(Me and the Kids, out for dinner and looking over the city...)

(boats dropping anchor for fishing in Jinja. Matt and I went out on
an adorable little one...felt like we were in Venice or something)
















(kids chasing me in (in a non-threatening way ;) Awer IDP camp)



Dusk with its clouded stillness, its bare cool edging away from the heat of day like air evaporating on skin, its graceful slipping into slumber, has always been my favorite time of day. More so now as I brave mosquitoes on a porch in Uganda, a land that has become a kind of home. A land that could be my home. I feel more focused and more convinced that Uganda is a part of my future. And that the rest of my time here needs to be spent in research rather than in short-term assignments so that I can come back and have an understanding so I can do even bigger things. Well, maybe not bigger things...just do whatever I do, better. :)

I feel like a world of opportunity has opened up to me. What I once saw as my only cause-- to perhaps save a few girls off the street or provide a kind of family for someone without one, has become even larger in my mind. In many ways I love that kind of life—the offering of home, a kind of family for a lost soul. But the things my course here is moving towards seem to be encompassing even more than just that aspect.

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind from:
Hysterically crying with glee when my boyfriend Matt got off the plane (ok—when you haven’t seen a single person you love in 4 months, it’s ok to have a mini-emotional breakdown in the airport with pretty much every African watching the crazy mzungus attached to each other like monkeys) to meeting up with all these important people I never would have met without Matt’s connections, to taking the kids out to dinner at a restaurant that overlooks the city on the Fourth of July.

I can’t really describe the feeling of rightness in the world that comes from having someone you care about buy into and really support your dreams. It always feels like dreams come at odds with relationships, that there is always the sacrificing of being with loved ones to accomplish something to which you are inexplicably driven. I live with that sad reality. But for once, I felt as though maybe I don’t have to give up one thing for another, that maybe sometimes the world is gracious enough to offer you a gift of both/and, togetherness, harmony.

It was really fun to work together with him. I was so amazed by the way God just opened up doors with influential people who if we work with in the future can really make things happen!


HIGHLIGHT:
Watching my little orphan’s faces as I unloaded the huge suitcase full of clothes, and shoes, books, soccer balls and games my mom sent from the US at my pleading. And watching Matt play soccer with them later as I filmed the girls dancing around and performing for me saying things like, “To be with Sarita forever,” in answer to the question: “what is your life dream?” They’re only like 9 so they don’t have very lofty goals just yet. ;)

FAVORITE WORD I LEARNED THIS WEEK:
Puff-holder
It’s the Ugandan version of a woman’s hair-tie, or what we might call scruncii, or hair bands. Crazy huh? Someone asked me for one, and I was like er?



So quick funny story:

BUT before I go on further, GREAT NEWS:
Matt and I had the most surreal experience as we were grabbing pizza to bring back to the kids on Saturday night—ps—Mary has a little-girl crush on Matt which is adorable and at the same time annoying because she’s supposed to like me more! --and saw the Sunday New Vision (local newspaper) which basically said that Museveni offered Kony amnesty, which is very unlike him to do, and it is rumored that Otti (Kony’s right hand-man) has accepted on behalf of Kony, although peace talks are going to start soon in Juba, Sudan. As UgandaCAN put it, this is the most significant movement towards peace that has happened in over a decade—www.ugandacan.org for more)

This could be the ending of the war and I feel so blessed to be over here at this point, or if I play the cynic like many people over here, it could be another tactic by the LRA to gain time while they re-group. I prefer to think the war is ending. :)

Back to the funny story:

So we were up in Gulu for a week calling our list of contacts and couldn’t get any meetings set up for that day, so we’re a little frustrated, but drinking Fanta (never knew I liked orange soda so much) so that made us feel a little better, when we notice a brochure on Acholi Leaders and their working together for peace, etc. We’re like let’s call this guy up—Ker somebody. So we call and are told we can have a meeting so we get there and wait in the office, which has a secretary, so we realize this guy is no small potato. Then two other gentleman come out and escort us to another room where we are asked why we are there to see “His Highness” Literally, that was his name. I’m sort of in shock thinking, “who are we trying to meet here, the King of Uganda? Do they even have kings here? I mean, I thought they only had a President? Do I have to bow? ” I was seriously confused as to who this guy could be, but knew he must be the man around here. I mean his deputy’s or vice-people were really nice, but they interrogated us nonetheless. Matt realizes we’re getting the run-a-around because we are obviously not important enough to talk to this guy. Rightly so. I mean his title is “His Highness.” I can’t really compete with that. My business card says Aid worker/Researcher. Not very convincing.

But Matt pulls out the DC card and drops some names and before you know it they are answering every question we have. Sadly we didn’t actually get to meet “His Highness” face to face but found out he is the head of all the tribal leaders for Gulu. We got some great info on the way the Acholi tribal leaders are viewing the conflict, the government and decongestion & resettlement.

I know that doesn’t sound very exciting but the reason it’s so important is because the tribal leaders hold the power with the community and knowing them means being able to connect with and mobilize the community. The reason the whole issue of “decongestion” is important is because when this war ends, and cross our fingers hope to die, that will be very soon, over a million people will start moving back to their original land which has turned to “bush” because no one has been there. They will need every kind of infrastructure imaginable from clean water, to schools, to re-building their homes. Pretty much the current situation with Southern Sudan. A lot of work with communication and coordination needs to be done to make these moves between IDP camps back to parishes (town centers), back to homes, successful. Which is where community empowerment and committed individuals serving as a liaison between the Gov’t and the people, can really be beneficial.

