Things That Keep Me Sane

Iced mochas at Cafe Pap in Kampala...my weekend treat :)

Beautiful sunrises...

Monkeys!
The Ugandan boys I get to meet Tuesday nights in Kampala at Off-tu mission (this is soccer night last Tuesday...)

Getting to make good food occasionally...yes that is a calzone :)

Laughing at the absurdity of my friends...

Playing with babies...

My daily morning runs...

Too Much for Words

I'm sorry for how long this post is in coming! I have been essentially busy out of my mind the past three weeks or so, plus when you are unable to get any internet at all it presents some serious problems in updating your blog...oh well, I'm here now and that's what matters. Let me tell you what has been going on in my life and in my head...
Well here we are about to leave for our rural home stays in the district of Soroti at the end of October. Cramming 26 people into a small coaster was probably not the most amazing experience of my life, but we definitely survived...After 6 hours we reached Soroti and camped out overnight in the backyard of one of the Ugandan staff members who has a home in that village. Sitting around the campfire, telling embarrassing stories and playing mafia, it was great to see how close we have all become. We even did a little "star gazing" - Brystal will know what I'm talking about if she reads this :)

The next morning we got dropped off at our home stays. Honestly I wasn't overly worried, mostly because I was coming into the experience with the expectation that it would probably be awkward a good amount of the time and that I would most likely be frustrated with many aspects of rural culture.
Here is my Papa and Toto! (Toto is Ateso for mom). My Papa was a chaplain at a boys secondary school near where their house was. He would talk to me for hours about pretty much everything. He was one of the most gentle human being I have ever met. When he would take me to visit people in the village who wanted to see the "visitor" he was concerned that I might "bruise my feet" so he would always take me on his piki (motorcycle) so that I didn't have to walk...Let me tell you, riding through dirt roads in the bush of Uganda on the back of a motorcycle with a live chicken strapped to the handlebars and a massive thing of coke and a container of g-nuts in my lap was probably one of the best experiences of my life.

My Toto was...well...bossy. But I loved her despite that - especially since that is just a part of the culture here (there really is no word for please. Instead of "can I borrow your bucket" it is always "give me your bucket"...I've kinda just learned to deal with it). But she genuinely wanted me to have the experience of a rural African woman. Although she would boss me around, it gave me so many new experiences and she always was very intentional about making sure she didn't overwork me.

One of the most difficult things about being in Soroti was that I felt so completely incompetent most of the time I was there. Honestly, I am not cut out for the life of a village woman. Every time I tried to do something I failed miserably. My 75 year old Tata could pick cow peas in the fields for more than twice as long as I could! I learned many things about my own pride and was finally able to realize that every person has a different type of strength. It was important for me to experience being the weak one for a change...Here's Tata! She's probably the cutest old African woman ever - spreading cow peas onto the mat to dry in the sun.

Most mornings we would wake up and do some sort of work - usually outside in the garden. When I was there, the cow peas were ready to be picked so that is what we would do most of the time. Let me tell you, now I know why African women when they get old are permanently stooped over. They do absolutely everything bent over double! - washing clothes, gardening, cooking, washing dishes. There was also a lot of time to just relax and sit and talk. They really value community so oftentimes we would just chill on a mat on the front stoop and talk or shell g-nuts. They tried to teach me as many Ateso words as they possibly could, although there were way too many for me to remember in such a short period of time...

Here's some other things that I did...
Serving tea...Peeling plantains...



Trying to make g-nut paste for dinner...I'm not very good at it.
Oh and planning with Katharine...or trying to anyway. She was still pretty afraid of me by the end of the week, but she would still smile at me and be adorable :)

Life in the village was a lot simpler than here...in some ways I was reluctant to come back. There's so much less pollution and dirtiness. They live their lives day to day, growing the food that they need to eat and living off the land. That was a new experience for me and one that I really grew to cherish the week that I was there. The hospitality that I experienced was incredible - I can't imagine coming into a more welcoming environment.

And yet...there were things that were difficult and frustrating. Gender roles here are so different than in America and often times I chafed from what I thought were oppressive gender roles. The women always sit on a mat on the floor to eat while the men sit in chairs. Toto even made me kneel twice to men who came to visit - something that I almost refused to do in protest, but ended up swallowing my pride and doing anyway. I learned a lot about humility. If Christ humbled himself in obedience, becoming a man and dying on the cross, why is it so hard for me to forsake my pride in order to show respect for a culture in which I am a visitor?

