Hello Everyone! I am back in Kampala, the city and capital of Uganda. I apologize for not posting in such a long time. We did not have the internet like we expected so the time I did get, I used sparingly to get graduate applications completed. So I owe you all a good update on life as it is in Africa. I will begin with Mbale, the town that I lived in while I was on practicum. Mbale is the third largest town in Uganda, but it is very small compared to Kampala. Although, it is pretty large compared to most of the other towns. Two other students and I lived in the Food for the Hungary (FH) office for a few days under four weeks, pretty much the whole month of October. While we were there we worked in two of the near by villages called Makhia and Bufukhula. FH has different programs, but the one that was active in the Mbale district, where I worked, is the child development program. We got the opportunity to work with a program that helped send children to school, provide uniforms, make sure children were getting a meal at school, helped children at home, and closely interacted with the schools. Most of what I did while there was taking photos of the students for their sponsors and filling out their progress reports. It was a very interesting experience, I learned a lot but not in the way I expected to.
When coming to Africa and especially when preparing to go on practicum, I prepared myself to see a lot of poverty and be faced with the struggle of understanding how to help and how to see God through it. And although we were prepped on not expecting to the change the world and make huge strides, I still secretly expected to make a huge impact. I told myself to serve in anyway possible, even if it wasn't fun and wasn't exactly what I thought my job was. But after I was there I realized that I secretly expected to do certain things and experience specific things. One of the communities we were working in had an established Child development programs for almost 10 years now. FH has had a huge influence on this community and was beginning to phase out of the community. So, we got the opportunity to see the success stories of the CDP program and to see how well the community was doing. Overall, I left practicum sad that I was unable to see sadness and poverty which is weird. I learned once I arrived with the rest of the group how great of an experience I received because I got the opportunity to see how great a program can be when people work together and a program is ran well.
So, I went in to practicum expecting to learn about about poverty and to see sadness and to learn a lot about that, but that isn't what I learned. What affected me most and where I learned the most was through the interaction with the staff and through the books we have to read for our literature class.
1. To start off, if you weren't aware African time is very different than the time we are use to. African time usually means at least 20 mins later than the time you actually say. This can be stressful when you are set on getting work done within a specific amount of time. Many times we didn't get started on actual work till around noon. This was difficult because I didn't feel like I was being utilized as much as I could have been. I realized that time is just something that we make up to get things accomplished. I realized that there is no reason to bring the "American" idea of time to Africa when all of Africa is running on their own time. If everyone is moving at the same time, than it is fine. Plus God's time is not our time, so why would we think that our idea of time in America has to be the time that we go by in Africa?
2. Secondly it really hit me how different cultures are and it really makes a difference on how we think. There were moments when comments were made and my first reaction was to be offended, which would put me in a sour mood. After the first few times of these occurrences it hit me that I was being ridiculous. How could I even begin to put what was happening in Africa in to the context of America. If you think about it a lot makes up how we think, act, react, and interpret. Our heritage, countries history, family's history, personal experience all play into how we interpret and react to life, which means ours is difference than people in Africa. Once I realized this I approached conversations very differently. I was more careful about what I said and how I reacted so to make sure that I did not offend any one, as well as being aware that they are not necessarily try to offend me. Having this mind set made it easier to get to know others and explore this new culture. It also made me very aware of how complex the Lord is. I continue to keep learning that the Lord does not wear an American face nor have an American mind. We are all made in the image of God and therefore all display characteristics of God. To see how different people are just allows us to see more of who God is. This is what is so great about exploring different cultures... you aren't just exploring different cultures but you are exploring different characteristics of God and seeing new, beautiful things that were all created by the same person who created us. Isn't that AMAZING?!!?
3. Lastly, the African literature books that I was reading for my classes started to make me think a lot. I am not going to write too much on this because it could be a book of its own. But overall... all of the books involved tribes that were content and then white man showed up and brought turmoil, and most of the time the white men were missionaries. This made me really think and rethink what I am doing in Africa and what our ancestors did here. These thoughts have formed not only from the books but have also combined with stuff discussed in classes that we had in Rwanda. Skipping through a lot of my thoughts and getting to my conclusion thoughts.... I started to try to apply what was occurring in Africa to the bible. I realized that all through out the bible people turn from God and begin to worship false gods and there is always that person that comes to the people, or tribes, and bring the good news and tells them to turn back to the one creator. So... are we just finishing the story? Are these tribes in Africa just ones that fell from God many years ago and that one person hasn't yet come, or in some circumstances has just come in these last 60 years? Is the bible not over and are we finishing out the story? Are we doing what Moses, Paul, and so many others did when they brought God's word to the people?
So that is where my thoughts have been and a lot of what I have learned over the past month. There is a lot more I could have written, but I don't want to write a novel. Sorry if it is kind of scatter brained. Thanks again for checking in on me, I hope all is well in the states. And if any one wants an Obama belt, watch, bag, t-shirt, or pair of jeans just let me know because they are EVERYWHERE! Love you all so so much!
No comments:
Post a Comment