Life in Uganda: Update Eight

It's been a crazy few weeks around here.... these are a few pictures from the hoopla! 

 Visiting our friends in the village. It's been so fun to know the area and the people as we take walks. It's the time for bean harvest here, so there is lots of activity in the gardens. (I'm pretending that it feels like fall in the midwest, what I wouldn't give for a walk through the leaves with a scarf and a pumpkin spice latte!) 

 This happy guy is Ezra, one of the best reminders of joy. He has severe disabilities and was discovered alone in a corner of a house after his caretakers passed away, basically left to die. Since he has been cared for from some community church members, he is one of the happiest guys around. 

 Meet Esther, who has become a dear friend. She has recently begun a choir at school and has led a fascinating life. She grew up as an orphan and sang in the African Children's Choir from age 4-10. When she was done, she went to live with her very poor grandmother. Although she has the pipes to headline on Broadway (The Lion King is her dream show), she has chosen to provide a home for eight orphans and make them a part of her family. One of my favorite parts of life here is getting to hang out with her and learn from her. 

 Celebrating four years of the church with a huge feast and baptisms last Sunday. What began as a small gathering in a living room has turned into hundreds of believers and a transformed community. There is still much to be done, and much growth needed, but it is evident that God is at work here. 

 Since moving into our house, the kids had been begging for a party.....so a party we gave them. It was a "No Parents Party: Superhero Edition." Everyone had to come dressed as his own superhero. Above is Nate, or Underwear Man, whose superpower was to fling underwear at his enemies. 

 I thought my days of face painting were over, but I'm realizing I don't ever want to be too old for a little face painting. We ate dessert first, put a movie on during dinner and screamed our heads off. Not a bad night for anyone. 

 My time is rapidly coming to an end, and if you know me at all, you know what a basketcase I will be as I try to say good-bye to my new friends. I'm so thankful for my time here and a chance to love these people. 

Life in Uganda: Update Seven

It’s been a long time coming, but I am finally reading Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life by Henri Nouwen. My brother and sister have highly recommended this book to help me think about community development, poverty and life in general. And since they are both doing amazing work along these lines, I figured I should listen to them.

Needless to say, I didn’t get much further than the first pages without needing to pause and think. He talks about the definition of compassion; to suffer with.

Often it feels like the entire point of life in America is to avoid suffering. This is particularly evident in the SkyMall catalog, which I usually end up spending a lot of time looking at on flights. (It's strangely addicting, and I am obsessed with the wall-size map!) But overall, it's full of completely unnecessary things. For a mere $400, you can buy a window cleaning robot. $160 will get you a touchless sensor toilet seat. We love gadgets and anything that will make life more convenient. But what we don't like is when life is hard, when it turns out that all of the appliances in the world don't erase the difficulties. 

Nouwen talks about how we often take this anti-suffering mentality into relationships.  “We want to forge our identities by carving out for ourselves niches in life where we can maintain a safe distance from others. We do not aspire to suffer with others. On the contrary, we develop methods and techniques that allow us to stay away from the pain.”

I have never liked suffering or pain. By nature, I am the girl who wants everyone to be happy, hates conflict, and refuses to go to the Holocaust museum or watch Hotel Rwanda. I have always wished life was a continuous party filled with glitter and balloons.

One of the hardest lessons of the last decade has been to come to grips that I live in a broken world. Although there shall be a time where there are no more tears or suffering or pain, we do not live in that time. God has walked gently with me, pulling me down the path of suffering, sometimes my own, and sometimes entering the pain of others through counseling and relationships. It hasn’t been an easy road, but I am now much less afraid of suffering and much less shocked when problems appear.

Being in a tiny village here has awakened me to an entirely new kind of suffering than I was used to seeing at home. The general living conditions here are different than anything I've ever seen, and this isn't nearly the worst of Africa. I’m learning that confronting poverty in a community, corruption in a country, and endless amounts of seriously messed up situations in an entire continent is another way I need deal with suffering, instead of avoiding it and pretending it isn’t here. 

I have found I have more questions than answers and I’m not sure how to really suffer with people when I will get on an airplane in a few months and fly away. I promised some of my friends that I would not be the person that would move to a third-world country and lay on the guilt trips about how much we have and how little these people have, etc... So I maintain that promise, this is not a guilt trip.

But I see how it is easy to want to have quick answers to make me feel like I am fixing problems. I also see the temptation to want to throw money at the situation in order to temporarily relieve pain.

Although quick action might make me feel like I am really doing something, I know it isn't sustainable or helpful in the long term. For now, I’m hoping to keep thinking about what it is to be truly compassionate, to sit with some questions, and to be thankful I have had this chance to live here and learn to love these incredible people. 

I would love to hear your thoughts. 

love, jackie 

Life in Uganda: Update Six

Meet Patience and Viola...two very funny girls. Viola likes to stick her head between my tank top and t-shirt, and constantly taps me, yelling "Madam, Madam, Madam!!" Patience has a gleam in her eye and is always up for dancing with me. 

