Safari

Monday and Tuesday of this week, we took our volunteers to Murchison Falls National Park. We were looking forward to some quiet and much-needed days away from the craziness and ever-changing “routine” of life in Arua. My prayer as we left town was, “Lord, I want to glory in what You have made. Help me to love You more because of what I experience here.” And I have walked away praising Him, loving Him, and somehow changed by what I have seen.

I am in awe of my amazing Creator! Seeing the pictures in magazines and watching video clips on TV and YouTube give you a beginning idea of what it is like, but nothing could truly prepare me for this place. To ride for hours through the wilderness, straining your eyes for anything that could possibly be a lion. (I think God taught termites to build their mounds to look like lions, by the way!) To have a family of elephants join you at the hotel for dinner. To watch a baboon hang out on the hood of a car. To ride in a boat down the Nile River searching for hippos and crocs… and find more than you could ever hope to count! To realize that gazelles are unbelievably beautiful animals, and are even more so when they run. To spot paw prints in the sand that are 9 inches across. To drive up on two giraffes about to mate right next to the road. (Shyness and stage fright took over, sadly!) And to walk right up the Murchison Falls, where the entire Nile River channels into a waterfall only 7 meters wide… to see such amazing power and beauty and majesty, to feel the spray of this water on your face, to glimpse the rainbow of the Creator’s promise of protection, to know that the One who imagined all of this splendor is so much bigger, that what you have seen and can barely comprehend is but a tiny fraction of what He is truly capable of.

When God created Africa, in its innocent, wild, untouched form, He was showing off. I think the Trinity looked at each other and said something to the effect of, “What should We put here? Let’s see just how impressive We can be.” And the result is miles and miles of savannah, scrub trees, palms, oasis, and some of the coolest animals on the planet… just because they could! How could anyone think that all of this, this amazing symbiosis of plants and animals, insects and predators and grazers and scavengers all keeping each other in check, this glimpse into what our planet once looked like, how it was intended to be, this all happened by accident? I just can’t buy it. Not after walking where I’ve walked.

Fresh Produce

I have to say, I have eaten very well in Africa. While I’ve still eaten my fair share of beans, greens, rice, and chapattis, (as well as a good amount of stewed beef and goat), there’s been a pretty good share of pasta, peanut butter, chips (a.k.a. French fries), homemade pizza, and other, really yummy, really American food on my plate. I am NOT going hungry. (And I’m losing weight to boot! Go figure!)

The best part of food in Africa, though, is the amazing availability of fresh produce. There is a huge market in the middle of town where you can get just about anything you want. And I do mean ANYTHING. From beans to fish to posho (finely-ground corn flour…. it makes the creamiest grits you’ve ever eaten!) to fresh eggs (which don’t have to be refrigerated) to carrots to cucumbers to loose leaf tea to pineapple to chicken and goat that are still walking! There’s one downside, though. A white person walking through the market turns on dollar (or maybe shilling) signs in the vendors’ eyes. They think, “Oh, here’s a rich mundu who will pay me twice as much as a Lugbara would.” So we figured out pretty quickly that we’re usually better off sending a local to do most of our market shopping for us.

Panina is our produce lady. It’s really what she does for a living. She gets the list of what vegetables we need. Some things she grows herself, some things she barters for, or she might buy them outright from the market. She charges us a little more than she pays, but still much less than we would pay ourselves. Everyone wins. Panina came yesterday with my first order. (When you ask for certain items, she doesn’t ask what quantity you need for each thing- she just gets as much as she can at a reasonable price.) The vegetables she brought me were absolutely gorgeous, and would have cost at least $30 or $35 in a US supermarket. My shopping list included:
2 heads of Romaine lettuce
3 bags of carrots
1 bag of Roma tomatoes
3 enormous zucchini (at least 10 inches long, 3 inches in diameter!)
1 beautiful, fresh pineapple
4 heads of garlic
3 cucumbers
1 large bag of Irish potatoes

The grand total for my produce? A whopping $8.25. This happy girl is eating veggies!

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again. I LOVE the African economy!!!

Mandela Secondary School

Last week we went for our first small group time at Mandela Secondary School. The school system here in Uganda is totally different from what we’re used to in the States. Even publicly-supported schools are not free; all students must pay school fees before they can begin attending the 3 terms each year. The first term officially began about 3 weeks ago, but classes started last week and this week. (It takes a while for all the students to report, because they are trying to get their school fees together.) Even after students report, if their accounts are found to be short, they may be forced to leave until they can bring the full amount. (As a teacher who dealt with what I considered overly-transient students in the US, I can’t imagine trying to teach with such an unsettled classroom situation.) Students go on a month-long break in April and September, and another round of school fees is due when they return. Most schools are strictly for boarders, so some students live on campus from the time they are 12 or 13 years old, even though home may be close enough to walk to school each day; there are few secondary schools that accept day students in addition to the standard boarders.

