post: I love Uganda; the trip was a lot of fun. We were there for about 12 days and it was life changing. I got to see and do things i never thought i'd do (like going into the villages and evangelizing, or almost drowning in the nile), and also meet some of the nicest coolest people in the world. I also learnt that interestingly, ugandans, unlike south africans, adore nigerians (nigerian movies ("nollywood") and futbol stars are pretty much king). I'm not sure exactly how to summarize the trip and I'm sure i will not be able to conver how amazing it was, so i'll just do a quick day-by-day summary of what we did:
Friday, 28, Day 0: Arrived in Ug; sat next to a ugandan woman on the flight who had an interesting take on why other africans (namely uganda and nigeria) seem to be less violent than south africans, when it comes to personal crimes, at least. her theory is that because uganda has lots of land, there is always something to fall back on if a man does not have a job or loses his job (i.e. subsistence through farming). there is not much land in south africa, so people (particularly in the big cities) find it more profitable and seemingly necessary to take what is not their own, at whatever cost. i am simplifying her position a bit, but it does have some credibility...after waiting for my american counterparts to arrive, we finally leave the airport at ~10:30pm and drive to Kamuli. I think we got to the hotel around 3:30am.
Day 1: We went to Butaswa village, about 2 hours (probably 30min, if not for potholes) away from Kamuli, to meet some of the local church leaders
Day 2: sunday. we went to butaswa village for church; lots of singing (people here love to sing)from the time we started picking up people in the van, until the last of them was dropped off later in the evening. most of the singing was in lusoga, few in swahili, and even fewer in really bad english. the preacher was pretty passionate and afterward, there were a bunch of people who wanted to get baptised, so we drove and drove and drove, until maybe an hr later, we found some water.
Day 3: Spent the morning playing soccer and teaching kids baseball near the home of one of the local church leaders. there was more singing! then we took off and went to yet another village, Gwase, to meet with a new christian and his community. he gathered people around and, unexpectedly, i was asked to speak; just a bit nerve-racking, but it looked like everyone was attentive and receptive. i shared something from phillipians and sat down, thinking i had done my quota for speaking ("giving a word", as they called it) for the week...little did i know what was coming. afterward, we played more futbol - a very well organized game during which im pretty sure i looked like a fool, but it was lots of fun; we had loads of spectators. i think we won. my white friend, wes, was the highlight tho - they enjoyed seeing a white guy ("mzungu") try to school them in futbol. after being fed for the 15th time, we headed back to the hotel and were given our village assignments where we would be for the next 2 days by ourselves.
Day 4: I was assigned Bugaya village with the local leader named Busoga Patrick, or just patrick. riding and singing our way through uganda in the evangecube, we began by dropping off wes, whose village was the farthest away from the hotel (i.e. from civilization). I was the 2nd closest to the hotel, so we didn't get to my place until almost dark. met patricks family; he's got a lot of children - i counted 6 that night, but he told me that there are "more"; there's also one yet to be born, which is interesting because he also has grandchildren (meaning some of his grandkids would be older than his own children. interesting). did i mention we picked up some kids to ride the van with us and they sang all day?! that night, i milked a cow for the first time in my life...note to self: never stand behind the cow... 3 minutes later, drank some hot tea with the milk (more like hot milk with a hint of color). patrick is well read. and likes to talk. i was glad there was no electricity so he couldn't see my eyes closing as he was talking to me about economics, politics, development, planning, the white man, etc...
Day 5: rough night. bed was hardly comfortable, but it was a bed in a brick hut, and i appreciated the effort they took to trying to make me comfortable. patrick woke me up super early to go to bugaya rock to watch the sunrise. it was beautiful; met the dog (Blackie. he was black. get it??!), my new favorite dog; had some more fresh cow milk (delicious); took the cows out for grazing. the cows were not very obedient. actually got to see more of patrick's place; its pretty big; he has a lot of land. later we rode patrick's bike to meet up with other local christian leaders. we found them under a tree, just talking and sharing. that was a really neat sight - the ability and willingness to meet at anytime, anywhere just to encourage one another and relax, have fun, and goof off. i got to see Kristal and Nikki, who were staying at the village where we met. they asked me to "share a word" again. i'm still not used to that, but i tried my best and i think they responded well to it (this time it was Isaiah). the theme of our village stay was def the amt of times we were fed (anywhere b/w 6-9 times a day). and of course to be polite, you take at least some of the food. well, on this day, i paid dearly for that politeness.
