Wow. July 14. November 7. I really have no words. If there is one thing I have learned the past few months, it is that I am not meant to be a blogger, I think I am just not hip enough.

I have just over a month left in Uganda, which is kind of crazy. My time here has flown (crawled) by.... I don't really know how to explain it. Right now I'm living in a village with a family of 12 children and occupying my own hut. I have been there for about a month and I have the rest of November there. Living in a remote African village has been a learning experience to say the least. To be honest, it's hard to put a finger on what exactly I have learned..... sometimes it makes me question if I have learned anything at all, but I'm pretty sure I have. At the very least, I think I now know myself better than I ever have. There aren't many things I can distract myself from myself here, so it's like all my shortcomings, quirks, OCDs, failures, and doubts seem to pop out all the time.

So I think I will leave you all with a clip from my last 'self-assessment' letter, an update on ourselves that each of the HNGR interns sends back to the HNGR department. And if the internet cooperates, I will also attach some pics!

Word.
Rae


A brief description of these pictures:
(1) Some of my brothers and sisters sitting in front of my hut.
(2) Some of my bros and sis's eating lunch after coming back from school. (The way we eat here is very communal, I like it a lot. Kwon, the staple food in my village is in the blue plate in the middle of the mat. We all share that one plate, pinching a piece of kwon off and dipping it into your individual bowl of beans. Yum)
(3) I teach Primary 6 and 7 classes in mathematics. (P6 and P7 are essentially 7th and 8th grade). This is me and my P7 class. The P6 class is twice as big....

7/11/08

My host dad here is devoutly Catholic and even volunteers his time as a catechist in the neighboring parish. This has been a great blessing for me being that I don’t have much of a Christian community here, at least not like what I was expecting. So recently I have tried to take advantage of the presence of this man who has such strong faith in God and the Church, something that I know better now than ever that I lack. Often when we sit outside together listening to the chickens cluck and watching his small children play and greeting neighbors on their way to fetch water, I ask him those seemingly basic questions about God that, though you would think they have equally basic responses, answering them takes a lot of time and depth and thought (at least for me). And even with all those inputs, I am still often left without answers. So I ask my dad because even though I may not get a fool-proof, unassailable answer, it is his unique perspective and experience that I really want to hear. Why does God allow bad things to happen like Kony’s war in the North? Why are there rich people and poor people? What is the purpose of the Church and why do we call it the Body of Christ? Why does Jesus say the Gospel is the good news for the poor? Like clockwork, I ask my question, he looks down at his hands, leans back in his chair, takes a breath and says “You know…”, and then starts to reflect on the posed question. I usually don’t give my own opinion or thought unless he asks. I just try and take it all in, everything that he is saying without first criticizing or analyzing it in my head, I just want to take it and hold on to it. Not all of his responses reflect the marginalized perspective that I hope to find or that we often read about each month, but the truth remains that he is living on the margins, and I want to genuinely listen to what he is saying. I think the most beautiful part of his reflections is how much he sincerely believes what he is saying, as if it is fused together with the deepest part of him, and he has no choice but to let this faith of his shape his life, actions, and relationships entirely.

With a little more than a month to go, I want to be very intentional about listening to people. I know a lot of us have talked about listening to people’s stories as a way of identifying with and affirming who they are and what they have seen. Maybe I’m just echoing this sentiment. But as I find myself thinking about and preparing for my return home, I don’t want to be distracted from these marginalized voices telling me about their lives and beliefs and hopes, because I know when I get back to the States/Wheaton life those voices will be much harder to hear.

Hello friends!
I hope this post finds everyone well. I have gotten a couple of requests to post pictures that will help give you all a better idea of the places and people I come in to contact with in daily life here. I hope these pictures help, thanks for all the interest and support you have shown me this past month....... I can't believe it's been a month already!

I live here! It is a nice house isn't it? I'm beginning to realize that I have it so easy compared to some of my neighbors here. As I have seen the poverty of eastern Uganda, I think that my family is probably upper middle class in Tororo. The first night I moved in, however, I didn't feel like I was living in an upper middle class home. I thought that it would be so hard to transition to this living situation because of silly things like no hot water, a flushable hole in the floor for a toilet, and lots of bugs and cockroaches. In reality though it has not been a hard transition. I think I measure it by my relationship with the cockroaches. At first I was so grossed out by them. When I saw one I would glare at it with disgust and hatred before squashing it with my shoe. As time passed, I still hated them but when I saw them I just let them be as long as they were not scurrying towards me. Now we get along just fine. Plus, I am going to have to get used to lots of bugs because I will be living in a hut in the village for the last three months of my stay here.

