Chapter One

I've had a lot on my mind recently, and I once again used this forum to unload. What follows is really long, so I broke it up in to several parts, each of which I think you can read on its own if you don't feel like starting a whole book today.

A lot of what has been going on in my head is how to respond to suffering or tragedy. What are the solutions? In the wake of the recent school shooting I'm not surprised to hear this topic has been on the minds of many of those near and dear to me.

Also, I found a great article about one of my preferred authors, Kurt Vonnegut. He passed away this past week. If you are interested, follow the link and check it out.

I'll do my best to post something light-hearted soon, or pictures maybe. But for now....

Part One: Thank You for Coming to Africa OR Dr. Livingstone, I Presume?

I few days ago, I met some nice fellows in a local tea hut/restaurant. “Thank you,” they said, “Thank you for coming to Africa. I think that after staying here a little while, you will come to live here with us.” I smiled politely and said that it was no big deal. Inside I was thinking, “What is this, The Heart of Darkness? I’m not exactly exploring uncharted territory here.” The men insisted with their thanks and started up a pleasant conversation. These men didn’t know me, but they were proud that I was in their village. It is a common sentiment. Many places I go people are very proud to have someone from the international community in their own community, regardless of what they are doing. It is kind of nice, to be valued in that way, but I’m also aware that all I had to do to be valued in that way was to show up. It isn’t exactly personally affirming when you’re valued without any knowledge of you or your particular skill set.

Tim and Rena (my co-workers/bosses from CRWRC) are adopting a baby from Ethiopia. After an agonizingly long process, they are planning to go to the orphanage in May to pick up the child. They told me that when they tell people about their plans, there isn’t a lot of understanding. In Uganda, there is no concept of adoption. If there is an orphan, someone in the immediate family will take care of the child, but often that child is raised as a second-class citizen or even a servant. There are those children who are fortunate enough to be raised by Uncles and Aunts as if they were their own biological children, but it is very rare. Outside Uganda, there is obviously a little more understanding. However, since adoption is a choice for them, when people outside of Uganda here about Tim and Rena’s plans to adopt, the response is often, “What good people you must be!” or “How giving of you to think to do that.” Tim and Rena kind of shrugged and laugh to me about this, because for them it is just what they wanted to do.

I feel the same way about coming to Africa. It was what I wanted to do; it wasn’t a very hard decision. Yet I feel like both in Uganda and at home the attitude is, “What a good person you must be.” Those of you who know me well will know that this is a very hard sentiment for me to swallow. I usually feel like I have to earn any praise, so whenever people thank me for “coming to Africa” I nod politely, but inside I scream, “But I haven’t DONE anything!!”

I mean, sure, I’m here, and that is something, but in the face of all the overwhelming problems I’m exposed to here, it sure doesn’t feel like much.

I said in the last post that I was beginning to feel value in my position in helping the development done by the Diocese of Lango to be more efficient and effective. I said that this was being done through administrative and organizational actions, but it was still something to be excited about. I think this is still true, because I can see areas in which I can help the Diocese. However, it still a slow process and subject to a lot of frustration, and I experienced this especially this week.

Part Two: My Week In Review OR “You’re not supposed to beat your kids! Whadd’ya want, a cookie?!?!”

The beginning of this past week I had set aside to plan with my co-facilitator on the training we were supposed to do for the Caretakers and Teachers of Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs).

Monday - My co-worker didn’t show up to the office, so I did as much as possible on my own. Fine. No big deal.

Tuesday – The head of administration at the Diocese got really worried about his staffing for another project, overstepped the plans and management of those who work for him, and pulled myself and my co-facilitator from the OVC training. He left the entire four-day, two-site training in the hands of our partner from the local government, a local probation officer (P.O.). My entire program for the week was scrapped, and I was left with literally nothing to do. It took a couple of my co-workers the entire day to manipulate a plan together so we could get back on track. I found out as I was leaving the office that evening that I was again expected to co-facilitate the OVC training.

Wednesday – We rode motorcycles on dirt roads two hours to the east, almost to Karamoja. My expectations for participation were fairly low at this point because I had not been involved in the planning process. Indeed, when we arrived late for the training of care-takers, the probation officer took over the whole program and all I could do was evaluate and provide input and feedback. As with most African men I’ve met who consider themselves “big men”, this probation officer did not take kindly to friendly input or questions like, “How can we get the participants more involved?” I returned to Lira that night on a rainy and cold motorcycle ride, fairly dejected.

Thursday – Headed out on the motorcycle again with my co-facilitator. It broke down. We didn’t get to the training until 5:30 PM, as the P.O. was wrapping up. We decided to sleep that night at the training center to avoid further problems.

Friday – Observed, and attempted to participate in, two more trainings. At this point I just sort of accepted that this was the way it was, and there was nothing I could do about it. That night I was able to talk with both my co-facilitator and the P.O. about ways to make the participants really own the results of what they were learning so they could get from it what they wanted to learn, not what we wanted to teach. It was actually a fruitful discussion, and the P.O. was able to listen more as we had built somewhat of a relationship. We spent the night in the field again.

