Christian trends are funny. I mean, just listen to our music. The "hymns vs. choruses" battle has been going on for ages, and most have yet to realize that, musically, we largely stink at playing them both. We see choruses as a trend of this generation which is more relevant to the culture, or something like that, but in the process we often miss the fact that the guitarist only knows three chords, the drummer can't keep a steady tempo, and the sound guy doesn't know how to mix the high-ends of the keyboard.
Our cultural conscience, so to speak, has always gone through intense evaluation to the extent that it misses the point. Elderly Christians today may recall the organ controversy when the Church was introducing instrumental music into worship services, rather than sticking to the traditional a'cappella style. There was a time when Christians were torn over the moral value of using a fork at the dinner table. Years later, missionaries would condemn cultures which didn't use forks and instead used their dirty hands.
In Romans, St. Paul address the debate of eating or not eating meat which has been wrongly blessed. He tells his readers not to bicker and divide themselves over such silly things which aren't central to the message of Jesus. Centuries later, of course, we don't think twice about what kind of meat we eat (or even where it came from).
If you read biographies or autobiographies of western missionaries to Africa, you will notice that they consider the continent to be some kind of adventurous world. Missionaries often viewed themselves as savior figures coming to rescue a savage people. Culture and creed got meshed into one, resulting in condemnation of African traditions and the speedy perpetuation colonialism. In recent post-colonial decades, as Silver informed me, there was a fancy restaurant in Kampala which boldly read, "No dogs. No Africans." Colonial attitudes led to neo-colonial practices following an incomplete liberation of the continent.
Today, we've become a bit more culturally sensitive, I think, but I question whether our worldviews are still the same as those of the older missionaries. We can't deny that we still have egos, still consider ourselves part of the world's greatest empire, still believe our education and lifestyle is better and healthier, still see ourselves as the ones authoring world history.
Think about it. Go to a Christian music festival. What do you see? Shirts with Africa on them. Speakers talking about the need for clean water, often neglecting Asia, Central America, and even their own country of America, and only talking about Africa. You buy a cool band T-shirt and you get a free pin from a western NGO in Africa. You can sponsor a child from where? Africa (quite often, a child in the less-Muslim sub-Saharan regions).
We see our Christian friends with these T-shirts, hear these passionate speakers, view presentations from our churches' missionaries, and we consequently (and naturally) think to ourselves, "If I'm going to follow God's call, I should go to Africa!" It's pretty easy to think only Africa has problems for us suburbanites who aren't even exposed to suffering in our own motherland. So we think, with our human and philanthropic consciences, that we should go there to "The Dark Continent."
Because we all started doing it, going to Africa has become the cool thing to do. People want to hear your stories. People want to see pictures of you towering above little black children. They want to see a giraffe or a hut or a schoolyard with a hundred black people showing their teeth because a white person is there. Only very thoughtful and accountable friends bother to ask what you learned. The rest just want to know what you did to help.
Africa is where we go to get our Christian on. Particularly sub-Saharan Africa. And recently, it seems like everyone I meet who has been to Africa has been to Uganda. I started noticing this long before this trip. We hear via NGOs with cool T-shirts about all the suffering due to rebel groups. We rightly assume that we should go be with the suffering but often wrongly assume how we should do it. We hear about the poor education or limited access to clean water and hygiene products but when we arrive we overlook the wisdom of the people and their nutritionally and physically healthy lifestyles. To satisfy our guilt or to show our power, we pay for someone's surgery or schooling. And our friends call us brave or strong for going there. Or they at least commend us for our good hearts.
I'm not perfect at the skill of going to Africa, and I'm not perfect at the skill of being in Africa. But we need to recognize that none of us are, and that the experiences we have there are just a glimpse of perhaps the most diverse continent in the world. Before Jesus told us to go out and speak the euaggelos (good news), he told us to follow Him. His work precedes our work, yet sometimes we try to lead Him to a place where He's either already been or a place where he has not yet told us we are ready to go.
Long story short: my fallible philosophy is that I always try to learn more than I teach, because if I'm quite honest, I don't know who I'm teaching or what I'm supposed to be teaching when I'm in Uganda. So anyway, here are a few words of Lango, a Luo sub-language, which I have learned, and which have impacted me:
"Mitu" - This word functions for both "need" and "want." Perhaps this points to a virtue of selflessness which has been etched into Luo people. If what we want is the same as what we need, we will seldom have land disputes or the desire for excessive personal property. I can just hear the suburban child in the toy section right now. "But Mom! I NEED that!"
