The Lambie's Big Adventure

HIV, MARPs, MSMs and Other Fun Acronyms

2012-02-07T01:45:00.001-08:00

Hi friends. It's me, Sarah. And since I'm not working at the moment (unless you call cheuffering and taking care of five kids work) I thought I'd fill you in on some of the more exciting projects I've worked on lately. Here's one from Aug./Sept. 2011:

Aug. 31, 2011 text exchange between Scott and I. (I was in Nairobi and Scott was at home in Uganda):

Sarah: Hello. Everything ok? How come you never text me?
Scott: Hi Sweet Girl. Thanks for checking in. I’m busy with these 500 children. Oh, and also killing the rats…
Sarah: Killing rats? Awesome! Fantastic! I’ve been interviewing male sex workers all day. Trying to film them on the streets now.
Scott: WHAT????
Sarah: Yeah, I luv this job! Was in a brothel this morning. Good times! The NGO I’m working with targets MARPS for HIV/STD testing & prevention. Will interview truck drivers in the morning!

I do love my work. In August 2010 I started working as an independent communications consultant in Kampala. For a year or so I had a contract with a John Snow Inc. program called Technical Assistance to the New Partners Initiative, or TA-NPI. True, it may not have the catchiest name, but it certainly is an innovative program. TA-NPI is a project designed to support non-governmental organizations (NGOs) receiving funding from the U.S. government. Through this project, I’ve had the opportunity to work in 5 countries with 6 amazing organizations that are tackling HIV/AIDS in truly unique and inspiring ways.

If you grew up in a 1st world country, you probably were educated time and again about HIV, how it’s contracted, how to avoid it and so on. I can still remember the first time I heard about the disease…it was sometime in the 80s. I was watching Oprah and she was interviewing a very courageous young woman who went public with the fact that she was HIV+. She had contracted it during a dental procedure.

Suddenly, it seemed, AIDS went from being a taboo disease that was only contracted through sex to something that anyone could get anywhere, no matter how young or innocent.

Debates broke out about whether or not HIV+ children should be aloud to attend public schools. School nurses pulled on their latex gloves before tending to scrapes or pulling teeth. Information about condoms and “safe sex” became prevalent in and out of school.

Although there are still pockets of ignorance throughout the states and the west, for the most part, it seems we’ve received a sound education on what HIV/AIDS is, what it is not (as in, it is not a disease that only affects gay men and prostitutes) and how it can be avoided. Some of us have heard so much about it we may even suffer from a bit of AIDS fatigue at this point.

Unfortunately, a lot of education still needs to be done here in Africa to combat both the spread of HIV/AIDS and the stigma that often comes with it. Although it’s certainly not a common belief, there are some here who believe (thanks to the advice of their friendly neighborhood witch doctor) that a sure fire way to rid themselves of the disease is by having unprotected sex with a virgin. There is a tribe in South Africa that, according to tradition, stipulates that the young men who undergo the ceremonial circumcision that marks their transition to manhood must have sex within 24 hours of the circumcision. And more often than not, the tribes who practice circumcision rites (male or female) use the same blade on all the youngsters participating in the initiation.

But probably the greatest contributor to high HIV rates in Africa is unprotected sex, which can be attributed to, in some cases, sheer ignorance, and in other cases to a lack of condoms. In fact, just a few months ago, one of the clinics I work with in Kenya told me there was a condom shortage in the country.

The simple truth is, many African populations have yet to be exposed to the kind of in-your-face safe sex anti-AIDS campaigns many of us from the west grew up with. And because of this, HIV rates are still high and HIV/AIDS-related stigma is an enormous reality.

Through my work with JSI, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a number of African-based NGO’s that are working to change this.

One of those organizations is NOPE (pronounced no pay). (I know the name doesn’t make sense from where you are but trust me, it works here.) Kenyan-based, NOPE is working to improve the health of the country’s most at-risk populations, or MARPs, by providing them with sexual health and social services, among other things. MARPs can include anyone who’s at a high risk for contracting HIV and hard-to-reach due to where or how they live.

NOPE’s target MARPs include homosexuals, sex workers (both male and female) and truck drivers.

Sex workers are at a higher risk for HIV for obvious reasons. Having been stigmatized by the community for their line of work (which -- in a country with a 40%+ unemployment rate* and where most people live on less than $1 a day** – may be the best work option they can find) sex workers are often apprehensive about seeking testing or treatment from clinics where nurses or doctors may refuse to serve them or chastise and humiliate them.

Homosexuals in Kenya (and throughout Africa) are at high risk because they’re often uninformed about the risks or unable to afford condoms. In Kenya, where homosexuality is outlawed and taboo (as it is in Uganda and many other African nations) many are afraid to seek sexual health services from a clinic and therefore don’t have access to HIV/STD testing and prevention counseling.

Meanwhile, it’s believed that truck drivers are more likely to employ the services of prostitutes since they lead such transient lives – on the road during the day and in truck stops at night – making it difficult to maintain long-term, monogamous relationships. They’re hard-to-reach because they’re constantly on the move, working under tight deadlines to haul truckloads of cargo from one destination to another.

So how does an organization like NOPE reach homosexuals, sex workers and truck-drivers in Kenya? Simple. They employ what they call “peer mobilizers” – other gay people, former sex workers and truck-drivers who have been trained to approach MARPs in the places they’re likely to be (i.e. brothels, gay bars, truck stops and other “hot spots”) to provide them with condoms, counseling and testing and information about the health services available to them.

It’s actually a brilliant approach. As a genuine peer, a NOPE counselor is naturally in a better position to gain the trust of a MARP because he/she shares a similar background and is therefore more sensitive and understanding of their needs. A male prostitute is more likely to listen to the advice of a former male prostitute than someone who doesn’t truly understand his lifestyle and the challenges he’s facing. A connection can be made quickly and trust can be established shortly thereafter.

Once that trust has been gained, the counselor can refer the person to a nearby MARP-friendly clinic run by NOPE. There, they can receive HIV/STD counseling, testing and treatment services. The folks at the NOPE clinics will also work with the sex-workers to help them find jobs in other fields if they’re interested.

In order to make these services as convenient and accessible as possible, the clinics are strategically located near MARP “hot spots.” For example, a NOPE clinic might be located in the same building as a brothel, across the street from the gay bar or inside a truck stop. And since they stay open late, a new prospect can walk straight from the bar and into a clinic late in the night and still receive services.

Currently, NOPE has 7 clinics that it operates with the help of two other African NGO’s -- Hope Worldwide Kenya and I Choose Life Africa. These are complemented by 3 safe places that serve as venues for group counseling sessions and meetings.

Here are a few short videos we developed that do a better job of explaining who NOPE is, what they do and their unique approach. (They’ll also explain what I was doing in Kenyan brothels and truck stops.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LulBL8mwTvM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PwtT5cIieQ

The NOPE clinics have been an enormous success. Within just a few short years of opening the clinics had already registered 7,215 clients including 6,197 sex workers, 889 men having sex with men (MSMs) and 129 truckers as of July 2011. Of these numbers:

a. 5,584 patients had received health education, HIV counseling services and STD screenings.
b. 7,202 went on to be tested for HIV, including 4,572 sex workers, 696 MSMs, 558 truckers and 1,254 of their partners.
c. 683 went on to accept training in entrepreneurship, 122 were trained in vocational skills and 647 received assistance in developing business plans. Additionally, 59 table groups (informal investment/savings groups) were formed, with 25 businesses receiving support and 146 individuals receiving career support through the program.
d. 329,532 condoms were distributed through the clinics and peer counselors.
e. All 7,215 were counseled on stigma and discrimination, alcohol and drug abuse as well as gender based violence.

In addition to providing health and social services, each clinic and satellite center has become an informal setting for homosexuals and sex workers to hang out and socialize because it’s one of the few places they can do so freely, without feeling threatened or shunned.

As I stated earlier, homosexuality is outlawed in many African countries and is often condemned as being "un-African" - a 'disease' imported from the West. In some traditional beliefs, homosexuals are thought to be cursed or bewitched. Though rarely enforced, punishment in Kenya for gay sex is five to 14 years in jail.

In Kenya gay people have found a place of acceptance in the NOPE’s clinics. Unfortunately, homosexuals in Kenya, Uganda and many other countries are still shunned by the church and other
religious institutions. Rather than opening their doors to all of God’s children, many churches here are so openly opposed to homosexuality they chase gays away before they even reach their doors. In doing so, they’ve further stigmatized and rejected many of those who are HIV+ in their communities, gay or not.

In Uganda, it was a well-known pastor who lobbied for the anti-gay bill that caught the world’s attention with its clause to make homosexual defilement punishable by death. (BTW, This was largely misunderstood and promoted by the international media as a law trying to make the act of gay sex itself punishable by death.)

We are all sinners and as I understand it, God pretty much sees all sins as equal. So why should homosexuals be any less welcome to worship in a church than any other sinner in this world. It seems to me that a pastor who honestly believes he can actually preach the gayness out of a person would do better to welcome them into their sanctuary with open arms, demonstrating the love and grace of God, than to chase them away. The same would logically apply to prostitutes, those who employ the services of prostitutes, drug addicts, alcoholics and anyone else whose practices aren’t in line with the church’s values (which pretty much means all of us.)

Anti-gay preachers, churches and religious institutions could learn a lot from organizations like NOPE. Laws, stigmatization, ignorance and anger don’t change attitudes. Love and compassion do. The kind of love and compassion that Christ showed the poor, the sick, the beggars and the lepers. And that love must be rooted in trust and nurtured into relationships.

Of course, NOPE doesn’t aim to make homosexuals straight, but by earning the trust of those they serve they are achieving their goal of reducing HIV/AIDs among their targeted MARP groups.

*http://www.poverties.org/poverty-in-kenya.html#axzz1ixc0d6N1

** http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13681341

Our Home In Austin

2011-10-01T23:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, blogs coming out in random order make for a more interesting puzzle. So, our house burned down in Austin. I received a text message from Sarah's brother at about 5:30AM a few weeks ago, "Steiner Ranch is on fire", or something like that. Facebook is by far the best way to get news. We watched some streaming local news for a while and they didn't know a thing. I put a post out on Facebook asking about my address and within ten minutes someone posted a video of our house burning. That video went on to find fame on CNN and most of the local news channels.
We had renters in the house, great renters. They barely made it out of the house with their dogs and lost most of their belongings. They had graciously allowed us to use the attic space in the garage that helped us to stay out of a storage unit. We keep remembering the things that we had stored in the attic that now amount to ash. But, we didn't really get sad.
The insurance company has been responsive and our friends and family have jumped into action to help us deal with everything.
It was a great street of neighbors and a great neighborhood.

The Village

2011-10-01T22:57:00.000-07:00

Last week we were at city hall meeting with our probation officer about Hope's adoption. On our way out, we saw a young girl in rags just standing around. We asked about her situation. She had been sleeping under a counter at the police station for two weeks and the probation officer was trying to find her a place to stay. I went over to talk to her and she just broke down in tears. Her story really stirred me and I looked at Sarah and she gave the nod. We're not sure how Vanessa fits into the picture, but bringing her home was the only thing to do. We'll see where this one goes, but she is happy and safe and the rest of the kids have accepted her into the family.

Recognize, Honor, Inspire

2011-08-07T11:51:00.000-07:00

There must be hundreds, if not thousands of people helping kids and working to improve the lives of children here in Uganda. I (Sarah) meet them, see them, read or hear about them every day. Small, community-based organizations (CBOs) feeding and educating OVCs (orphans and vulnerable children); individuals and families taking in and raising orphaned or abandoned children; pastors and churches working tirelessly to feed street children when they barely make enough support and feed themselves…they are everywhere.

And while you may hear the occasional tearjerker about an earthly saint who’s sacrificed everything for the sake of a child, the good works of most good Samaritans goes largely unnoticed and unappreciated.

I thought these people deserved some appreciation, so in January I approached World Vision Uganda with an idea for an awards program meant to recognize and honor individuals, NGOs, community based organizations, corporate companies and members of the media who have made significant efforts to improve the lives of children in Uganda.

World Vision liked the idea and agreed to sponsor the project in conjunction with 5 other child-focused NGOs including ChildFund, Save the Children, Compassion International, the Ugandan Child Right’s NGO Network (UCRNN) & the African Network for the Prevention and Protection on Child Abuse & Neglect (ANPPCAN).

The program was named the Tumaini Awards Initiative. Kiswahili for hope, Tumaini, was chosen to reflect of our aim to increase awareness about children’s rights, to honor those helping children and to inspire others to do the same. (Here’s an article about the program: http://newvision.co.ug/D/8/25/750616)

For four months, I worked alongside the partnering organizations to develop the program rules, categories, criteria and nomination forms, and to promote the event, manage distribution and in-take channels throughout the country, assemble a judging panel and coordinate all the other necessary details for the first annual Tumaini Awards Initiative. In the end, we received more than 800 nomination forms from people and organizations around the country.

The Tumaini Awards Initiative culminated on June 10, 2011 with the Tumaini Awards Gala. For me, the gala was a deeply moving tribute to those who’ve dedicated their careers and, in some cases, their lives to helping needy children. (Here’s an article about the event: http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/217/757332?highlight&q=Tumaini)

Before an audience of 300 guests, 15 individuals (including 2 children,) 10 NGOs, 7 community-based organizations (CBOs,) and 5 businesses received much-deserved recognition for their child-focused initiatives and programs. Perhaps more importantly, the powerful stories of these 37 award winners and many other nominees may very well have inspired others to go out and do the same.

Stories of people like Berna Nakijjoba, a “penniless” 70-year-old taking care of 23 orphans. (http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/26/754788.)

And then there’s Sam Kateu, a disabled man who started a school for deaf children12 years ago and has since helped more than 100 deaf children achieve literacy.

And the stories of NGO’s like Cherish Uganda, which provides homes for HIV/AIDS orphans (often abandoned or left for dead) and is making great strides in de-stigmatizing the disease. www.cherishuganda.org/index.swf

The world needs more people and organizations these. Uganda desperately needs them.

Children constitute 56% of Uganda’s total population, and the majority of Ugandans live in conditions that are unacceptably deplorable, characterized by an infant mortality rate of 135 deaths in every 1000 births, a 67.6% primary school drop out rate, a 25% teen-pregnancy rate and an increasing number of reported child abuse cases involving defilement, neglect, physical abuse, child labor and child trafficking.

An estimated 10,000 children are living on the streets of Uganda’s major towns. According to the World Health Organization, 134 out of every 1000 children die in Uganda before reaching the age of 5.

It was a great privilege to be a part of the awards ceremony and to be surrounded by people working so passionately and indefatigably to reduce these horrific statistics. Perhaps the thing that struck me most profoundly was that, while they may be address children’s needs in different ways, every person in that room had one very important thing in common – the same calling.

The award recipients, dignitaries, members of parliament (including our guest of honor, Uganda’s Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Jacob Oulanyah) and other officials that attended the event were all there because they share a similar concern for the welfare of Uganda’s children.

As Uganda’s Commissioner for Youth and Children’s Affairs (and the lead judge for the Tumaini Awards Initiative), Mondo Kyateka, so aptly stated, “There is no better calling than working with and supporting children; they constitute the future.”

One Tumaini nominee, a man called Mwessa, has dedicated his life to raising orphans. It started about two decades ago when he took in the 5 children of a neighbor who died. He’s now caring for more than 50 orphans and has sacrificed everything he has for them. Mwessa is a humble man. He’s not looking for a pat on the back or for widespread recognition. He’s not receiving support from the government or from donors. He and his kids live hand-to-mouth, day-to-day, with no consistent or reliable income. How do they survive? By making and selling little wire bicycle toys that children push around (the African equivalent of the Fischer Price pop-up pusher thingy.)

Years of raising other people’s children with little in the way of tangible rewards hasn’t discouraged Mwessa from answering the calling that God placed on his heart long ago. Mwessa didn’t win, but he inspired me, and certainly many others via the article that appeared in local paper (http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/25/752395?highlight&q=Tumaini) to give more and take less.

Another organization that continues to inspire me (and that happened to win first place in the NGO category for education) is Music for Life, the very organization we moved to Uganda to serve with. The parent organization of the African Children’s Choir, Music for Life has been serving Africa’s neediest and most vulnerable children in Uganda for more than 25 years. Through its work, the organization has impacted the lives of thousands of children in Uganda. (Let me just state for the record that while I did coordinate the Tumaini program, I never met the judges or had any direct contact with any of them until after the winners had been selected.) www.africanchildrenschoir.com

We’ve all heard the African proverb: “it takes a village to raise a child.”

Though terribly cliché, you can’t dispute the wisdom of the proverb. But wise as the adage may be, I think it’s incomplete. It’s a great beginning to what should be a more holistic approach to raising a child.

Obviously, it’s not just about who raises a child, or how many people help to raise a child, is it? It’s about how that child is raised – how much love, support, encouragement and spiritual guidance that child receives. It’s about ensuring that each child has access to a decent education, health care, a safe environment, food, shelter, love and all the other inalienable rights he or she is entitled to as a human inhabitant of planet earth.

Yes, it is a great thing when a neighbor offers food and shelter to an orphan. Or when a family agrees to sponsor a child. And there’s a lot of that going on in Uganda. (That’s what inspired me to come up with the program in the first place.) But working as a “village” to meet the most basic needs of a child simply isn’t enough.

Another African proverb says: “When a yam does not grow well, do not blame the yam; it is because of the soil.”

No matter how great a village is, if it’s soil is dry and crumbly, devoid of nutrients or flooded, there simply is no way it can raise a strong, healthy, and happy child.

This begs the question of those of us working to improve the lives of children: How good is our soil? Does it have all the nutrients required to nurture the cream of the crop? Is it abundant in love and stability, or does it offer merely enough (food and shelter) to meet a child’s physical needs?

Are we doing a good enough job of ensuring that our children are rooted in a solid, rich foundation that will endure into the foreseeable future?

Are we working together with pure hearts, skilled hands and clear visions? Are we working together at all? Or are we simply in our separate gardens tending to our own crops without giving a thought to what we could accomplish if we worked strategically, hand-in-hand with other people, organizations, government organizations and businesses to not only raise a child up but to provide it with the care and services it needs to grow up healthy, wise, good and strong?

Which leads me to a Sudanese proverb, which provides a nice segue into my next point: “We desire to bequest two things to our children -- the first one is roots; the other one is wings.”

Nope, it’s not enough to work together to provide a stable foundation and safe, loving environment for our kids. If we truly want them to succeed we must also provide opportunities for them to spread their wings.

Otherwise, how will they soar? How will they reach their dreams?

One thing I love about children is that they are not afraid to dream big. Have you ever met a child who said they just want to be average when they grow up? Have you met a child who dreams of sweeping the streets or working on an assembly line?

The children I talk to dream of being pilots, nurses, doctors, authors, pastors, Olympic athletes, lawyers and presidents. They dream of jobs in fields they're passionate about. In their dreams, their futures are secure.

Hope, the Sudanese girl we’re raising and hoping to adopt, dreams of helping people by becoming a nurse. Noah’s dream has evolved from wanting to be the ice cream man (in a big truck) to becoming a professional skate boarder. Cory aspires to be an artist and woodworker just like his dad. And Andrew….well, he’s not really sure right now but he’s thinking about becoming a real estate tycoon. Yeah, not just a real estate agent, but a bigger-than-Donald-Trump bona fide tycoon.

Every child has a dream in her heart, and every adult has the power to help a child find her wings so she can reach her dreams.

Of course in a place like Uganda, where the job market leaves much to be desired and the unemployment rate stands at 83% (World Bank, 2008) landing your dream job takes everything short of (or including) a miracle, no matter how well educated, experienced, passionate or skilled you are.