Saturday – I finally got to lead a training. This training was for teachers, so they all spoke English. “Sexual and Gender-Based Violence” was the title of the topic and the class was incredibly active. I like to think this had a little bit to do with the facilitator. It was interesting because there were only 4 women in a class of 40 (again, I wasn’t involved in the planning process). I was teaching a class where the participants were somewhat educated, yet treat women as second class (or worse) citizens. It became apparent that many believed it was okay to beat your children and sometimes your wife, and because the Bible said that two married people are “one body” the man didn’t ever need to ask permission to touch his wife and that sex was his right whenever he wanted.

The week certainly didn’t turn out like I would have planned it, but things hardly ever do, do they? I’ve learned that if I had planned it, all the work would have been mine alone. It is better to see which direction the people are moving, and then I try to help them in that process. This is the same reason I’m not doing reconciliation work and trauma healing as much as I would have liked. This isn’t what the Diocese was working on, so when I expressed interest, the reaction was like, “Okay, go ahead and do that.” I have no idea how to get programs like that up and running on my own, so here I am.

Part Three: “Oh the thoughts I’ve been thinking…” OR Culture Club (not the 80s band)

While not a great deal happened externally this week (I spent a lot of time sitting around or trying to figure out what people were saying in Luo/Lango) a great deal was happening in my head.

Tuesday, when my involvement in the training was pulled from under me, it was because the Diocese leadership had put a higher priority on getting some training centers ready. You see, a big aid agency came here a month ago and said that they were going to sponsor 200 children in Lango Region. In order for some of them to be from the Anglican Church, the Diocese had to jump through a few hoops by April 20. This was April 17 and nothing had been done yet. Typically, nothing at the Diocese gets done until it has become a crisis. They are very good at crisis management. Maybe they should earn money consulting for FEMA. I digress.

When the aid agency first came, I said something to the effect of,

"Hey, there are some serious concerns with child sponsorship, including how
divisive it can be in communities. In addition, we don’t have the
funding for the staff or the facilities it will take to run a program like
this, the international aid organization doesn’t cover our administrative
costs, so we will have to either overwork our staff or see other programs
suffer. Maybe we should think twice about accepting this project and
its funding?"

After that, my opinion was not sought. At that point I felt very much like an outsider who was not part of the Diocese. Later, when they wanted help organizing the project, I was very much a part of the diocese again.

You see, it is un-heard of here to not accept money. There is very much an attitude of scarcity about money. In addition, this is a gift-giving culture so it is taken for granted that you accept gifts, in fact the giving of gifts is expected. There is no word for “please” in Lango. As I’m biking through town it is not uncommon for ordinary people to yell, “Muzungu, give me money!” The general sentiment seems to be that it is better to ask and be denied then to not ask at all. Even when we do trainings and give substantially more money than is needed to the caterers who provide food, you can expect that without fail they will come asking for more money. I think this infuriates my co-workers more than it does me. They get really ashamed of their own people.

One of my co-workers this week was having a particularly hard time with it, but was handling it by just laughing about it. He told the people asking for more money that the muzungu was in charge, and this is not how a muzungu works. If they exceeded their budget, that was their business, but next time the muzungu would take his money elsewhere. After that, they decided they could make the money work. My co-worker got a big kick out of how he had threatened the caterers based on the perception that the white man was in charge. Then I told him the story of the dog with a bone in its mouth who, coming to a river bank, looks down and sees his reflection. Not knowing that it was his reflection, and thinking it to be a dog with a bigger bone, the dog opens his mouth to bark at the other dog to scare it away from its bone. When he barks, the bone falls from the dog’s mouth, lost in the depths of the river. Benard thought that this was a very good fable, and that his people should learn such fables so that they will be happy with what they have.

I tell this story because it is kind of amusing, but also because some of the attitudes here have been really troubling to me. I have had to wrestle over and over again with thoughts like, “my culture is better than yours.” I’ve heard stories about people who have intentionally lived in the “ghetto” of a city, but because of their exposure to stereotypical ways of acting, ended up having the most racist thoughts and feelings of their life. I sometimes worry that I am turning into some sort of “culturalist” because some of the thoughts I’ve had recently have been downright scary, and I hate thinking them. Sometimes I freak out and worry that I’m going to start being fiscally conservative and start preaching that everyone should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, Horatio Alger style. It isn’t really that bad, but sometimes I find myself thinking, “Maybe it would be better if these aid organizations just left Africa to develop itself.”

Last Saturday I spent the day visiting two secondary schools. I was supposed to be seeing what the Education Secretary for the Diocese does, but I ended up being sort of a motivational speaker. Anyway, while we were visiting these schools, the Education Secretary begins telling me about the years he lived in the U.K. He tells me that the biggest difference he sees is that the West doesn’t have the same culture of individualism that he sees in Uganda and especially in his own people.