"Yelle" - The name (very rarely used as a name) given to one of Suzan's brothers. It means "to work hard" but can also mean "to suffer." Sometimes we like to say in the US that a lot of hard work can bring someone a long way. Well, in some cases that is true (though it is actually very difficult to change one's economic class, and its often the poor who work hard and the rich who sleep while they profit), but it is more true in rural Oyam, I think. Agricultural land is abundant. Some people feed their family and educate their children simply by working the land. Others sit and drink and become thieves because they have no food of their own, despite the fact that they own land. The ability to suffer is a virtue.
"Bedo" - This word can be used for many English words, including "sit," "be," "stay," "live," and "become." If there is anything I have learned in Uganda, it is the value of presence - being in one place. Being still allows us to fully live. The culture of my homeland had taught me the opposite. I realize now that not only is just sitting with someone (even silently) enjoyable, it is also beneficial. It is how we become most human.
"Bunya Bunye" - "Hurry." There's not a lot of hurrying in Uganda, but I just like the sound of this one when it is spoken. Kind of in the same way that I like "Yogo Yogo" - which refers to something loose or unstable.
"Itie" / "Atie" - This is a kind of greeting/response, of which there are many. One person asks, "Itie?" ("Are you?") The other replies, "Atie." ("I am.") It can also be translated something like "Do you exist/I exist" or "Are you around/I am around." The essence of this exchange is the same as the aforementioned "bedo": presence. Presence is important. Ugandans have frequently told me they know that I love them if I come around again, which brings me to my next word:
"Welo" - "Visitor." In Uganda, Africa, and actually, many other places in the world, a visitor is never a distraction or inconvenience. It is an honor. Even in Biblical accounts, the visitor is a blessing to the house which he visits. Many view it as a kind of good luck or good fortune. In Uganda, people beg me to come eat their food. When I visit one family, they want to then take me to see their parents and siblings and in-laws and cousins. The comfort of the visitor must be ensured, which is why it was so hard for me to do any work in Oyam. If I did any work, people would stop and stare at me for several minutes at a time, laughing and calling their friends over. Many cultures, especially in Uganda, honor a visitor with the slaughtering of an animal, perhaps a chicken or goat. It seems to me that where the Church of the developed world has failed to preserve the virtue of hospitality (it is now a business with our hotels and restaurants and appointments we set up to meet with pastors), indigenous cultures have not wavered.
I don't know if I will make any further posts on this blog or soon start a new one for the coming semester, but I want to thank you for reading. If you aren't really interested in my experiences and insights, I understand, and I thank you for at least pretending. Let us not see Africa as a continent to convert or save or rescue or fix, but rather a continent to share and a continent to learn from, consequently empowering its people.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
back
Onslaughts of emails, texts, voicemails. I'm home.
During my long layover in Amsterdam, I was browsing a bookstore where I found a book regarding Africa. Quickly skimming the table of contents, I turned to a chapter largely about Uganda. The author had fallen in love with a Muganda girl and lived with her family for some time. He referenced matoke, saying, "For the Baganda, if you haven't eaten matoke yet, you haven't eaten."
I laughed to myself, remembering that I hadn't eaten matoke for the vast majority of my stay. And when I did eat matoke, it wasn't in Suzan's village. Thanks to the political geography which resulted from the colonial era in Africa, countries are many tribes, and between those tribes one finds differences. I remember leaving Uganda with USP and thinking that every Uganda ate matoke virtually every day. It never would've crossed my mind that part of Uganda didn't grow matoke, nor like it.
These comments are just meant to be an anecdote of my overall experience. It was very different than the first time I came. When I came to Uganda the first time, I was part of a family because I was part of an academic program (and I don't mean that to sound bad, because they are still definitely my family). This time, I was part of a family because I am, quite literally, part of a family. According to Suzan, the times that I broke down were the times that I was having the same struggles which African men have when they are trying to figure out how to be an in-law. I was constantly in a tense position and consistently critical of my selfishness and assumptions about others around me. My expectations of myself were high even when others expected nothing from me. Things didn't go as I expected, but I easily had the best three months of my life. I was around people I deeply love. People who do accept me, despite my fleeting attempts to impress them.