It’s my hope that the Tumaini Awards Program will inspire the kinds of public/private partnerships needed to enable us to work harder, better and smarter on behalf of children. Partnerships that will create safe, loving and nurturing environments built on solid foundations with springboards (i.e. education, encouragement and support, etc.) for every child who has a dream (yours, mine, God’s.)

Great things happen when people work together to achieve a common dream, don’t they?

In My Place

2011-07-05T09:01:00.000-07:00

I’m pretty sure we live in the best universe in all of the universes. I’m pretty sure that we live in the best galaxy in the universe. I’m pretty sure that we live in the best solar system in the galaxy. I’m pretty sure that we live on the best Planet in the Solar System. I’m pretty sure that the USA is one of the best countries on the planet. I’m positive that Texas is the best state in the USA and I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Austin is the best city in Texas. If you can loosely agree with this logic, Austin is the best city in the Universe.
I’m just back from a three week stay in Austin Texas. The city can be summed up by two words “striking beauty”. Austin is beautiful, the city, the landscape, the lakes, the people, the music, the diversity are all just beautiful. I love Austin and I’ve never loved it more than I did at the first peek at the UT clock tower, clearing some clouds, after a 24 hour trip from Kampala. It has just about everything that a community of tightly packed people units can offer. Less, some annoying pollen, brutal summer heat and its proximity to Houston, I would hasten to say, from where I’m sitting, it’s an amazing place. I’m back in Kampala now, pondering…how do you make such a great place?

A Kid

2011-04-10T23:12:00.000-07:00

The girls told us that there is boy that has been sleeping on the road outside of our house. He popped his head over the fence yesterday and I invited him in. Both of his parents are dead and the rent recently ran out, so the landlord kicked him out. He is about 9 years old and he's been sleeping around our place for the last two weeks. We feed him, let him shower, gave him some new clothes and a bed. He is out back shooting hoops. I'm not really sure what to do about this one.

From Last November

2011-04-05T20:30:00.000-07:00

“When will the video be connected to the LCD screens?” Stage Guy: “The video guy wasn’t part of the deal.” The concert is starting in an hour and soon this stadium in downtown Kampala will be full. The people in the back will only see little specks on the stage if we don’t hook video to the screens. Stage Guy: “I can get a guy.” “when and how much?” “okay, that is too much” “Let’s do it.” The deal we negotiated for the stage, sound and lights still seems really good, but that is way too much for a video guy in Uganda. “The local Police Officer in Charge (OC) is here, he’s shutting us down because he knows nothing about this concert.”“Who has the paperwork from security department signed by the Uganda Police?” The OC is a big guy flanked by a battalion standing on the stadium field looking serious. Classic. “Sebo, we have permission from the Uganda Police Department and Security office. We have officers assigned to the event and they are about to sweep the place for bombs.” OC:“What’s happening here tonight?” “It’s a concert, Wilson Bugembe, Judith Babirye and the African Children’s Choir.” The OC checks the faces of his guys. We talk encouragingly as his people make phone calls. One of the officers raps something in Luganda to the OC. He seems okay with it. “Next time make sure all of the local offices get a copy of the permission letter.” “okay.” “Do you need more security people?” “yes.” This is one of the largest gatherings in Uganda since the terrorist attacks in July, we’ll take all the security we can get. “I’ll send you some of my people.”

There is this point when you are at live music event. This point when you make a decision. Maybe it’s not a conscious decision. It’s the decision to just close your eyes. It’s the point when you decide that you’re just going to let the music take control. It’s the decision that lets all of the inhibition in your spirit just go away. It’s the decision to let go and stop caring about what the people around you might think. The lights flash against your closed eye lids. The music thumps away at your chest. Nobody is watching you. All of the sudden you don’t worry anymore and something is released and you just go with it. You know what I’m talking about? When you start to shake it and really sing along. Sometimes it takes a little while to ease into that groove. Sometimes it doesn’t even happen. But, for Ugandans…it seems like they are always ready, it’s in their spirit, culture, DNA. Music and dance is just a big part of life.

People are lined up around the corner to enter the stadium. It’s the last Friday of November and we’ve been working toward this night for almost a year. The advertising, stage, stadium, artists, volunteers, security, come together on a shoe string budget and a bunch of IOU’s. Wilson, the main attraction and organizer never seemed worried, I worried a lot. It rains a bit, he doesn’t worry, I worry. He’s a famous singer in Uganda, a Gospel artists, this is what he does. The African Children’s Choir arrives for sound check. I always get nervous when they perform in Uganda. I think there is something different at stake when they perform in front of their own people, There is a different message, a very important message, a message that changes perceptions, a message that changes the way children are viewed. When Ugandans see the kids perform, they seem stunned in a good way and I get nervous. I don’t worry at all about Wilson or anybody else that’s performing.

It is hard to describe how Ugandans react to Gospel music. They love it. It is also hard to describe the way they perform it. When the music starts, it gets crazy. It is hard to describe. There’s a scene in The Blues Brothers when Jake and Elwood go to Church and this Gospel Choir is kicking in full gear, people are dancing in the isles, Jake does some gymnastics, the whole place is just jumping, I think Elwood runs on the spot while eating plain white toast or something (I always wanted to go to that Church). The stadium is energized like that, but with over 30,000, maybe 40,000 people, waiving towels and their chairs in the air, dancing, singing, not worrying about today, tomorrow or what the person next to them thinks. They know about the good news, they celebrate, they really believe. While the music is playing and everyone is together, it seems like heaven has been pulled down to earth. I wish all of my friends and family could be here. The experience is indescribable. We'll do this every November.

Tribal Council

2011-02-19T09:55:00.000-08:00

About a year ago I posted a story about Hope, a young pregnant teen who’s life was in danger and who’s future was very uncertain. The story I posted was about a 12 year old Dinka girl who was kidnapped by an uncle from her home in Sudan in 2005 and brought to Kampala where she was made to work as a servant for the uncle’s family. In 2009, when she was 12, she was raped and subsequently became pregnant. She was then beaten severely by the uncle and the men of the family for several days. We were told it was possible that they intended to kill her and/or the unborn baby, but we don’t know for sure. Regardless, they beat her so severely that her neighbors took pity on her made several attempts to rescue her. Ultimately, sometime in late July 2009, she managed to escape, and that’s when she came into our lives.

Hope’s baby was born on Dec. 4, 2009, which happens to be our Andrew’s birthday too. To Andrew’s honor and delight, Hope named her baby boy after him. Baby A, as he’s affectionately known as in our house, is now a happy, healthy one-year-old. And although she’s only about 14, Hope is an incredibly responsible and loving mother.

As has been the case with many of our experiences in Uganda, our experience with Hope hasn’t gone quite as we planned.

In fact, this journey has taken some twists and turns we never expected and has reached a point that has exceeded our expectations and imaginations. And it happened in a way I could have never planned or even imagined in my wildest dreams.

It culminated recently in an intensely stressful week that involved forgiveness, trust, politics, the generosity of a stranger, a culture clash and a heck-of-a-lot of faith.

Hope spent the better part of last year hiding/living Jinja, first with our friend Katie and then with Mama Lois, a Ugandan, and her two daughters. While there she was home-schooled and had steady work as a babysitter.

As much as we would have loved for Hope and Baby A to stay with our family in Kampala, it simply wasn’t a safe option. Her family lived nearby, and until recently we didn’t know if they were still looking for her or what they would do if they found her. We also felt obligated to try to integrate her back into the African community.

We visited her every two months or so and she also came home for long weekends every few months. Each time we visited, I fell more in love. I think it’s safe to say the boys and Scott did too.

A friend who knows her well recently stated, “Hope is like a ray of sunshine when she walks into a room.” It’s true. She’s bright, energetic, funny and full of joy. Her mere presence lights up a room. Consequently, she is very easy to love.

Hope and Baby A came to our house on December 1, 2010 for what was supposed to be a one-month visit. We celebrated Christmas together, went on a 5-day safari vacation together, had numerous memorable moments together and grew closer as friends and family. She and Andrew virtually became best friends. Noah and Cory absolutely adore her and the baby. By the time January rolled around, I could not bring myself to say goodbye. Neither could Scott or the boys. We finally got to a point where we simply could not say goodbye again.

But our safety was still on the line. There are many Dinka in our neighborhood. They pass by our home as they make their ways to and from work and school. We see them on the roads and in the markets. Hope could not leave the house without dark glasses and a head covering.

The Dinka are tight and keep their young ladies on a very short leash. With Hope and Baby A, by our sides, we stand out. We had to be very careful all the time. We did not know what would happen if word got out that a young Dinka girl was staying with us, and we didn’t want to find out.

In order for Hope to be able to stay we had to find a way to make it safe for her and for our family. We plotted, planned and prayed, and we came up with our strategy. A big piece of our strategy was a Dinka woman named Suzana who we had recently been introduced to.

There are not very many powerful Dinka women in this world. Women are traditionally suppressed in the Dinka culture. They don’t often have a voice in the affairs of their communities. But Suzana does. Not only does she have a voice, but as a high-profile and prominent diplomat married to one of the most powerful men in Southern Sudan, she commands a considerable amount of power and respect among all Southern Sudanese, including the Dinka. In addition to that, she’s intelligent, grounded, compassionate and dignified…the kind of woman I pray Hope might aspire to be one day.

It is not by coincidence that we happened to meet one of the only prominent Dinka women in the world. (She and her children are staying in Kampala until the succession of Southern Sudan plays out.) And it was not by coincidence that, having known me for all of ten minutes she agreed to help us negotiate a “peace deal” between our family and Hope’s.

Suzana was the missing link between our families. She was the only person we knew who could convince the family to leave Hope and our family alone, forever. We had the perfect plan and the perfect person to carry it out. Suzana was our ace in the hole.

Suzana would use her status and power to convince the family to give us what we wanted – guaranteed peace and the phone number for Hope’s father in Sudan. If they responded obstinately, we were prepared to pay the bride price Hope supposedly robbed them of when she became pregnant. That was the only way it would work. There was no other option. Or so I thought…

Tribal Council

Day 1, All goes according to plan:

The process began on a Tuesday (Feb. 1) when Suzana called Hope’s uncle (after tracking down his number) and informed him that Hope was alive, well and living with a family that was caring for both her and her baby. I’m told the uncle, who we’ll call Zack, expressed relief and genuine concern for Hope and the baby. Suzana and Zack agreed to meet the following day.

Day 2, An unexpected twist:

The following morning, Suzana, accompanied by her armed guard, arrived at the pre-arranged meeting place. Zack was there along with several other men, women and children of the clan. They were surprised and relieved Hope was alive. They had lots of questions and insisted that Suzana call Hope so they could hear her voice for themselves.

Suzana expressed the wishes of Hope and our family to the family. They wanted further proof of Hope’s wellbeing and insisted on seeing her with their own eyes. They also wanted to see the baby. Suzana agreed to bring both of them the following day.

This is when things became especially tense. How do you ask a 14-year-old girl to meet, face-to-face, with the very men who nearly beat her to death. How do you ask her to put her child’s safety in jeopardy too? But I trusted Suzana, and Suzana was one hundred percent certain that everything would work out just fine. In fact, she believed it was all going better than expected. So, we talked to Hope about it. We told her it was her choice and that she absolutely didn’t have to do it. To our surprise, Hope courageously responded: “Let me do this so I can be free.”

Day 3, An unacceptable demand:

Scott accompanied Hope and the baby to the meeting. He will have to blog about his experience at his first tribal council meeting sometime, because I cannot do the story justice. But from what I know, the meeting was intense in many ways. Her family appeared excited to see Hope. They seemed thrilled to meet Baby A. Hope was scared but brave and optimistic. But the initial excitement eventually gave way to frustration and even anger when the family realized that Hope could no longer speak Dinka. (The Dinka are extremely proud of their culture and their language is the heart of this culture. Hope’s inability to communicate in her tribal language was an offense to the family and the tribe.) Tempers started flaring and the conversation became too rapid for Suzana to translate. Before Scott knew it, through his obligatory nods and smiles, he had agreed to let the family take Hope and the baby home with them for three days. They claimed she needed to spend time with her family relearning and remembering her native tongue so she could tell them, in her own words, that she wanted to stay with us. They would then bring her and the baby to us at our house and “give” her to us on their terms. According to Suzana, it was a matter of pride, and it had to be done this way. Again, Suzana was completely certain that Hope would be safe and that they wouldn’t harm her as long as she (Suzana) was in the picture.

Days 3-5: Fear and faith

It was the longest, most tense three-day period of my life. I was furious that Scott and Suzana allowed her to go and I was terrified that the men would change their minds or exact their revenge on Hope and Baby A. Beatings are a part of life for Dinka girls, and I could not stand the idea of Hope being beaten again. But with the weight of Suzana’s influence and the fact that a white family had taken her in, Suzana insisted that it was highly unlikely that they would do anything to hurt Hope. Those three days would have been completely intolerable had Hope not had her phone with her. Thank God she did. She didn’t have any diapers or even a change of clothes, but she had her phone. We texted back and forth, several times each day. She reassured me over and over that she was safe and they were being kind.

Day 6: The resolution

On Sunday, Hope, Baby A, three Dinka men and a half-sister of Hope’s showed up at our gate with Suzana. We invited them in, introduced them to our children, and then sat around a table to discuss Hope’s future.

Hope had regained enough Dinka to tell them she wanted to stay with us. They honored their agreement and one-by-one they stated their peace. They called her by her Dinka name, Akudur. “Akudur is very luck.” “Akudur needs a good education.” “Akudur must be respectful.” “She must be studious and disciplined.” “She must visit us often so she does not forget her culture and her language.” “She must not get pregnant again, and if she does we will hold you personally accountable.” And finally, “She is yours.”

As we said our goodbyes they said we are now part of their family and members of their clan. They also said they expect Scott to visit their village in Sudan with them as they’d like to give him a few cows.

That was on a Sunday. On Monday, Hope started her first day of school. We never imagined it would be safe enough for Hope to go to school, but now, all of a sudden, she is free. She is safe. And she is ours. Baby A is still Hope’s baby, but he is ours too. We have five children in our house, five children that we are completely responsible for. And life in our house is loud and crazy and messy, but it is beautiful mess. And it is good.

Hope has spoken to her father on the phone a few times. She was elated to find that he was still alive, as he is very old and in poor health. He was so thrilled to hear that she was alive (they had all assumed her dead by now) and that she had a healthy baby boy that he said he could finally die in peace. No one is quite sure how to track down Hope’s mother. She left the clan (and Hope) when Hope was no more than a toddler and married another man. She is now supposedly living in Juba with an abusive husband. Her uncles had heard, through the Dinka grapevine, that she was recently beaten so severely that both of her arms had been broken. Suzana is in Juba this week and is working on tracking her down. Hope is not sure she wants to speak or see her mother, but at some point, if we are to obtain full legal custody of Hope, we will need to make contact.

What happens next is anyone’s guess. Getting legal custody of Hope and the baby will be tricky. She’s an illegal refugee here and her parents are still alive in Sudan, though they are very poor and unable to care for Hope and the baby. Hope was denied refuge status in Uganda, but we are appealing the case. It is still too unsafe for her to return to Sudan. We have done all we can humanly do to get legal guardianship of Hope for now. We have to surrender this one and trust God to do the rest. It may mean we stay here a bit longer than we expected. It may mean she and Baby A will eventually come home with us. Or, worse case, she may never be granted a visa to the states, which would mean we would devote all our vacation time and extra money to visiting her and supporting her through secondary school and university. We're prepared for anything and committed to helping Hope achieve her dreams and goals.

As for Suzana, she has a new dream too. After this experience, she says she’s been inspired to advocate against gender-based violence (GBV) when she returns to Sudan. While she love and values her heritage, she hopes to eradicate the acceptance of GBV within the Dinka culture and to promote a new culture of peace and equality for women.

Oh, and by the way, Hope’s real name – the Christian name given to her by her father – is Helen. We changed her name to Hope when we first met her for her safety. While we continue to call her Hope out of habit, at school she is known as Helen.

Kolica Omwaka

2011-01-19T19:38:00.000-08:00

Last year worked out. Looking back on 2010, it just worked out. Many stories went untold. The daily happenings of life in Uganda may be different and intriguing, it has become more routine and more difficult to scribe. Our time here is going by to fast and many things of interest just became history faster than they could be typed. But I learned some stuff in 2010, here is what I can remember:

I learned that the things that are done with selfish intent seem to fail.

I learned that the things that help other people put their talent to work seem to succeed.

I learned that I’m not the creator, conductor or first chair in the symphony.

I learned that it is okay to live a bit unconventionally and people shouldn’t be afraid to do it.

I learned that you find joy when you actually look for it.

I learned that you aren’t really winning when someone else is losing.

I learned that the word “normal” defies definition.

I learned that the word “home” requires new definition.

I learned that I don’t really need much from the store.

I learned that “nothing is owed, deserved or expected and your life doesn’t change by the man that's elected. If you’re loved by someone your never rejected, so decide what to be and go be it.” Okay, I stole that one from the Avett Brothers.

I learned that the next generation should learn from our mistakes, so we need to admit them.

I learned that sometimes you just have to turn off the bad news.

I learned that wisdom is so vividly apparent through decisions and impulse paints foolishness.

I learned that music is truly one of the most powerful agents of change.

I learned that God is Love and Love is God and we should constantly strive to be better translators.

I learned that at 38, life is just getting started.

Decisions

2010-12-22T00:57:00.000-08:00

The last two months have been our busiest since moving to Uganda and the activity has been challenging and fun. Sarah got a job that is taking her all over the continent and she loves it. There have been many highlights over the past 60 days, highlights that are associated with the closure of projects that were big successes. Highlights that included teams functioning together and achieving goals, highlights that included massive transformation.

Last week we ended our work year with a camp for the African Children’s Choir kids that are now in high school. The camp was held at our primary school campus outside of town. It is set in a rural area on the shore of Lake Victoria. It is Ugandan village. Mangos were for sale everywhere at makeshift road side markets all along the dirt roads. Each evening during camp we headed over to the village soccer field for a game. As the ACC kids arrived you could notice a measurable difference between them and the village children running around the field. Many of the ACC kids come from similar settings and still live in similar settings, but they are different. I asked one of our kids what the locals might think of them. She replied “they probably think we are rich because of our education and they way we speak.”
After a humbling game of soccer against the locals I sat at the sideline trying to catch my breath and make a plan to recapture my youth. As I sat there and gulped water, I suddenly felt very good about 2010. I felt content and positive about how some of our tough decisions had produced so many good things. I was really happy to be part of an organization that helps kids get measurably closer to their potential, but I was tired. I was tired, really tired, really tired from the past two months, really tired, but a good tired. So tired and ready for the holiday break, gulping water.

Then a little girl tapped me on the shoulder and asked me for some food, sitting there by the soccer field in the village.

Now, this happens all of the time. This isn’t a rare event. It happens so often that we have to be very careful. Each time that you make a decision to help, you have to make a decision to follow through and you have to be careful. This girl was in the worst shape. I really don’t think that I have seen a person so desperate in my life. She was skin and bone, covered in sores, bent in half like she had grown wrong, shaking and gazing at me with fear in her eyes. I was tired and I honestly didn’t have enough gas in the tank to deal. I really wondered why me, why now. She had moved through the crowd and nobody helped her. I asked her to move with me to the shade. She didn’t speak English. One of the ACC kids came over to translate, then two or three more came over to investigate, then about ten. This little girl now had a makeshift posy. She said that she had a skin disease and had medication. I immediately thought AIDS and she doesn’t know it. So a decision had to be made. We asked one of the ACC young adults to go meet with her parents and to take her to a proper medical clinic. Her father was onboard and that was encouraging. They confirmed that she has AIDS. She also has epilepsy and is paralyzed on one side of her body. The doctor doesn’t think that she’ll live long, but he wants to try and help. He only charged us $15 for the consult and tests. A food package was delivered to the family and we’ll take her medical records back to the doctor this week to lay out a plan.

