the last one

It seems like my life has been filled with new beginnings and endings, here and then gone. There and back. And there again. In both physical space and emotional space.

I’ve been having a reoccurring dream since I’ve been in Africa. Part of this may be attributed to the "may cause vivid dreams" warning on my anti-malaria pill side effects list. I had this dream again last night. I dreamt I was walking over the Sahara or what I assume to be the Sahara desert… it's always dark. Last night, I was walking rather slow as I gazed at my bare feet, reappearing and disappearing as the sand sifted with each step . The moonlight folded over the waves of sand, illuminating a narrow path that stretched before me for miles. I remember the sand looked like ripples of gold, rolling, or maybe more cascading, back and forth, sweeping across, heading towards an untold horizon. I remember thinking how quiet it was and how alone I felt. The wind, carrying the sand beyond the hazy moon's light, was my only companion.

I felt an urge to look behind me and then, my shadow was gone. Shadowless.

I think my dream is symbolic of my time here in Africa. I'm starting to realize that the things I thought I knew, the things I felt I needed and the ideals I once believed were true of myself enter in and disappear from my life like shifting shadows...sometimes they are in front of me, sometimes behind me and sometimes, depending on the situation, they are illusions of my heart. I long for the truth and the rawness of these, to capture them, hold them near, and to thread them in and out of the fibers that make up my very core. But it's messy, and my understanding of this life is so temporal, so momentary. And like a dream, it's fleeting.

A shadow of the possible ebbing behind me, a gust of sand gathering from the blowing wind of hope in front of me.

This is how I leave Africa.

ellipses: vanishing and resurfacing

"Africa is one of the last great places on earth that a person can vanish into... I was going to Africa for the best of reasons - in a spirit of discovery, and for the pettiest-simply to disappear, to light out, with a suggestion of 'I dare you to try and find me.' " **

An earthquake.... getting thrown off a motorbike... the creepy man at the market.... an African pedicure... a visit with AIDS orphans...a nostalgic moment.

Between those ellipses are all things I experienced in the last couple weeks. I haven't had a chance to post anything new since the internet was, shall we say, not very accessible up in Kumi and Soroti where I was. Well, there was one computer with internet in the whole town, but it wasn't working most of the time and the guy who worked there had a disturbing obsession with staring at my chest, so I pretty much remained incommunicado for most of the time. This, I've found, usually allows for a bit of excitement, which seems to follow me wherever I go.

Earthquake... WhenI was in Kampala before heading to the east, I was staying at the guest house with two others... we were in our room talking and suddenly I felt the bed shaking. I thought maybe there was just the usual top-heavy, overstuffed bus with bodies and cargo passing by. Then Ange said her bed was shaking and then the whole building started moving.. the doors slammed and I said, "quick! get in the doorframe!" (after which I wondered, is that what you are really supposed to do? What the hec do I know about these things? I live in Arizona for crying out loud). We waited for a bit and it stopped. We found out later that the neighboring DRC had a 6.0 and we were happy to know we weren't crazy but experiencing tremors... and not just indigestion from that night's spicy Indian dinner.

Getting thrown of a motorbike... It had rained recently and the roads were quite muddy, yet we needed to get to the village of Olilim which is tucked quite far back, between the bumpy paths and heavy green bush. I was riding with one of our staff who had borrowed a friend's motorbike (red flag #1), had taken it only once (red flag #2) and now was attempting to maneuver it on the slick dirt (red flag #3). I was riding sideways since I had a skirt on and he kept stalling along the way (red flag #4), trying to dodge mud puddles as we rode up and down and over bumps. All the time during the ride he was telling me that he had never dropped anyone before and he promised up and down that he would not wreck us (red flag #5) as he was flying through. The whole time I was saying over and over again in my mind, "this is a bad idea, this is a really bad idea" (red flag #6). Well, needless to say, he hit a patch and lost control and off I went, landing squarely on my rumpshaker (for once i was thankful for the nice padding God gave me back there). The scary part was the bike almost rolled back over me (sorry mom) but luckily missed me. I made it out with only a few bumps and bruises and very thankful I wasn't going to have to cash in on the dismemberment or flying air ambulance benefits on my travel insurance.. I was very glad it happened to me and not Denise, the intern who was out here shadowing me, tho she was behind me and saw the whole thing happen.

The creepy man at the market... (note: photo of creepy man unavailable, purposely avoided to not fuel his freakish matchmaking request). I am not sure what it is about men in Soroti, but they are particularly verbal about what they think when they see a white woman. I was shopping for some local fare in the market and one man struck up a conversation with me. "Are you married?" (the answer to this is ALWAYS yes here).. "Ah, your husband a lucky man." "Yes, you bet he is,"I say. "Well, I would really like a muzungu wife. You get me a muzungu wife and I give you good price on anything you like. Do you have one for me?" "Uh, come again?That's really not the way it works. Most people I know marry for love and probably wouldn't like you. What's wrong with an African woman?" "African woman no good. I want a white woman so I can have brown babies. African women too dark." Hmm. "I'm sure that's the only reason you want a white wife, right? Here is some advice: you need to get over this." "No get over. I really wish you would bring one to me." "What about a Russian mail order bride? They are white and not very particular," I offered. "No good. There's the language barrier." Right, what was I thinking? Silly language barrier. I told him I'd let all my eligible friends know there was a lonely, creepy shoe vendor in Soroti with a freaky inclination for white women that would make a lovely father of some brown babies.

