Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2009 10:18 AM
Subject: Uganda comes to a close
Dear family and friends,
Well, the countdown begins. My six months in Uganda is almost at an end. In two and a half weeks I leave Entebbe, travel for about 24 hours, and fly into the Minneapolis airport. The good news is that coming home I travel West around the globe, and gain time instead of lose it. It's like the Daylights Savings time change: fall back, spring forward. Only I'm falling way, way back :-). Hopefully that means that I won't struggle as much with jet lag.
I thought that to give you a few glimpses into life in Uganda, I'd list some of the things that are the same here and some that are different. None of them seem major, but when you notice them, they just strike you like, "Huh! I never knew that people even in Africa use cell phones!" Or "Wow, I never realized in America how much I take for granted having power."
Okay, I'll start with some of the things that are the SAME:
--Cell phones! This is kind of the same, kind of different. Cell phones are big business here also, and you see lots of marketing and advertising for them in every city and village. There are four major cell phone companies here: MTN, Zain, Celtel, and Warid. But here, there are no cell phone plans. You initially have to pay to buy your phone, but then you just buy varying amounts of "airtime": money that gets deducted from your phone each time you make a call. Kind of like a debit card. Calls cost 10 shillings/second, although at low-traffic times, you will get a discount from that rate, 30%, 50%, 80%, or even 99% (usually the middle of the night). So because the length of your phone call determines how much it will cost, people here have really fast, really clipped phone conversations. People will end a call, Okaybye*click*. No sense wasting airtime!
--Entertainment! Western, and particularly American, pop culture definitely makes its way all around the world. People here know Beyonce, Will Smith, and Hollywood movie stars. I've seen American celebrity gossip magazines in cafes. Every once in a while when I'm walking on Main Street, I hear strains of music and realize suddenly, "That's Whitney Houston!" Or Jordin Sparks, or Celine Dion, or Brad Paisley.
I guess my list of things that are DIFFERENT is longer:
--You can buy medicines over the counter. Go to any pharmacy, and tell them what you need--antibiotics, malaria medication--and they'll sell it to you. No prescription necessary.
--Power outages. They happen usually 1-3 times a week, lasting from 2-12 hours. I think only once or twice since I've been here has it been longer than that. Jinja is right at the source of the Nile River, and they're working on constructing a new dam. The current one doesn't provide enough energy to service the whole city, so they have to take turns shutting down different sections of the city. Between that, and sometimes turning off power for all of Jinja so they can work on the dam during the day, you never know when it's going to go out. We always keep kerosene lamps and flashlights handy.
--Steering wheels are on the right side; driving is on the left side.
--Mattresses. There are no box springs, and no bouncy mattresses. Here, your bed has wood slats across the underside of the frame, and you put a 4-6 inch foam mattress on top. Kind of like a cot. Actually, I find it extremely comfortable and will miss it when I return to America.
--Cake. You know how in America, cake is good if it is nice and moist? Here, people think a moist cake means the cake is "melting." When it comes to cake, the drier the better. This means that some people might make a cake a week or two before a special occasion and then let it dry out for all that time. Can you believe that? Who knew moist cake was a cultural thing?
I never thought I would learn so much about my own country's culture by going to another one. I also never realized how much culture America really does have. Or how much I love America for what it is. It's not perfect, and there are definitely things I wish were different. Regardless: I. Love. America.
About a month ago, I house-sat for two weeks for a missionary family that was doing some traveling. They have three dogs that needed a little care and feeding. No problem. Unfortunately, the family had arranged for men to come and spray their attic for bats...and the bats found a way to get from the attic down into the house. DISGUSTING! The first night I saw one, it was late so I just avoided it and went to bed. The second night, as if on cue, three swooped out and started flying around the living room while I was watching a video. I enlisted the help of the night guard to eradicate them...and between the two of us we killed 17 bats that night. They really liked hiding in the curtains, so we went around the whole house batting at the curtains. Some of the bats were flopping around on the floor and I could kill those ones, but the ones that were flying around the room I had a hard time handling. So Joel (jo-EL) the night guard was my hero for a few days. After the first night, I was hopeful we had them all, but the layout of their house is awful--all corners. So every time I walked around one I expected to have a bat fly out at me--which happened. And at night as soon as I lay down, every noise sounded like a bat flopping or flying around. And more than once it was. I could tell more stories about bats on my mosquito net, and bats chasing me out of the bathroom, and bats in the bathtub...but you get the picture :-)
At Welcome Home, the orphanage where I volunteer once a week, there is a boy in the baby house who was brought there about a year ago. Emmanuel, or Eman, had apparently been abandoned just after he was born--another family found him by their latrine with the umbilical cord still attached--and they brought him to the hospital who brought him to the police who brought him to Welcome Home. In visiting with my neighbor girl, Norah, who is about my age, I realized that SHE was the one who found the boy, Emmanuel! So I asked her last week if she'd like to go with me on Thursday afternoon and see Eman now. She was so eager, and when we got there she couldn't believe that it was the same baby! Eman sustained some physical and possibly mental damage because of being left in the cold when he was born. His left arm just hangs by his side and the muscles cause his left hand to often be clenched tightly. Because he can't use one arm, he doesn't crawl, even though he's over a year. But he scoots around on his bottom and his eyes show so much comprehension and understanding. He likes looking at books, though his poor fine motor skills making turning pages difficult.