We were pleasantly surprised by the large group of girls who joined us for our first True Love Waits small group; we had 34 girls who showed up. (No boys, though… I wonder if the thought of talking about sex with 2 white women was a little much for them.) They were very open and had lots of questions for us... “How can I find a good husband?” (If I only knew!!!) “How can I find good friends?” “How can I stay away from bad friends?” “How many boyfriends should we have?” … which opened up a great discussion on what the “purpose” of a boyfriend is in the first place. The girls were amazingly honest in saying that they wanted boyfriends so they wouldn’t feel lonely. I was able to share that another person, who is probably also lonely, will never be able to fill that emptiness—only Jesus can. And He wants to. He wants us to turn to Him when we are sad, or lonely, or wondering. He wants that kind of relationship with us, where we know we can depend on Him to fill the emptiness inside of us. I’m not sure they all “got me,” (Ugandan for “understood what I was saying”) but I did see some lightbulbs start to come on.

I’ve been on the Mandela campus several times now, and one thing keeps catching my attention… and making me laugh. All over campus, the administration has placed signs to “encourage” students to make wise choices. The signs are a good reminder of just how big a deal the AIDS crisis is here, and how it has to be addressed more openly and matter-of-factly than at home. But the signs, especially to a Westerner, are just funny. Seeing them plastered around a school campus, even when they are addressing a potentially deadly issue, just makes you laugh. Under your breath. To other Westerners.

Check out some of the signs we saw this week:
~ Respect and listen to your teachers and parents
~ Avoid HIV/AIDS- live up right
~ Remember condoms are not 100% safe
~ Avoid dark places
~ Remember life is precious and costly
~ Avoid early marriage
~ Don’t die young
~ Say no to sex
~ Say no to gifts for sex
~ Virginity is healthy

The Darkness

Tonight Kelli and I walked to Evan’s house to watch Friday Night Lights. Evan and Trevor (who’s in Dubai right now to see his sweetie… it’s a rough life!) live all of a five minutes’ walk from our house… no big deal. But the streets in between our houses are more like dirt paths that are big enough for vehicles… sometimes more than one at a time. They’re rutted and bumpy and rocky and not at all level. Suffice it to say that for this clumsy girl, walking the roads around my house is difficult enough in the daytime.

But we walked to Evan’s tonight in the dark. And when I say dark, I mean dark. There are no streetlights. Most houses in the neighborhood don’t have electricity. (And lately, even the ones that are wired to the power company don’t usually have electricity!) And the moon has been rising later this week, so when we walked over around 7:45 it was pretty stinkin’ dark. Dark enough to see stars. Bunches of them.

I’m not afraid of the dark. I’m not really even all that concerned about walking in the dark. I’ve gotten familiar enough with the roads around here that I figured I’d be fine in the dark. (And after 31 years of being a total klutz, I’ve gotten used to falling, so that’s not really a big deal, either.) And I knew that, after a few minutes, my eyes would adjust to the darkness and I’d see pretty well. But Kelli decided to bring along her flashlight.

During our five minute walk, it dawned on me that the little flashlight we had with us made the darkness seem, well, darker. I’m not saying that it wasn’t dark to begin with, because it was. But that little bit of light that we had made the darkness around us even more noticeable. And life is the same way.

We know that the world around us is dark. There’s no denying it. But we talk ourselves into going out without the Light, and gradually we get used to the darkness. It somehow doesn’t seem quite so dark. It’s not so bad anymore. And we wind up stumbling over some rut in the road or a broken brick that we couldn’t see… because the darkness around us lured us in. How critical it is that, as we go out into this dark world that we live in, we consciously take our Lamp and Light with us. Yes, He makes the darkness seem that much darker… because it is. The absolute absence of Light creates a vacuum that He illuminates. The closer I get to Him, the more I realize just how dark this world is. It breaks my heart to see people willingly living in that darkness when they could have the Light as well. Oh, how I wish they could understand just how wonderful the Light is!

And yes, I did stumble just a bit on the way to Evan’s. My butt didn’t hit the ground, though, so I don’t think it really counts.

Living in a Movie

I know it’s been a while since I’ve blogged… It’s been a crazy week. Kelli and I moved into our house last Saturday and spent most of the week trying to get settled. (We’re almost there, by the way… we just need a few small, cheap pieces of furniture for storage.) On top of trying to get moved in, we also had the added pressure of preparing for our first True Love Waits presentation on Friday. Things went well with Mandela Secondary School… we’ve still got some kinks to work out, but it was a good start. Turns out only about 1/3 of the students were actually there on Friday, so we’ll probably get a second chance there before too long. We’re also going back on Thursday, we think for a smaller, informal gathering, more of a Q&A session.