In his book Compassion, Henri Nouwen labels obedience and servanthood as key characteristics of God and two of the important ways he chooses to reveal himself. As I was reading that book I kept wondering why if the Bible portrays obedience in such a positive light, I have a difficult time with the idea of "submission" in gender roles. Obviously I'm not saying that the gender roles I see her are Biblical - in fact I think that in some ways they are morally wrong - but I am more convicted of my own pride and I can objectively say that there are some things about American gender roles which are a pollution of what God intended as well. Josh knows that I am not the type of girl who "submits" easily...but I think that I am more willing to admit now that obedience when done right does not have to be demeaning or oppressive.

Moving on...
This is Sipi Falls...possibly the most amazing place I have ever been to in my life. After our rural home stays this is where we traveled for debrief. It is in the mountains on the border of Uganda and Kenya and filled with all sorts of waterfalls just like this one. I honestly cannot even describe to you the feeling of being there...it was so unpolluted and a totally pure example of the majesty of God. I would sit out on this amazing wooden swing outside my room at night and look across the entire huge valley below with the waterfalls in the distance and I got chills some times considering how perfect God's creation is - and how horribly we have screwed it up.
On the second day we were there we made this hike which can only be described with one word: EPIC. It took us almost all day but we hiked to three waterfalls - both the top and the bottom of each. My friends described it using the Sigur Ros song Saeglopur - listen to it and try to imagine hiking up this massive mountain, through banana plantations and cabbage fields and then reaching this ridge looking over hundreds of miles of land right next to a waterfall...then going downhill and traveling to the bottom looking up and this mass of water cascading down hundreds of feet...ridiculous.

Here's my group at the bottom of the biggest waterfall I had ever seen in my life.

Honestly I didn't want to come back to Mukono. It is really dirty here, polluted and life in the mountains and in the village was so peaceful and calm. Here I am getting called mzungu all the time and getting hit on by random strangers on the street - in the village this never happened. Sure, people stared sometimes, but they treated me with so much respect and they all wanted to talk to me and spend time with me. I felt connected to them in a way that I don't necessarily feel connected here.

Well I don't want to bore you with too long of a blog post, I'll try to write another one soon because I have plenty more to talk about!! That's it for now though. Thanks for your patience with me!

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

In the spirit of the Wheaton record which for every edition publishes a "the good, the bad and the ugly" I figured I would do the same and share some of my experiences from being in Uganda...Enjoy!

THE GOOD

1) Spending Sunday afternoon with my host family - got there and had tea with three, count 'em three, pieces of white bread...then a huge lunch a couple hours later...good thing I'm not there the whole semester or I would be massive!

2) Going to an international craft fair in Kampala last Friday. There were way way too many people there and I had to clutch my bag tightly to my chest to prevent it from being snatched, but hey it's a good African experience :)

3) Playing dancing games with street children in Kampala - they didn't quite get the point of the game but boy can African children dance! Way more rhythm than me, but hey they also almost all sing off tune, so I guess we're even...

4) Planning to make breakfast for my Ugandan politics class tomorrow...french toast and scrambled eggs yum :) Then going to drop off the materials to make breakfast at my prof's house for tomorrow morning and being invited to have dinner with them - quiche and tomato cucumber salad - double yum!

5) Mom and Dad coming to see me this Sunday!

6) Going rolling (translation: walking outside the university gates to get a rolex around 9 or 10 with UCU students - rolex = chapatti with fried egg + cabbage + tomato) - however I usually opt for the fake, but still delicious ice cream which is sold right next to the stands :)

7) Playing with the children at Off-tu, the home for street kids which I am working with on Tuesday...normally I don't get to go to their place in Mukono (I usually go Kampala) - now I am "Auntie Meghan" and they invite me to come back any time

THE BAD

1) My eyes getting a slight infection from all the pollution/dust in the air - got eye drops though so now "I'm ok" (this is what Ugandans say every time you ask them how they are)

2) The UNBEARABLE heat the past couple days...I have resorted to a shower in the morning after my run and another half shower (without washing my hair) in the evenings before bed...and I am soaked all day with sweat

3) Fearing for my life when I am in a car on the roads in Kampala...especially with Uncle Julius from Off-tu - after riding with him I will never complain about a driver in the US ever again...add in being in a car with nonexistent seat belts and you have a recipe for disaster

4) Internet which is either really really slow or goes out randomly - unless you get up at 5:30 in the morning...