It’s holiday time right now, but right now, I’m just thinking about her. Please spare a bit of time to pray for Mable.

All Over the Map

2010-11-13T21:31:00.000-08:00

We have some sweet rabbit ears on our TV that help to pipe shows from about 8 local channels into our home. The programming varies with local music, translated Mexican soap operas and reruns of sorted Euro sport. But, every morning, 3 of the channels do something glorious. They flip on a satellite feed and we can watch the news. BBC, Al Jazeera and CNN broadcast for about an hour a day. The quality of the journalism is actually pretty high, but they all seem to just focus on the world’s problems.

Every once in a while somebody says something that makes you think, really think. Two people made two different comments over the past two weeks that really made me think.

After I posted my last blog post, “Normal,” a friend of mine sent me an email. It was a simple message but piercing: “Life is what you make it.”

A problem is any question or matter involving doubt, uncertainty, or difficulty. A problem can generally be a deviation from a standard or an obstacle. Maybe even something that is not normal. The poverty around us here is a deviation from our standard and a perceived obstacle, but in most cases, the poor are making the best of it. They appear to be fairly happy. I pine and feel guilty and undeserving of the things I have and my standard of living, especially when nestled next to extreme poverty. I can’t fix poverty. It makes me restless and prevents me from feeling content. But while I toil, the people around here are getting on down the road and making the best of what little they have. They live in community and laugh and find spiritual joy in the absence of material wealth. They seem content and mellow and live by a value system that is quite different and they find happiness. I feel divided.

Andrew and I were watching the news last week and he gave me some more cud to chew. We were watching interviews about the November elections in the U.S.. Andrew said, “I love watching Americans complain about America. They don’t know how good they have it.” Well, the American economy has receded worse than Captain Stubing’s hairline and many people are struggling and unemployment is relatively high. The country is divided and at odds with leadership and direction. Sidebar: If we had 9.6% unemployment in Uganda, people would be dancing in the streets and the President would be a legendary hero. There would be fireworks and all-night jamborees. If a Ugandan presidential candidate were to promise 90.4% employment on the campaign trail right now, people would giggle at the impossibility and dismiss the guy. Anyway, America is struggling. Many Americans seem to be struggling with a deviation from the former standard of living. The recession is a big problem, especially for those who can no longer maintain their former standard of living.

Let me digress a little bit more and then hopefully make a point.

Many third world countries are developing fast. Even Uganda has made tremendous progress since we moved here. China is scurrying all over East Africa to secure natural resources. The developing countries that are focused and disciplined are experiencing economic growth and their citizens are enjoying the new found wealth. They seem to appreciate every little thing they get and are willing to work hard without complaining. Many developing countries are becoming more educated, efficient and competitive. Right now, Americans seem to be fighting against each other (democrats vs. republicans) and blaming each other over a lost standard of living. It seems that America has been split down the middle by political surgery for a quite while now. JC once said, “If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.” That guy knew a little somethin’ about somethin’. But I wonder. Is it inward battle itself that can make us fall? Or, is it that the rest of the world moves on and leaves us in the dust while we tend to our internal disputes?

The economy will grow again, but will that really help us make the most of our lives? Will it give us joy? Will it make us a community? AND, will it make us a stronger people when the economy recedes again?

The economy is going global and maybe that will change who we compare our standard of living to and maybe we need to re-evaluate our priorities and look outside of ourselves. Maybe if we change our standard of success to be something different than money and stuff or lack thereof. Maybe we should stop looking at all of the problems. Maybe we should spend more time looking for the possibility of happiness in everything, and each other, everywhere, in global community. Maybe we should focus on the good news.

Normal

2010-10-14T03:46:00.000-07:00

I’ve been so compelled to ask visitors what they “see” when they come to Uganda. How do they see this place? It has become normal to me. I think that I’m getting used to it. It is radically different than our previous home, but now, everything seems somewhat normal. Our situation here is not even close to normal compared to most Ugandans. Our lifestyle is so much more privileged. If we were transplanted back home, our lifestyle would be relatively normal. It would probably much less prosperous and much more simple than normal, but within the confines of our gate, relatively normal.
You get used to bumpy dirt roads, dodging goats, motorcycles with ovens strapped to them, meat hanging in a butcher’s window and small kids running in the streets. You get used to simplicity and silence and telling yourself that an iced latte isn’t an option. Then you find yourself looking at all of the poor people around you. You tell yourself that “they are used to it.” Otherwise ,it becomes to overwhelming. You decide that that life is their “normal.” You need that to be their "normal" so you can feel "normal."
Then you step into somebody’s home. You step into a small shack that is home to eight. You see a massive rat casually walk across the floor, scale a mattress and sniff the food rations. You meet a kid on the street that should be in school, but can’t go because his dad came up $15 short on his tuition. These things can become normal and normal becomes a confusing. What is normal? Where does normal exist? Is normal a two car garage, granite counter tops and a pool in the backyard or is normal rice and beans on a dirt floor? Is it a regular visit to the doctor or is normal death from a mosquito bite? Is normal a nice beach vacation OR is normal just to be grateful that you are still alive?

The Festival

2010-10-01T23:06:00.001-07:00

The weeks leading up to the Love Kampala Festival were pretty hectic, but fun. It was a dream come true to help plan a large festival and watch it all unfold. It was especially rewarding to see the kids, bussed in from all around town, enjoy the games, music and activities. The Palau people found stages and sound systems that I didn’t even know were available in Uganda and the festival was a world class event. Here are some photos and the song mentioned in the previous post “Artist General” is streaming. It’s called Kampala. Barbara, the composer and singer, and the ACC kids opened the main stage with the song and it was a highlight of the weekend.

The Artistic General

2010-09-08T04:10:00.000-07:00

We are just out of a meeting with General Elly Tumwine of the Ugandan Army.

Back in January during my trip to Rwanda, I met a man on our flight from Florida. He was in Kampala to launch discussions about a music festival. That chance meeting initiated some the most interesting of encounters. We have been loosely involved with the planning of the Love Kampala Music Festival coming up at the end of September with the Choir on board to perform. Picture a big music festival, but with Gospel artists, x-games and African flare.

Back in 1986 the current President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni marched into Kampala with his army to overthrow Tito Okello. The country was still in shambles from years of war with doses of Idi Amin and Milton Obote. Okello was merely a temporary opportunist in the aftershock of a war ridden country and Museveni and his team sacked the transition government. Museveni has remained in power since issuing in new constitutions to extend term limits. In February of 2011, Museveni’s fifth term ends and the country will go to the polls to elect a president. Many oppose Museveni, but as the business community, interested governments and general population enjoy a relatively peaceful regime under the current president, it is difficult to imagine an upset by the factioned opposition players. As Ugandans go to the polls in February many expats plan to leave the country to avoid post election violence and chaos. Don’t worry mom, we’ll probably go to Kenya.

During a planning meeting for the Love Kampala Festival, one of the directors asked our friend to compose a song for the event. He couldn’t fit it in his schedule, so we suggested a composition by one of our very talented choir alumni. This gal can sing. I think she could win American Idol on the first day and she writes music that fuses Ugandan beats and diction with western style choruses. In short order, she recorded a demo. The festival directors heard it and asked us to schedule a meeting with “The General.”

General Tumwine office is next to the president’s compound in Kampala. It is on a plot flanked by art galleries, fabric shops and a hip little restaurant. The General is a bit of an artist himself, he sings and writes music and has created a little village where he compiles his paintings and photographs. Portraits of him and the president surround two of the galleries. He arrived bit late (but not Africa late) in an Army Land Cruiser with two soldiers. He was dressed in traditional African attire spiced with rock star shades. As we presented the “Love Kampala” song the General tapped his chair. I notice under his shades, one patched eye and I quickly looked away. The walls of his office dawn pictures of him and Museveni, the guys that came through the bush and put an end to war and genocide in Uganda. The General made several suggestions about the song requesting that it speak to the beauty of the country and asked us to put a dance to it and to prepare a video. “Let’s meet again soon” he said handing us DVDs and CDs of his own stuff.

You gotta Love Kampala.

Time to Speak

2010-08-31T01:27:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just want to say something really bad, but you don’t. Sometimes it feels like you could NEVER say that something, like you should NEVER say that something. Even if you convince yourself that it is the right thing to say to the right audience. Sometimes it feels like you wouldn’t be heard even if you had a bullhorn to yell that something. Sometimes you know it would get a shocking reaction, so you don’t say it. Sometimes that something that you want to say, buries you, makes you feel like you’re stuck in quicksand, like your being held down and all the noise in the world is drowning you out. Sometimes it is something that you want to say to a co-worker, sometimes to a family member, sometimes to a leader and sometimes to a nation. But sometimes... you say it and all of the angst that held you back goes away, sometimes what you say is actually relevant and the audience gets it and that thing that was bugging you, that you wished would change, is fixed.

Like a Refugee

2010-07-18T12:30:00.000-07:00

I sink into this chair on the porch and stare at the half moon. It comes in and out of focus as I squint my eyes. To its right the sun shines on half of it creating the illusion that it is missing its whole. Sarah and the boys are in Texas enjoying the sun realizing the moons light.
I spent last weekend in a refugee camp. When we arrived, I was rushed by people and surrounded in an intimidating flurry of foreign words. As the local Pastor translated I realized that these Congolese displacements thought that my white face represented the UN movement that brought them to this place. “We are tired of living like this” he translated “we need food.” The UN facilities were mounted close by the mud huts that they call home. It would be a difficult negotiation to let them know that we were not there to feed them. As our team set up the PA that would soon bring only music, I thought disaster was surely coming our way.
During our long drive to this place, the lush Ugandan country side quickly morphed into a landscape I know all too well from my days in West Texas. It almost seemed odd to crank the window down and see the desert brush that defined my high school days while turning to see the African crew in the car. This land isn’t like the rest of the county. Nothing will grow here.
I know that Andrew is loving his time at home, I know that Sarah is loving her time at home, I know that Noah and Cory are loving their time wherever they are. I picture their 4th of July. Andrew is probably eating hot apple pie with ice cream on top. The coldness melts into the hot and sweet and he is picking from the soft area in between.
I wonder how to help these people as the music finally emerges from the broken generation of power and crackling wires. Suddenly a crowd arrives and the hostility has turned to chaos. People climb into the trees, surround the mixer and organize in the most disorganized manner. I plug in my guitar and strum. They back down and listen as we make our way through one tune. The Congolese men ask for the guitar. The Congolese women ask for the microphones. It is on. They erupt into song and we all disappear into a crowd of dusty dance. Each song merges flawlessly into another, unrehearsed, like generations. A woman grabs my arm and I join their circle.
That night, after the world’s best shower, I merged exhausted with my pillow and thought. Next week I will schedule an appointment with the Director of the UN World Food Program. I’ll ask him to help.
The phone rings. It is very early in the morning. It’s Texas. Something is wrong. Bombs have gone off in Kampala.

Going Home

2010-06-04T21:45:00.001-07:00

The air is fragrant. It smells really good. The industrial tube lined with thin carpet and walled with brushed aluminum opens into a corridor. That corridor leads to the source of the fragrance. A series of cosmetic shops lay out like a labyrinth making game of the journey. Ladies let small glossy shopping bags with high-resolution photos of skinny, young beautiful people drape from their arms as they comb the isles of pricey perfumes. Highly groomed women tend sleek colorful counters backed by stylish mellow lighting and high-resolution photos of skinny, young beautiful people. Miniature bottles line the shelves like little crystal soldiers waiting anxiously to be wrapped in glossy little boxes that feature high-resolution photos of skinny, young beautiful people. It is bright like Las Vegas and soft like a sunset. It smells amazing; it smells like a lazy teenage day at the mall, it smells like a fancy night out to an expensive restaurant, it smells like Christmas shopping. Forever onward it will smell like exiting an airplane in London after a long flight and a very simple year in Uganda.

Most of the time I run on a treadmill. I actually despised running on a treadmill when I lived in Austin, but here it’s more practical. It’s a bit too hazardous, hilly and dusty to run the dirt roads of Kampala. So, to appease my vanity and keep my sanity, I have to get my exercise and for now it is a treadmill. A typical Ugandan would crack up at the notion of running on a treadmill. They may spend an entire day pushing enormous bushels of food up hills and across town on a wobbly bicycle. They may start each day by carrying two- gallon jerry cans of water from the well to the house. One balanced on the head and one in each hand. It must seem like such a waste to them to run in place, starring at a mirror, adjusting the pitch of the machine to create artificial inclines. We live in the same world but our views and priorities are so different.

Getting back to Austin seemed very normal. It didn’t seem like a year had passed. My friends welcomed me right back into the flow of their lives, the city looked the same, the hippies and artists kept it weird. It was really energizing to hear from so many people. I really thought that people would write us off as crazy for moving to Africa. Maybe many did, but I couldn’t tell. What really struck me, aside from the fear I bestowed on the population by driving on the wrong side of the road, were the questions. I wasn’t prepared to answer so many questions. I wasn’t prepared to answer so many deep questions. I reckoned that people would ask things like “what is it like?”, “how are the kids taking it?”, “how is the work?”. But there were many questions that came up that I wasn’t prepare to answer. They were important questions and the answers I gave to some were not always well thought out, and it got me thinking about questions, curiosity and answers.

At the root of a question is fundamental need to understand. The great questions are always difficult to answer. Great questions are rooted in our need to discover. They seek resolution, they help us determine how we compare, why we are here, feed our curiosity, reconcile our differences and attempt to find significance. We are always asking questions. When we watch how others behave, when we pick up a book, when we take a course or go to church. The simple fact is that most of us are confused. We are confused about what is really important. We are confused about how the world perceives us, about our purpose for being here and answers to greatest questions are sometimes unclear.

These were the things I was confused about two years ago. Somehow, I would find myself lying in bed, staring at the ceiling unable to sleep, trying to piece together puzzles with missing pieces. I would lie in bed trying to convince myself that my pursuits were justified. There was a battle in my head that wasn’t there before. Was I really born to sell electronic document solutions and hoard stuff in my garage? I was running on a treadmill starring in the mirror, going nowhere and I knew it. I knew how to jump off and knew what was really important, but it was so hard to make the decisions that would point us in the right direction. Most everything around us (directly or indirectly) told us to pursue things that I just fundamentally knew were a waste of our time and our money, but we couldn’t stop doing them. We couldn’t stop letting the popular priorities of the time determine what was best for us. I couldn’t think for myself and I knew it, every night lying in bed a staring at the ceiling, losing control. After my 2008 trip to Kenya, it became very clear that much of the world is suffering in extreme poverty and doing something about it was just a hobby to me. I knew that the price of a bottle of expensive perfume could start a business in a third world country. Our house became enormous thinking of the one-room shacks in the slums. Extreme poverty and suffering became my fault and my problem. There is a resource equilibrium that is off balance. There is a cycle of wealth that cranks like a gearbox spinning the cycle of poverty faster and faster out of control. The economy has gone global. Our sense of community has not.

If this world is not an accident, then there must be a purpose for each of us. I do think that God gave each of us a purpose and the talents we need to achieve that purpose. We all kind of know what that purpose is or what it was, but it can be hard to chase it. We want to be the same as everybody else. We distract ourselves with pricey luxuries that will don’t make us happy but we’re stuck in a cycle. We tell ourselves little lies of hope that someday we’ll make a change. We dream of retirement, postpone our lives and hedge our bets in the hope to one day find peace in a motor home. But, if you chase something purposeful or something that feels significant, that will change. All the things that you think will be so hard to let go of will seem insignificant. New worlds open up and bigger questions consume your mind. One day you discover that it’s not all about you. You discover what you really want, can’t be bought. You let go and find some peace, harmony and freedom. And, if it doesn’t work out, it was worth the try and if your friends are really good friends, they’ll welcome you back into the flow of their lives.

2010-05-21T04:14:00.001-07:00

In Austin, people place white crosses on the road as memorials to those who have died in bike or car accidents. After coming across a mob justice lynching last July, Andrew and I decided to make one and put it on the side of the road where the victim died. It only lasted a day or so before it was removed, but even if it made just one person stop and think....

Mob Justice

2010-05-19T23:32:00.000-07:00

19 May 2010
By Sarah Lambie

This is really two blog entries. I wrote the latter entry (below) in July 2009, shortly after we arrived here in Kampala. As it relates to a rather disturbing mob justice incident, I was reticent about publishing it and ultimately decided not to for several reasons, including the fact that I didn’t feel I truly understood what happened or why. Additionally, I didn’t want our friends and family members to be overly concerned about our safety here. But after encountering a similar event this morning, I’ve decided to share these experiences along with my thoughts and perspective on mob justice. I still don’t really get it, but it’s a topic that warrants examination, discussion and lots of prayer.

The beginning of my first entry initially started with the following statement:
“As you read this, please know that while mob justice is a reality in Uganda, it is not necessarily a common occurrence and is not something we consider a real threat to our family.” While I still believe it’s highly unlikely our family would ever be the target of a mob justice incident, after this morning (and after hearing about a similar experience some friends of ours witnessed in their neighborhood a few months ago) I’m not sure it’s as uncommon as I originally supposed.

Here’s how today went.

I woke up with an uneasy feeling in my stomach. I felt anxious and I didn’t know why. Like the way I might feel after dreaming my best friend died. Or how I felt in college during an exam I wasn’t prepared for.

It’s my day to drive the car pool and I can see from the window that my front tire is completely deflated. Great. It’s going to be one of those days. I remember that our mechanic recently advised me to replace all my tires. I also remember that the Ugandan school system starts up again next week and the guards and housekeeper will need money for their children’s school fees. This is going to be an expensive month. I squeeze five kids and myself into Scott’s 4-seater (perfectly legal here) and as I drive the kids to school I am compiling a mental list of things we need money for. How am I ever going to able to fly home with the kids this summer? I drop the kids at school and head over to my friend Ainslie’s house. It is Wednesday and we always run together on Wednesday mornings. It is hot and dusty and I don’t feel like running but I don’t want to let Ainslie down. I pull into her compound and decide to call Scott before I get out of the car. He’s been in the states for the past 17 days and I’m really missing him today. And, I’m all worked up about money now and I just need to hear him say it’s going to be ok. We talk for 10 minutes and, even though I feel like I’m due for a good cry, he makes me feel so much better. I’ve kept Ainslie waiting long enough and it’s not getting any cooler out there…better get a move on.

We’re half way into our first mile when I see a crowd of people on the side of the road ahead of us. There are fists in the air and I get the same queasy feeling I always get now when I come across a rowdy group of people. I think back to the incident I saw last July and can’t help but wonder if someone is about to get lynched. Sure enough, as we approach, behind a cluster of legs and feet we see a man lying on the ground. His hands are tied behind his back and he is squirming in the dust as they kick him again and again. Women and children are watching and cheering on the angry group of men.

I know what comes next and without thinking I force my way through the mob and start yelling: “back off people. You are not going to kill this man today.” I tell Ainslie to go get the police. There is a police post up the hill and she runs faster than me so this makes perfect sense to my flustered mind. A mob of men is telling me to shut up and go away. “Vio mzungu. He’s a thief. Leave us alone.” I am not at all afraid and I step between the man on the ground and the men kicking him. “My name is not mzungu and I’m not going anywhere,” I say. The self-proclaimed ringleader points at me and shouts something in Luganda. Everyone starts laughing. I am outraged and I hear myself shout one of the few phrases of Luganda I know: “Oseka ki?” (“What are you laughing at?”) My words are met by total silence. All eyes are on me and I have their attention. I have to say something and I’m trying to remember the words Jesus spoke to the men who were about to stone the adulterous…. “Whoever here has lived a pure and sinless life can be the first one to throw the stone,” or strike the match in this case. But instead I hear myself say, “Who do you think you are, and who is your God? Does your God condone such violence?” That was lame, I’m thinking, and again my words are met with silence.

