So Much To Say

In wanting to update this, I've been trying to figure out what exactly to include. There's just so much that I want to share. This past week has been full of experiences but also lessons. Lots of lessons. I had another driving lesson which went really well. I took to the roads with the manual van which taught me A LOT. 

There's obviously a lot of differences in living here. I've gotten used to quite a few but then, sometimes, I go back to my American self and forget some basics. Thought I'd list a couple:

-I got on a boda boda, put my hands on his shoulders and waited to take off. The driver made this sort of noise that made me remember that I was NOT supposed to be touching him. At all. I quickly took my hands off him and put them on the metal bar behind me.

-Getting ready one morning, I flipped my hair straightener on to warm up and walked out to get something. I returned and the straightener was still cold. On each outlet, there's a switch to turn the outlet itself on. I had forgotten to do that.

-I piled all of my clothes into the washer to get some laundry done. Flipped the electrical switch on (I'm soo smart), waited for the water to start...to then realize that it was after the time where they shut the water off. Dangit.

-We were out of milk so I stopped by the store to get some when I was already out. They were, not surprisingly, out of milk. That's not so much a me thing as everything here is just like that. Most of the time, when going to a grocery store, you can expect that half of your items aren't being sold that day. Yes, they could have been on the shelf yesterday but, today? Negative.

There's many more that I can't remember now but remember thinking at the time, "one more to add to that list!". Life here is obviously an adjustment. I think that this week made me realize even more that I'm LIVING here, not just visiting. I'm starting to get into my job more, meeting more people, realizing what a "normal" week might look like, etc. I've been developing all sorts of incredible friendships. God has truly blessed me and I am given far more grace than what I deserve.

Speaking of grace...that's one of the things that He's been teaching me. I finished my book on the Rwandan genocide which is truly fascinating. You need to read it. Seriously.

All of that makes me contemplate, why me? Why was I born in America? Why was I fed three times a day? Why was I allowed to get an education? Why was I not born in a poverty stricken country that called for my people's death?

Grace, grace...God's grace. Undeserved grace.

Random Thoughts

Here's some random thoughts for your personal pleasure:

-On the topic of boda boda's, Catharine told us tonight why, in fact, they're called boda boda's. When people used to travel from Uganda to Kenya, they had to go through two checkpoints, one on the Ugandan side and one on the Kenyan. The only way to get from each side was to take a motorcycle over, going from border to border. "Border to border" got shortened over the years to what we have now. 

-Today at church, the power went out during the worship time. They went on as though nothing happened and I swear the worship improved with it. It was just an incredible time of worship. I've always loved the sound of Africans singing and to be a part of it each week is incredible. I thought about the churches I know in America and what would happen if the power went out. We obviously have such a greater dependence on electricity that I wasn't sure if a service there would be able to continue (this obviously depends on the auditorium, time of year, etc). There was obviously no AC in the church this morning (I haven't experienced AC once in my time here and will be surprised if I ever do) and there were lots of windows. I prayed as the speaker spoke that their voice would be projected.

-I bought two books at a bookstore in Garden City this past weekend and I finished the first one today. "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" was written by Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier in Sierra Leone. It details his life before the war, survival during the war and his eventual being forced to fight on one side of the war at age 15. The most interesting part for me was his rehabilitation time. One would think, ah, you are rescued! You no longer have to kill people! You can be a child again! The process that him and his fellow army boys had to go through afterwards was...incredible. It taught me so much. There are some former child soldiers with Hope Alive! and I needed this to help me understand them. I would recommend this for all of you who have been burdened for these hundreds of thousands of child soldiers throughout the world today. The second book I bought it on the Rwanda genocide entitled, "We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families" by Philip Gourevitch. I just started it and am so interested to learn more. 

Now that I'm here, all of this seems much more real. I am in and near places where atrocities have occurred. Today, two of the big prayer requests that people gave at church were for the situation in the north with the LRA and the inhumane mess that they have left behind. I'm HERE. I'm meeting people that were there. Hearing their stories of fleeing for their lives. The fear that they lived in. Missing those that have been killed. This is right where I've been praying to be and it's still unreal that all of this has happened and is still happening today, only now elsewhere. It makes me hungry for more; more knowledge of the situation, more understanding of how to help people, more of a realization of the insanity that is often a blib on the news. I'm really excited to get to Gulu. We should be going in about two weeks and I'm so anxious to get there as well as the other sites. 