I learned a lot about shame. Several unforeseen events occurred as I was among Suzan's family. I never understood shame. I come from a culture where when someone commits a crime, they are violating paper. A rapist is sentenced because he did something against the law. The victim is considered a witness, not a victim. In Uganda, when somebody slips up, the thing which is violated is not a law, it is a human relationship. Shame is such a powerful force in relationships, literally possessing the capacity to make someone dangerously, maybe even deathly ill, which I have now experienced.
There are many things about my experience which I have not yet decided if I should share publicly. Please feel free to talk with me and ask me questions. I am still unpacking my thoughts and responses of my second visit in Uganda.
Before I go, let me explain a bit about the whole incident of the Kampala terrorism. Al-Shabab, a Somalia-based militant extremist group, has claimed to be behind the act. However, after the FBI and other organizations investigated, there is little to no evidence which supports Al-Shabab's claim (there is "a propaganda value in taking credit for spectacular attacks"). Of what I have read, only one person involved with the terrorism was partially linked with the group. However, it was that person's mother who revealed that fact, and she hadn't seen him for years. Others confessing to be involved claimed that the bombs were strategically placed at locations where Americans spent their leisure time, and that the bombs were more directly aimed at Americans. A head writer for the Uganda Record, an online news journal, has claimed that the attacks are government-linked. Recently, Timothy Kalyegira, this spokesperson, was arrested under the ever-ambiguous and dictator-friendly sedition law, which basically allows anyone considered a threat by the government to be arrested. His claims that the gov't has been profiteers and even schemers of the terrorism cost him his computer. It is important to note, however, that the arrests were illegal, because the gov't only has power to regulate printed publications (despite the claim of Freedom of the Press), not online publications. All of the mainstream newspapers sold in Uganda take the same angle on the events in Kampala. But when one deviating online journal ventures to question assumptions about who did what and whether these events could be tied to other recent Kampala-area terrorism (i.e. burning of the tombs, residential fires), its writer is arrested from his home. Uganda is seeing glimpses of totalitarianism, and my main question is this: how much do Ugandans believe in their ability to struggle subversively?
I did manage to go to the Ethiopian Restaurant where one of the bombs exploded. It's about a 15-minute walk from Suzan's place in Muyenga and a two-minute walk from where Meg stayed When she studied with Go-Ed. The gate is papered-up so people passing by having trouble looking inside. There are no people inside. Suzan and I walked up to the gate and tried various ways of getting inside until a lady roasting corn yelled at us, asking why we wanted to go in. That should be a hotspot for journalists, yet the place, a very big compound, is completely vacant and barely visible. Somebody somewhere is hiding something.
During my long layover in Amsterdam, I was browsing a bookstore where I found a book regarding Africa. Quickly skimming the table of contents, I turned to a chapter largely about Uganda. The author had fallen in love with a Muganda girl and lived with her family for some time. He referenced matoke, saying, "For the Baganda, if you haven't eaten matoke yet, you haven't eaten."
I laughed to myself, remembering that I hadn't eaten matoke for the vast majority of my stay. And when I did eat matoke, it wasn't in Suzan's village. Thanks to the political geography which resulted from the colonial era in Africa, countries are many tribes, and between those tribes one finds differences. I remember leaving Uganda with USP and thinking that every Uganda ate matoke virtually every day. It never would've crossed my mind that part of Uganda didn't grow matoke, nor like it.
These comments are just meant to be an anecdote of my overall experience. It was very different than the first time I came. When I came to Uganda the first time, I was part of a family because I was part of an academic program (and I don't mean that to sound bad, because they are still definitely my family). This time, I was part of a family because I am, quite literally, part of a family. According to Suzan, the times that I broke down were the times that I was having the same struggles which African men have when they are trying to figure out how to be an in-law. I was constantly in a tense position and consistently critical of my selfishness and assumptions about others around me. My expectations of myself were high even when others expected nothing from me. Things didn't go as I expected, but I easily had the best three months of my life. I was around people I deeply love. People who do accept me, despite my fleeting attempts to impress them.
