Ugandablog

school of life February 3, 2010

A Reflection on my trip to Uganda:

Legislation, the old saw goes, is like sausage-making, you donʼt really want to see how itʼs done. This comparison with politics is a malicious slur against sausage. I contend that if you have tasted sausage you will not be put off by the gory details. I would say the same about mission work; most of us donʼt really want to know the gritty details of face-to-face, third-world ministry because it means standing waist deep, often helpless, in the suffering, loneliness, and human fallenness of those we hope to serve. As with sausage however, if you really love the work, the people, you will tuck in anyway. For two weeks of this last Christmas holiday, beginning on the first day of the new year, I visited two people who do just that. I walked the streets and fields of the poor people who live in and around Kampala, Ugandaʼs capital, with Peter and Sharon Georges, the founders of St. Nicholas Uganda Childrenʼs Fund. I did not go to Uganda to build houses or give medicine to the sick, I went to see, and try to understand, what it means to minister to people in Uganda, day to day. I say “people” rather than “children” because while the work of the Fund is dedicated to helping orphaned and unwanted children earn an education Peter and Sharon do so much more than just minister to children by paying school fees and buying school supplies. I learned this my very first day on the ground.

When I rose, limb heavy and disoriented, Peter said he and I would be going out for a walk around the immediate neighborhood as an introduction to Uganda. So after coffee and toast out we went for my first African adventure. We began walking and Peter began talking, tossing me chunks of local lore, cultural history, an overview of the political landscape, and even an explanation for the mysterious absence of rubbish bins. We walked and as I listened I took in the abundance of my environment, the brightly colored birds, the lush flora, the relative quiet in the air, and juxtaposed this pleasant natural abundance in my mind with the tragic, and all too common, story of tyranny, civil war, and poverty Peter was telling me. But he wasnʼt giving me the story of Uganda and her people in a narrative vacuum; as we walked we would stop to talk with a local person who happened onto our excursion, usually someone Peter knew, and when we continued on our way Peter would tell me their story:

Now Agatha has two children of her own, not the two you met back there, those two were sent from the village, from the family of a relative who died. This happens all the time. Someone dies and the family sends the children to live with a relative in the city because they imagine that people in the city are rich. Very often these children are treated like household slaves.

Peter and Sharon told me dozens of these stories over the course of days, drawn from the seemingly inexhaustible supply of their own personal experiences, as we walked through the one or two-room, mud-brick hut neighborhoods of Kampalaʼs maze-like suburbs, fought through the dense and utterly chaotic commerce of downtown Kampala to buy school supplies, or sat in the office listening to teenagers, mothers and children, new applicants though the program is technically full, tell their stories of suffering and need. Thus, for me the fabric of Ugandaʼs history and the force of its immediate human reality was knit, by Peter and Sharon, from the faces of the people they know and love on a daily basis. I must confess that before the trip was at an end I began to know lovethem too. This is because they are lovable people. Almost without exception the people I met during my peripatetic introduction to Uganda were welcoming and hospitable and everywhere I went I was most welcome, even an honored guest. I was often cheered, in the absence of my family, by bright-eyed young ones, curious and often eager to hold my hand or give a hug; who whooped with excitement at our appearance and cried when we went away. Just as often I was broken by their suffering: HIV, abuse, orphanhood, and abandonment among the problems most Ugandan children are asked to overcome. I was inspired by industrious priests who work with vision and tirelessness despite a dearth of resources and minimal remuneration in money or thanks. I met liars, thieves and rogues, sometimes all-in-one, who were just as kind as everyone else. I enjoyed the hospitality of the nuns at the only monastery in Uganda. In the evenings on my way to the boda boda station I passed groups of men who medicate their hard-luck despair with cards and the local grog (I didnʼt try it). I also met many hard working people like Robert who is honest and undaunted in the face of abject poverty and an uncertain future, Frank and Agnes, who are indispensable to the work of the Fund, and our driver, Peter, who works from dawn to long past dark, 365 days a year to take care of his family and put his children through school. Each of these encounters was a meaningful as well as a valuable insight into the daily lives of Ugandans and each one was framed against the backdrop of a squalid patrimony. Seeing the breadth and depth of the needs of these people as well as the thousands around them whom I never met, I was occasionally overcome by the awareness of sheer scale; the needs are so great for so many, the roots of the problems so hard to get at, and the laborers so few, yet Peter and Sharon never seemed overcome. Iʼm sure they have their black moments just as I did but everywhere we went on our daily adventures Peter and Sharon were asking about work, counseling students about their academic performance and life choices, checking up on families; taking the vital signs, so-to-speak, of the people we met.

I did a lot and learned a lot about Uganda and its people in the course of my visit to Kampala. In addition to hoofing it across Kampalaʼs suburbs and riding boda bodaʼs and taxi buses, I ate local food, watched a native dance competition, attended Theophany services with the bishop, visited an amazing village parish (the most beautiful church in all Uganda, complete with a monastery, primary/secondary school, and clinic), and toured the palace of the last ruling Kabaka (king) of Uganda, the largest grass house in the world. But it is the people who endure in my mind: their plight certainly, but more than that, their gentleness, hospitality, and warmth. I am grateful to the Georges for encouraging me to visit them in Uganda and welcoming me as a member of the family while I was there. They introduced me to their people and taught me to love and understand Ugandans in ways I never could have on my own. I am profoundly grateful to be a continuing part of the ministry of St Nicholas Uganda Childrenʼs Fund, and the loving, personal ministry of Peter and Sharon Georges. It was worth every penny spent and every long hour at 40,000 feet to meet them and see their work up close. I encourage you too, dear reader, to discover their work and tuck in.

-john brantley cox