I want to see, touch and feel. I want to do more than pray at a distance but get my hands dirty in showing Christ. 

I am SO excited to be HERE. 

Miracles: Big and Small

On Friday, I had to get to Brian and Renee's house from the coffee shop that I was at. I knew how to get there but didn't know how to relate it to a boda boda driver. They live off of a big road called Logogo Bypass. It would be like, in Lynchburg, telling a taxi driver that where you wanted to go was off of Wards Rd. somewhere or if, in Cedar Rapids, 1st Ave. They are such long roads that there's no way to tell how far one needs to go. I was concerned about conveying this as it would depend on how much he would charge me. I also wasn't completely confident in where the turn was. I would know it if I passed it but knowing ahead of time would be my problem. Nikola, my short term missionary roomie, had a number of a boda driver who drove them around enough to know where Brian and Renee lived. I had meant to get the number from her earlier but forgot. She told me to just ask the boda drivers for "Ivan" to see if he was there. I walked out of the coffee shop, called her to confirm where I was to look and she said that she would call Ivan to see if he could come to the coffee shop area where I was. I hung up with her as I was walking through the parking lot to get to the corner where the boda drivers were. Right then, a random lonesome boda started driving through the parking lot. I stopped him and asked him if he knew of a boda driver named "Ivan" and if he was close by.

He looked at me and said, "Yes, I am Ivan!"

I couldn't believe it! God had just answered my prayer! I told him that I was friends with Nikola and that I needed to get to Brian and Renee's. He told me that he knew exactly where to go. At the moment, his cell phone rang. It was Nikola calling.

Oh, and I now have Ivan's number in my cell phone as "Ivan boda".

God confirms His faithfulness, care and protection again and again and...again.

Experiencing An Ugandan Marketplace = Mosh Pit

On Wednesday, Renee (her and her husband oversee the short and mid termers) had me go with one of the mentors to learn the taxi system here. Now is a good time to explain these systems for you. There three main kinds of public transportation here: boda boda, taxi and special hire.

Boda boda's have been my main form of transportation. For those that didn't google image this, I give you this youtube video. 

A pretty normal and somewhat calm boda ride

For the most part, I've felt completely safe on these and they are truly the fastest way to get anywhere in Kampala. The down side is that you have to tell them exactly where to go and they may or may not know where it is. This makes it interesting as you negotiate the price beforehand and if you don't know where it is, it's hard to give a price. There have definitely been some frightening times as well. Today, actually, was probably the craziest boda ride that I've ever had. We went really far away (don't even ask me where) to meet up with Chris Biddix (a familiar face!!!) and holy cow, that boda. Kate, another mentor, was also on the boda so we had three on there (mom and dad, just stop reading now, ok? :)). We got into this crazy traffic and he started weaving in between cars and then we ended up driving on the SIDEWALK. But, we got there! They know what they're doing. Anyway, all this to say, they're the fastest way of getting somewhere. It's the middle of the three prices.

The second form of transportation is a special hire. This means that you call someone, they come to where you are and then take you directly to where you need to go. They know of more places than bodas which helps a lot. This is BY FAR the most expensive way to travel. So, Mom and Dad (if you're still reading which you SHOULD have stopped up there), if you want me to do this, then you need to send me LOTS of money. I'll give an example. The other night myself and two others went to a Thai restaurant probably about 15 min or so away from our house. We took bodas there and paid about 3000 schillings which is not even $2. Since it was so late when we finished, we called a special hire and paid 20,000 schillings to get back. Big difference.

The third form of transportation is taxi's. On Wednesday, I attempted to master the taxi system. Their taxi system is kind of like our bus system. There are certain places where they pick you up (stations...in a very weird third world sense) and places where they drop you off. There's a driver of the taxi (which is a passenger van) and a conducter, who controls all of the prices, announces the end station that the taxi is going to and convinces people to get on the taxi. Once on, you have no idea how much he'll charge you until you're almost off. There is NO way of knowing when you're supposed to get off. There's no "Jinja Rd stop" yelled out. They just stop. You have to know where you're at to know if this is where you're supposed to get off. They also sometimes stop in random places for people but that's apparently just when the traffic police aren't around. This is by far the SLOWEST way of getting ANYWHERE. There's no definite time when they leave. They often stop and wait for more people to get on the taxi. This could take anywhere from 20-45 minutes. The traffic here is insane so adding that to all of the planned stops, unplanned stops, waiting for people to get on, etc. it takes forever. This is the cheapest way of getting around Kampala. 