We went to Awindiri Baptist Church this morning, where the Waflers have gone for a while. I’m still up in the air trying to decide whether I’ll continue to go there regularly, but it’s been a good place to be so far. We had baptism this morning, which turned out to be an experience… After praise & worship and giving the offering, the church body walked about half a mile to the river, crossing a major highway and passing through small villages to get there. Once we got to the river most of us had to cross, as there wasn’t really much room on the near side to stand and watch. Some of the men in the group helped the smaller children over (there were by far more kids than adults, and our group grew on the way to the river). The pastor preached a short sermon before 3 relatively new believers were baptized in the river. It was all pretty cool and reminded me somehow of The Poisonwood Bible.

The children at the church have gradually gotten used to me. Most members of the church are Alur, a different tribal group from the Lugbara, who my team is targeting. The Alur language is completely different, and most of the children don’t speak English yet, so communication is almost nonexistent, but they’ve figured out that I’m “okay”, I guess. During service this morning, I looked over and a small girl, maybe 3 or 4 years old, had come and sat down beside me. She watched me for the whole service. While we were waiting for the baptisms at the river, a little boy, probably under 2, came and sat in my lap while his older sister watched. And as we were walking up the dirt path back to the church, I felt a tiny hand in mine, and realized that another little one had come to walk beside me. Evan, one of my teammates was nearby, and we realized that we were completely surrounded by children, all of them under 10 years old. And in that moment, I had the feeling that I had walked into a Hollywood movie script. I mean, here are two naïve mzungus walking through a village in Africa surrounded by children. In whose life does that really happen???

Mine, I guess.

I Need Clean Clothes

I realize that I am spoiled. I know this. I accept this. I grew up in America. For most of my life, I had only to ask for something, and I would get it. And I realize that life in America, for the most part, is easier than anywhere else in the world. I am spoiled.

But I have to say, it is WAY too difficult to wash clothes at my house. We had our first trial run with laundry on Friday night. See what you think about the process we went through:

0. Turn on the generator just to have the power to run the washing machine. (We needed to charge up the batteries for the house anyway, so this isn’t technically a part of the process.)
1. Turn on the water from the spigot above the washing machine… in the bathroom.
2. Though trial-and-error, push enough buttons (which all play music, by the way) to select how many spin cycles, rinses, and how much soaking time you desire… assuming the generator will run that long.
3. Press “Start” and see that the washer is filling … VERY slowly.
4. Five minutes later, realize that the washer has less than 2 inches of water in it. Decide to fill the washer by hand… using a 10 gallon bucket. Be grateful for the open shower stall in the laundry room/bathroom.
5. Add 4 buckets of water and hear the washing machine playing a tune. Assume this means that there’s enough water to wash clothes. Washing cycle actually begins.
6. Go to check on the washer 30 minutes later and realize the drain in the floor where the water is supposed to go has overflowed. Try to decide what to do with all the dirt and water in the bathroom floor. Move drainage hose into the shower stall, hoping that will catch the water better. Again, grateful for the shower in the laundry room.
7. The rest of the wash cycle appears to proceed as “normal,” so you go across the street to visit with friends. You return home and the washer has stopped, so you go to hang the wet clothes on the clothesline in the backyard. As it is dark, you take an electric lantern with you so you can halfway see what you’re doing.
8. Realize that there is still 3 inches of water in the bottom of the washing machine. After investigation and a phone call, you see that the drain hose is tied up on the wall. You untie the hose and the water drains into the shower. Again, VERY grateful for the shower in the laundry room.
9. Considering the moderate success, you decide to try another load. You push more random musical buttons and begin dumping buckets of water into the machine… only to watch them drain immediately into the shower. Arrgggh!
10. You decide to re-tie the drainage hose back on the wall while the washer is filling. The washer begins to hold water, and you add detergent and dirty clothes.
11. You check on the washer 10 minutes or so later and arrive just in time to catch the beginning of the first drain. You quickly untie the hose and position it in the shower. The rinse cycle begins, and you go back to the book you’re reading in intervals.
12. 10 minutes later, you realize the water is still running. You check on the machine, and there is almost no water in it… it’s all literally going down the drain. You decide to re-tie the hose (again!) and bucket-fill the washer (again).
13. About 15 minutes later, you hear a strange sound coming from the generator outside. You realize you’re getting ready to run out of gas. Sure enough, 5 seconds later, the house goes dark.
14. You decide to drain the remaining rinse water and give up. You can hang them up to dry in the morning.
15. In the morning, you take the dry clothes off the line and realize that the clothesline is rusty… and now so are your clothes.

I think next time, I’ll just do my laundry by hand!