THE UGLY

1) My Ugandan "friend" Bob walking me back from the dining hall with his arm around my shoulder...even though he knows I'm engaged, but told me to "not get married and wait for him instead" - afterward my shoulder smelled like BO (gonna call him BO Bob from now on...and no, most Africans do not wear deodorant)

2) Begging children on the streets of Kampala...

3) Not paying attention to where I was going and stepping right into a gutter on campus...luckily Ugandans ALWAYS say "sorry" in response to every mishap and rarely if ever laugh, so it wasn't as embarrassing as it could have been...

4) 64 days till I get to see Josh again...ugh that seems like an eternity...

Thanks for reading my blog! I am almost to the halfway point of my time here which is crazy! At the end of next week I leave for my rural home stay and then it will be November...pray for continued guidance and perseverance as I continue to learn and gain understanding of this culture.

What Does the African Jesus Look Like?

It's funny but I don't even know how to start writing this post. Perhaps I am slightly jaded towards missionaries who come in with their own cultural preconceptions about Christianity and attempt to impose them upon the culture to which they are attempting to "witness." So often throughout African history, Western Christians have created more havoc than good when attempting to "bring Christianity" to the African continent. Why is AIDS much more common in areas where missionaries evangelized?...because they came in without understanding the sexual practices of Africans and only preached against what was the most obvious sin, polygamy. Without prior knowledge of a culture, Christian evangelism does very little good at all...so I guess this is the basis from which I am starting. My being in Africa is NOT about missions...and it is frustrating when people think I am here because I have something to offer. In fact, I have very little to offer in the circumstances I encounter here. I am more often a burden than I am a help...

Although I am not here to "evangelize" so to speak, I am here to begin to understand a culture which is very different from my own. This is an attitude which is severely lacking to our superior Western attitude. In a class I am taking here in Uganda, I just finished reading John Taylor's The Primal Vision. As a disclaimer I do not agree with all that he lays out in this book and in fact if my USP friends knew I was writing a blog post about this they would cringe, since we have beaten this dead horse over and over in class...but it is still something to think about. In his book, Taylor attempts to lay out the basic tenets of African Christianity and ask some both profound and confusing questions, such as the one above. I'll attempt, even with inadequate words, to give you some of my thoughts about this...

Western Christianity is often completely irrelevant in the African context. An African proverb says when the leopard comes to you, the club at your neighbors won't drive him off, meaning that bringing our own cultural expectations to this context is ridiculous - Africans must think of Christianity IN THEIR OWN CULTURAL CONTEXT. We must enter into this with an attitude of humility, recognizing how little we truly understand...a period of learning about a culture is essential before you even think about "evangelizing" in the traditional sense. As long as we continue to look on African culture with a patriarchal and superior attitude, we won't understand what the culture has to offer our own, sometimes impoverished faith. God is already here, we are not bringing him as though he is dependent on us to spread Christianity to the rest of the world...

Africa is a communal society, not dependent on individual interests. 'I participate, therefore I am' as opposed to the Western 'I think, therefore I am' is essential to understanding how this culture operates. As a human being, your life is intricately tied to the lives of all those around you, whether living or dead (and yes, ancestors are hugely important here). As examples, to an African, the concept of guilt is irrelevant because it is based upon an individual feeling of wrongdoing, but the concept of shame is hugely important because it implies judgment from the community for an act of sin. An emotions which is bottled up inside is better to an African than one that is expressed. In America, we are taught that if an emotion is kept bottled up inside it becomes dangerous to our own wellbeing. In Africa, if expressed, an emotion becomes an entity that you can no longer control, and it can even act back upon you (I'm sorry if this concept is confusing...) Our cultural views of the self in turn affect our view of salvation..."what does death-of-self mean for a self that is dispersed into many centers of consciousness far beyond the narrow circle of the skull and precincts of the flesh?..." Maybe the sinners prayer is not relevant...

Ok here comes the most important part of what Taylor lays out (I think anyway)...

