Apologies

This week instead of spending the time I usually spend writing a blog, I had a dance party with the children and a keyboard. Love you all!

An Ode to Kevin

Today is a day ended with legitimate gratefulness to be alive. Leilah and I, along with our less than trusty boda driver, our backpacks, our purses and a few other things piled onto a moped and took a 20 mile journey through the African bush. Our dirty, sunburned selves were greeted by a dozen happy children, welcoming us back with bear hugs. We sang and danced. And now I sit here, still dirty and now a little sweaty, very happy to be alive, am going to share with you my wealth of knowledge (sarcasm here) about how to make foreign aide work.

I have been running out of things to write about. Not to imply that their is nothing note-worthy taking place here. I could write four pages on how much I love Justine and how the things he says make my heart explode with joy. How Norbert's life at eleven has been more difficult than any other story of an individual I have ever heard. How much eating rice and beans twice a day is making me appreciate simplicity, being content, and the deliciousness of food all at once. The possibilities are pretty much endless. So if there is by any chance anything you want to hear about, please tell me!

Now to follow Kevin's request:

Reading every morning and night has proven to be a habit for most of us. A few of the books we share are about social justice and aide. This is where I pull a little bit of what I now believe to be sound advice, but most of it comes from living in the midst of a well-run NGO.

Thing One: As few white people as possible.

People need to be educated, buildings need to be built, and food needs to be grown by their own people. That way, things are done culturally appropriately, and they are set up in a way that will work for them. Looking at things practically, bringing in other ideas from the West is sometimes necessary. And it's good. As long as people are equipped to teach, built, and grow, and can teach others how to.

Thing Two: Education, education, education.

Geared towards the next generation, and moms. When people are expected to do well, and told they can, incredible things happen. Especially in places where knowledge is not so accessible. We teach English, and I have never seen ten year old kids so engaged, focused, and excited to learn about verbs. They are future social workers, lawyers, doctors, politicians, if only someone gives a damn and educates them. Things like health care fall under this category. There is a ton of value in short-term medical missions. Awesome. Do it. But real change will happen when more Ugandans and Cambodians and Haitians go to medical school and can help their own people. It all starts with some kind of school. Because of a micro-loan from my grandma a single mom can go to school to become a seamstress and afford her babies anti-malarial medicine from a doctor whose education was paid for by a couple from Tallahassee who wanted to do something nice, which brings me to my next point...

Thing Three: People to people

It works both ways. When there is a face to a sponsor, when there is a face to the person you are helping feed and educate, things change. It's no longer a meal or a check written for charity. It is someone you can love, pray for, hear from.

Thing four: Projects

Wells, beads, schools, and banana fiber menstrual pads get attention. People like supporting something when they know where their money is going directly. And finally...

Thing Five: "Come and See"

If we want things to change, we have to start with ourselves. If you want to love the poor, you have to meet them, get to know them. See that they are just like you and I, and are just stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty. We can change their circumstances. With thirty bucks we can buy a new pair of jeans we don't need or we can lend it to a kid in Africa to go to driving school so that he can take care of his siblings.

Now. Let me re-state that I know very little about all this, am probably wrong about a lot of things, and excluding a lot of really important things.

Shalom!

Seven Weeks In

As I have nothing profound to write, this is a simple ‘I’m alive!’ blog. I am learning lots, but things I am not quite sure how to word yet in any sort of beautiful way, so I will make a list. I love lists, you know.

I am learning:
-A lot about my selfishness, laziness, and hesitance to change. And how to change it.
-How much Derek Webb, Lauryn Hill, and Jon Foreman rule!
-How the simple act of holding chopsticks can bring inexpressible joy.
-John Piper and I can be friends (google his ‘The Prosperity Gospel’).
-The hilarity and frustration that ensues when four women (and all their stuff) live in a hut with a 25 foot circumference.
-How to make killer tangawizi (ginger) tea.
-How to play cards (Ugandans only have one card game, appropriately titled ‘cards’, SPOONS blew their minds).
-What a gift democracy is, and how blessed I am to have citizenship in a country in which is operates.
-How much more twelve year olds have to teach me than I have to teach them.
-That a bracelet made by a 5th grader that loves you is worth far more than a diamond ring.
-That I never want a diamond ring (don’t worry, anyone that wants to marry me, we’ll figure something out)!
-How much is sucks that I can’t minor in social work, peace studies, geography, linguistics, education, political science, and history.
-How much my hair, face, and feet aren’t doing so great in Uganda, but how much my soul and brain flourish here (I am pretty sure the latter is more important).
-How frustrating it is to see large amounts of money being poured into poverty-stricken countries with no change happening.
-How to effectively make change happen (thus fighting the last bullet).
-How to prescribe antibiotics, give shots, and diagnose illness (I am pretty sure this will come in handy eventually).
-How much fun it is to sit with a bunch of sisters and babies watching white boys try to play football with Africans.
-How to build a library, organize a medical clinic, and set up a child sponsorship program.
-How to teach English and set up a curriculum.
-How far redemption goes, how much pain and anger and loss and hurt people can go through and still trust and praise God.
-How much we in the West (wrongly) obsess over, well, everything.
-The importance of education, how empowered and benefited people are from it.
-How nice it is to be loved despite distance and lack of communication and life changes (Hi Jeronimo!).
-How to pray, really really pray, and trust, and be brave.


I am reading the gospels and realizing how many things I had wrong. I suppose being removed from everything makes things a bit clearer, a little easier to digest. I love the sassy, selfless, lover of prostitutes and tax collectors that Jesus is. I love the way he never waters down His message for anyone, how He speaks honestly, how he defends the helpless and poor, how He has compassion for everybody, but doesn’t hesitate to call out injustice and oppose it’s perpetrators. It is beautiful.

Okay, Clinton and Solomon want to play football!

P.S. Just so you know, the internet is ever-sketchy, so if you don’t hear from me in awhile, don’t fear. I am alive and well.

You Give Me

Along with the communal way of living here, comes a sense of ownership lost.
A good example of this is the way the children who makes the beads (villageofhopeuganda.com). They get paid as a group, for the amount of beads made. The oldest kids have access to the money. They buy things like goat for the entire village they come from and dance outfits for every child at the village. They share everything.

It is really beautiful to admire. But after awhile, you are expected to become part of it.

I have gotten pretty close with the cooks. Aggy, Esther, and Grace work seven days a week, from dawn to dusk, to make us, and dozens of construction workers, every meal we eat.

The other day, after lunch, Aggy told me she liked my headband. Then she asked me if I had only two. When I told her no, that I had more, she looked straight at me and said, “You give me.” I smiled and got up to find my spare headband. There was a moment of hesitation, a desire to be asked kindly, a sense of possession. And then I remembered, everything I have is Gods. Down to every little piece of elastic cotton. I relished in being able to give Aggy something she likes and will use. Over the past month I have gotten to know her better, heard stories of her children (who are soooo fat like Tom, she says), her husband, her parents. I felt really proud of myself. Until I realized that this should be the norm. I should be constantly looking for opportunities to bless people with the things God’s given me. But I don’t, I hold onto them tightly. On one of our girly nights, where we lay under the stars and talk about things whilst eating trail mix, we talked about giving everything vs. being responsible with the things God’s given us. Can we do both? How do we do both?

This is what I have been pondering this week.

Excuse the shortness of this blog! My parents are here. I have been enjoying them so much! And things always get a little nuts while people are here.

All my love,
Suz