“Pick him up,” I say, pointing to the man on the ground. “We are going to take this man to the police.” Some of the people, including a few kids, tell me to get lost and to mind my own business. “We’ll take care of this our way,” they say, in not so many words. But to my surprise, a man steps forward and gently helps the thief to his feet. He takes the rope that binds his hands and begins leading him up the hill to the police post. I walk next to them and we proceed in silence for what seems like ages. The mob follows.

We arrive and the police post is empty. Ainslie has managed to find someone who knows where the commander of this post lives and he has gone off to find him and to apprise him of the situation. I’m so glad Ainslie is there and I’m no longer alone with this mob. The supposed thief is made to sit on the floor in the one-room shack made of plywood and corrugated tin. An officer arrives about 10 minutes later, orders the thief to remove his shirt and proceeds to take statements from the three men pressing charges. We hear one man claim that the man stole his bicycle.

It is time for us to go but I want to speak to the cop first. “Officer,” I say. “Thank you for coming. You will not release this man to these people, will you?” I ask. “No,” he says as he shuffles some papers. “I’m going to take their statements and then we will transfer him to the central station.” I am staring straight at him, willing him to look me in the eyes. He does and then, as if noting my concern, assures me that there is nothing else to worry about. I ask if I can speak to the thief who is now sitting behind a ply wood board in the back of the room. I peak around the board and squat down so I am eye-level. “I think you are safe now,” I say. “I don’t know what you did, but you probably better do some serious praying,” I say. “I’ll pray for you too, if you want me to.” He nods. I take his hand and ask him his name and he tells me he’s called Moses. He looks me square in the eyes and says, “thank you.”

As I leave the police post I turn to the man who led Moses up the hill and I thank him for not killing him. To my complete surprise, he says “thank you for what you did.” Wow. Ok.

Ainslie and I breathe a huge sigh of relief and trot off, determined to run off the adrenaline that is coursing through our veins.

“I had a bad feeling when I woke up this morning,” I say.

“I believe everything happens for a reason,” she responds.

And then it occurs to me that if I hadn’t have been anxious this morning I wouldn’t have called Scott. And if I hadn’t have called Scott we would have headed out for our run 10 minutes earlier. And if we had left 10 minute earlier we would have run past the scene of the incident before it even happened. And if we hadn’t arrived exactly when we arrived, it’s very possible Moses would have been seriously injured if not killed. In fact, I believe there is a very good chance he would have been doused with gasoline and set on fire.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not trying to take credit for saving Moses’ life and I know Ainslie isn’t either. From the moment I opened my eyes this morning, everything that has happened has occurred precisely according to God’s perfect plan. I feel honored and blessed to be a part of that plan. I’m glad God gave me the courage to stand up to the mob and I’m glad he gave them the grace to stand down.

After a year of contemplating mob justice, I’ve come to a few conclusions.

First of all, I can’t help but wonder if this sort of irrational mob mentality isn’t a result of some serious pent-up aggression. I hate to stereotype, but in general, I think most people would agree that Ugandans (particularly those living here in Kampala) appear to be a very gentle and patient people. With the exception of the two mob justice incidents I’ve witnessed, I have never seen a Ugandan loose their temper and have only rarely seen anyone express frustration. They will stand in line to pay a bill at the electric company for hours without appearing the least bit annoyed. The only one looking outraged in a traffic jam is me. And to my knowledge, no one has ever flipped me off or cussed me out for cutting them off in traffic, even when I deserved it. I have seen women give birth here without making a sound.

Unless you’re getting your grove on during worship at church, it simply isn’t acceptable to express your emotions in this culture. From the time they are children they are taught to hide their emotions, particularly feelings of anger, frustration, pain and sadness. At least, that’s my take on it. Yet, riots seem to explode on a dime and vigil-anti justice seems widely acceptable. I’m no expert on mob mentality, but I suspect that some of these situations arise from a simultaneous explosion of pent-up aggression.

The other and more obvious conclusion has to do with corruption and a lack of trust in the justice system. People are tired of getting ripped off and even more tired of seeing thieves released upon paying bribes or for lack of evidence. I don’t think we’ll see an end to mob justice until corruption is eliminated and the authorities prove they are deserving of the people’s trust.

For those of us living in a 3rd world country or any country where justice is compromised by corruption, we must continue to pray for our leaders and for peace and justice for all.

For those of you living in America or countries where “innocent until proven guilty” prevails, praise God for his unfailing mercy and righteousness.

Wherever you are, may His goodness and mercy prevail.

Mob Justice, the Almost “HAMocide” and Other Tales from Uganda
Written in July 2009 by Sarah Lambie

Hello dear friends. I’m sorry I haven’t written sooner, but Scott has done such a good job of keeping you updated and sharing his insights that I figured I’d wait until I had some unique experiences and brilliant insights of my own before asking you to spend your time reading through my ramblings. I’m afraid I still don’t have much in the way of brilliance to contribute, but I do have a story I’d like to share.

But first, let me just say that unlike Scott, I’m not exactly helping the poor and feeding the hungry on a daily basis here. Unless, of course, you take into account Cory and Noah, who are constantly “starving” and insist they are dying of hunger at least nine times a day. I am not even kidding…these guys never stop begging for food. In fact, as I type this, Noah is in full meltdown mode because we are out of bananas. And now he’s requesting egg tacos for dinner.

Meanwhile, there are about 7 hungry kids outside our fence tapping the gate with sticks, trying to get our attention. Can somebody please tell me how to explain to a four-year-old that he is not “starving,” that he can’t even begin to understand the meaning of starvation and that if he’s lucky, he’ll never have to? Because I don’t seem to be doing a very good job of communicating this myself, and quite frankly, it has become embarrassing. Oh yes, the thought of sending him home with one of the neighbor kid for a few days has crossed my mind more than once, and I’m not entirely opposed to it, but I suppose it wouldn’t be fair to ask some poor kid’s family to share their food or to put up with the constant whining either.

So, in addition to keeping the bellies of my starving children full, my days here revolve mostly around keeping the boys moderately entertained and out of trouble, which, it turns out, takes a considerable bit more time and energy when you don’t have TV, video games, readily available Internet access, a neighborhood park, or a budget conducive to gorilla tracking, white water rafting, road trips, safaris, etc.

I confess, I’m craving adventure and selfishly disappointed by the lack of excitement in our daily lives here. About the biggest adventure these days involves dodging boda bodas (motorcycle taxis) and cows on the way the grocery store. So far, I’ve only been brushed by kamikaze boda bodas twice, and I’ve yet to hit a cow. I did, however, run over a pig the other day, which brings me to my theme for this blog entry, which has to do with how and why I did what I did when I hit the pig.

But, before I can tell you the pig story I simply have to explain what I saw two days prior. This is not a nice story, and I wasn’t even planning to write about it, but in addition to attempting to justify my reaction in the aforementioned pig incident, it may also shed some light on a darker side of Uganda and how one crime can lead to a vicious cycle of transgressions.

So anyway, here I am, driving down Ggaba road early one morning. Maybe a quarter mile from our house or so, I notice a small crowd gathering around what appears to be a dead or unconscious man on the sidewalk next to the road. This man’s hands appear to be tied and he is covered in something dark and shiny. Blood? I can’t tell. The rising sun is in my eyes. But I can see the people standing around him, and they don’t seem to be making any effort to help, nor do they appear terribly concerned. Where are the police? I try to call the 911 equivalent here but can’t get through on the line so I drive to some nearby police barracks to try to get some help. I pull in to find some half-dressed policemen sitting around fire. I explain what I’ve seen and ask them to come. (I will need to drive them because like most police officers here, they do not have vehicles.) They shake their heads, roll their eyes, shrug their shoulders and slowly return to their barracks to get dressed. They do not seem alarmed or rushed, which I find odd. I wait for what seems to be ages. I’m thinking that at this rate, the poor guy will die before we get there if he isn’t already a goner. I’m wondering if the police are concerned about bystanders tampering with evidence. I wait some more. Clearly they are not. Finally, two policemen come over – one is accompanied by a lady (his wife or girlfriend perhaps) – and they climb into the car. We drive back to the scene and this time, since I have the cops with me, I pull right up next to the man. Bad idea. Now I am close enough to see that he is most definitely dead, and the dark shiny stuff is not blood, but burnt flesh and melted rubber from the tires he was bound to before being set a fire. I see his charred face, teeth and jaw bones exposed, and I see his wrists which have been bound with wires, his hands, fingers still out-stretched. “What happened?” I ask aloud. The lady riding with us tells me that he was probably caught stealing. This is a case of vigil-anti justice. This is what happens to thieves who get caught by the people here, she says. So much for innocence until proven guilty. Come to find out, a thief is better off getting caught by the police than a neighbor here…at least then they might have a shot at purchasing their freedom with a bribe. And if they can’t afford the bribe, at the most, they’ll spend a few miserable years in a filthy, over-crowded jail cell. I’ve read of similar mob justice incidents in the newspaper here a few times. In fact, just a few days prior I had read of a man who was nearly beaten to death by his neighbors after supposedly murdering his wife. But burning someone alive for theft? And just down the road from where we live? I’ve heard of an eye-for-an-eye, but how could someone possibly feel that such a horrendous form of revenge is justifiable? I drive away with a sick feeling in my stomach. I say a prayer for this man’s soul. I’m sorry for him and also disturbed by how un-phased and nonchalant the police and by-standers appear to be by this terrible scene.

I’ve read the paper daily since this incident in search of more details about the crime. I can’t make sense of how a human could torch another human for theft. But there is nothing in the paper about it. The other morning as I was out running, I came across a cop standing no more than 50 meters from the incident and stopped to ask if he knew any details. He claimed to have no idea what I was talking about. This is his precinct, but he knows nothing about a man being burned on Ggaba road. A few days later, after ensuring that I’m not carrying a recording device, a different police officer tells me that an investigation has been launched, but so far the culprits have not been identified or found.

I’ve spoken to a couple of locals here about it, including our cleaning lady who, as it just so happens, also saw what happened that morning as she was on her way to the market. “We are tired,” she said. “Criminals can buy their freedom from the police. We feel there is no justice and so we take justice into our own hands.” Ok, I can kind of understand that, but burning a man alive? I know it will be a long time before I understand this culture well enough to understand that.

Now comes the pig part.

So, a few days later, I’m driving with the kids down the bumpy little dirt road that leads to the school Andrew and Cory will be going, when, to my delight, a little pack of pink pigs runs into the road. “Look kids, piggies,” I say. “Oh, look at their cute little curly tails,” I vividly remember exclaiming. Just then, one of them disappears in front of my car. I stop and wait for him to move. I can’t really tell if he’s still there or if he’s moved off to the side of the car, but I’m starting to cause a bit of a traffic jam and the people behind me begin honking so I decide I’ve given the poor porker enough time to get out of the way and begin inching, ever so slowly, forward. Before I know it, I hear the most horrid, high-pitched squealy pig sound you could possibly imagine…worse than fingernails on a chalkboard. I panic and stop, but apparently I’ve stopped on top of the pig now because the noise becomes even louder and more dreadful. I jerk the car forward and am relieved but horrified to see the poor pig hobble away with one leg sticking out at an angle that is clearly unnatural. Uh-oh. My first instinct is to get out of the car and help the pig. I have one hand over my mouth and the other on the handle of the car door, but just as I’m about to open it a slew of boda bodas fly around me, each one with a driver or passenger waving arms vigorously at me in a motion to follow. I look around and see a crowd forming in the street behind me and am suddenly reminded of the charred remains of the thief in the street. Crap! It occurs to me that it’s possible that I’ve just made myself a prime candidate for mob justice. It is time to get the heck out of Dodge. I step on the gas and we speed down the road leaving nothing behind but a trail of dust. The boys can’t decide if they’re mortified by what I’ve done or excited to be gunning it down what might possibly be the bumpiest dirt road in Kampala. Suddenly, we see a group of guys ahead of us crowd into the street forcing me to slow down. One guy yells into my window that I’ve just injured his pig and I owe him 10,000 shillings (about $5.) (What? Come on…even pigs in Uganda cost more than $5.) I don’t know where it came from but I yelled back “I’m going to get the police and I’ll see about paying you when I get back.” He steps back quickly with a startled expression, clearly alarmed by this statement. I proceed to speed away with no intention of returning any time soon.

Yes, I have just fled the scene of a crime. I have just hit-and-run over a pig. One friend has pointed out that if the pig had died, it would have been a “hamocide.” If you’ve made it this far, I’m sure some of you reading this are wondering how I could have done such a cold-hearted and ruthless thing. Let me assure you, I’m wondering the same thing. As I drive away, I know I have a lot of explaining to do…especially to my children.

It suddenly occurs to me that I may have stopped long enough back there for someone to get my license plate number, and if that someone were to call the cops, I could get hauled to a Ugandan jail for a hit and run. Not good. Perhaps I should go to the police before they come for me and explain what happened. Maybe they’d let me off easy. Then again, maybe I’d be asked to pay a bribe. I’ve been advised by numerous people here not to involve the police in anything that’s not life threatening, and this isn’t life threatening…at least not for me (it may be for the pig though.) Oh dear, what’s an American in Uganda to do? Go to the American Recreation Association (ARA) of course. I’m not too far and I’m sure someone there can help me figure out what to do. I arrive, explain my predicament, and the good people at the ARA inform me that not only am I not at fault, but according to the law here, the owner of the pig would be required to compensate me for any damages to my car. Of course, it’s probably best not to involve the police they say, and I agree. I’m advised to go home (avoiding that road of course) and forget about it. Ok. I still feel bad, and I doubt I’ll ever forget it, but at least I’m not in danger of going to the slammer.

So, what does all this have to do with the dead man in the road? Well, had I run over the pig prior to seeing the dead man in the road, I can assure you I would have gotten out of the car, found the owner, apologized profusely and offered to cover any vet bills, replace the pig, etc. (I may or may not have gotten mobbed…probably not. In fact, I think it’s highly unlikely that anyone would lay a hand on a mzungu in Uganda, but I wasn’t thinking rationally at the time.) Had I not seen the dead man, I would have done what I thought was the right and responsible thing to do. But because of what I saw, I ran away, afraid of facing the crowd and afraid of involving the police.

I may have done the right thing as far as our safety was concerned, but the moment I stepped on the gas to flee the scene of the pig accident, I knew I was doing the wrong thing. Not just morally or as a Christian, but legally, as far as I knew at the time. Why did I leave? I didn’t want to get lynched. Why didn’t I go to the police? I didn’t want to be forced to pay a bribe for some crazy concocted offense, and I also didn’t want the owners of the pig to have to pay a fine for letting their pigs roam freely in the road.

Every single ex-patriot or local who has heard this story assures me that I did the right thing. And, in some ways (particularly concerning my children’s safety) I think they’re probably right. But a part of me also knows that I did a very cowardly thing. I’m generally a pretty compassionate person, but a change has occurred in me, and I am not proud of it. Any inkling of compassion was crushed by fear and distrust that day, and that’s a shame. If that’s the way I came to feel after just 2 months here, imagine how someone living here their whole lives might feel and react.

So, there you have it. A lot of people will tell you that people don’t change Africa, Africa changes people. It’s certainly having an effect on me.

I pray that a time will come in Uganda when people are able to trust their judicial system enough to believe they don’t need to take justice into their own hands.

You may say “yeah right, when pigs fly.” But as I consider this I’m reminded that even if we can’t trust our earthly rulers here and now, we can trust that our Lord will deliver justice when he’s good and ready to:

“The Lord reigns forever; he has established his throne for judgment. He will judge the world in righteousness; he will govern the peoples with justice. The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.” Psalm 9:7-9.

Story

2010-03-30T03:59:00.000-07:00

I’ve been writing some stuff done over the past two months, but nothing that felt worthy of sharing. Some of it had to do with my trip to Rwanda in January. There are vast differences between Rwanda and Uganda today, but both countries are shape by the way that they have rebuilt themselves from war, genocide and tragedy. Rwanda’s leadership is widely seen a success story. Their president and his team are holding a system together a tight system. The country seems harmonious. The streets are clean, the buildings are complete, the traffic is organized and the people are going about their business. Corruption is under high scrutiny and the formula that led genocide in April of 1994 is in the process of being bled out of everyday life. Uganda suffered similar tragic circumstances in the late 70’s. Uganda took a different path. There is a system, but the system is plagued with corruption and the leadership only speaks of confronting it. Rwanda is entering a phase where charity is becoming development and outsiders see promise in an emerging economy. But both countries, before their respective conflict and tragedy, were much different than they are today.

We all love a story. I just finished a book about a guy who wrote a book and some people wanted to make a movie about him. His book was philosophical. The thoughts in his head made for great reading, but the man himself, wasn’t a good story. The movie guys began to detail the makings of a good story, a good story for a movie. They tell him how a protagonist, whether good or bad, must do something good at some point in a story. That act of goodness gets the audience on his/her side. The protagonist can continue through the story and no matter what happens the voyeur is hooked. Every good story is about a protagonist that wants something, that is in a pursuit. That pursuit must be met with conflict or tragedy and on the other side of the conflict or tragedy, there must be transformation. As these movie writers tried to hack out a good script about this guy they pushed him do stuff that he normally wouldn’t do for the sake of the story. It must have been a multi-year process because the guy did a lot of stuff, a lot of good stuff. Most people would awe in his acts of doing and the transformation that he experienced. But I was captivating because the guy was doing something to improve his situation and the situation of others and all along pointing out how contrived it was to produce a story.

Conflict and tragedy, it is on the news every day. It is all around, not just in earthquakes, not just in poor neighborhoods, not just in foreign towns and disputed strips of land. It is in our bedrooms, in our workplace in our schools. But conflict and tragedy can lead to transformation. Conflict and tragedy teach us something. We can choose to hate it or ignore or hide from it. We can turn off the lights and switch on the tube. But, when we face it, overcome it, or help others overcome it, we start flowing again, start functioning again. We don’t sit still like a pond and start to fester and stink. Making the decision to confront a challenge or conflict is the hardest part, it is the change we need, but the part that we deny. The transformation on the other side is the prize.

Living Hope

2010-02-08T09:59:00.000-08:00

By Sarah

This is a story about Hope, a teenager we’ve had the privilege of getting to know and minister to. I originally published this in October or so, but removed it when we became concerned about her safety and ours. This version has been adapted and updated to tell her story more completely and in a way I believe is safer for everyone. In addition to being a story about our friend Hope, it’s also a story about hope in itself. I believe that strong hope rooted in faith is the key to resilience, healing and optimism. Given what Hope has been through, the amount and depth of these characteristic she exhibits never ceases to amaze and inspire me.

Hope’s Story (revised 10 Feb. 2011)

In 2005, a young Dinka girl was brought to Uganda with a family seeking refuge from the war-torn region in Southern Sudan they hailed from. The young girl, who we’ll call Hope for the sake of security, came with a half-sister, the half-sister’s husband, their children and several other members of his family. She did not come willingly. In fact, she was kidnapped by her brother-in-law and brought to Uganda against her will and her parent’s will.

Why? To be the family’s servant, of course. Living in a tiny house with 5 adults and 10 other children, Hope became the family’s cook, water fetcher, house-keeper and babysitter.

The family was not particularly kind to her. She was deprived of an education, forced to work long days and was beaten regularly. But she was a smart girl, becoming fluent in both English and Luganda while living there, and she was strong and resilient. Despite her situation, her spirit could not be broken.

Then, one day, on her way to the market, Hope was tricked into entering the home of an older Dinka boy on her way to the market. You know what comes next…upon entering the home she was raped and subsequently became pregnant. She was 12 years old.

Perhaps her family didn’t believe she was raped, or perhaps they simply didn’t care how it happened. Either way, they showed no mercy when they found out she was pregnant.