From the African perspective, God is not necessarily a God who is personally involved with his creation. This is in essence why they so often pray to ancestors, etc. - because they are doubtful whether so high a diety as God would even care about their own petty affairs. Everything is nature and the world is connected, but God is essentially outside the sphere of human connectedness. This is why Christ is so important! To an African, the concept of God's omnipotence is not as important - as Bonhoeffer says "that is no genuine experience of God, but a bit of extended world." You do not have to "know" God to come up with this concept. We simply take a human attribute and and extend it to the highest level...we have some level of power, so God must be all powerful. What is important about Jesus is rather his PRESENCE in the physical world, bringing God into the circle of human life. God responded to the suffering of the world NOT by using his power to reverse it, but by subjecting himself to it through Christ. Africans do not see a God that intervenes for them in times of suffering (how could they when they see so much destruction around them...) but a God who placed himself in their shoes legitimizes his call for them to persevere through times of suffering. Jesus is the reversal of all that is human - we live for ourselves, but he lived completely for others.

I work at a home for street children once a week and a few weeks ago some of the young girls sang a song for us which started out saying "I see the Son of Man, suffering home alone, nothing for them to eat..." They know what suffering is but they take comfort in the fact that Christ was and still is present with them in their situation. Christ's triumph over sin and death, although still important, is not as relevant as his presence among us...

Hopefully that wasn't as rambling and confusing at it sounded...

Turn Down the Music

It's hard to sum up my emotions a month into my semester here in Uganda...

Jaded...
Confused...
Frustrated...
Joyful....

You name the emotion I have probably felt it. Sometimes it feels like my life is an emotional roller coaster. One minute I will feel so completely thankful and overwhelmed with joy to be here and then something will happen and my emotions will plummet so quickly that it ruins the day. In order to really be present here, it has become just constant cultural immersion and sometimes I get so overwhelmed. I miss Josh, I miss home, I miss Wheaton desperately and yet I try so hard to not think about going home in December because I truly believe that will be detrimental to my time here.

Being here can be so amazing at times. Sometimes I feel such a genuine fellowship with the people here. I love running on the track every morning with my buddy Charissa (who makes me laugh so hard I sometimes think I'm going to pee myself...), having dance parties with Ugandan students (let me tell you - Ugandan men especially, but all Ugandans too can dance sooooo well...it is extremely intimidating), sitting through classes in the houses of my teachers and feeling like I am at home (especially when they make REAL coffee, not the nasty instant kind they always drink here), going out at night to get a rolex with some friends (rolex = chapatti + egg with cabbage, onion and tomato in it...pretty good although not my favorite), hitting up the canteens for a bowl of fruit (the pineapple here is incredible!)....and yet...

Sometimes I feel so jaded. Any interaction between me and a Ugandan student or male in general that is not initiated by me is worthy of suspicion. I am tired of walking into town and being the center of everyone's attention. Today I went to Mukono and did not see a single other white person the whole time I was there. I get stared at, hit on, asked for money, overcharged for things I'm buying...I now truly know how it feels to be a minority. This culture can be so demeaning to women and occasionally I feel truly oppressed. There are only a few men who can be my friends because I know they are harmless...any other man ultimately just ends up telling you that he has always wanted to date a white woman and that he thinks you are beautiful (and not in a platonic way...)

The poverty here is not so obvious at first glance. No, the people around me, especially on campus, are far from starving. In fact they eat so much food that I can't ever finish what is given to me. Yet when I walk on the streets, especially in Kampala I see how dirty and awful the conditions are and I know that I am helpless to do anything about it. When I am in a car and we are stalled by traffic and children come up to the window and hold out their hands for money, I am crushed and yet I know that the answer is not just to hand out money at every opportunity. And yet I hate it when people stereotype Africa as being needy and poor...because there is so much more to being here than that. Please don't ask me if I will starve while I'm here or if I'm constantly seeing starving children because that is a completely Western perspective...

I guess I am coming to realize more and more that just being present is enough. I can't do much to change the situation but I'm here and I truly want to learn. That's all that I really can ask of myself...What is my responsibility? I really don't know...but I do know that while I'm here I will learn more from those around me than they will learn from me and that is a good thing. "Helping" Africa has become such a fad in the church and being here has helped me understand that in some ways "the world Church is impoverished and incomplete without the insights that the Logos has been preparing for it in Africa" (to quote John Taylor's The Primal Vision). Maybe when my time here is done I'll understand more fully the implications of this idea...