Lonnah, one of Hope Alive!'s incredible mentors, took me on my first taxi ride to the taxi park in downtown Kampala. I don't even know how to describe taxi park. Imagine literally hundreds of passenger vans all scrunched together in a parking lot. Each one of these is going somewhere different and trying to get around each other. It's chaos. There's very few signs as to what taxi is going where. Insane. After we went there, Lonnah took me to a small market and then we went to the big daddy market of them all. It was literally like being in a mosh pit at a rock concert. Everyone was pushing to get through the tiny passage ways. I could barely look up at any merchandise because I was too concerned with where my next step would be. Lonnah held my hand throughout the day which is customary here...and probably saved my arms from being pulled off by merchants wanting the muzungo to see what they were selling. Unfortunately for them, the muzungo didn't even glance at their stuff. It was SO INSANE in there. After that, we walked to a craft market where they sold all sorts of Ugandan crafts. Lonnah said that she was tempted to buy so many things in the big market. I wasn't tempted there but got majorly tempted at the craft market! I've needed to add some life to my room so I bought a few things to make it more like home. We then took a taxi back and then boda-ed to the Hope Alive! office.

Thursday I spent going over the Hope Alive! database with Catharine. It was so good to see what I'll be spending so much time on! It will help me understand more of the intricate details that is Hope Alive! 

Friday is Catharine's day off and I will probably make it mine as well. With Saturday Club on Saturday's and then church and other ministry things on Sunday, our only day off has to be in the week. On Friday morning, I joined Catharine and Susan (another missionary who lives on our compound) as they ventured out to the oh-so-new Nakumatt! I've been to Nakumatt's in Kenya (think: African Wal-mart) but this one in Kampala is new. We ended up stopping at Garden City, a nice mall in downtown Kampala, before we continued onto Nakumatt. The night before our trip, I had a dream. On my list to get were a hair straightener (mine died! :( ), alarm clock and a pillow (I can't sleep on pancakes any longer). In my dream, Nakumatt had everything that I needed besides pillows. All they had were decorative pillows, not pillows to sleep on. I was super annoyed in my dream. We get to Nakumatt on Friday and I relayed my dream to Catharine. We laugh as we ask a manager to help us find the things that we were looking. It came to be that Nakumatt had NOTHING that I needed...besides a pillow, that is. Nakumatt made my dream opposite. We then headed to a different store which had everything that I needed. So random.

After our time at Nakumatt, Catharine and Susan dropped me off at a coffee shop where I grabbed a quick lunch before I headed over to Brian and Renee's. Brian offered to help me learn how to drive a manual car AND how to drive in Kampala. What a huge task! It all went so much better than I thought. After practicing on their manual van, he had me drive their automatic van out of their neighborhood, to a grocery store to get some things for dinner. 

Yes, I drove. In Kampala. In a van. 

Ok fine, so it was like 2 miles from their house. I had to cross this major road though which here is just insane. It gave me some confidence in driving here but hoooly cow, it is just insane here. Watch that boda boda video a couple times and just imagine driving in it with 100000 more cars on the road than that video showed. 

Thanks for all of your prayer for my driving! Keep them up! I need them desperately! 

PS

I thought I'd write a little PS to my previous note. Life in Uganda is different, very very different. Beyond the things listed below, there's things like wanting to buy milk but the grocery stores aren't selling milk that day. Or wanting to do laundry but never being home when the water is actually turned on (I seriously have a huge stack of laundry waiting for the time when I'm home and the water is on). It's different than anything I've ever known.

BUT

It's worth it. What are dirty clothes compared to persecution for Christ? What are bugs compared to what HE has done for me? Just as Christ left His culture to reach us, I have left mine to reach this one through Christ. He had much more culture shock to endure than I. I don't like that word, "endure". I'm not "enduring" here. I'm ENJOYING here. There is a firm confidence that no matter what, this is the exact place that God has me. I'm not out there searching and wondering what I will do next or pining to be fulfilled in my job. I am doing exactly that right now. I know that I'm one of the few that can say such things and for that, I am honored and thrilled. 