From what we’ve learned about the Dinka, it is not uncommon for an unwed girl who becomes pregnant to be beaten until miscarriage. Sometimes, we’re told, they are even beaten to death. The tribe considers it their right. After all, families stand to gain a substantial payment (bride price) for “untarnished” girls upon marriage, and considerably less (if anything at all) for girls who conceive before marriage.

Now that she was pregnant, there was no way Hope would ever be able to secure a decent dowry for the family. In their eyes, her pregnancy robbed them not only of their family’s pride, but also of the cows, goats and money she would have one day been traded for.

And so, as is the tribe’s custom in such cases, she was severely beaten by the men and boys of her family. We’re not talking spankings. Hope was tied up and beaten for several days. In addition to punching her, kicking her in the belly relentlessly and breaking her fingers, they refused to feed her and forced her to sleep outside, tied to a post, like a dog. This went on for three days until a neighbor decided to intervene. With the help of some friends of ours (who’s names we won’t reveal for their security) they went to the police and facilitated the first rescue attempt.

Rescuing Hope was not easy. Shortly after the police arrived at her house an angry mob of Sudanese men (that seemingly appeared from nowhere) created a human barricade and refused to hand her over to the police. The standoff lasted a while until the police were finally able to force their way through the mob and rescue Hope. Once they got her, they took her and her uncle to the police station for questioning. For reasons we cannot begin to understand, after a stern warning, they released Hope back into the uncle’s custody and allowed him to take her back home. The beatings continued and became even worse. The following day the neighbor attempted unsuccessfully to rescue her again. The neighbor devised a final plan to help Hope. This time, Hope would have to be rescued without the help of the police or anyone else. She would have to muster every ounce of courage and faith within her and attempt to run away in the night, by herself. She could bring nothing but the clothes on her back, and she would have to trust the people waiting for her at a designated location. 12 years old, pregnant, battered, alone and with nothing to lose, Hope did as she was advised and escaped successfully.

I met Hope a day or two after she escaped. Although she was quiet, exhausted and little more than skin and bones, she was calm and friendly. She seemed hopeful and fully willing to trust those trying to help her. She was willing to do whatever we deemed necessary in order to ensure her safety and the safety of her baby.

Hope spent the next four months hiding in a crises pregnancy center where her physical, mental and spiritual health were ministered to daily. She made friends, learned to knit and sew and participated in daily devotions and Bible studies.

We’ve been told that Dinka girls are valued as property that can one day be exchanged for cattle. A woman's status and value is determined by the number of cattle she brings her family when married off. Families rely on these cows to gain status, respect and wealth. Young women who are considered "impure" by having sex and/or becoming pregnant out of wedlock bring shame to their families and “rob” them of their future wealth.

Even though she’s not considered by her tribe to be as valuable today as she was prior to conceiving, they do still consider her their property and therefore might fight to get her back should they find her. And thus, as much as we value her and would love for Hope to stay with us in our home, we felt it would be safer for everyone involved if she hid elsewhere.

For now, Hope is safe and surrounded by other teens going through similar situations. A friend and I visit her regularly to encourage her, offer support and to pray with her. Her English is very good, so we’re able to talk about her situation and how she’s coping. She is mature for her age, but at 12, she is still very much a child. I’m reminded of this often when I hear her giggle or see her rolling around on the floor playing with the babies. She is a good and sweet girl and has a peace about her that defies my understanding. And although she appears to be ok with her situation and in her new environment, she longs to go home to be with her mother, who she believes would be happy to have her home despite her pregnant state. She could be right. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know her mother’s last name, where she lives today or any other facts that would help us track her down. And regrettably, as much as we’d love for her to be reunited with her mother, we have been advised that were she to return to Sudan, she would most surely be beaten silly and married off quickly.

So now what? The goal of the crisis pregnancy center is to reunite pregnant teens with their families and to convince the families to be accepting of both the teens and the teens’ babies. The girls are only allowed to stay at the center for a week or two after giving birth. Then, they must return home to their families. This is probably not an option for Hope.

We are working on figuring out how to keep her here legally, and we’re also trying to determine where she will stay and who will care for her and her baby after he/she is born. After all, she is still a child. She has no education, no skills and nowhere to go. Most of the Sudanese refugees have been sent back to Sudan by the government. Many of those who are still here, including Hope, are here illegally. Perhaps she will be given a study visa and allowed to stay legally in Uganda. Perhaps a family will agree to raise both her and her baby. Perhaps, a home for teen mothers and their babies will open up and take them in. God has been merciful and with mercy comes grace. We know His grace will be mighty, we just don’t know what form it will take yet. Please pray for Hope and her baby. Pray for their health (physical and spiritual.) Pray that God will find a way to safely reunite her with her mother. And pray that God will continue to give her His peace, which transcends all understanding, as she continues moving forward in this uncertain time and place.

The Boys and the Girls

2009-12-30T22:03:00.000-08:00

When we got pregnant with Noah, I was convinced he was going to be a girl. Sarah claimed many years earlier that her body wasn’t capable of producing anything masculine. Andrew must have been a chromosomal fluke and this one would be a girl. The day of the ultrasound came. I remember a John Mayer song about fathers and daughters came on the radio while driving to the doctor. I suffered through it and I thought it was a sign and we were having a girl. She would play a sport, she would be into college football and love music, she would decorate her room all girlie and never, ever stray from her dad. I would make it abundantly clear to any hormonal boy that they wouldn’t be welcome in my world. I would chase them away and instill fear. I would go to her high school and make an announcement on the intercom that I would track her with GPS and any boy trying to make a move may disappear mysteriously. I would pay spies to keep me informed. Andrew would lead field operations. I would screen her friends and run background checks on her classmates. “It’s a boy!” “Why do you put so much of that gel guck on that wand? It is messing up the picture.” “Congratulations, you are having another boy.” “But, my wife’s body is incapable of producing anything masculine.” “He’s pretty masculine, here is a black and white print out, the cursor is pointing at his parts.” “You are sure?” “Yep.” “It’s not piece of dirt on your $400 per minute ultrasound wand?” “Not likely.” “Hmmm..are those the stretchy surgical gloves that can blow up ten times their size?” “Yes.” “Can I take a few?” “Sure.” “Awesome, thanks!” “Oh, we will have to bill you for them.” “How much?” “$40 each.” “Insurance?” “Yeah.” “I’ll take five pair.”

The boys are doing pretty well with the transition to life in Africa. Andrew has had the most difficult time adjusting. He has developed a bit of a bad attitude and his grades were not great. He will tell you that nothing works properly in Uganda. He is going to an international school. They have a different teacher for each subject. Andrew will not abide when he is not challenged or if the teaching method doesn’t suit him, so he has certain classes that just don’t get his goat. He is the only white kid in his class and that seems to bring with it some social exclusion. He did seem to have a bit of a turnaround at the beginning of December. He made friends with what seems to be an endless supply of Dutch kids. The Dutch kids are interesting characters. Oddly, the only type of cheese that you can find with any regularity in Uganda is gouda. I’m forced to ponder a secret Dutch operation or conspiracy to overthrow East Africa. The Dutch kids don’t think it is funny when I ask them to take off their wooden shoes before entering the house. It seems they don’t wear wooden shoes. This only reinforces my conspiracy suspicions as they try to inconspicuously blend into Ugandan society. They also don’t think it is funny when I ask them to stay out of my gouda! Andrew made the Ugandan swim team and proudly sports his personalized uniform at every chance, like while he is asleep and awake. He and Sarah are going to Kenya next month for a competition between all of the Sub-Saharan African countries. Perhaps he is developing a bit of Ugandan patriotism.

Noah and Cory are doing very well. I mention them as a unit because they function like a unit. They breathe the same air while conjuring schemes of self destruction. Things break at a curious and furious rate and as soon as something breaks, so does their Siamese loyalty to each other. They will throw each other under-the-bus in a heartbeat to avoid blame of the broken. One of the back windows was smashed while I was at work about a month ago. I’m not sure if Sarah is just trying to protect the boys from a divisive interrogation, but I am sure that our goat didn’t break the window. As Sarah recounted the twisted tale, I could only picture the boys manufacturing the story. “If we stick together and stand our ground, neither one of us will get in trouble! The goat will take the fall on this one.” “..and then the dog barked and the goat was scared..yeah and it ran really, really fast..yeah and somehow his rope skipped off of the pavement and flung into the air..yeah and it hooked on the window and slammed it shut and glass flew everywhere..yeah and the goat just left the glass there..yeah is lunch ready?" They eat allot. Sarah thinks it is their coping mechanism for culture shock, but why must they insist on a hot breakfast? Sarah went to out of town two weeks ago and I carefully prepared two fine bowls of cereal. “What is this?” their spoons stirring cornflakes, their eyes set like moons of confusion. Aunt Sarah said you would make us “egg in the hole”. Cory can make friends in nanoseconds. It seems every time we go out for a meal, he meets someone new at a neighboring table. The Ugandans are fascinated with Cory and he seems to mesh very well with them. Noah is learning to read. He runs and swims very fast, pronounces his r’s and l’s as w’s and is in command of every situation.

Sarah wrote a few blogs ago about Joyce and Hope. If you recall, Joyce is our housekeeper. She comes from a village in northern Uganda, a relatively far trek from Kampala. The Ugandan schools are out for the long break, all of December and January. Joyce went home at the beginning of December to see her three daughters, just back from boarding school and staying with her brother. She seemed a bit down when she returned, so we asked her if she would like to bring the girls to Kampala for the break. She lit up and hopped on the next bus to Nebbi returning with Diana, Fortunate and Patricia. They are tall and slender like Joyce. They are 5, 7 and 12 respectively. Noah and Cory went into immediate show-off mode when the girls arrived, Noah turning cartwheels and Cory roaring down the hill in the backyard on his bike. Imagine your first experience with running water coupled with eager white boys and the Shrek series. The girls say “welcome back” with a bit of a knee bend as they rush out to greet me every time I get home. These are their new English words and a less exaggerated version of the prior full drop to their knees. I don’t want them to lose their culture, but it fells strange when people kneel at your arrival. It took a while to break Joyce of this habit as well. It’s not a white guy thing, it is a respect for man thing. Take notes American Woman. We gave the girls a Christmas present each and they thanked us graciously for the colorful boxes and looked at them curiously. The boys eventually taught them to how unwrap the boxes to reveal the prize inside. In the evenings the girls giggle away in the backyard with the boys and I’m forced to think about the intro to the Brady Bunch, but with Joyce replacing Alice in the middle of the square composite, white and black stripes of kids on each side and Sarah and I with sweet seventies perms.

Hope had her baby boy on December 4th, a birth day shared with our Andrew. It was only fitting and flattering to him when she decided to name the new baby Andrew. The crisis pregnancy center would ask her to find a new place to stay and with no other immediate options, Hope also came to stay at our place. Sarah painted up the only remaining room in the back house and friends picked up another bed. Joyce and the girls immediately welcomed Hope and Andrew, taking turns holding the baby. Sarah and our friends are the only people between Hope and the street or a deadly beating. It must be very scary for her. Her family is in Uganda on refugee status and should have returned to their country in December, but we found out that her family is still here. They live nearby and we realized that our home would not be safe for long. So, after Christmas we moved her out of town to live with a friend. She is in a good place with 14 other girls. We will probably bring her back here once her family goes back to Sudan. It is easy to forget that Hope is only fourteen, but she favors playing with the kids when the baby is sleeping. She reminds me of a newborn colt, shakey on new skinny legs. We took her swimming for the first time and she splashed around, surfacing only to look at Sarah and I for approval. Andrew taught her how to play chess and promises to mentor his namesake to “not turn out to be like Noah”. I feel like we will eventually be faced with a serious decision about Hope.

Fathers be good to your daughters.

2010 - Setting a Goal for the Soul and Objectives for the Subjective

2009-12-14T01:38:00.000-08:00

It appears that a month has quickly shuttered by since my last visit to this Blog. Man, time flies. I’m reading a Time article called “The Decade from Hell”. Scrolling back ten years can be interesting, breaking life into neat little chapters. It helps to define the bad stuff and put it behind us so we can feel good, look to the future with hope, make a resolution, and set a goal or two. The reality though is that even after examining the past, we often just get back to doing what we always do, expecting different results.

At the end of every year, in the corporate world, teams furiously scurry to develop next year’s goals and objectives. I wonder if we do this enough on a personal level, I mean other than the obligatory new-year resolution. What is a relevant measurement of success? I used to set out each year with one goal in mind, a dollar figure, an increase over last year’s bounty. It is a fine marker of success and one that resonates well with society. One day I would break out a bar chart on a Power Point slide and projector and show my family the peaks and valleys. See that, that dip was cause by the post 9-11 stock market slide. That bump right there, that was a promotion and raise and the year your mother went back to work. They will be fascinated with the grand purpose and experience. Then, I could flash a pie chart showing them their piece of the pie. It did eventually occur to me that my goals were empty and my family didn’t really care about our material success.

But, I’m still forced to think about goals and objectives. I work for a charity now, so it’s different, but I have that same craving for measurable progress. I’m tempted to drop goal bombs all over the minds of my co-workers. But, what personal and organizational objectives would be relevant? Corporate goals and objectives are easy to set. You just have to work backwards from making money and saving money. Each year the CEO breaks out a bar chart on a Power Point slide on a projector to show the shareholders the peaks and valleys. “See that, we cut our widget production cost by 6%outsourcing Research and Development to a Turkish prison camp.” The management team watches eagerly, but somehow the workforce has an empty feeling their in their gut.

Over the past month our organization graduated a group of 7th graders and many of them came from situations similar to the one described in the last blog entry. They had an outing after their final exams to the new school building site. They won’t go to the new school, it will be for primary students and they are off to secondary, but they reveled in the beauty of the new location. They led some songs for the work men on the site. As they sang you could see this look of marvel and confusion in the eyes of these men. These guys know all too well where our kids came from, which explained the marvel, but the confusion may have been from a little bit of introspect. These grown men were watching these little kids wail harmoniously and I think they were drawn to contemplate the bookmarks of their own lives. These kids have been transformed and they have a solid foundation for the future. You watch them and how far they have come and you don’t really worry about how to measure the year objectively. You look around the room at the people that helped them get to this point and you don’t really need to dangle a big bonus package in front of them. All of the sudden I’m paid in a different kind of currency, a currency that can’t be counted. You start to measure the value of your work subjectively, you search your soul for what is right and when it’s right, it feels good and if it feels good you feel full.

Tethered

2009-10-30T00:40:00.000-07:00

Off to my right some light breaks through where a broken piece of plywood meets a flap of cardboard. The wind makes the flap open and close. This flap composes part of a wall that extends about 8 feet until it meets its 10 foot counterpart. The floor is dirt, about 80 square feet of it. I’m sitting on a small chair in the corner concentrating on the flap and wonder how the wall holds when it rains. I’m sitting on a small chair in the corner concentrating on the flap because it stops my mind from thinking about what is going on to my left. I’m sitting on a small chair in the corner trying to imagine myself and my family living in this one room shack in the slums. Two babies move around on the bed next to me. I know they are moving because they are laying on plastic grocery bags that crunch as they kick and squirm. My imagination fails. My imagination can’t strip away everything that I know, so I can’t make a new pretend reality, not even for a second. There is a nine year old girl sitting across from me. She is letting me know that her mother is at a burial and has been gone for two days. I hope to tell her the dangers of putting babies on plastic bags, but I hesitate. She will want to know how she should prevent them from peeing on the mattress and I don’t have a good answer. A little girl is sitting on the dirt floor staring at me. I pick her up and put her on my lap. I feel coldness soak my leg and notice the puddle of urine on the ground in the spot where she was sitting. Her older sister takes her outside and strips her down. It is dark and musky. There is an old plate of food on the ground. I wonder how I will get back home to change and shower before my afternoon meetings. Then I know that I can’t imagine living here. This is the home of one of the children in our boarding school. This is where his step mother lives, she doesn’t treat him well. We visit, hoping to convince her to treat him well during the holidays. This isn’t my job. I’m just touring with our House Manager, who takes it upon himself to make it his job. I ask him if you ever get used to living in the slums. He says that you adapt, but you can never become comfortable. You will always hope for a better place.

This happened two weeks ago. Since, I’ve given heavy thought to how our realities are so tightly tethered to our circumstance. I couldn’t place myself living in the slum, no matter how hard I tried. I knew it wasn’t a realistic outcome for me and my family. The people I know could never let it happen. Back home we had a network of friends, we had our work, our neighborhood, our activities, our stuff, our family. Our surroundings determine so much about how we nestled ourselves in the day to day, how we spent our time, how we pictured ourselves, how we picture ourselves being pictured by others. We found comfort and stability. We denied badness, avoided struggle. We had spun a web of tightly knit delight and that delight was rarely broken. In the first few months in Uganda our brains are still suspended in our old circumstance, still tethered to strings that made up the web of our lives. Gradually some of those little strings will be snipped and our reality will start to become Uganda. But there will always be home and many parts Austin Texas. We are visitors here. The desperation, the poverty and the circumstances around us have become part of our experience. But, we can go home.

Compost

2009-10-14T03:52:00.000-07:00

We have two big compost bins in our backyard. They were set up by the tenant that rented the house before us. She grew all of her vegetables in the garden and was dead set on keeping it organic. Sarah and I loved the idea and kept it going. The bins are massive and we fill them with the stuff that falls from the trees, cut grass, banana peels etc. Flies love it and feast on the waste, water rots it down. On the top of the pile is the fresh stuff, but at the bottom, rich dark stuff. Fred, the guy who actually does the gardening mixes the compost with the rich Ugandan soil. Our garden is growing out of control. We have to pick lettuce, bag it and give it away.

I’ve been trying to make sense of the events of the past few weeks; the riots, the car crash, the burglary, the baby. Shortly after the riots President Museveni invited the Buganda King (Kabaka) for a meeting. The front page of the newspaper the following day featured a large color photo of the two Ugandan leaders shaking hands. The frustration that fueled the Buganda Tribe to riot in the first place had seemingly been put to rest and a gesture of peace extended. I can only imagine the real driving forces behind this hand shake. The British government, the many investors erecting new office space in downtown Kampala. Perhaps the oil companies don’t want interruptions as they quantify the size of the oil reserve around Lake Albert. Whatever it was, it was a gesture of a better future that originated with tribal frustration and violence. There was some hope and goodness coming out of some badness. Sarah’s car crash with a motorcycle was quickly mediated and resolved on the side of the road with compensation going to the motorcycle driver by ruling of the street side mob jury. The burglary of our home was an exhibition of carelessness on our part and desperation of part of the robber. A subsidy would be needed for a full investigation by the police. Finally, Joyce’s baby, we never did give him a name. He had a life, not a long one. He knew the feel of a towel. He took a ride in a car. He breathed air, felt cold. He didn’t really have much of a life, but for a few hours he was alive. He didn’t give up easy. I wonder what he would do given an opportunity. I wonder what was the purpose of his life.

We have started the selection process for the next two choirs. Fifty kids will be rescued from situations that you can try to comprehend, but can’t. They will be lottery winners. They will go on tour, see an elevator, eat ice cream, meet famous people, perform for thousands, get educated, and be given opportunity. They will be transformed. On Sunday, the kids from the slums will perform a song that I’ve been working on with them at one of Kampala’s largest churches. This will be a highlight in their lives and I’m looking forward to seeing them. From these places where some things seem hopeless and rotten great things can grow.

Another Sarah Blog

2009-10-07T02:42:00.000-07:00

Baby Blues

In Uganda, everyone has a full time housekeeper. They’re called house girls and they are so common it’s joked that even house girls have house girls. My house girl is called Joyce. Even though she’s only two years younger than me, she calls me Auntie, which I actually prefer over the more commonly used “madam.” Joyce comes with no experience and a lot of baggage, but she’s a hard worker and a quick learner and I’m glad we’ve been able to give her the chance and experience she needs to earn a living in this tough place.