Thanks for reading! I've had this Shane and Shane song running around in my head for the past couple days and in some ways it parallels part of my struggle here...(I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE Shane and Shane by the way...if you don't know who they are you need to check them out...www.shaneandshane.com)

They sang this at one of their concerts I went to at the end of last semester and it's a little hard to understand without the story behind it...So one of the Shanes said that he had heard this man speak once and he had told the story of this church in Nazi Germany that was situated right across from a railroad track. Every Sunday the church would come together for their service and one day right in the middle of the service they heard this horrible noise and smelled something that smelled like rotting flesh. They realized that a train was going by full of Jews on the way to concentration camps and it had stopped right in front of their church. The Jews cried out for help and the congregation did not know what to do. This continued for a few Sundays and eventually on one Sunday the church decided to make some changes to their program...When the train came by this time they were ready and when it stopped they started worshiping as loud as they could, trying to drown out the noise of the people crying for help. The preacher kept yelling "Sing louder!" and the congregation worshiped to cover the sound of the suffering Jews. You can take the implications of this story any way you want to...to me it was powerful and challenging.

TURN DOWN THE MUSIC

If you were hungry
Would we give you food
If you were thirsty
Would we give you drink
If you were a stranger
Would we let you in

What would be the song we'd sing to you in everything
Would it be an empty hallelujah to the King

Turn down the music
Turn up the noise
Turn up your voice, oh God, and let us hear the sound
Our people broken
Willing to love
Give us your heart, oh God, a new song rising up

If you were naked
Would we give you clothes
If you were an orphan
Would we give a home
and if you were in prison
Would we visit you

What would be the song we'd sing to you in everything
Would it be an empty hallelujah to the King

Turn down the music
Turn up the noise
Turn up your voice, oh God, and let us hear the sound
Our people broken
Willing to love
Give us your heart, oh God, a new song rising up

Let it be our worship
Let it be our true religion
In this world but not of it
Holding on to our confession

Turn down the music
Turn up the noise
Turn up your voice, oh God, and let us hear the sound
Our people broken
Willing to love
Give us your heart, oh God, a new song rising up...

Meet my family!

A little over a week ago we started our first homestay for the program, so I have been staying with a Ugandan family in Mukono and will be there until this Friday. I am sorry to say that going into this I was somewhat apprehensive - especially because I was just starting to like living in the dorm and I felt like I was connecting with people here and I was sad to have to "leave" in a way. I wasn't sure what my family would be like and I didn't really know what to expect...

I got dropped off at my home on Sunday - and honestly that wasn't even necessary because it turned out that my home is right outside the university gate! I'm actually the closest home to campus. After taking a general look around I could see why the director of my program had said it was "probably the most rustic placement they had." I don't want to give you the impression that my family is "poor" because I feel like that in a way is me trying to get you to feel pity for them and that is not what I want. Our house does not have electricity or running water. We use a pit latrine outside, but it is hard to get to because it is muddy to walk there and it is not very close to the house. There are three small rooms in the house - one is a sitting room, one where my four siblings sleep and then a room that I share with my host mom. They cook outside over a fire and usually we eat on the floor or sitting on a bed in the second room.

Here's a rundown of my family:
This is my host sister Patience - the most brilliant girl I have ever met. She LOVES speaking English and speaks very very well for a ten year old who's primary language is Luganda and not English. She was so friendly immediately and just wanted to do everything with me and talk to me. She is almost always very happy - only a few times have I seen her get upset. I have had so many conversations with her that you would never be able to have with a normal ten year old...very insightful :)

Then comes Andrew. He is the youngest in the family at eight. He doesn't speak much English but his smile could light up a whole room. He absolutely adores playing futbol (soccer) and he plays all day every day. My favorite anecdote from Andrew: I made them french toast for dinner one night (one of the only things you could possibly make over a wood fire...) and he ate so much he looked ready to throw up. He just kept saying over and over in his broken English "the boy...is going...to burst..."
This is Vivian - yes she is EXTREMELY tall, even taller than this picture makes it seem. She is my host mom Vennah's younger sister (much younger...) and she is in high school. At first she is quiet and shy but opened up to me so much during the time that I was there. Up until a few days ago she had not been able to pay her school fees and so had stayed home from school reading many many novels which she absolutely loves.

Irene is the oldest sibling in the family, but I actually do not have any pictures of her...She is in her first year at Uganda Christian University where I am studying and she is a pretty fantastic girl. Even though she is only 18 I think that her maturity level is off the charts. She is very busy and usually would get home after I had already gone to bed, but then she would just come and plop down on my bed and start talking to me. Half of the time I don't really remember what about because I was half asleep...but I gained so many insights about African culture from talking to her...


Finally here is me and Mama Vennah. She is definitely the matriarch of the family...and works extremely hard. She has a full time job and is going to school to get her degree in Counseling (like me!) Unfortunately she wasn't able to be at home a lot of the time and she would get home late so we did not get a chance to talk a whole lot, but I enjoyed being a part of her family immensely.