I learned a lot about shame. Several unforeseen events occurred as I was among Suzan's family. I never understood shame. I come from a culture where when someone commits a crime, they are violating paper. A rapist is sentenced because he did something against the law. The victim is considered a witness, not a victim. In Uganda, when somebody slips up, the thing which is violated is not a law, it is a human relationship. Shame is such a powerful force in relationships, literally possessing the capacity to make someone dangerously, maybe even deathly ill, which I have now experienced.
There are many things about my experience which I have not yet decided if I should share publicly. Please feel free to talk with me and ask me questions. I am still unpacking my thoughts and responses of my second visit in Uganda.
Before I go, let me explain a bit about the whole incident of the Kampala terrorism. Al-Shabab, a Somalia-based militant extremist group, has claimed to be behind the act. However, after the FBI and other organizations investigated, there is little to no evidence which supports Al-Shabab's claim (there is "a propaganda value in taking credit for spectacular attacks"). Of what I have read, only one person involved with the terrorism was partially linked with the group. However, it was that person's mother who revealed that fact, and she hadn't seen him for years. Others confessing to be involved claimed that the bombs were strategically placed at locations where Americans spent their leisure time, and that the bombs were more directly aimed at Americans. A head writer for the Uganda Record, an online news journal, has claimed that the attacks are government-linked. Recently, Timothy Kalyegira, this spokesperson, was arrested under the ever-ambiguous and dictator-friendly sedition law, which basically allows anyone considered a threat by the government to be arrested. His claims that the gov't has been profiteers and even schemers of the terrorism cost him his computer. It is important to note, however, that the arrests were illegal, because the gov't only has power to regulate printed publications (despite the claim of Freedom of the Press), not online publications. All of the mainstream newspapers sold in Uganda take the same angle on the events in Kampala. But when one deviating online journal ventures to question assumptions about who did what and whether these events could be tied to other recent Kampala-area terrorism (i.e. burning of the tombs, residential fires), its writer is arrested from his home. Uganda is seeing glimpses of totalitarianism, and my main question is this: how much do Ugandans believe in their ability to struggle subversively?
I did manage to go to the Ethiopian Restaurant where one of the bombs exploded. It's about a 15-minute walk from Suzan's place in Muyenga and a two-minute walk from where Meg stayed When she studied with Go-Ed. The gate is papered-up so people passing by having trouble looking inside. There are no people inside. Suzan and I walked up to the gate and tried various ways of getting inside until a lady roasting corn yelled at us, asking why we wanted to go in. That should be a hotspot for journalists, yet the place, a very big compound, is completely vacant and barely visible. Somebody somewhere is hiding something.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
from k'la
I don't really know what to write about my experiences and reflects in Uganda. Nothing really translates via computer. Nothing comes to mind when I try to type. This must be my dullest blog ever, even more dull than the ones I wrote as a hormone-imbalanced early teen (please, don't try to find them).
Megan is about to fly out, which means two things. First, she comes to Kampala, and since we're also in town (due to my sickness which threw me out of the village), we get to hang out with her. Second, and much less important, I get to borrow an internet stick to make this post.
Toto explained to me last week that work should be shared, which meant that I had an excuse to force her to allow me to do field work. I was thrilled to do something physical on a consistent basis, especially after reading literature of Tolstoy and Jane Addams who recognize raising local food as virtually the highest, most honorable duty of the human being.
What have I done here? Not much. Have I contributed? Probably not. Is Uganda any different now that I came? Not really. What about Atuura or Mukono or Muyenga? Not the least bit.
But anyway, I have enjoyed my well-needed rest and the company of people I now know better. I have come to terms with a lot of my convictions and on the days I have worked in some capacity, my peace is full. My favorite thing to do is watch Ugandans solve Ugandan problems and realize that I am, for the most part, useless. I recall in The Great Divorce (really, I don't usually reference CS Lewis that much) when a man from hell refuses to stay in heaven because he is not needed there. He is more contented to be important in hell. Truly, there can be no greater comfort than knowing the world doesn't depend on us.
At the same time, I recognize a sense of belonging that I can live freely and relatively at peace by doing what I love. Sometimes I like getting the high of feeling good about a societal contribution. Usually the next day, I like getting the high thee I could vanish from the earth and it would still spin properly.
