"Nothing Ever Happens"

I laughed out loud at my friend's email to me. He said something to the extent of, "I always pictured that sort of development work as a lot of sitting around, but it sounds like you are really doing a lot!"

I laughed because lately I feel like I spend way too much time sitting around, waiting for things to happen. This has been a difficult adjustment for a number of reasons. I was raised in a culture that values efficiency, so when I'm waiting for other people to fulfill their duties before I can continue mine, it is frustrating. Along with these eperiences, which happen often, is a feeling of "my culture is better than your culture". I don't like feeling this way, but those thoughts are there. It is something I've been trying to deal with the past few weeks.

Since I've returned from Rwanda, I haven't posted any entries. The reason for this is because it didn't feel like I was doing a lot. I didn't take any new pictures and I didn't really feel like I had anything new to process. In short, it felt like I was doing nothing. This was not strictly true, but that is how it felt.

I think a lot of what happened these last few weeks was a change within myself. I'm struggling daily to surrender the pride that leads to thoughts like the one I described above. When I came to Uganda I prepared myself to work cross-culturally with the traumatized. This will still happen, but my role is much more administrative than I thought it would be at first. I had to change my mindset and realize that when I'm doing adminstrative work, it is still work, even though the results feel less tangible.

When I realized this, I realized that I have a lot of potential for doing good work at the Diocese of Lango. The relationships I have been forming are very valuable, and when I'm building relationships, I'm doing development work as well. These relationships have allowed me to suggest and make changes within the Diocese that would not have happened without me. This feels good, and it makes me hopeful for progress in the future. I will spare you the details of all of it, but it ends with me being really excited about administrative and organizational changes. I never thought that budgets and proposals would be the reason I looked forward to going to work, but it has been and I'm trying to remain positive about the process.

When I came here I thought that depression and lonliness would be my major obstacles. Those struggles are there, but they've done much to teach me reliance on God. So the struggles that I really have to deal with are completely suprising to me. Feeling useful for things besides my ability to drive a car has been the topic of many conversations with Tim and Rena Dam, fortunately they've given me some great perspectives and insights and have gone through much of the same thing.

One reason I may have felt less useful these past few weeks was a bought of amoebas and worms that slowed me down for a while, and I may or may not have had a brief fight with some malaria, so there were some natual obstacles to me feeling useful. However, it has taken a lot for me to get used to the African way of doing things. Travelling the 8 kilometers to my office and finding it padlocked with no one around is frustrating and bewildering, especially when it happens frequently.

I guess that when I came to Uganda, I thought that I was going to be doing trauma work, and so that is what I prepared myself for. I still am working with the traumatized, but it is not the majority of how I spend my workweek. This week, however, I will be co-leading a workshop with caretakers and teachers of orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs). I'm really looking forward to the challenge. I've also had to realize that when I visit a community and access their needs, it is work. It doesn't feel like it, but it is. It doesn't feel like work because most communities are so stoked to have a muzungu guest that it is a lot of soda pops and formalities before we actually get down to business. I never thought it would be so hard to adjust to that part of the culture.

It is hard to get myself to write about this stuff, because a lot of it feels like I'm only able to share a fraction of what is going on around me. You may have heard that there were riots this week in Kampala. No one from CRWRC is or was in any immediate danger, but the obvious truth is that people are angry at their situation, but don't know how to deal with it. Please keep praying. I'm attaching some thoughts that Rena Dam shared with me recently about the riots. She put it much better than I could:

So - the planned peaceful demonstration to protest the government's proposed sale of part of one of Uganda's largest sections of rainforest (Mabira forest) to a neighbouring sugar cane factory turned violent yesterday. The crowd starting looting and carrying anti-Asian signs, attacked a number of Indians, killing one and injuring others. The reason being, ostensibly, that the sugar company, along with a large number of the larger and more wealthy corporations in Uganda is owned by Indians. Remember when, due to similar jealousy and injustice, Idi Amin kicked all the Asians out of Uganda?? The national economy ground to a standstill. Today we are not-so-subtley reminded (there are graphic photos in the newpapers of the man who was stoned to death and others, both Indian andAfrican who were injured in the violence) that the same sentiment prevails today and boils just under the surface. In fact, Uganda's unequal distribution of wealth, lack of any local voice in the government, poor leadership and many other issues lead to a society that is ready (especially the young men) to jump at any chance for retribution or expression of thier frustration and rage. It's an awakening to those of us who live here and see flashes of the repressed fury in people's insane driving and mob justice but manage to otherwise convince ourselves that this is a country that is well under control. It is, from the public reactions seen yesterday and the ambivilent response of the president, obviously not. I write this not to frighten you about our safety (we are not in any danger) but to try to relate a bit about the tensions in Ugandan society and some of the less savoury results of decades of oppression and inequality. We work in what ways we can to try to help with such issues but for there to be real change in countries like Uganda it has to come from within. Sometimes the injustice and corruption and my own uselessness against it makes me want to cry. Then again, the same issues are there in all countries- they are just more subtle. So...I just go back to work. and pray.