Two nights ago, Joyce, who was 22 weeks pregnant, went into premature labor. I took her to the clinic that’s been handling her prenatal care and after some questioning and an exam they gave her some pills they said “might” stop the labor. They gave it a 50 percent chance of working. If you’ve ever miscarried or known someone who has, you’ve probably heard some well-meaning person chalk it up to nature’s way of getting rid of a baby that’s not healthy or strong enough to make it full term or survive long after birth. True as that may be, I hate that line. But that’s exactly what the doctor at the clinic told us. “Don’t be discouraged,” he said. “The baby is probably grossly deformed. Maybe its brain is even exposed.” He seriously said that. On the other hand, he said, the premature labor could be caused by a urinary tract infection Joyce apparently had been suffering from. Regardless, he sent us home insisting she’d be more comfortable miscarrying (or “aborting” as he put it) at home than in his over-crowded little clinic.

That night, I insisted Joyce stay in the house with us rather than in the “boys quarters” (live-in staff accommodations) where she usually stays, just in case the pills didn’t work. In fact, the pain and bleeding persisted and by 2:00 a.m. her contractions were strong and only a minute apart. About that time I found her squatting on the bathroom floor, quietly moaning with a pool of blood around her. It was clear she was “aborting” and there was nothing I could do but pray over her and support her through the contractions and through what I expected to be a still birth. (I did try to convince her to move to a bed where I thought she’d be more comfortable, but she refused to leave the bathroom floor. She’d previously given birth on three separate occasions on a dirt floor in a mud hut, so comparatively, the tile of a bathroom floor may not have been too bad an experience. I also tried to convince her to lie down on a towel at one point, but squatting is apparently the preferred position for birthing here.)

I am in no way qualified to do this, but at approximately 3:30 AM, I delivered a baby boy. I didn’t expect him to be alive, but he was. I didn’t expect to be able to see his little heart thumping, but it was. I didn’t expect his little lungs to be breathing, but they were. I certainly didn’t expect him to look so perfect (with 10 fingers and toes) but he did. There was nothing even remotely disfigured or deformed about him…at least not on the outside. I wrapped this tiny baby in a towel, woke my very startled husband, handed him the baby and went back to the bathroom to tend to Joyce who was, by now, shivering and vomiting. The baby, meanwhile, continued to breath. We half expected each breath to be his last, but to our surprise, he carried on. We were truly astounded that such a tiny baby (10 inches at most) could survive so long and started to think he may have a chance after all. He clearly wasn’t going down without a fight. And so, after getting Joyce dressed, quickly wiping down the bathroom (lest one of my children need to use it in the night) and instructing our night guard to guard our sleeping children with his life, Scott and I took Joyce and the baby to the nearest hospital.

I held that baby all the way to the hospital with Joyce in the seat next to me. She made no effort to hold him or even look at him, and I didn’t blame her. Odds were, he wouldn’t survive and saying goodbye would be too heart wrenching after forming a bond. And even if she had wanted to hold the baby, she was so sick to her stomach that she had her head out the window for half of the drive. Upon arriving at Nsambya Hospital and tracking down a nurse, we were escorted to the baby’s ward. Weighing in at only a quarter of a kilogram (250 grams) the nurses said there was nothing they could do apart from keeping the baby warm under a heat lamp. Joyce was admitted to another ward and Scott and I spent the next hour-and-a-half standing over this tiny little baby trying to figure out what to do next. We received advice via text from our friend Emmy, a nurse practitioner in Austin, TX. We discussed our options with the nurses at the hospital…there weren’t any. We prayed and talked to the little baby, wanting desperately for him to know that even if he was here for just a brief time, he was loved while he was here. And then, at about 5:30 a.m., after deciding we would take him to another hospital, we realized his heart had stopped beating and he was gone. Inevitable as it was, it seemed quite tragic and is still very difficult to think and write about. I wept all the way home for this baby whose life ended only moments after it began. I wept for the pain and suffering Joyce endured in my bathroom, and for the suffering I’m sure she’ll eventually experience as she grieves for her son. I went home, slept and woke a few hours later with a refrain in my head of a song we used to sing in church back home: “He gives and takes away. He gives and takes away. My Heart will choose to say, blessed be His name.”

Joyce is being monitored in the hospital and should be released today. We have been taking her clean sheets, clothes and meals (no hospital food available here) and visiting with her a few times a day and she appears to be doing remarkably well. Part of her ability to cope so well probably has to do with the fact that this was an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. Joyce is a widow and already has three children. She’s of the Acholi tribe from northern Uganda and getting pregnant out of wed-lock is considered very shameful, if not abhorrent, by her people. So much so that until four weeks ago, when I practically forced her to go to the clinic for a pregnancy test, she was in absolute denial despite a swelling belly and regular bouts of morning sickness. First she insisted that it was malaria and then, after that had lasted too long, she was sure she was the victim of witch doctor’s spell that caused demons to move in her belly and make her nauseous. Even after having an ultra sound and finally acknowledging her pregnancy to me, she was too ashamed to tell her friends and family members.

Saturday afternoon, when we went to take Joyce lunch, we discovered that the nurses had placed the body of her dead son in a latex-glove box under her bed. We asked her how she would like us to handle the body and she asked us to take it to a half-brother living in Kampala. We did, only to discover that despite his suspicions, Joyce had denied her pregnancy to him just last week. She also failed to mention it to her family members in her village when I took her to visit them two weeks ago. Oddly enough, despite her obvious condition at more than 5 months pregnant, they failed to ask her about it too.

This does not make Joyce a bad person. It simply confirms what we already know about how unwed pregnant women are regarded here. (My last entry on my pregnant teen friend touches on this as well.) The way it’s regarded here probably isn’t that much different than how it was regarded in America a few decades ago, and perhaps even still in some places or with some families in the US today.

Desperate people do desperate things. When I found Joyce three months ago, she and her three girls were living (or, more accurately, squatting) in an unfinished house a few doors down from ours. They had no food, no job and no money. After taking Joyce in to work for us and putting her three girls in a boarding school, I can only imagine how terrified she must have been at the thought that she might lose her job (and subsequently her new home and her girls’ school fees) if and when we discovered she was pregnant. I get that and I don’t hold the lies about it against her. We made it clear that she would not lose her job due to the pregnancy, and that we would even help her with the baby, but I suspect the burden was still far to great for her to bear. I don’t think she is happy she lost her baby, but I can see that a part of her is relieved. Maybe that is a blessing in disguise in that it will make the loss more bearable for her…I don’t know.

While I don’t believe that God is responsible for the bad things that happen to us,
I do like to think he will use the bad experiences to teach us something we need to learn. I don’t know what His lesson for Joyce is in this (obviously there’s a safe sex or abstinence lesson here but surely that’s the least of it) and I’m not entirely sure what my take-away is either. Perhaps my heart is being strengthened for a bigger challenge that’s yet to come. Maybe my resolve is being tested. Maybe I’m being selfish in thinking that any of this has anything to do with me at all. But I can’t help but think that this, coupled with a few other intense events we’ve recently experienced – i.e. last week’s burglary, the boda-boda accident, the week with no electricity or water, the riots that rocked the city, the mob-justice incident, etc. (all topics for separate blog entries) – are inexplicably linked in a way to test my faith and the faith of my family. Maybe God will use these events to strengthen our conviction that this is where we belong. On the other had, maybe the devil is doing his best to discourage us and to convince us to hop on the next plane home. (Hey, if I hurry I might just be able to get home in time for the last day of ACL.) In the end, the only thing that really matters is how we handle the tough situations and how we choose to let events like this affect us.

A lot of well-meaning people here discouraged us from hiring a house girl who knew very little English, had virtually no experience and had three children we would inevitable end up supporting. It would have been very easy for us to find and hire someone fluent in English and with years of experience…to be honest, they’re a dime a dozen here. But we chose to hire Joyce knowing full well that there would be challenges but believing that she deserved a chance.

You see, Joyce is a widow who came from her village to Kampala a year ago after her husband died of an asthma attack. After Joyce’s husband died, his other wife, a younger wife from a more powerful clan, claimed Joyce’s house and belongings and forced her and her children to leave the family’s land. Being very poor and not needing four more mouths to feed, the rest of Joyce’s family rejected her as well. So, with no job experience, skills or knowledge beyond what she learned in the bush, Joyce somehow managed to make her way to Kampala with her kids where she found a half-brother who agreed to share the house he was squatting in with Joyce and her children.

Like thousands of other poor but hopeful villagers, Joyce came to Kampala thinking she’d have a better shot at finding a job in the big city than out in the jungle. Unfortunately, she had three things working against her. First, she’s from the north. With her Nilotic features (a tall, lanky frame and very dark skin) there is no hiding or mistaking that Joyce is a northerner. This doesn’t bode well for her because there’s a good deal of discrimination toward the tribes from the north from the most populous ethnic group here, the Baganda people of the south and west. Secondly, she also didn’t speak enough Luganda or English to work, much less apply for a job. Finally, she’s uneducated, illiterate and simply doesn’t possess any skills in high demand here outside of washing clothes by hand, weaving mats and cooking meals over coal-burning clay pots.

But, the girl could wash clothes like nobody’s business. Unlike my other laundry person (we had no wash machine and enough laundry to require two helpers at the time) she never mixed the colors and turned our white clothes pink, which she liked to remind me of often. She was a force to be reckoned with when it comes to stains (which we have lots of) and she could fold a shirt as well, if not better, than any Gap employee I ever came across, including myself (1994 baby.)

For two months she washed our clothes by hand and proved to be a good, honest and hard worker. We came to Uganda to help people. We’re asked by God to love one another the way He loves us. We’re asked to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. We’re asked to go out of our way to care for widows and orphans. Yes, with Joyce, we’ve had an extra challenge with the language barrier, we’ve had to invest more time in teaching her things like how to make beds and use electric irons, and we’ve also invested in her children by sending them to boarding school. We could have made it much easier on ourselves, but in my opinion, not hiring Joyce – a neighbor and a widow who so desperately wanted this job – would have been a costly mistake.

We're not here to help people when it’s convenient for us. We're here to help whenever we can. It is actually a blessing to be able to do so. Without faith, one could easily become discouraged here. But my faith is strong and continues to grow with each day and each new experience. For now, I choose to continue to put my heart on the line. I choose to continue doing things I know may temporarily break my heart because I know it will mend and be made stronger for it. For now, “my heart will choose to say, ‘blessed be His name.’”

Riots

2009-09-14T02:10:00.000-07:00

September 20, 2009

The Kabaka (King of the Buganda Tribe) announced last week that he planned to visit Kayunga, an area southwest of Kampala. A local tribe in the area spoke out against his plans and his safety came into question. This conflict became a major topic of conversation in the city and some of my Buganda friends were clearly upset that their king was being prohibited to move freely. I spent the first part of the day today at the building site of the new school just outside of the city. When we returned stories of riots in central Kampala were arriving via SMS. Our current primary school building is on the other side of town by the major University. I started making my way over there. Our purchasing guy shops for the school’s food supply every Friday morning and I needed to get money to him. Everything is done with cash here; rarely can you use a credit card. Anyway, I pass by the Kabaka’s palace in route to the school. I was told that it might not be a good idea to head that way. Smoke plumes were visible in the distance and I knew it couldn’t be good, but kept driving. As I got closer to the smoke, it was clear that there was unrest.
People were moving chaotically in the streets, a road was blocked, traffic thinned. A police officer ushered me around the corner leading to the Kabaka’s palace where traffic slowed and more people started moving. A stack of tires burned in the middle of the street and just beyond it, a taxi on fire. People were moving more precisely and quickly away from the palace in my direction. The streets here are not very wide, so an about-face requires a five point turn. My fight or flight instinct kicked in and the flight option became the clear no brainer. So I turned it around and headed back. A crowd had formed behind me and the police were moving. An officer walked briskly in front of my car toward the crowd waiving an AK-47 in the air and the traffic started to jam ahead.. I made it back home. Sarah was planning to take Joyce (our house-keeper) to her village and after some serious debate finally cancelled her road trip. I called the African Children's Choir school to check on the situation. Our driver Dan reported heavy rioting in the area and gunshots rang in the background. He wanted to get home to his family, but feared moving in the streets. The kids are safe in the compound, so no one seemed alarmed about their safety. The biggest concern is getting more food to them by tomorrow afternoon. Our electricity at the house has been out for the past two days and with the crowds starting to grow in our village, so we decided to head to the American Club that is guarded by the US Embassy. The boys heard their first live gun shot outside of the compound and Cory was quite scared. Riots are expected to continue until Saturday. School has been cancelled. I’m concerned about the food supply at the school.

September 11, 2009

I came to the office early in the morning everything was calm, so I drove over to the school. Burned tires were everywhere and the aftermath of some pretty serious chaos scattered the roads. I arrived at the school, all of the children and staff were fine and calm. I prepared some money to buy food and supplies and headed back out of the gate to get back home. Some men stopped me and advised me to return “ they will burn your car”. So, I’m back at the school now, the kids are inside and gun shots are going off all around the compound. I can’t get to the Internet, but people are calling. The government is sending more Army and gun shots are increasing.

September 14, 2009

Friday was pretty intense, but I think it was relatively safe inside the school compound. The rioters had no interest in harming anybody at a school. I was stuck at school until about noon and thought about just spending the night in the compound. I went outside and talked to the Boda guys (motorcycle taxi drivers). They are everywhere and know what is going on all over the city. I asked if there was a safe route back to my part of town. One of them explained a safe route and offered to escort me back. I hopped in my car and he led the way. He drove ahead to each intersection checking for rioters and then returnedto let me know it was clear ahead. The riots lasted into the night on Friday. Then the Kabaka announce that he would not go to Kayunga. Saturday was peaceful. I couldn't contact Dan all morning on Friday. He was robbed on the way home. They took his phone and wallet. We have had no electricity since last Monday and our water is off. I just got off of the phone with Sarah, she crashed into a Boda. She is fine, but the car is busted up. There is never a dull moment in Africa. Well, accept at night when you are sitting around a lantern.

The Equator

2009-08-26T03:48:00.000-07:00

We took a trip out to the Equator last week, well like two weeks ago. The Equator is about 30 minutes south of Kampala by car. The Equator is an invisible line that marks the middle of planet earth. You can't really see the Equator, but it is marked in Uganda by two giant white rings on either side of the highway. When you stand inside of either of these rings you are exactly equal distances from the South Pole and the North Pole. You may doubt the accuracy of these man-made landmarks and that this invisible line has any significance. But, there is a man standing next to one of the rings. He has three basins, one directly on the Equator, one about ten paces north of the Equator and one about ten paces south of the Equator. For five dollars this man will show you how water swirls clockwise in the north and counter clockwise in the south and straight down the drain at the bottom of the Equator marking basin. This is cool to me. I’m not sure why. This invisible force acts differently without significant distance and in the middle, parity.

Hillary Clinton was in town. Well not in Kampala, in Africa, on a seven country tour. Her first stop was Kenya that is the country right next to Uganda to the East. That is the country that gave birth to a man from the Luo tribe. That man met an American woman and she gave birth to the current President of the United States. The first African American President is the first of his generation to be American. This is a big deal and you probably haven’t thought about it from an African perspective. African leaders take care of their own. So if you are Kenyan, your expectations are high for this President. If you are of the Luo tribe, well, you are probably expecting an invitation to the White House. I would guess that this President has some ideas kicking around his mind to improve the situation in Africa. On the eve of Clinton’s arrival The Prime Minister of Kenya was quoted as saying something like “We don’t need another lecture from the US”. So it was probably no surprise when Clinton delivered the message that the US will not increase trade until a fair democratic processes be installed. This message delivered 18 months after a botched election in Kenya rekindled tribal frustrations and engulfed the nation in riots and killings. A two headed government was negotiated to balance tribal power. The tourist industry in Kenya spent its 2008 high season waiting for customers to fly in, but many travel bureaus didn’t lift advisories against Kenya until late June 08 leaving little time to plan a safari and lingering fear for most westerners. But, the guys that wanted to be in power found a way to get into office, not necessarily by votes. These guys are rich, they are powerful, they have a tribal view of the world, they want Obama to hook them up, they expect Obama to hook them up. I wonder what percentage of every $1 spent on trade, relief and development lands in their pockets. This isn’t just a Kenyan problem, this problem exists in many East African countries. The people are not empowered, they are sparsely educated, largely poor, segmented by tribalism leaving a foggy vision of a prosperous future.

My generation was shaped by eighties pop culture. Yes, I’m jumping around have patience Farmer Ted. So, we are getting a big fat dose of eighties memorabilia right now (Well, we were a couple of weeks ago when I started writing this entry). I don’t have to mention the music and movie guys that recently passed. Those guys had a massive influence on my generation. Movies and music, pop culture, defining our experience, guiding us in certain directions making us buy a lot of hair spray, parachute pants and thin leather ties. My generation watched and listened to that stuff and later became what is now known as Generation X. What a cool name for a generation. I’m not sure who coined it or when it happened. I read a book in my early twenties about Generation X, our pretense, our laziness. Whoever wrote that book disappeared in the noise of a grunge and the Dot Com revolution. We had a cool generation, but something happen after the Dot Com bubble burst and 911 freaked us out. We disappeared into suburbia and lost a bit of our identity. It would be really cool if there were a tool or website that could reconnect our generation, allow us to take quizzes, post questionnaires and tell each other 25 things about ourselves. It would be really cool if people had time to logon to it and tell all of their friends what they are doing, post pictures, tell jokes, catch up.

Anyway, a boat showed up on the shores of Kenya in June, it was dragging a fiber optic cable. That cable is making its way to Uganda and around East Africa. That cable carries information at a high speed. They have Internet connections here, but they are slow and very expensive. Information is power. This fiber optic cable will increase connectivity speed, decrease cost and open new doors. If you plug a device into that cable, you have access, you have a new power. You can read world news, you can see how other people live, communicate. You can dispel lies and learn some new ones. You can make a friend, you can transact, share.

So, instead of trying to convince African leaders to change and give up their power and riches, what if we could spread it out? Use connectivity, technology and tools to build one-on-one relationships to mentor, educate, develop, plan, organize and share with the third world. I wonder what would happen if we cut out the middle men and deploy the pop culture of relief and development. No administration fees, you and a guy in a village somewhere talking about the weather, hacking out a plan. Maybe we would learn something new, dispel some lies, open our view of the world. Maybe that guy in the village has a quiz for you. So I’m just forced to wonder if this African American President could empower the African people by empowering American people, small doses of help going from one American to one villager. Maybe we could find balance some where in between who we are and who we could be, somewhere in between how it is and how it should be, create some parity.

Lost in Translation

2009-08-07T04:16:00.000-07:00

So, I received a blog request. It came in a letter packed along side an assortment of delicacies for home and a favorite movie. It came from a friend that rescued me from high school cafeteria solitude and taught my bride how to hide lima beans and other “not so tasty foods” in her pants circa four year of age. So, I’ll make my best attempt to comply.

When we first arrived in Kampala it became abundantly clear that we would need some rugged vehicles and a good mechanic. The city center is the heart of commerce and several paved roads sprout out like veins in every direction. The paved roads are rough. They are more like a series of deep potholes with brief interludes of smoothness. If you find a long stretch of smoothness, you will almost certainly find a speed bump before you can get the car above 40mph. In between the paved roads are dirt paths that meander through the hills and neighborhoods. The dirt paths are bumpy with craters and drop offs. We live on a dirt road on the side of a steep hill. The dirt roads don’t have street signs and it is easy to get lost once you’ve taken a wrong turn.