I try, I really do, not to live as a foolishly upwardly-mobile college kid who wants to have a home other than that of middle-class America. So I've tried to develop a lifestyle of living like the people around me and always being in situations where that means the economic norm is sub-middle-class. Unfortunately for me, sometimes people around me want me to (expect me to?) live in the western middle class, and I can't do much to refuse such an offer if they are offended at my leaving such a position. I sneak away from them here and there in an attempt to break their stereotype so that they may treat "my kind" in a different manner in the future, but ultimately, I am tied to others' expectations.
On another note, I ate enchiladas the other day and they were totally worth the 30-minute trip to the toilet in the middle of the night. So, so, so good. My body was craving cheese and several nutrients which I'm sure were running low. Though typically after eating western food once, I feel like I shouldn't eat it again for awhile. It's not from the ground, the water, or a tree. Is it food? Was it made in a laboratory?
In Kampala, they are taking terrorism seriously. I go to church and they pat me down. I go to the outdoor taxi park staircase and they check my bag. I go into a shop or restaurant or campus and the guard asks for ID. The guard at the compound in Muyenga, though he carries a gun like most of them, at least trusts me enough not to check me each time I come home. Guards. Policemen. Guns. What a joke. Soon someone will take a bomb a kill people somewhere in this world, if not Uganda. Why do I call that normal? Why don't I call "an eye for an eye" stupidity?
Wow, I'm rambling about anything I want to. I should just sleep. Hope that wasn't entirely worthless for you to read. Goodnight.
Megan is about to fly out, which means two things. First, she comes to Kampala, and since we're also in town (due to my sickness which threw me out of the village), we get to hang out with her. Second, and much less important, I get to borrow an internet stick to make this post.
Toto explained to me last week that work should be shared, which meant that I had an excuse to force her to allow me to do field work. I was thrilled to do something physical on a consistent basis, especially after reading literature of Tolstoy and Jane Addams who recognize raising local food as virtually the highest, most honorable duty of the human being.
What have I done here? Not much. Have I contributed? Probably not. Is Uganda any different now that I came? Not really. What about Atuura or Mukono or Muyenga? Not the least bit.
But anyway, I have enjoyed my well-needed rest and the company of people I now know better. I have come to terms with a lot of my convictions and on the days I have worked in some capacity, my peace is full. My favorite thing to do is watch Ugandans solve Ugandan problems and realize that I am, for the most part, useless. I recall in The Great Divorce (really, I don't usually reference CS Lewis that much) when a man from hell refuses to stay in heaven because he is not needed there. He is more contented to be important in hell. Truly, there can be no greater comfort than knowing the world doesn't depend on us.
At the same time, I recognize a sense of belonging that I can live freely and relatively at peace by doing what I love. Sometimes I like getting the high of feeling good about a societal contribution. Usually the next day, I like getting the high thee I could vanish from the earth and it would still spin properly.
I try, I really do, not to live as a foolishly upwardly-mobile college kid who wants to have a home other than that of middle-class America. So I've tried to develop a lifestyle of living like the people around me and always being in situations where that means the economic norm is sub-middle-class. Unfortunately for me, sometimes people around me want me to (expect me to?) live in the western middle class, and I can't do much to refuse such an offer if they are offended at my leaving such a position. I sneak away from them here and there in an attempt to break their stereotype so that they may treat "my kind" in a different manner in the future, but ultimately, I am tied to others' expectations.
On another note, I ate enchiladas the other day and they were totally worth the 30-minute trip to the toilet in the middle of the night. So, so, so good. My body was craving cheese and several nutrients which I'm sure were running low. Though typically after eating western food once, I feel like I shouldn't eat it again for awhile. It's not from the ground, the water, or a tree. Is it food? Was it made in a laboratory?
In Kampala, they are taking terrorism seriously. I go to church and they pat me down. I go to the outdoor taxi park staircase and they check my bag. I go into a shop or restaurant or campus and the guard asks for ID. The guard at the compound in Muyenga, though he carries a gun like most of them, at least trusts me enough not to check me each time I come home. Guards. Policemen. Guns. What a joke. Soon someone will take a bomb a kill people somewhere in this world, if not Uganda. Why do I call that normal? Why don't I call "an eye for an eye" stupidity?
Wow, I'm rambling about anything I want to. I should just sleep. Hope that wasn't entirely worthless for you to read. Goodnight.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)