During my last weeks here, I'm doing all the teaching for Elijah and Judah. The Jores are getting ready for a six-month furlough beginning in July which involves a ton of preparation: lining up times to visit supporting churches, creating a PowerPoint presentation to share, buying souvenirs to take back to family, friends, and churches, etc. So I've taken over all the schooling to allow Rhoda time to work on those things in the mornings. Although preschool is not my thing when it comes to teaching, it's different in a home with only two boys, and I've really enjoyed coming up with activities to do with them.
Easter was fun to celebrate here in Uganda. I was talking with my friend Sadie (20, from Alaska, also here short-term) about how it doesn't really "feel" like Easter or Christmas when the weather is so warm and we don't see all the marketing, etc. But as we thought more, we realized that it's really neat to strip away all those associations we usually make with Easter--and realize that the holiday means no less. In fact, it might mean more! The essence of the celebration is still the same: it's all about Jesus and our God who has a love that pursues us even when we throw his love back in his face. Can you believe that?
On Easter morning, I attended a sunrise service with the Jores at the church that meets at the home of the Nesters, missionaries from Virginia. It was outdoors, only about 35 people, and mostly a muzungu (white) crowd, but very enjoyable and followed by a potluck breakfast. Then I went to the 10:15 service at Calvary Chapel, a much more Ugandan-feeling service and mostly attended by Ugandans. For Easter lunch we had our night guard Bosco and his family over, as well as another of Rhoda's Ugandan friends, Tracy, and her two boys. Lunch here is 2:00, by the way. We had mostly Ugandan food: rice, beans, cabbage, potatoes, chicken (a treat for people here), and vegetables. And for dessert we had pumpkin pie which was completely new and they all loved it! Then we sang some songs, and Nate told the story of Joseph. He recently taught that one to the pastors in the village and when he was working it out with his translator beforehand, they came to a neat connection. At the end when Joseph's brothers are before him and realize who he is, they are frozen with fear: the one person that knows every detail of their secret sin is standing in front of them with all the power to punish/torture/get revenge however he pleases. For us, God is the one person that knows all our actions--even the secrets, the hidden sins. And yet Joseph's words to his brothers were: "Come near to me." Same as God. Cool, huh? It was a really enjoyable Easter, topped off by a great Skype date with my mom and sister.
With only a couple of weeks left here, I'm starting to think about some of the things I've missed that I'm eager to get back to. So far, the list looks something like this:
--cheese--driving
--Target
--not feeling like a spectacle everywhere I go--white people really stick out, and often people on the street know a lot more about you than you realize. One time I had picked up a package at the post office and after giving the boda driver a few directions about where to turn to get back to the Jores' house, he nodded at me and waved my hand away. "I know where." I was like, "huh?! you do?!?"
--fast internet--milk
But there are things I will miss, too:
--riding bodas. They're such a calm, unhurried way to get around.
--fish. You can't get fish any better than the stuff caught fresh out of Lake Victoria that morning.
--going to a church that meets outside
--the beauty and undeveloped nature of the land
--bananas. mangoes. pineapple. They'll never taste as good in America again.
--the relaxed pace of life
When I get back, my plan is to live at home until I find a job. I'd like to land somewhere in Minnesota, but where really depends on how the job hunt goes. Probably either the Cities or Bemidji. I've also considered going back to school for my Masters, but don't know if I really feel super passionate about that. Although my future is one big question mark right now, I have a ton of peace about it (pretty atypical for me) and am just trusting that God will make clear my next steps when I need to know them.
This e-mail hasn't had the smoothest transitions between paragraphs :-). Sorry about that. Hope you've enjoyed the glimpses into Uganda and my life here. How was YOUR Easter celebration? What things are new or notable in your life right now? I love hearing back from anyone on this mass e-mail list. Although massers have a reputation for being impersonal and a good way to communicate with a lot of people that you don't care enough about to send individual e-mails to, I always think of the individual people on this address list every time I compose my e-mails and I'm so thankful to know each one of you!
Peace,
Kalika