African pedicure... yes I got a pedicure, in Africa, the other day. I saw the Magnum Force salon and thought it would provide a blog-worthy experience. It's all chatty men that work there and they were dressed quite metrosexual. The products have names like "Black and Silky Envy", "Lady Venus" and "Dark and Fabulous". I seriously contemplated getting my hair plated but then remembered another girl I met from the US who had it done and lost about a third of her hair when she took the braids out. So I stuck to my pedi. It cost me 3,000 shillings, or about $2 dollars. Totally worth it to get my toes done with 'black ballerina' pink. BTW: African salon = fabulous people watching.

A visit with AIDS orphans... I spent a day with the orphans in our AIDS program. I had met several of them when I was in Uganda last year, so it was really special to get to see some of them again. My heart was full as we listened to them perform poems and songs about AIDS and then they shared verses from the Bible that encourage them. I got to share with them and then we played- we taught them how to play Duck Duck Goose and Simon Says. It was a really precious time... and there is something very specific I feel when I am around children like these. I can't quite articulate it here on a blog, but I know it's God, speaking to my heart and calling me to pursue working with orphans further. This is one treasure that God has given me that I am holding tightly to and leaving with from Africa. To see their little faces filled with laughter and their eyes light up in the setting sun totally made the week's events of the creepy market man, the weird chest-starer and bruising my can completely worth it.

A nostalgic moment... I had a wave of nostalgia as I traveled on a boda boda (motorbike) from Kumi town to the rural village of Moru-ikara. It was a quiet ride, and I got lost in my thoughts to the hypnotizing sound of the whirring of the engine. We road straight for what seemed like quite a while along a well-beaten rural dirt road. I took in the splashes of African life that moved in front of me- bomas (traditional huts), huge billowing trees that lined the road and children running to the side of the road crying “Muzungu!”, waving frantically and keeping up for as long as they could. The drone of the boda’s engine brought me back the sound of another engine I once heard… a motor boat riding over the smooth waves of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. I was ushered back to this time some 6 years ago, and I remembered the melodic hum of the boat that I took each morning, to get from one end of the island to the other. I sat in front each morning to feel the wind and to have an unobstructed view of the rolling, low-lying mountains, spotted with widflowers and rural life waking up. It was during those early morning rides, and the days that followed of serving that poor region with eyeglasses and eye exams, that I felt called to serve God’s people abroad.
That same feeling flooded over me here, a gentle reminder of God’s continuing work of honing my calling and my place in His ministry here on earth. Interesting how that calling came full circle in the rural villages of Uganda.

** Book recommendation: Im reading a fabulous book called "Dark Star Safari" about a man's overland journey on the road from Cairo to Cape Town, the longest road in Africa. It's a great book to get lost in (maybe reading it under a mosquito net with a head lamp has made it a bit more fascinating). It's helped pass many long evenings without power...

Musaale

Musaale (moo-sall-ee). That's me. At the end of spending time in a village, it is custom for the community to grant you an African name, after they've watched your character and seen you work among the people. I was humbled to receive this name, which means "true friend". Our staff shared that I became like a close and true friend to them and to the children and a blessing to the community. They did a ceremony where we had chapati, chicken (which is a special treat here!) and shared thoughts on what they've learned during my time, and then they presented me my name. It was quite meaningful. It was difficult to leave the team and Ange after three weeks of non-stop interaction and service together... my heart is a bit sad.

My heart will also miss these little peanuts, who attend a nursery by our office. They came barreling down the path everyday to give us huge hugs, wrapping their little arms tightly around our legs. What a blessing this was to start out my day like this. Gives me a small window into what it would be like as a parent to come home and have little ones running up to excitedly see you. And plus, I know I will be adopting some African cuties one day. Hmmm, I bet one of these little guys could fit into my North Face suitcase...

For the last stretch of time here I will have an intern with me from the US office to shadow me and see the field...it will be her first time in Africa... we'll be heading to some more rural areas where we are doing child development and HIV/AIDS work with orphans and vulnerable children. More on that soon. Wow, did I say the final stretch? Is Africa really over in a few weeks? More on that soon, too.