Although being a part of a Ugandan family was an awesome experience, there are always cultural barriers to overcome. I have to say that even after being here for a month, I am still in culture shock in some ways. Ugandan culture is extremely hierarchical and it is hard to get used to being treated better simply by virtue of being white. On the flip side, because I am white I get the "mzungu price" at markets (meaning they overcharge because they think I have money) and I get more attention than I really desire from boda boda drivers (motorcycle taxis) and practically anyone that I meet...Thankfully my host family was very relaxed and helped me feel comfortable in their home right away. I am sad to leave them.



Aaaaaand of course anywhere I go there is also a following of children small and large who want to wave at me and touch my hand...the little girl in the pink shirt in the bottom left's name is Lillit and she follows me around sometimes. She has the cutest smile in the world...Here she is again :) Cutie...

Ok well that's all I have for now. I am leaving in two hours to spend the weekend in Jinja which is an hour or so away from Mukono...thanks for reading my blog!!

Crazy African Dance Party

Hello again everyone!

Thank you for being patient with me - I know I haven't updated this in forever...I'm going to try to be better about it now that I am somewhat getting into the swing of being here...

So when I last posted I had been in Uganda for a couple days and was getting used to the lay of the land and trying to figure out how I will be living for the next three months. Unfortunately, I am still figuring this out...We were only in Uganda for a few days before we left to go to Rwanda for 9 days on August 29. We loaded up the buses at 5AM and drove 15 hours (on pretty horrible roads), crossed the border and made it to the rural Rwandan village of Kibunga where we were staying for a few nights. Although most of the places where we stayed on the trip were pretty dismal in terms of American standards, they were very nice compared to the other options available in Africa. All 20 girls stayed in a huge room together that was filled to bursting with bunkbeds. It was a very nice bonding time.(new friends under the mosquito nets we sleep under every night here...)

We spent the first couple days of the trip in the rural areas and we were split into groups to visit rural churches on Sunday. As "distinguished guests" we were welcomed with open arms and treated as honored visitors - something that in a way made me ashamed because I felt as though I had done nothing to deserve that kind of treatment. One member of my group preached, I gave my testimony and then my group sang a few English songs (very poorly...) No one in the church spoke much English except the pastor and so he translated for us. Unfortunately, you never really know what the translation is and sometimes there can be errors. A girl in another group gave her testimony about how her father recovered from a heart attack - and the translator inadvertently told the congregation that her father had died! Oops...

(picture: this is what happens when you give your camera to a group of Rwandan children to play around with...)

When our two days in Kibunga were over we loaded up again and drove an hour or so to reach the capital city of Kigali. The differences between the countries of Rwanda and Uganda became extremely apparent as soon as we entered Kigali. Rwanda is significantly cleaner and fairly well organized in comparison to Uganda. There are hills for miles in all directions - even in the capital city you have to continually drive up and down and up and down to get anywhere. (coming from the Midwest, this is an EXTREME transition for me. In Kigali, as white foreigners we attract significantly less attention than we do in most parts of Uganda and also the rural areas of both countries. I felt less conspicuous than I had in days...

(view of Kigali from Kigali Genocide Memorial)

It is extremely difficult to summarize all of the things that we did during the four days that we spent in Kigali. We were there primarily to learn about the country of Rwanda - it's past, present and future, with a special focus on the genocide and reconciliation in he aftermath. To make sure you understand the context for what I am going to talk about, I will give you a brief background of what happened. Rwanda is composed of three people groups - the majority are Hutu with about 20-30% Tutsi and a very small (around 1%) number of Twa people. No one really knows when these ethnic distinctions came about but with the advent of the colonial period, the Belgians who colonized Rwanda pitted the two groups against one another by appointing the Tutsis the "ruling class." As the Hutus began to rise up in retaliation, the Belgians switched sides and the Hutu majority took over the government. The Hutus stayed in power after independence, but there was continuing resentment against he Tutsis because many Hutus still believed that they had invaded Rwanda from another part of Africa and so did not belong there. Skipping to the 1990's, a group of militant Hutus formed a group called Hutu Power with the purpose of bringing about the demise of all the Tutsis in Rwanda. They began making lists of Tutsis in power to kill and forming militant gangs (called the Interhamwe) which became the perpetrators of the genocide. When the plane of the president, Juvenal Habyarimana, was shot down in April 1994 (no one knows by whom), this act set off the genocide. For a period of 100 days, groups of Hutus violently murdered around 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus. There is much more to the story than that, but if you want to know more, you can go find out for yourself...

