned the rest and relaxation that I had expected. Then I realized that it was not I who did not have rest, but rather the people pounding out a living from the patient hill. They would go home to a shack in a murky slum of Kampala, worrying about the thin shilling coins that they had earned, knowing that they aren't enough to feed the family.
For all its difficulties, though, life in Uganda is marvelous, that is, something to marvel at. And I often do. My friend Ilea and I often ask each other, "How is it that we get to live here and do this?" I work directly on behalf of the neediest people I have ever known. My work lets them pay for their food, their homes, their children's educations. I give them big, dirty stacks of cash, and they give me more thanks and praise than I'll ever earn.
It's a privilege unlike any I've known, worth most any cost that it could exact. And it's a responsibility that I still can't sound the depths of. Bigger than me: this I know. But together we can fill it.
I think life in Africa is best summed up by its sky: vast and varied, powerful and dangerous, beautiful, colorful, whimsical and constant in its flux – perhaps more aptly described as indescribable.
I have come to some conclusions, though, in the midst of all my questions and ponderings.
One: you can never know whether you are helping someone unless you love them, and even then it's tough.
Two: loving people in need is a painful undertaking.
Three: it's a dangerous thing trying to reach someone across the socioeconomic divide; the gap is wider than you think.
On the topic of the last one Jesus said (in very rough paraphrase), if you can't reach them, join them. Go live on their side; then you can reach them. It's harder than he made it sound, though, or at least it is for me.
posted by James at 05:40
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