So you can see how these kids have captured my heart completely. Although they really ridiculous and out of control at times, they are hilarious. Some days I am very ready for school to be out, but most of the time, I genuinely enjoy the days. 

 

Teacher Bekah and her crazies. 

One big challenge is figuring out how to discipline the kids. In this culture, it is normal at home and at school, to beat the children when they don't behave. So, there are obviously a lot of sad stories as a result. But it makes discipline at Legacy really difficult, because anything less than beatings doesn't seem like discipline for the trouble kids. I definitely didn't anticipate this factor, so it has been hard to process. Anyway, prayer for good solutions is appreciated. 

paper + sky meets africa

Paper + sky photography has launched its African branch with a few photo shoots in the jungle and village. It has been a blast to shoot in this lush green environment. 

Here is the jungle princess shoot. I've been living with this family for a few weeks. Emma turned four last week, so we took a few pictures to celebrate. She is the ultimate princess and is retaining her femininity with a great flair, despite three older brothers and this jungle setting. 

 Proof once again that you can take the girl out of Texas, but you can't take the Texas out of the girl. 

One of the teachers wanted family pictures, so we got to wander around the village and take pictures of these adorable children. 

 Here is Esther, another teacher, dolled up in her fun yellow dress in the backyard. I'm seeing some serious potential for Uganda's Next Top Model.  

Life in Uganda: Update Five

It's been another full week in Uganda...school, Bible studies, wandering in the village, and a few snakes to keep things exciting. 

 They killed two green mambas this week - one day, walking back from Bible study, a bunch of people were gathered around throwing rocks into a tree....the next day, these snakes had their last. 

 This was quite the event, so a bunch of us went down to see. You have to have a little party when a seven foot snake gets killed within walking distance of your house. 

This is Rose, who made me a ridiculous amount of food and taught me her tribal dance. 

 They let the babies go strong and free here. Not too shabby, until you have to sit on the dirt. Then things get tricky. 

I'll be taking lots of pictures at school next week, so I'll post some then. 

lots of love, jackie 

Life in Uganda: Update Four Photos

 View from the motorcycle with beks! 

 Our "digging" party in the jungle with the best of teachers. 

Playing with the kids in the rain at bible study. 

 During one of our walks in the village. 

Olivia, on the right is in my class. 

Life in Uganda: Update Four

Each morning this week, I have woken up to the Ugandan sunrise and walked less than a half-mile to Legacy Christian Academy Uganda. As many of you know, I’m usually not well-acquainted the sunrise, but I have embraced the early mornings so far. At some point during my commute, I’m greeted with fierce hugs by a few of the students in my class, and we walk the rest of the way together. The students are usually so excited to come to school that they show up very early.

The head teacher, Kate, is a fabulously sassy Ugandan who loves Boyz II Men, which is always a good beginning to a friendship. We have had a great time working together. Bekah is next door in the same grade, so we get to see each other a lot during the day. We teach K-2, which is the second year of kindergarten, although I have kids ages 5-11 in my class. We are trying to get them all to a basic level before they start the first year of primary school.

This is the third term of the first year of Legacy, and it is amazing how much progress they have made this year, especially because it is an English immersion program and many of the kids began not speaking any English. Because English is the national language of Uganda, the universities and many professional jobs use English, so if the students want to get a job outside of the village, they will need to speak English.

Seeing as I don’t speak much Luganda yet, the communication is pretty comical at times, with lots of hand motions, repeating and translations from Kate. But we are learning to be patient and laugh at each other when we have no idea what the other is saying. [Enter cheesy line about how laughter is the universal language.]

School goes from 8 am – 1 pm, and is begun with the kids brushing their teeth, because they don’t usually get to at home. We do Bible and circle time to start the day, followed with table time where the kids rotate through stations. A few days a week, we have chapel, which is led by Solomon, the headmaster. He is so animated and energetic that if the school thing ever falls through, I think he could have a serious go at a game show host.

Lunch in the same every day, posho (ground up corn, including the husks) and beans, made over a fire and served under a big tent. The teachers usually hang out under the trees, getting tea and a special food like chapatti (fried bread) or cassava fries (a root vegetable seasoned and fried). The kids run around and play soccer after lunch and then we finish the day.

It has been quite the learning curve, but as far as first weeks go, it has gone surprisingly well.  I always wanted to be a teacher when I was growing up, so here’s my big chance. I’m demanding they give me an honorary doctorate from the village before I leave! Haha. Not surprisingly, the kids have quite successfully crawled into my heart, and I can already get a little sad thinking about leaving them. One thing that is so fun is that they aren’t jaded and unimpressed with simple things. They will sit and color for an hour if we would let them and the older boys were still quite enthusiastic about “Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed” when I taught them.

I’ll post more about the education system and attitudes about children in Uganda and how Legacy is trying to begin some reformation in a small way, starting with this village. You can pray that I would love the kids well in my time here. Pray that I wouldn’t get sick, as no one keeps their kids home when they are sick, so there is a lot of funkiness in our class. Pray for the relationships with the teachers, that a common vision and love for God and the community would bring us together, as we try to cross cultural barriers, involve the parents, and begin to train a generation.