This is my "dedicated desk," as people call your workspace here. At least my supervisor does. When he first told me we needed to get a "dedicated desk" for me, I was about to tell him that any desk will do really, it doesn't have to be a desk especially dedicated to me and my work. Thankfully I decided just to wait and see what he meant which saved me from some embarrassment.

These two women I have spent a lot of time with, it has been so fun getting to know them. The one on the left is Barna, but Ugandan English pronounces it like "Bana". She is a legal advisor at Mifumi's advice center. I have gotten especially close to her because she seems to understand Western culture and is very sensitive to the cultural differences that I experience here. She is a Muslim, and so I have had some really interesting conversations with her about religion. It's been very eye opening working with people of all faiths (and lack there of), but despite what people do or do not believe, they still are all about seeking justice, protecting and empowering women, forgiving perpetrators, and loving all. The lady on the right is Rosemarie, and she's kind of like a mother to me. She always calls me her daughter when we greet and has been instrumental in making me feel at home at the advice center and trying to let me contribute to their work there.

I am especially proud of this picture. This is not posed or anything, I am actually cooking, and over a charcoal fire at that. This may not be noteworthy for many of you, but if you talked to my parents, you would see why this is such a big deal. I really don't (can't) cook at all. My mom is such a GREAT cook and I know that I should take advantage of that and learn from her, but I've always been too lazy or something, telling myself that one day I will figure it out. But when I was in Kampala this past weekend, I asked Jane, the co-worker I was staying with, if I could help with anything, and she said I could fry the chicken. So I fried chicken African-style. And it was good.

These are Mzungus!!!! I had to include this picture because seeing all the mzungu tourists made me think a lot about what HNGR is about. This was taken in a crowded market in Kampala, and it isn't a very good picture because I kind of had to be sneaky about it so that they wouldn't see me taking a picture of them. I guess this scene just makes me grateful for HNGR. Instead of wandering around Kampala huddled together with other white people, wearing sunglasses and backpacks and moneybelts, I was sitting on the front stoop of a small shop owned by an elderly Ugandan woman, the sister of Jane. We were laughing together over coca colas about my mzungu tourist friends. Of course I know that the reality is I am a short-termer no matter how you look at it, but at least I am a short-termer who is embedded in Ugandan culture and life. It is definitely hard sometimes to always be learning and making mistakes in a new culture, but I know it is worth it.

Thanks for reading, I'll post some more in the next couple of weeks. Peace!

Apparently I can upload videos too! So this is just a goofy clip of Marvin and I that Gary shot. We are in my room, and it was taken when the power had been cut at the house for a couple of days so that's why it's dark. I think Marvy wanted to tell a story or something, but he didn't get a chance to tell it before Gary cut it off.

Internet has been good to me today as you can see. Here are a few pictures of me with my host family. The first one is my host mom Beatrice and little brother Marvin, who I actually just found out is not 5 but 3 and turning 4 soon. They are sitting in the living room, which is where we usually spend our evenings after coming home from work.
The next one shows Joven, Gary, and Mabel from left to right and Marvin in front. Gary, the tall one in the back, is my other host brother. Joven and Mabel are my two neighbors who come over on the weekends and call me Auntie Rachael. This picture was taken on a walk around our neighborhood that the five of us took this past weekend. The big hill in the back is a volcanic rock...everyone calls it the Rock... that towers over Tororo. I hope to climb it soon...
And the last one is just me and Marvy on my bed. Marvy and Gary love taking pictures with my camera, especially when I 'make it talk' as they say when we record a video with it.

That's all for now, hopefully soon I'll get some pictures of my workplace and the town of Tororo. Thanks for all your support from back home!
Peace and blessings
Rachael

Stupid Internet

Well if you're reading this, you know that I lied about the pictures. It (I'm not sure what 'it' is) won't let me upload photographs, so I'll try again tomorrow...