Another difference? I thought that when I came here, I'd eat no sweets since the Africans I know only have fruit for dessert. The other American missionaries have made sure that I have had my share of all sweets. I've seriously eaten more cookies and sweets in the past week than I have in the past month. Ridiculous. 

...but oh soo tasty.

At last, a REAL update! :)

When we first went to visit some of the homes of the children, it reminded me of when we were in rural poor Kenya. The big difference was that Kampala is a huge city so these kids are street savvy living in poverty. The first place we went was apparently a place for the families of the police. When we arrived, we had to talk to the police to get permission to visit the families as they ran into some trouble last time because they didn’t know who they were. Go figure. Once we were “cleared”, we headed through the dirt and trash filled paths to the first home. There were only two homes in the police family area so after that, we didn’t have to worry. The “we” in this includes Nikola, a short termer who has been here for five weeks and is leaving next week, and Dorothy, one of the Hope Alive! mentors. Since Dorothy is Ugandan, that helped in numerous ways through language barriers to talking with the police. It was great to see how the system works with Hope Alive! and their mentors. In talking to Catharine, the mentor system is one of the distinguishing factors of Hope Alive! so it was great to see it first hand.

I thought I’d share a couple stories from that time as well. As we rounded the corner of these houses, this little girl about 3 years old, sees me and starts running towards me, arms open wide. Her mom starts to laugh as I picked her up and held onto her. I didn’t really need to hold her as she had quite the grip on me herself. Soon after, a young boy comes up to me, grabs my hand and goes to his knees. This is a Ugandan custom that shows deep respect. He was so sincere (not to mention SO ADORABLE). I teared up.

I’m trying to think of the best way to describe the similarities and differences of living in Uganda. I truly have little idea yet as I’ve been here less than a week and my week hasn’t been my “normal” life. There’s an American team here so I’ve done a lot with them. They are also painting and adding shelves to my office so I haven’t been able to go in yet. At some point this week, I’ll be having orientation. This means that my time to driving in Kampala is coming nearer. This brings tightness to my stomach. I can’t even put into words what the traffic is like here. How lawless the roads are. How incredibly nonsensical and absolutely insane it is. I’ve still yet to master driving a manual which will make all of that so much worse. I’m scared out of my mind.  Another thing is the dirt. The dirt is like a red clay, similar to Lynchburg. The biggest difference here is that the clay is EVERYWHERE. Since there’s no AC in houses, all of our windows are open to the air. Though there are screens for bugs (which somehow didn’t keep a certain mosquito from eating me alive a couple nights ago), it doesn’t keep the dirt out. It’s all over my stuff, clothes, shoes, body, etc. And that’s just the outside of my body. I can also feel it in my ears, nose, mouth, throat and lungs.  There’s some funny bits of America here though. Right now, our neighbors are having a huge party. They’re playing music pretty loud. At first, it sounded like they had a traditional African band. Now they’re playing random American songs like “As I Lay Me Down” by Sophie B. Hawkins, a couple country songs and more. The songs they play in grocery stores are about the same. I heard “Good Morning Beautiful” yesterday while shopping. 

I'm continuing this note at a local coffee shop called Good African Coffee. FYI, coffee has been a disappointment here however, it's good here (pun SO intended). The lack of internet has been the hardest thing to deal with. I wrote the above at home and then just added it in. I've only had a bit of internet here and none of it on my own computer yet. Ahh, I can FINALLY send an e-mail update to everyone! It's mainly been a quick blog update, check a couple e-mails and then done. It's SO great to finally catch up! You don't realize how much junk e-mail you get until you can't delete it every day. I ordered a strawberry smoothie and it just came. It literally tastes like I'm sucking down some Yoplait strawberry yogurt. Mm. :) 

To conclude though. :) Through all of the dirt, bugs, no internet and more, things here are good. I can tell that there's going to be a lot of really hard adjustments, but I also know that I love it. This is EXACTLY where God has me. So, please pray. I know that Satan's going to do His best at getting me to get annoyed at the big and little things. Like, for example, I just got bit by about 20 mosquitoes sitting here. 

Love!

Slum

Today we went to visit some of the kids in their homes. We walked through one of the slums in Kampala to reach many of them. Their houses varied. Some were circular metal ones, one was in this large building with basically cardboard in between each room, and so on. The poverty was so evident. It was so great to finally be out in the city. More stories and pictures later!

...AND I rode a boda boda today! Do a google image search on that sucker. It was CRAZY! :)