During our four days in Kigali we were literally swamped with speakers intended to make us knowledgeable about topics such as reconciliation, the gacaca court process (instituted b the government because they did not have enough resources to try all the genocide perpetrators in the national courts) and the role of the church in development. We were able to hear stories from those who had experienced the genocide first hand - something which was extremely useful for someone like me who came in with a large amount of knowledge about the events of the genocide, but very little emotional knowledge or practical experience. These stories make the atrocities that you can only read about real...

(mass grave at the Kigali Genocide Memorial)

There is so much I could tell you, but I think that the pivotal point for me during the trip was when we traveled to a memorial just outside of Kigali in a church where hundreds had taken refuge during the genocide and had subsequently been killed by the Interhamwe. They had taken the clothes of all the victims and laid them out on benches all around the church. Behind the church were two mass graves which housed a number of those who had been killed, including a grave where around 50 people had been buried alive. As our guide took us around the church and told stories of the massacres, we soon realized that he was one of only seven of those who had taken refuge in the church who survived - so the stories that he told us came from his own recollections of the events. He was eight years old at the time and had watched his parents die - his brother smeared blood all over him and told him to lie still, pretending he was dead. He remained on the floor for three days until he was able to sneak out of the church to a swamp nearby where some other people were hiding. I was baffled by how he could return to the scene where he had experienced such tragedy and tell his story over and over...that takes a tremendous amount of strength.

(one section of clothes at the memorial)

Although most of this section was thoroughly depressing, I don't want to leave you without hope. God never said we wouldn't struggle with our own contradictions - such as how could a country where 80% of citizens professed to be Christians kill their own neighbors in cold blood - and this is something we will continue to wrestle with. However, there is a bright side...On our last day in Kigali we visited a woman's development center right next to a school. As soon as we got there hundreds (literally) of young children poured out of the school desperate to just hold our hands. (Obviously they very rarely see "muzungus" around...) They followed us for hours as we toured the village and got to see how they have created stability through development projects and when we had to say goodbye to the children to go into a meeting, they crowded around the doors and windows, refusing to return to their classes. I guess I realized at this point that there is hope in future generations. Even though it may take decades still for the aftermath of the genocide to be resolved, these children do not know Hutus from Tutsi. Even though I believe that most of the "reconcilation" that has occurred now in the country is not truly genuine, future generations will hopefully be distanced enough from the event that there will be true peace.(my new little friend - thought about stealing him to take home with me)

After being in Rwanda for six days we were in need of a little refreshment since we literally had not stopped going the entire time. To debrief, we traveled to Kabale in Southern Uganda (the coldest place in the country - 75F every day! Brr...) and stayed at a camp on Barusha island. Waking up every morning in my large tent to the sounds of the boubou bird gave me a great chance to clear my head and prepare myself for returning back to campus and actually starting school.


(this is what I woke up to every morning - jealous?)

Unfortunately the program is full of transitions (they don't want us to get really comfortable anywhere) and even as we speak I am packing to leave today for my two week homestay in the town of Mukono (where Uganda Christian University is located). I will be coming back to campus during the weekdays for classes, but returning to my host family every night and for the weekend as well. I am looking forward to meeting my "mom, dad and siblings" as well call them, but also nervous about the cultural barriers that I will have to tackle. I think this will probably be the topic of my next blog post - whenever I actually get around to it... Originally we were supposed to move in yesterday, but there has been quite a bit of political unrest in the capital city (only 30 or so km from here) and also in Mukono as well so we were banned from leaving campus for a few days.

Please pray for the political situation here. Uganda was originally made up of 6 large kingdoms (and some smaller ones), with the largest being the kingdom of Buganda. When the British colonized this area, they used the Bugandan kingdom to indirectly rule the others. Today the kings of these kingdoms still exist, but they were stripped of their political power - something that is still a source of tension. This week, the king of Buganda was to embark on an annual visit to a place very near where my university is located, but Museveni (the president of Uganda) prevented him from visiting by sending out guards to block his way. This instigated massive protest by the Baganda people all around the capital city. We have been able to hear the riots going on outside our gates, but do not worry because we are very safe on campus and are hoping that the controversy dies down tomorrow or the next day.