Day 6: pick-up day, but before then, patrick wanted us to visit some homes and for me to "give a word" we ended up visiting about 4 or 5 homes, including that of a weak and distressed old woman, and also of a blind man. i think i was extremely nervous and i'm not sure i even smiled the entire time, cuz i was focused on what i would do next. they must've thought i was a mean american. we went back to patricks afterward, had lunch, had some downtime, which of course i used to take a nap, then heard the evangecube rolling in.
Day7: went white water rafting on the nile. loads of fun; very scary. we did class 3-5 rapids and our guide was very funny (he had this interestingly high jamaican type voice, though he was a buff looking ugandan) and he kept saying "wicked sweet". at certain points i thought i was gonna die in the nile, but i made it through. i cant say i was disappointed when we hit the last rapid, but the experience was lots of fun. afterward we went to an american missionary's house for desert; desert was good. the missionaries....i'm still undecided about. daniel, the brother of the ugandan missionary that took us around (grace), refused to go into their house (rather, mansion) and i later found out that it was because he did not like the way they went about their mission and i don't blame him. they had this huggge house with nice hugge cars. everything looked so american and grandiose in this mostly poor part of the world. it just didnt fit. nor did it portray the right message, especially in africa where impressions/perceptions are largely more important than words. I don't blame the missionaries entirely either for wanting to emulate a semblance of their american lifestyle, particularly for their kids, but i think u have to understand the environment you're in and the perceptions u give off. daniel says the perception is they "live as kings" and rarely with few exceptions spend much time in the villages among the poor. its almost like when people in the US call christians "holier than thou" or "insensitive". I don't think we as christians are doing our jobs properly (and certainly not missionaries) if the perceptions we exude are keeping people from even entering our homes or warming up to us.
on another note, i found out it was a particularly bad day for grace (the ugandan missionary that took us around everywhere). his name was being slandered all over town and even on the radio by some ill-meaning politicians. this really angered me, as i was seeing african corruption at its core. pretty much these guys were trying to rally the community against grace (at a funeral no less), because they were starting to realize that he receives US donations that support the many ministries and they want their hands on the money as well. it made me really sick. i couldnt sleep that night. later on i heard that my man, barack won iowa, and i was made my day better.
Day 8-12: We pretty much just took it easy the next few days. we visited some more people; got to see the work that missionaries are doing at the Harding Academy ( a local high school), the source cafe (a church/restaurant/int cafe/shop), Christian Aids Network, etc. Went shopping in Jinja; saw the source of the nile (Lake Victoria); saw a bit of Kampala.
So thats the summary of my trip. Spent lots of time eating, driving, swallowing dust from the unpaved roads, and "sharing a word" (or 2, 3, or 7). I met some amazing people and got to share a life changing experience with some cool and funny people. i def want to go back to uganda some day, but i think one major move a yr is plenty...i'll consider it again next year.
check out plenty of pics on my picasa page (i have a video of people singing in the van, but am having problems uploading, so i'll get that out later): http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/okunadef/Uganda_08
4 comments:
btw, Okobaki mean "What's up" in lusoga. and u reply: "Wazila", not much.
Hey hey !
First post read (well almost).
Keep writing, it helps me make my days feel shorter (and train my English...).
CU
Dude. I totally agree with you about missionaries. It was something we fought with my Dad about but later on came to realise that he was doing it because Missionaries do live like kings. My Dad tried to make sure that we lived modestly enough but were still safe and secure. But I do totally get it. Sure you had fun.
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