I put the word out that I needed a car, I had looked in the car lots and in the ads and I was discouraged by the quality and cost. I had a dollar amount in mind and my search was disappointing. But, it doesn’t take long when you are searching for something for your request to reach the right ears. I got a call one day and this deep voice with a Ugandan accent said “Mr. Scott, my name is Godfrey. I have found a car for you”. So I get Dan, our driver from the school, to go with me to check it out. I’m not sure how Godfrey found out that I was looking for a car, but he found one that seemed to be a perfect mixture of good condition, rugged and cheap. He was wearing mechanic scrubs, the deal seems a bit shady and I tried to ignore the fact that somebody had etched a sentence into the front side panel. The car had many key marks, scratches and bruises, but it had a sound engine, cabin and under carriage. Dan checked it out and took it to his mechanic. It scored well and we had a deal. I bought a 13 year-old Rav 4 with scratches all over it. Dan told me that I could get it painted for about $150, so I did. Somebody keyed it again two days later. We originally planned to only buy one car in Africa, but I only spent half of the car budget, so I asked Godfrey to find me another Rav, same price, same quality. Sarah and I could both have a car and be mobile. Godfrey found another, but the engine didn’t sound quite right. It was idling too high and there was a pinging noise. Godfrey said “I shall fix it for you Mr.Scott.” He came back 12 hours later and it sounded better, but not right. I don’t know much about cars, so my only input was “make it run like the other one and I’ll buy it”. He came back the next day “Mr. Scott, I have spent the whole day working on this engine and it is right, now you just need to fill it with good gas”. Gas is expensive here and I’m pretty sure that most of the gas stations subsidize themselves with just a bit of water additive to round out profits. I let the tank hit empty and then took it to the station that Godfrey recommended. The good gas ran through the engine and the pinging noise went away. I bought it.

So now, Sarah drives the black Rav, I drive the blue one. Sarah noticed roaches in the black one, a lot of roaches. I called Godfrey and he took the car for a whole day. Godfrey is an interesting character, he is in his mid-twenties and he works very, very hard. He removed everything from the vehicle and killed the roaches. Godfrey likes to ask questions and then answer them himself. Godfrey: “You had how many roaches?” silent pause while Sarah and I look at each other, “you had thousands of roaches in the car”. Sarah: “where do they come from?” Godfrey: “they are there because you let the kids do what?” silent pause, Sarah and I look blank, “because you let the kids eat cakes in the car”. I knew what he meant. Godfrey: “I lined the floor under the carpet with chalk, if more roaches come, they will touch the chalk and then they must what?” Did he say chalk? “They must die.” Okay, we have a preventative maintenance plan and Godfrey still hasn't charged me for a full day of roach killing. “I shall earn your trust Mr. Scott.” Godfrey replaced all of the filters, changed the oil etc. in both of the cars, cheap. Godfrey: “Now it is time for what Mr. Scott?” I know the answer is coming soon, so I don’t even bother to look puzzled, “It is time for these cars to start working for you, you don’t have to work for them anymore.” Sweet. “I shall call you when it is time for what?” Hmm…. “For the next oil change”.

I think what Godfrey what he was trying to say is that is not about the car anymore. Maybe it is all about the driver. We can spend our time on the rough roads in our old cars and we don’t have to worry about a colossal problem. If the cars break we have a guy we can trust to fix them and we can take the tanks down to empty and we know where to fill them with proper gas. We are going to hit potholes and we are going to get lost, but we will seek people that we trust for advice, and fill our tanks with proper gas. We’ll try to get rid of the noise and not worry about the paint job. The kids will sit in the back and watch where we are taking them, they really watch. We’ll also be careful about feeding them too many cakes, but I’m afraid that Sarah still hides her lima beans.

Even though things get Lost in Translation, the answer might be in Stranger than Fiction.

School Building Project Update

2009-07-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

The school building is coming along well, but we won't be moving to the new campus for the fall term. The majority of the plumbing has been installed and many of the buildings are wired for power, but there is a significant effort needed to install the window units, screens and glass. Then onto the cosmetic work. The current plan is to be inspection ready by October and move the children into the dorms and new classrooms at the beginning of the year.

The power box is installed and boxed in a theft proof casing and the view is amazing.

Kanzu Pass The Sugar Please

2009-07-13T07:46:00.000-07:00

We went to a wedding last weekend. Well, an “Introduction” and it was the weekend before last, it just takes a while to upload these blogs. An introduction is the official meeting of a bride and groom’s family. In Ugandan culture you actually come away from the introduction as a married couple. In this case Prossy and Jordan were introducing their respective families to each other. This introduction as a bit unusually Jordan is a Canadian boy and Prossy is from Rwanda. Prossy and Jordan met on tour with the choir. She was a chaperone and he drove the tour bus. He came to Uganda to negotiate himself a bride. The dowry system is still in place, but it is a bit ceremonial and in this case laden with jest. Sarah and I represented the groom’s side of the introduction and our job did include presenting dowry to Prossy’s adopted father. The whole deal was negotiated in advance and Jordan hired a representative that worked out the bounty. We just showed up with the goods. There was a goat, he was tied up and stuffed under a seat in the girl’s minibus. Goats have really pensive faces, but this one didn’t look so pensive when we pulled him out from under the seat. He just looked surprised, mad and anxious. Somebody tied him to a tree and he eventually chilled. So, in Africa women are often kneeling when they greet men. During the introduction ceremony Prossy and her Aunts did a lot of kneeling toward the groom’s family. At the end of the ceremony Prossy was kneeling in front of her groom with wedding cake. Jordan interrupted the person that was speaking and said “excuse me, in my culture the man kneels in front of the woman”. He had Prossy get up, took a knee and put a ring on her finger. I don’t know if he planned that whole deal for the perfect moment, but it was super smooth. It was like an ending to a movie, perhaps a Spike Lee Joint, written by John Hughes. Sarah and I got to wear some interesting new clothes. She wore a Gomas and I wore a Kanzu. The Gomas looks like an explosion of satin. Sarah loves the Gomas. The Kanzu looks like one of those long white dress things that Muslums wear, but it is traditional Buganda attire to wear at formal events. We’ll learn more about the Buganda later, keep your Kanzu on.

That was last Sunday (really the weekend before last), last Saturday (last, last Saturday) we paid a visit to some kids from Robinah’s Church. One of the Pastors called during the week and asked if we would like to make some home visits to the slums. He lined up six visits to see where the kids lay their heads and took us there. There has been no jading or desensitizing of the slum visit experience, even after dozens of walks through the slums.

The slums should not exist. Every time I walk through the slums I think of this documentary that I saw about PETA. If the people from PETA were to tour the slums they would stage a full-on riot protest and get arrested and that would just be because the chickens eat from the smoldering trash piles. I always picture the founder of PETA on the front page of the paper in a chicken suit with a bull horn and her helpers in little chick costumes pretending to peck garbage. In the background blurred, a little kid with no shoes or shirt chewing on chicken bone from the same pile. Easy, I’m not bashing PETA, I feel for the animals too. It’s just, kind of, you know, sometimes you just feel like yelling “does anybody know about this situation?” Anyway, this slum is particularly impressive because it sits on a flood plane. A wide canal runs through it. We scaled makeshift bridges across a network of deep ditches that vericose through the neighborhood and into the canal. The pit latrines sit high on brick stilts to prevent overflow, but it doesn’t seem to prevent the sewage from invading the streams, both air and ground. Dogs, chickens and goats lap the “water” and you wonder if this is the worst ecosystem on earth. Choir kids come from this place and many of the children that live here receive their school fees through the ACC sponsorship program. It is all the more impressive to meet young adults from ACC when you visit some of their homes.

That was last Saturday (you know the week before), last Friday (ditto), my co-worker Kristine and I rode together to school. Kristine gave up her house here until the middle of August to allow us to find a place to stay. She has pretty much helped us get rolling here in everyway. So yeah, we were on our way to work on Friday and as we passed by the Kabaka’s palace, we noticed more commotion than usual. The Kabaka is the king of the Buganda, the Buganda are the biggest tribe in Uganda. There is a President who runs the country, but the Kabaka has a massive following and is a powerful man. The President consults with the Kabaka regularly. Each day we drive by the Kabaka’s palace and grounds and head down the road in front of it that leads directly to his parliament building. We knew very little about the Kabaka and his whole deal, so we pulled over and checked out the goings on and stuff. We were immediately escorted to park inside the palace gate and we were greeted by an eager young tour guide. She took 2000 shillings (about $1) from each of us for a grand tour. Well, we were not allowed to go inside the palace, only the Kabaka’s family can go inside, and the Kabaka doesn’t live there and there is nothing inside the palace.

Each Kabaka builds his own palace and lives somewhere else, but the main palace is still his palace. When the Kabaka disappears, or “dies”, he is taken to the Kasubi Tomb. His widows take turns sitting at the tomb. Sarah and the kids toured the tomb, it is active there were some widows there. So on our tour, we really had a tour of the grounds and the grounds were pretty interesting. In the late seventies, when Idi Amin rose to power, he took out leadership across Uganda and he paid a visit to the Kabaka. Tour stop number one was a flattened Bentley, a rusted flattened Bentley, rusted and flattened by a tank and budding with vegetation. Second, a pile of axles, rims and gears that used to serve Kabaka as a Mercedes Benz. A bunch of other stuff, some day-dreaming and then if you’ll please turn your attention to that big cave looking thing.
That is Amin’s torture chamber. All throughout his reign Amin brought thousands of people from around the country to the Kabaka’s palace and slaughtered them. There is some pretty heavy history in this country. While we were learning the Facts of Life from Tudy and Blair, a full boat holocaust was in effect in

Uganda

. When you look at the problems here and contemplate solutions, you can start break it them into symptoms and diseases. You treat symptoms, you cure diseases. War and instability are the diseases that have contributed to the poverty.

When I got to work that morning I asked Dan, our resident Buganda, about the Kabaka and the tribe. There are ~55 Buganda clans and that number is growing. Dan is in the same clan as the Kabaka. Apparently the Kabaka addresses the parliament on occasion. According to Dan we can go watch him speak. According to Dan, if I wear my Kanzu they will give the Mazungu and nice spot in the front. According to Dan, if I wear my Kanzu and get a prime spot in the front, the Kabaka will wonder why there is a Mazungu in a Kanzu in his parliament. According to Dan, Kabaka will want to meet with the Mazungu in the Kanzu. So, I think if we are going to get anywhere with this slum problem, we’ll need to start working on the leadership. I’m not going to get a chicken suit and bull horn, but I will sit in parliament in a Kanzu. Peace.

Right and Left

2009-06-30T23:24:00.000-07:00

This girl just came out from around the corner and looked my way. I was in mid sentence when she appeared, I clicked a few shots and I have been haunted by the picture that she painted in my mind ever since. She was at the Father’s Day party. Many blog worthy have things have come and gone since. But, this girl made me struggle with some things that I would rather just bury and every time I try to blog out something clever and quant it gets over shadowed by this bout.

So, you may have noticed in some pictures on our Facebook sites that there is this little kid running around that is neither of Lambie loin, nor a product of Uganda. I added his photo just in case you haven’t ventured into the world of Facebook. He is the cute little Asian kid. His name is Cory. Cory is our nephew. Cory does not look like our kids. Cory does not look like the Ugandan kids. We have only known Cory for about 10 months and to keep it brief Cory’s best option became moving to Uganda with the Lambies. Cory and our youngest son Noah have effectively become brothers and by way of their teaming agreement to pester our oldest son Andrew, the three of them have quickly become unquestioned siblings. The kids have handled this new mix pretty well and minus some boredom they have adapted well to our new home. As a parent, moving to Africa has changed the family portrait into a bit of a Picasso, but, add new kid and the collective dynamic channels Pollack. As a parent, or maybe as a person that is just getting old, I feel like it is my job to get that portrait looking right. But, there is this new person and a new place and things have seriously changed. I don’t know how long Cory will be with us and I don’t know to what degree he will be with us. There is uncertainty and with uncertainty, doubt and with doubt, reluctance and with reluctance, distance. There is distance between Cory and I. He knows I’m not his dad and I struggle to treat him with the same tolerance and compassion as I treat my own kids. He needs more than I think I can give. I thought we were doing the right thing by bringing Cory with us, but that alone, it isn’t good enough.

The girl in the photo, she’s from the slums, she got a proper meal on Father’s day. But, she looked at the camera and was stoic. I took some shots, zoomed in, took some shots, moved the camera to the side of my face and pulled a coaxing smile. She didn’t budge. You can tell by looking at her that her life isn’t easy. She is on to deal with the uncertainty of where the next meal will come from; she knows I’m not bringing it, she doubts we’ll be back. Her eyes expose my hypocrisy and paint a portrait of distance. We came here to help kids, but am I able to help my own nephew? Cory gets a place to stay and some fine food, but that’s it from me and that’s easy to give. Cory and this girl have a lot in common. So maybe in this attempt to do the right thing there is a limit, a boundary where continuing might become too difficult, a point where giving starts to encroach on a more than the extra stuff or leftovers. Where a decision must be made to commit or just be a tourist, a giver of something more than material gifts. It might be time to make some choices. So, we went back to Robinah’s little Church last Sunday. I saw the girl again; she was wearing the same dress.

Later that day we had ‘Visitation Day” at the African Children’s Choir Primary School. The guardians, brothers and sisters showed up to see their kids, the staff and the school. Principal Williams addressed the assembly; he was wearing his African Children’s Choir t-shirt and something clicked. Maybe we have a new family portrait.

Father's Day

2009-06-22T06:54:00.000-07:00

One of the very first choir Chaperones, Robinah, has been holding Church at this little school for the past three years. She has a pretty good following of little kids from the slums and I visited her program last weekend and had a blast. So when I got an email from a friend saying that their family would like to do something special in honor all of the Dads out there, I called Robinah. She organized a volunteer crew and on Father’s Day about 200 kids threw down heaping bowls of rice, gravy and beef after Church. It was a pretty big deal for them. They don’t get a meal everyday and beef is a rare treat. They were very, very appreciative of the good folks back in Austin. Happy Father’s Day and big thanks Bradshaws!

Bricks & Mortar

2009-06-19T04:40:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Noah’s 4^th birthday last week with a trip to the bowling alley and dinner at the local equivalent of what I can only describe as Chuck e Cheese with Golden Corral food. I think he was pretty happy with the whole deal. The bowling lane contraptions broke down about four times during our game, but they had some sweet eighties tunes playing in the background. Not the kind that made a Top 40 countdown, but the vaguely recognizable B-Sides that you would hear playing over a Knight Rider or A-Team chase scene. The kids took turns spinning around on the smooth bowling lane floors while the guys fixed the arm thingy that sweeps the balls and pins into that area of abyss. Luckily the boys mopped up most of the red dust (that settles on everything here) because it was really ruining my ball spin. This bowling alley worked nothing like the consistent and reliable reality that you get on Wii Sports. The bowling skills that I honed in my living room over the Christmas holiday were absolutely useless in this environment. Sarah made a cake and bought some candles. The restaurant gladly lit the candles and ushered the cake out to us with their version of the Applebee’s happy birthday song. We could hardly listen to the lyrics by the distraction of the candles. They were closer to Roman Candles spraying sparks and fire in every direction. We would have violated about sixty codes and laws back in the states, but our fellow diners barely gave notice.

Anyway, I bring all of this up to introduce the lame analogy that has been plaguing my brain this week. So, Sarah baked the cake. Some of you may be familiar with this process. You probably have most the stuff that you would need to bake a cake right there in your house. You could probably pre-heat the oven while pulling the ingredients together, cracking the eggs and dropping them into a bowl with the Betty Crocker cake mix. You could likely get mixer going and lather the Pyrex before the oven dings to alert you of its readiness to bask your creation in an evenly distributed cradle of 425 degree heat (or whatever, I don’t really know how to bake a cake!). The point is when I say “So Sarah baked a cake” most people have a pretty could mental image of what that process would entail.

Okay hold on a second, there is a guy coming up the hill next to my house with four huge cows. One is pulling his bicycle that is loaded to the brim (and I mean brim) with some sort of bounty that wouldn’t fit in the back of a pick up truck. Sorry, got distracted. I may author a picture book called “Amazing Feats of Cargo”, before I leave Africa. Resourcefulness and creative engineering add delight and wonder to each day and I love having livestock roaming around. I had to wait for some bulls to pass before pulling out of my driveway the other day.

Right then, so the African Children’s Choir has been raising young Africans since you pulled on your first pair of leg warmers. The organization started in the mid-eighties and many of the early choir kids have finished college. Some have become doctors, lawyers, pilots, journalists etc. Some have gone back to their homes to help development, some work for the choir and some struggle to start business and/or get jobs. When we first started talking about moving here, these young Africans were top of mind. My friend Robert, who originally connected us with the choir, had been thinking about this very problem for quite some time. Last week Robert and his neighbor Carl arrived in Africa to understand the business development situation. So, if I were starting a business or thinking about starting a business or running a business, it would be a blessing to have these guys on the team. Robert consults, mostly software companies, during various stages of their life cycle. Companies bring him in to ramp up and train sales and marketing teams, consult on mergers/acquisitions or fine tune existing operations that need to get to the next level. Carl has founded, operated and sold about a half dozen tech companies and continues to run a few. Between these two guys you could get a new company off of the ground and your probability of success would be extremely high. They organized four workshops with groups of 20-30 something aged choir kids to gather information about the challenges they face and to run some exercises to get a feel for their skills. They started in Kenya and then they came to Uganda. Countless people and organizations have come to Africa to “fix it”. Many have failed and from what I have gathered so far, they typically fail because they just don’t understand how things work here. Sally, our Director, thought it would be very important for Robert and Carl to also understand where the choir kids came from, so some home visits were organized. We visited three homes and each visit had its own dynamic, story and lesson. Robert was even gifted a handsome rooster by one of the families. It was the visit to Morris’ place that really stood out for me. Morris is the IT guy for our organization. He set up my Outlook and got me connected my first week here. We took a 40-minute ride to Morris’ tiny village outside of Kampala to meet his family. As we drew closer to our destination the red dirt roads continually narrowed and the over hang of banana leaves and mango trees grew thick “high-fiving” the truck from every direction. Once we arrived, the children and young adults greeted us as we unloaded, but we quickly made our way to Morris’ mother. The elders are the most respected members of the family and Morris’ mom, sitting on a hand woven matt, invited us for a conversation in Luganda. Our driver Dan did most of the translating and she welcomed us gratefully as everybody else went back to work. We were under strict orders to get back to Kampala by 2:30 for an assembly at the African Children’s Choir Primary School. This gave us about 90 minutes to visit, but, two fires were burning one with a pot topped with piles of steaming banana leaves and the other had a stew brewing. I’m already running the time calculations in my head as Morris starts the tour. With meticulous and prideful detail Morris introduced us to what could possibly be the most bountiful little plot of land in existence. Cows, pigs, chickens, goats, bananas, mangos, cinnamon, coffee, potatoes, beans and termites (yes, we ate live termites) all nestled on the side of a valley with a spectacular view. We ventured down several small paths meeting brothers, nieces, sisters, nephews and neighbors until we arrived close to the village center. We could hear the open aired school building erupt with mounting chatter as the children took notice of the visitors. Most of the folks in town walked to the forefront of their property and asked us to hang for a mango or whatever they were pealing at the time. Just down the road a guy was packing mud into a small molding, slapping some water on it and then laying out shiny red bricks onto his lawn to dry. He must have had enough to put up a full wall. He was cranking out two bricks at a time every 3 minutes at steady and brisk pace. We watched that guy for a quite a while, I don’t know why it was so fascinating. I think we were all thinking college + job + savings + credit score + mortgage + 30 years = home ownership, but this guy could bust out a house for little more than a few days of labor. As I eyeballed his life I wander and wonder if he has ever cared how the DJIA is doing and if that has ever dictated his mood or decisions. I guarantee he doesn’t have a birth certificate, social security card, driver’s license, credit card, heath insurance policy, bank account or 401k. Is brick making his business? Is he interested in growing his production and streamlining his supply chain? Could he take advantage of the inexpensive labor force, merge with the guy that cuts thatch, acquire his competitor in the next village? He could build a master planned community with pools and schools. He could stage it, charge association fees and drop in a strip mall and attract a Walmart. But, like most businesses here this one was born from necessity and zero capital investment. There was no 90 day plan, five point plan or long-range plan. What is really important to this man, his community, his family, his friends? He may very well live and die with no written record his existence. He’ll never see the Yankees play the Red Sox in the Bronx, the lights in Las Vegas, or the Eiffel Tower. He will never drive a sports car over 100mph or fly in an airplane. Does any of that stuff really matter? We all struggle to leave our mark, find some significance and understand our purpose. As we gawk a gloat of pride appears. Some westerners have taken interest and are taking pictures. You can see a spring in his step, contentment in his eyes, a virtue in his competence and peace in the simplicity. What are we here to teach and what are we here to learn? Okay we have to get back to town by 2:30, let’s get going. Back at Morris’ place Noah and Cory were still hanging out with the family and we sat down with Mom. Mom is actually also a Grandma and a Great Grandma and we try to count the collective offspring and get stuck around 30. She is respectfully cared for by her family and needed some healthcare items that Morris’ committed to bring back from town. Morris’ sister unwrapped most of the banana leaves from one of the cooking pots and started mushing them around. Morris’ brother was stirring the stew and it was pretty thick and smelled really good. By the way, we are sitting between mud thatch huts with no running water or electricity; we were in the bush not a backyard BBQ. No matter, I look at Morris he smiles, we’re staying for lunch and we’ll just have to gun it back to town.