I would appreciate all prayers as I continue to transition. Being a "muzungu" in Uganda has its frustrations and I am learning to navigate the stares, overly friendly men and COMPLETELY different culture. Pray that I will not be so frustrated that I forget to enjoy the time that I have here and also pray for my attitude towards being in a culture which in all honesty can seem extremely oppressive at times for a very independent American girl.

Love you all!

Monkeys, Monkeys and More Monkeys...

Hello everyone!

I just wanted to let you know that I got to Uganda safely - and to give you a few snippets from the first few days that I've been here.

My trip went extremely well, considering that I traveled apart from the rest of the group and it took me at least 48 hours to get here and another 8 hours or so to actually get to the university. I didn't sleep much during the trip and am definitely still trying to make up for that. Thankfully I think that getting little sleep has really eliminated all jet lag for the most part.

I flew out of Cleveland on Sunday afternoon and then took an overnight flight from JFK to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Dubai is a ridiculously rich nation and their airport reflected that...there are shops lined all the way down the terminal, which seems like it goes on for miles. I landed there on Monday night and had an overnight layover there until Tuesday morning, when I got on a plane which took me from Dubai to Entebbe, Uganda with a stop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The flights themselves were very nice - Emirates is a great airline - and they pretty much stuffed my face with so much food that I couldn't possibly eat it all. I probably watched 5 movies on my own little personal tv on the way from JFK to Dubai. When I landed in Entebbe I had to wait about 6 hours in the airport for the rest of the group to get there, but the Ugandans practice hospitality like nobody's business and many Ugandans talked to me and welcomed me to their country. After the rest of the group came, we hopped on a bus and drove through Kampala to the town of Mokono where the school is located. I was too tired to really notice anything and it was pitch black anyway...

I'm staying in a dorm on campus with a few other students from my program and most of the last couple days has been composed of orientation sessions. We are traveling to Rwanda tomorrow for nine days and so we have been preparing for that and also just talking about general rules, safety and health. Yesterday we took a bus to Kampala to visit this gigantic mall and the tombs of the most recent Bugandan kings...all in all it has been a wonderful experience so far.

Here are some small snapshots that I think you may enjoy:
-waking up every morning to the sound of monkeys playing in the trees outside my window...
-hiking up hills in a skirt - and seeing more monkeys in the trees...
-walking through the town of Mokono and having literally EVERYONE stare at you and yell "Mizungu!" (white person in Luganda)
-taking VERY cold showers...sometimes even in the dark...I guess it's better that they really have no mirrors to see what I look like...
-washing my clothes by hand for the first time in a bucket...
-driving on the wrong side of the road!
-pedestrians = last leg on the totem pole when it comes to road etiquette...
-squatty toilets...
-lots and lots of bugs...but really that terrible...
-beautiful weather every day! low 80's and sunny...

I'll be sure to update more when I come back from Rwanda, but that's all until then!

Countdown: One Week!

Hi everyone! Well I can't believe how quickly the summer has gone by and that it is almost time for me to leave. As most of you know I will be studying abroad in Uganda this coming fall semester with BestSemester, a Christian study abroad organization. My communication will be extremely limited and so I am planning to use this blog as a way to let you all know how I'm doing and to tell you about all the exciting adventures I am having :) I am excited about the prospect of learning to wash my clothes in a bucket and going rafting down the Nile river - should be an amazing first semester of my senior year!

I've had a wonderful summer working at a transitional housing facility for homeless young mothers called Jubilee Village. My summer was filled with many challenges and most days I came home exhausted, but I am extremely grateful for the many opportunities that this summer afforded me. As my awesome friend Christine (who is spending 6 months in Peru at the moment) commiserated about earlier on in the summer, sometimes the best way to learn is just to be thrown in the action. So when I was terrified out of my mind because I was asked to go to court with a client and advocate for her in front of a judge, I just reminded myself that I even when I feel completely incompetent, my best is still better than nothing - and guess what? I got a ticket completely dismissed and my client's fees reduced by half! I guess my incompetence can be good after all...praise the Lord! I look forward to more moments of complete and total reliance on God this coming fall.

I promise to update this blog as much as I can and I hope you have fun reading it as well. I will also be reachable by email (meghan.quigg@gmail.com) and would love to hear from you at any time! I will try to send out an email to everyone each time that I update this blog. Thank you all for your support!

P.S. If you're curious about the name of my blog, you'll have to ask my wonderful fiance Josh :)