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!