So a day later Carl and Robert held a business workshop with the young choir adults. They had a good picture of where the kids had grown up. They asked questions about the resources available to them, their ideas, their challenges, their opportunities, their failures, their successes, taxes, fraud, and corruption. They gained a good understanding of the situation, the problems and the needs. They also gained a good sense of what is important, what can help the community and what should remain undisturbed. These guys could have rolled into town and given a world class business seminar and they would have done a great service. But they donated their time, their expenses, their expertise and talents with the intent to understand and empower these kids. These kids have the potential to be great African leaders and develop their communities responsibly. Robert and Carl realize this and that it won’t be accomplished in a one-day seminar, but they made a big impact and I hope they realize how much they have already helped and I’m so glad they are on the team.

Compass Please

2009-06-03T00:38:00.000-07:00

The roosters crow and so I wake. We have been in Uganda for 16 days and it is clear, life will never be the same. We are staying in a comfortable little home in an area of Kampala called Gaba. It is a fishing village on the shore of Lake Victoria and it is quite beautiful. We wake every morning to the sound of a dozen crowing roosters and to the bellow of massive cranes that look prehistoric in size. At night we are treated to the sounds of loud music blasting from the slum area located about two blocks from our rent house, but the sounds, sights and smells are all a new and exciting experience that are not intrusive, but an indicator that we are visitors in a very different place. We take evening walks through the new neighborhood and meet the locals who are very passive, happy and welcoming to their new mzungu (white people) neighbors. Our house is nice and the houses around us are nice, but we live no less than one block away from a slum and from my patio I can see a sheet metal shack where several small children live without running water, food or electricity. We have no TV reception or Internet connection at the house, so we’re reading, writing, editing photos and splicing videos on the computer in the evenings. Life is very simple.
Our little fishing village has a boat dock and open market on the shore of the lake. Fresh fruit, vegetables and fish arrive at the dock on small banana shaped boats and are quickly put on display in a series of small shack booths for sale. At first glance the area is quite intimidating to foreign eyes, but the people are just absolutely great. They are not aggressive in selling their goods so you can walk freely through the market, exchange smiles and feel comfortable. Yes, we have eaten the fruit, vegetables and the fish from the market. It is fresh, cheap and awesome and nobody has been sick. The boys and I made our way there last week and negotiated a ride on one of the small fishing boats. Our boat driver, unimpressed by Noah, was polite and informative. “Stop rocking the boat Noah” often interrupted my street level education on the local farming, fishing and transport industry. The boys were so happy to be free after the past few weeks that I had to let them go a bit crazy. We visited a primitive little island about a mile from shore, looked for monkeys, saw gigantic spiders and bought 4-dozen hand picked tomatoes for about one dollar, twice the asking price. I just handed most of them out to the little kids on our walk back to the house.
We are just slightly north of the equator and the weather and temperature here is pretty much perfect all year round. There are two rainy seasons that hit in the spring and fall. The soil is rich and everything grows wildly. Chickens, cows and goats roam freely and the insects are everywhere. Malaria (spread by mosquitoes) was originally one of our major concerns, but it is rare in Kampala. We are no longer taking Malaria medication; we are just spraying ourselves with repellent in the evenings and sleeping under mosquito nets. Most of the dangers and warnings that we heeded have been dispelled by local experience and through discussion with westerners that been here for decades. There are things to be cautious about, but we are not worried at all about our health or safety. There are some household items that are difficult and/or frustrating to acquire, but for the most part, our adjustment has been pretty smooth. Now, this all sounds to good to be true until you hop in a car and try to make your way into and across town.
The traffic here is insane. Not like inching along the freeway insane, (although that can happen also) but I’m talking no signs, no signals and no boundaries. It is quite impressive to see this in action. Buses, motorcycles, trucks and cars flow like liquid filling every square millimeter of the road, shoulder and everything in between, moving quickly, fluidly and largely uninterrupted. Hand signals, headlight flashes and subtle motions dictate the right-of-way in a symphony of chaos that somehow begins to make sense. There is an underlying courtesy that I think must stems from the jest of the traffic’s ridiculum and there doesn’t seem to be a rage on the road. I learned to drive this week, I have screwed up several times and in my bumper-to-bumper near encounters, my victims and I exchange smiles and carry on.
I got an email last week from my Pastor back in Austin. He is a great guy. He has been reading the blog and finds it amusing, but I know he wants know what going on spiritually here, more specifically, I know he wants to know what God is doing. It is kind of his MO to make me step out of my comfort zone and I feel compelled to give him some perspective. I am certainly no preacher or philosopher, but if you are going to bother reading this, I might as well fill it with attempts to provide transparent observations and take a swing at substance.
So, there is this phrase “what God is doing” that has been a concept that has always been difficult for me to comprehend. What God is doing? Is it the way things move? Is it how we behave individually based on what we know about God? Is it something that we do communally? Maybe it is a slap in the face or the wedgie that your big brother gave you for stealing his stuff. Maybe you believe in God or maybe you don’t. Maybe it’s our moral code or that voice in our head that keeps us up at night telling us what’s wrong or right or what we need to change or what we need to keep the same. Maybe if we would all just shut up long enough, listen and pay attention we would all know. But, we came here to answer a call, so I guess you could say that everything that is going on here is a result of what God has done. I can say that my family has been welcomed to come to Africa. I can say that we have been stripped of most everything that we know and we are starting over with simplicity. I can say that we are being forced to become more of a family and we are starting to do the things we like to do together, instead of separately. Sarah and I are talking about the things that have been disturbing us for a long time and finding out that what has been disturbing us is mostly just long standing distorted perceptions resulting from lack of communication. I can say that God is inspiring a drum circle or two with loud singing within earshot of our patio on most nights of the week.
At work, The Choir kids at the schools and training centers sing with clear harmony, there is peace in their eyes, confidence in their posture and laughter in their spirit. Some of these kids have only been in the training center for two months and you can notice a huge visible transformation.
I woke up early last Sunday morning and took a drive down the road looking for a place to get coffee. They don’t really have coffee shops, so my quest was fruitless. But, in the process I came me across a group of villagers filling their drinking water canisters from a roadside ditch. They were all dressed very nicely filing down the road with their large yellow jugs balanced on their heads and smiles on their faces. They were running their morning errand before heading out to Church. They are dirt poor, but were all smiles and dressed in their best. So, I think about all of these things and maybe all of this is what God is doing.

Arrival in Uganda

2009-05-20T03:46:00.000-07:00

May 18, 2009

It is our first morning in Uganda. For the past week we have been moving at the speed of light packing our belonging and saying good bye to our friends and family. By day, what seemed to be an endless process of categorizing, wrapping, labeling and boxing, by night, last dinners at our favorite places with our favorite peeps. Now I’m sitting on the back patio of our rent house in Kampala having a coffee and enjoying the view of Lake Victoria. There is a rooster about 50 yards away doing his thing. It is cool with a light breeze and very peaceful morning. Everybody else is still asleep. Our travel here was unexpectedly smooth. I had been training myself mentally to clock out and do whatever it would take to pacify three boys during 20 hours of flight time. I imagined a thousand apologies to the man sitting directly in front of Noah for the certain countless mule kicks to the back of his chair and to the flight attendant for the false alarms of button pushing. But, none of that happened. The kids behaved very well and my buddies at KLM kept the boys entertained, nourished and hydrated. If KLM Airlines were a person that person would be my BFF. Sally and Christine, from Music for Life, picked us up at the airport and delivered us to our new residence. Christine is letting us stay in her house until we get settled, find a school for the kids and find a place of our own. I took some video that I plan to upload, so I won’t bother describing the scenery, but I’m pretty okay with this situation so far. Moses, our night guard, seems like a fine young man and there is a guesthouse on the property occupied by Pamela, a college student and former African Children’s Choir kid. I invited her for tea or coffee this morning, but she was in a hurry to get to an exam. We are taking care of Christine’s kitten Mocha, he is grey, was shy at first, but he doesn’t seem to have a problem getting into everything in the kitchen or taking a lick from Cory’s bowl of cereal. Christine showed us how to make Mocha’s breakfast, so I did that this morning. That kitten eats sardines and rice. It looks really good and I was tempted to take a lick to retaliate for the cereal invasion.

May 20, 2009

We have been running around town for the last two days getting acquainted with the city, Music for Life Schools, choir training facilities and the good folks that run them. On Monday we visited one of the two choir training facilities and were greeted by 24 screaming choir kids and Uncle Barnett the genus who runs that facility. Barnett and I know each other from my trip to Kenya last summer and he was sure to blast the Killer Crocs of Uganda CD upon on our arrival (I gave it to him last year, the irony looms). Our kids were treated to a game of soccer, but Noah opted to spend his time showing the African babies how he can sit inside of a bucket and then put that bucket on his head. We didn’t inspect the bucket or ask anybody about its original purpose, but Noah wasn’t afraid and he is really intent to bring his skills to the African people. We were able to shoot out a quick email or two from the training facility, but connectivity here has been sparse and slow so far. We do not have a connection at the rent house, but we are getting used to and taking pleasure in human interaction and being in the moment.
Yesterday we visited the school building project in Entebbe (Just outside of Kampala). We have the most passionate, creative and competent manager running the building project, Steve. His task is amazingly difficult and the resources available to him are limited by western standards, but the quality of the buildings is incredible. He and his crew cut and mill their own wood and make the bricks and concrete by hand, no sub-contracting or pre-fabricated materials. The plan includes environmentally friendly water and sewage treatment and there is virtually no wasted building material. We had lunch with Steve and his wife. Steve is from Maine, but graduated from that Texan University located in Bryan and Melinda is from Tennessee. They have been here for four years and are raising two biological daughters and two adopted Ugandan girls. Their youngest daughter was rescued floating in a pot latrine three hours after her birth. She is now a beautiful 10-month old girl and you would never know that she was left for dead at the bottom of an outhouse. I could probably take a side bar here and write a small novel about this situation, but I’m sure if you give this rescue some thought, you will sit up in bed and think about it for hours as I have done today. Steve and Melinda are a really cool couple and I suppose we will hang with them s some more.
We also visited the other Choir Training center very briefly. The kids were in classes, so we didn’t want to disturb them. We did get to see Tillas, who is another former choir kid that we worked with us in Kenya last summer. Tillas is a cool kid, always hospitable, always smiling, but he demands perfection from the kids in training.
After Sally dropped us back at the rent house the Lambie family decided to take a walk down to the lake. We are living on the side of a hill, but we can’t really see the surrounding area for the large trees. We headed to down a dirt road and quickly found ourselves in the middle of a slum area no less than two blocks from our place. I had way too much cash in my pocket to be walking through a slum, but we kept going pushing for lake access. The people in the slum area were very welcoming and the children would come up to Cory, Noah and Andrew and give them hugs. We never really made it to the lake because we lost ourselves in the labyrinth of the slums and it was getting dark, but we’ll give it another try tomorrow.

May 2, 2009

2009-05-02T10:51:00.000-07:00

So much has happened since the last blog entry. Things are moving quickly, but the chaos seems to have some order. We have flagged many questions since the blog went out. Many about what we planned to do with our house and our stuff. We signed a three-year rental agreement on our house. I can't tell you what a relief it is to have this house thing resolved and we could not image finding better people to take over our home. Our renters will move in about a week after we leave and they generously offered to let us store some of our personal belongings in the attic space above the garage. Our friends have slowly claimed the rest of our stuff and family, some of it at major discount, some of it on loan. I have to tell you, when we first decided to move, my brain was consumed with how to maximize the take on all of the treasure that we have accumulated. At the center of it all, my guitars, amps and the fabulous flat screen television that I just bought. I was a flat screen holder outer for the longest time. When they first came out they were fascinating, but super expensive. I convinced myself that it was unnecessary to own such an expensive toy. Besides, we were always trying to convince the kids to stay away from the TV. I finally dropped in and bought one last summer and that glorious high definition picture streams sporting events and movies into my bedroom making me smile and marvel. We plan only to take the airline sanctioned maximum load of two fifty pound checked backs and two carry ons. I will probably take a guitar along, but the rest will be the bare essentials. Oddly, the attachment to all the stuff has just kind of disappeared as it has become more vividly clear that we are doing the right thing with our lives. Other things have just become much more important. It is actually quite interesting when you try to give your stuff away. Most people I know don’t have room in their homes for any more furniture, toys or electronics. I wonder if consumer confidence is really at an all time low or if we have just stuffed ourselves to the brim.

Anyway, we hosted a benefit concert last Thursday to raise funds for a school building project that is underway in Uganda. Music for Life purchased a 15-acre plot of land in Entebbe with a beautiful view of Lake Victoria that will be home and school to approximately 150 children with phased plans to expand. If all goes according to plan the first students will occupy the new school in September. All of the funds to complete the project have not been secured, so the money that we raised at the benefit will go directly to materials and labor. We are very blessed to have so many generous and supportive friends and it was great to get everyone together one last time before we leave. Many people have asked if this is Oprah's school or next to Oprah's school. It is not, sorry, but the school does share a similar vision; to educated and develop Africa's next generation of leaders. Change will have to come within and Africans must lead the change. It would be a tragedy to dilute African culture by imposing our western views. So, transformation with solid moral leadership is the best way to make a long term impact and end corruption, war and poverty.

Also, last Saturday we joined the Invisible Children organization on a walk from the UT Tower to the State Capitol building in Austin. The organization held and event called "The Rescue" in major cities all over the globe. The idea was to simulate child soldier abductions. In Northern Uganda a rebel force called the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has terrorized millions. The army grows by kidnapping children and forcing them to become soldiers. Their methods are pure evil and have gone relatively unabated for many years. Once abducted, these kids are forced to kill under the threat of being killed themselves. They are often forced to shoot their own family members to prove their loyalty. Recent peace talks with rebel leaders failed and an attempt to arrest their leadership forced the group to scatter into the jungles of the Congo. Along the way, the army has killed and maimed thousands of innocent villagers and they have kidnapped approximately 1400 more kids since the beginning of the year. Refugee camps in Northern Uganda house over a million people that have been force to abandon their homes in fear. Thousands of children are starving to death in these camps. Yesterday's event shed light on the LRA by mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people around the world to communicate with leaders and to illustrate the tragedy and devastation that the rebels have imposed on so many people. While sitting on the Capitol lawn I was forced to think that there is a ten year old kid sitting out there in a jungle right now trying to reconcile shooting his parent and siblings and that he will be ruined and alone for the rest of his life. It is disgusting, shocking and completely unacceptable that these crimes can still happen in this day and age. This is one of the most horrific situations happening on the planet right now and not many people know about it.

Learn more about it: www.invisiblechildren.com/home.php

April 8, 2009

2009-04-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

The Lambie family has a little life change to announce and what could be the making of some pretty interesting stories, so we decided to blog it out. Hopefully Sarah will step in and be the writer at some point. She is a writer by trade, smarter and better looking than me, so don’t give up on this blog based on my elementary musings.

So, I took a trip to Africa. You have probably heard about the place and have seen the infomercials. Some celebrities go there and come home with a papoose with a baby in it. Africa has always been an image of poverty and despair to me. I grew up watching my favorite 80’s pop stars singing to a back drop of starving kids with bloated belly’s, relief workers circling a hand cranked water pump that would only spit out a half quart of sludge and that guy telling you how many villages could be feed with your three cents a day. The cool part was that if you just changed the channel, they would always just go away and so would the quilt that rode in with them. Africa always seemed way too hopeless and so very far away to me. Besides, the people there were used to living in those conditions and there were clearly people addressing these problems. I was just a kid, always to busy digging a hole in the backyard to pay any attention to these worldly matters, but it is interesting how those original images shaped my world view. Anyway, I went there last summer with six people from my church and we spent two weeks in Nairobi Kenya. Originally, I didn’t want to go, I had no desire to see Africa. Those original images were all that I could see. Sarah really wanted to go and kept nagging me to go with her. She even did that thing that kids do, you know, when they flop around on the floor in Target until you agree to buy them a toy. I finally caved (as I always do when she does the flop) and then she decided stay home with the kids. I started to wonder if she took out a policy on me.

Our trip was planned around a music camp that we organized with the help of an organization called Music for Life. We worked with about 100 kids from the Kibera Slums and had an amazing week teaching them music, playing games and fixing up there school. We also had a fabulous nurse with us that took a mobile pharmacy of supplies and treated every kid in the camp. The situation was definitely desperate, but it was nothing like the images that I knew. The people were happy, generous and hospitable. The kids had a strong desire to learn and the people around them longed for their education and the hope that things will eventually get better. All of us really bonded with those kids and we were deeply impacted by our time in Africa. There was a tremendous sense of hope and we could feel it. I made a deal with God to return and help and a promise to a crying ten year old boy that I would never forget him. It is unacceptable to let these kids perish. They are just like our own kids, no different. I don’t think that I really retuned from Africa, I just came back home to make some plans.

So, I resigned from my job on Monday. I have been selling software for the past eight years for a notable Fortune 500 company. It has been a pretty great way to make a living and I have made many great friends along the way. I have often been surprised by the amount of responsibility has been given to me at my company and how much I’ve learned about leadership and business. I gave what will probably be my last sales presentation last week and will spend the next 30 days transitioning my duties to other people. My last day with the company will be May 8th.

I accepted a position with Music for Life, the organization that hosted us during our trip to Kenya. It is the parent organization of the African Children’s Choir www.africanchildrenschoir.com. The mission is to rescue children from the most desperate slums and villages in Africa. The program teaches these vulnerable children to sing and dance and they tour the planet performing on television, for world leaders and with popular musicians. When they return, they complete their education in the Music for Life school and the program sees them through college and beyond. We will be relocating to Kampala Uganda in May and I will manage business affairs and partnerships for Music for Life. Kampala is a safe and modern city and our kids will attend a private school with an American curriculum. The organization is in the process of raising funds to erect a new school building to expand its reach and my whole family is excited to be a part of it.

We are in the process of selling our house(s) and offloading the piles of toys and electronics that we have accumulated over the past decade. We are excited about the changes and experiences that are coming. We realize that we may only chip away a small piece of the long standing problems that have plagued Africa, but, it is time to do something about it. Hopefully you won’t change the channel.