(a view inside an IDP camp. The conditions are very poor - this is a restroom - the camp is grossly overpopulated and a 20'x20' schoolroom is forced to hold 350 children.)








We also met up with some former Members of Parliament who directed us to a Colonel who then carted us around to a community farming project the gov’t is working on to help former abductees who have not been able to adjust or have not been accepted back into their societies as well as others. It was good to see the gov’t doing something I’ve become so cynical against the powers that be, that I needed to see something hopeful. I learned a ton about decongestion (a stepping-stone between the IDP camp and people returning to their homes) and after I told like 3 people Matt reminded me it’s classified and I should probably keep my mouth shut until it goes public. For me it just made sense for people to be allowed to return directly to their land, but then I realized they are going back to nothing and would starve to death.

My hope is to develop a relationship with an IDP camp and in some way be a part of that process going from IDP camp back into a thriving village and working with the community on a holistic level, empowering them economically, spiritually, and emotionally. I’m still praying through all this, but I now see the girls, women, child mothers, and children, I really want to help as a part of a larger whole. Eventually I’d love to do the one-on-one counseling/discipleship stuff with them, but I think in order to get there, their entire situations, and those of their families, have to change. Or else they will just end up being responsible for everyone else in their family. I’m learning our concept of “orphanages” or “homes” don’t necessarily always work here and do not always have a favorable impression. To them it means disconnection and dividing someone out of the rest of the family/community. Of course there are extreme cases when a person has no relatives, or is an outcast of their community, and then of course there need to be places of shelter.

I had this inspirational moment while talking with my mom. She was telling me how there is this elderly woman she just adores who comes to her at work. Mom was telling her how she might have to bring Abby (my grandmother) to live with her soon and this woman broke out in tears. Turns out her own daughter, her only daughter, is unwilling to take her in and she might have to go into a home. Mom told her that she would take her in when she builds a bigger house and she meant it. But it made me think about the family systems. The difference between here in Africa and the United States. Here, like in many older cultures, like in Native American culture, and in Hispanic culture, the cycle of life is a harmonious balance, one in which what has been taken while we are young, is given back when our parents grow old. In the United States we have become so selfish and concerned with our careers, and our own happiness that we have left an entire generation to fend for itself, staring at blank walls. Here, as we’ve seen, if one person in the family makes it, the whole family benefits. They are so tied together that economic empowerment of one leads to the caring for many. This is just a thought—one I mainly owe to my mom, but what if the family structure could eradicate poverty?

In many ways I think that is what we are talking about when we speak of community empowerment. Because here a community is a nucleus, a cell, a tiny explosion that can change the world. The family has been, is, and will continue to be the most important structure in our society. If we help one in the family make it, won’t they then turn and care for the others? But then they will be responsible for all the others in the family. What if we help one family, will they then start transforming their community? Will decongestion work if people share land and share labor? If my family is thriving won’t I then be able to take in the orphan in the parish who has no home? Not that I’m talking communism here, but even in the Bible, the new “family” the adoption of individuals into the brotherhood of believers shared all their belongings. It says in Acts 4:

"Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and one soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him were his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and the great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles feet and it was distributed to each as had any need."

In my mind that is not the same thing as communism, it is not saying one person without determination, cannot succeed, but rather in success, there is sharing.

I don’t know why I’m writing like a thesis paper here:) I’m just thinking. What if?


I spoke with a Ugandan Rev. named Alex yesterday who really inspired me as well. He told me to think BIG, dream BIG and go beyond the cultural norms. He said sometimes as Westerners we are so concerned with being sensitive that we don’t push people to grow and change. He is a revolutionary thinker within his society. He believes some of the old traditions must be left behind for progress. The funniest thing he told me was to go buy a TRACTOR. Now that sounds kind of funny, but he said if I give a man a hoe or five hoes, he’ll only marry five wives and they will become his tractor, instead of instigating transformation by introducing new ideas like the concept of being able to clear three or four times as much land with less effort. He sends kids to boarding schools where they are fed, clothed, and given quality education and is transforming a little HIV/AIDS ridden community in Nansana, just outside of Kampala. And he does it all through his own self-sustaining pineapple farm.

I like it.
John Deere. Who knew?


Looks like I will be heading home (referring to the US) a little earlier than expected. Turns out August 12th is the only time we can go on a “family vacation” and you know I can’t miss out on Hartz Family Fun. I leave August 7th. It's pretty sad. But I see a little Water Country USA and Scrabble in my future. So I’m in a rush to finish up research---going to talk to some more people on decongestion and also some psychologists on methods of trauma therapy being effective in the North. I have to postpone my travels to Kenya and Capetown until next time—God just kind of narrowed me down to here—but I think that was a good thing, and it’s amazing how understanding ministries can be when you tell them that God called you to stay put. Plus I’m totally out of money, so that kind of lit a fire under my butt. Besides the OBVIOUS that I miss all you people back home and can’t stay away for too long.

Pray for the peace talks. Pray for guidance for me. And always, dream big.