More photos from my time in Mbale: teaching another lesson on hygiene and spreading germs; toothbrush distribution after I taught on healthy oral habits; more of me and Mr. W and Ange after she went chachki crazy at a trade fair in the village... (really Ange, will you EVER use a painted leather giraffe purse in Canada??)

a tiny drop

"The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist; it is by the ideal that we live." ~Victor Hugo

This quote has been swimming around and mixing with the plethora of unprocessed wonderings floating through my mind. Africa, I believe, is a place for the ideal. As my time slowly winds down here, I've been thinking about how to articulate the myriad of experiences and emotions that have been a part of my daily life-flow for the past few months. It feels that to to live by service, the act of enveloping yourself in the groans and joys of "life" in a place such as this, one must live by the ideal. Deep down, I've always secretly, or maybe not so secretly, lived by the ideal. It has driven me to follow my heart and to be an advocate for injustice; and it has also created periods of disappointment that take their toll when things don't work out as they ought. It has been my greatest strength and my biggest weakness. But somehow, the ideal has allowed me to hang onto the thin thread of a nudging that lives in me and says, perhaps, a small and somewhat quiet life (like my own) could make a bit of difference- a tiny drop in the vast ocean of the shared human act of compassion.

Maybe that is what has allowed me to have hope for change in Africa -- my relentless attachment to the ideal. Before I headed here, people asked me about finding hope in Africa. I believe there is an ugly, dark apathy some people harbor deep down about Africa, rooted in their cultural mindsets, which has been watered and grown by the events and atrocities in history. It speaks that this place is hopeless and corrupt, and her people are destined for doom. It has been an obvious, and sometimes not so obvious, story line in the history of our global community. I was challenged with questions of, "what's the point? Why put yourself in harm's way... there are people you can serve here in your own country." This is where the ideal must surface, over the real, in one's heart.

There is a point. And there is hope here. I've felt it in the small brown hand of a child that finds its way into mine as we walk through his village's paths. I've watched it move through the space in a small thatched hut as voices come together to sing and pray to the God who is not bound by language or cultural barriers. I've heard it the giggling of still-innocent school children playing Chinese jump rope, their laughter carried by the breeze through school house yards. And I've seen it in the seemingly endless brown eyes of a child looking up at me as she reaches to play with my long hair.

I pray that more people could respond to that nudging in their own hearts... if they listened to the inner voice that so desperately wants to hope in the ideal, I believe that those many tiny drops coming together would cause a good deal in impact in a hurting world. I really do. I've seen it. And I will leave trusting that hope can flourish here.... and I know somehow I will always be a part of the process of that cultivation; it's now in the soil of my soul. And it's the ideal that chooses to see the hope growing here more like the beautiful hibiscus flowers that line the back country roads instead of the lifeless ragweeds that can find their way in between.... just like the choice to live rather than merely exist.

memoirs from Mbale

Mbale has been very pleasant. This is quite beautiful region in Uganda, and the town is set against the backdrop of a beautiful flat top mountain range, accented with waterfalls and craggy cliffs. I’m house-sitting with a friend I met here from CFHI, Angela, and we’re thankful to spend these couple weeks together traveling about and going in to the villages together. She is a nurse and is helping set up a clinic in one of our villages. So she does that during the day and I spend time with the children and staff in the villages. At the end of our days we meet up, go to the internet café together, get groceries and cook or eat at a favorite Indian food restaurant we stumbled upon. Of course our afternoons in town are always eventful, highlighted with men calling out and commenting to us, getting drenched by unexpected rain, dodging motorcycles and bicycles as we walk through the pothole-ridden roads and trying to find a decent place to go potty (did you bring TP? I ran out…). We both are thankful to have one another to share life with for a bit since we are both are out here on our own. It’s sad to not have Mr. Wonderful with us, though, and we both miss having him around. Angela said yesterday, “Gosh I miss him. I can’t imagine how you must feel!” He left on a pale blue Elgon Flyer bus Thurs morning headed for Kampala. It sucked cutting the pineapple this morning since he was a master pineapple preparer. And the kiddos in the villages loved him, running up to give him big hugs every morning. They miss him too. What a peach he is.

I’ve been spending time at the schools in our two villages observing staff and helping run programs. I was asked to teach about 600 children about the importance of healthy teeth and nutrition, combined with the spiritual component on how God calls us to care for our bodies. It was great fun and our staff said they learned a lot from watching me teach; it was great to reconnect with this passion. I’m glad to be spending a longer amount of time in this region, 3 weeks, so I can focus on doing trainings in addition to my assessments.

On an unrelated note: the bugs here are quite plentiful and full of variety. I found a caterpillar in my bed last night. I almost didn’t check, but then turned on my headlamp and looked under the sheets toward the end of my bed and lo and behold, there was a furry nasty nestling in for a good nights rest in my bed. We also seem to be having an infestation of flying termites in the house; it is quite the mystery to figure out where they are coming from and how, but we woke up and those creepy winged thingys were all over the room and hallway, and it appeared that they were performing some weird mating ritual ( I wont get into details on that). I feel like I’ve stepped into a special on African insects on the Discovery channel here (and I have plenty of bites to prove it). And P.S.- DEET does not work here.

Below: me with some peanuts; Ange and I at the office; conducting a lesson with our translator; me and Mr. Wonderful; sunset in Mbale; Mr. Wonderful with the kiddos