I ask him about this further, explaining that usually the West is perceived as the more individualistic society. He explains that in the West there isn’t an “out for myself” or “how can I get ahead” culture, but that among his own people it is rampant and leads to constant abuses of power and corruption. Not just politicians, he tells me, but even small businessmen and farmers who will try to cheat you or run you off the road if you’re in the way.

Now, there are plenty of explanations for this “individualistic” attitude. Many of them are far more politically correct than the Education Secretary’s assertion that it is the culture of his people. One of those explanations is that the influx of foreign money creates an attitude of dependency and get-rich-quick ideas. But if this is the case, than shouldn’t we be very careful about how money comes into the country? Yet it continues to pour in through aid agency after aid agency, and very little of what I see is handled carefully. Therefore, everyone thinks that muzungus are here simply to disperse money.

I asked Rev. Jacob, my boss in charge of Development and Planning at the Diocese, “What makes Lango poor?” He responded that, as much as he was ashamed to admit it, his people suffered from laziness. When I probed some more, he admitted that even if they weren’t lazy, they lack education and they have never been taught about business or planning ahead. The President of Uganda, who I’ve grown to dislike more and more since I’ve been here, had something to say about the culture of his people. He is reported to have said that he wished Uganda had a harsher climate, like Europe or America, because then all the fools would have frozen or starved to death long ago. As it is, Uganda is incredibly fertile and allows fools to live much longer than they should.

At the Diocese where I work, we are supposed to be making a positive impact on the surrounding region. CRWRC and another organization give us funding to carry out different transformational development projects. Yet things happen like the fuel budget for the year getting spent in a matter of months. This happens because a lack of planning and because of an attitude of scarcity. The thinking seems to go; fuel is there, so use it before someone else uses it up. The organization of the entire Diocese seems like chaos to me and I often find myself very frustrated.

Jacob knows that I get frustrated. He says I should have seen them two years ago. He reminds me that change takes time, especially with an institution like the church, but that small improvements are big victories. I try to focus on this.

Part Four: Trying To Save The World OR “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb” OR “What did you learn at school today, dear?”

Prior to the end of this week, I was not focusing very well on the positives. My mind would go over and over trying to figure out the solution to all of the problems I see. The process went kind of like this:

Our cultures are flawed, and they are filled with things like abuse, dependency, and corruption. THEREFORE: transformational development like the work of CRWRC is beneficial because it helps to transform the society and relationships. HOWEVER: with institutions like the Church of Uganda enacting the so-called “transformational development” a lot of the “transformation” goes by the wayside. People go to the workshops, but appear to internalize very little of what they learn. In fact, some people actually make a living by attending various NGO workshops, but never actually put anything in to practice. CONSEQUENTLY: projects come without the full benefit of a transforming culture. So someone might receive oxen for an oxen traction program, but instead of cultivating more of their land so they can earn a profit and send their children to school, they might just say, “Sweet, less work to do!” Then they have to fill their time, so maybe they start drinking or maybe the wife begins to resent the new division of labor in the house and it creates problems in the home. SOWHATISAGOODWAYTOHELPPEOPLE? Maybe those child sponsorship programs are the right way, because then you at least send one kid to University and he has a future and truly gets to change his culture. But wait, I don’t believe that the ends justify the means, so that can’t be good, can it?? So maybe the work of CRWRC is “better than nothing” or “better than what the other guys are doing”, but is that really good enough?? Maybe I’m wasting people’s money by being here. Think of all the good the donations I raised could have done if they had gone directly to the people. Maybe I’m just taking part in some sort of neo-colonialism. Maybe CRWRC should just stop funding the Diocese all together….what if they should pull out of Uganda? But then the Diocese will just get funding from somewhere else, and in all likelihood another organization would require less accountability and would help the Diocese less, so….

And then it would happen. POP. A circuit breaker in my brain, overheated like the brakes on my friend’s car on the way down from Long’s Peak. But that is another story.

I had to swallow my pride this week. I hated the lenses of judgment I had donned to view the world. I had to seriously pray that they be removed, because I couldn’t do it myself. Then it happened: I realized that was not gong to save the world. I was not gong to save Uganda, the Anglican Church, or even CRWRC-Uganda. Here I am getting so frustrated at African “big men” who make long speeches and give everyone an important title, and meanwhile I’m fancying myself a real decision maker, a mover and a shaker.

My desire to feel important manifests itself a little differently than the African “big men” that annoy me so much, but ultimately we share more in common than I’d like to admit. When I was looking at my time here as a learning experience, I felt really fulfilled and was totally enjoying it and relishing any opportunity to serve. After a while, when I began to learn the ropes, I started putting pressure on myself to perform. I thought about all the people that gave so generously so that I could be here, and I felt like I needed to show results, to prove that their money wasn’t wasted.

Currently, I’m renewing my efforts to let go of all of the above. I could sure use your prayers in this, because if left to myself I’ll probably keep popping circuit breakers in my brain by trying to figure out all Uganda’s problems. If I can successfully let go, then hopefully that will free me up to enjoy the environment here. When I let go of these worries I’ve been carrying around, I’ll successfully be able to get out of God’s way and watch God work.