Two Birds of a Feather: A Cross-cultural Comparison.

     I remember the UNICEF commercials from when I was younger quite vividly. They would start out with a man walking through an African village. He would be talking about poverty and about how no one in the village had food to eat, or a bed to sleep on, or even shoes to cover their dirty and cracking feet. I remember being mesmerized as I watched the man proceed to approach sad looking orphan children and set them on his knee. The child would stare through the screen and into my young eyes, and I would sit dumbfounded and wondering how I got lucky enough to be blessed with my house and food and family. My parents would always try to change the channel but I would insist that the infomercial is what I wanted to watch.

     I think that these moments held my first understandings of sympathy and empathy.

     For the first week that I was here in Jinja, Uganda, my dad came to join me, help me settle in, and try his luck at catching a Nile perch. We got to do some really beautiful things together. We did end up fishing in the nile but failed to reel one in. Dad said we had an unprofessional fishing guide: I'm still not convinced that those giant fish we had heard about in tales are real.

     While my dad was here, we also got to help with taking pictures and interviewing the village women for an Akola Project marketing campaign. As I have been in Jinja, I have had the opprotunity to learn so much about missions and Akola's mission specifically. They hire women in Uganda who have endured many hardships and provide them with an opprotunity to rise above their circumstance. The women in the village are sold paper, fishing wire, and varnish, and they are asked to roll beads. When Akola comes back to collect the beads, the women are paid for their work and given more supplies. This gives the women a steady income and allows for them to consistantly pay for their children's schooling and buy items like bicycles to get water and food, mattreses (instead of grass mats) to sleep on, covers to sleep under, bricks to build sustainable housing, etc. The beads that are collected go to the city of Jinja where they are strung onto necklaces by other Ugandan women.

     All the women who are hired by Akola work hard and take pride in the fact that they are now a part of the working class. There is so much hope in their future and they are no longer trying to make ends meet. They are planning a future for their families and positively effecting their communities in the proccess.

     When my father and I went to take pictures, Akola asked us to emphesize the success stories of the women and their communities. They wanted the world to see the wonder in the women's eyes and the fact that these ladies now see what planning and hard work can do to make their lives easier. I have been thinking a lot about those old UNICEF commercials and questioning how charity effects the lives of the reciever. I can see vividly that part of the reason Akola stirs success in these women's lives is because they feel pride in their work. They see that their positive actions create positive reactions and are then inclined to continue their good works. My cousin says that Toms shoes sometimes comes to Uganda and does shoe drops. She says that people would rather not wear the shoes though, because they are seen as a "poor man's shoe". I know that many people buy Toms thinking that they are giving a gift to someone else, but receiving the shoes feels like pity to the receiver and emphesises the fact that they have less than the giver. By teaching someone to make their own shoes with local materials and sell shoes to their neighbors, you would instead be helping that person value their life and abilities. You would be showing them that they are capable.

    

     My dad and I also got the opprotunity to go on a safari. It was breathtaking to see animals roaming in their natural states and interacting with one another. We saw elephants, giraffes, water buffalo, rhinos, and hippos up close. I got to see the wrinkles in their skin and hear the sound of their tails whipping against their backs. It was all so unbelievable, yet my favorite part of the safari was the birds.

     I've had a strange facination with birds for the past year. It rattles me to think about the many times giant flocks of birds have decided to fly right over my head during the times I have needed it most. Birds have been a physical representation of peace for me: a reminder that the things I am anxious about will fade. What amazes me specifically about the birds in Uganda are their color. When i first arrived in Jinja, I noticed how many birds were around me and it gave me comfort to think that although I was in a new culture and an uncomfortable place, I would always be reminded of God's peace. However, it wasn't until I went to the roof of Akola's building that I realized the colors of the birds. Jinja is filled with birds that look brown or grey or black at first but are actually clothed in bright yellows and purples and reds. I found myself looking closer at every little pigeon, crow, and starling to seek out the colors on its back. There was a point during the safari when I had my upper torso sticking out of the sunroof. I gazed around me and realized that I had rainbows of color flashing past me in every direction. I looked to my right just as an amazing African Bee-eater was soaring alongside our car. I threw my arms out and flew with him.

     The birds in Uganda remind me of the people here. When I took pictures in the village, I met a beautiful woman named Tito Tappy. She invited me into her home with pride, eager to show me what she had accomplished through her hard work. I could have walked into her home and seen it as brown. The ground was made of dirt, the walls were made of dirt, there was no electricity or plumbing, her children had clothes on that were too big for them, and she had clothing hanging all around the small room that all 6 members of her family sleep in. Instead, I looked at how beautifully Tito's eyes lit up when she talked about her hope. She sweeps her floor daily to keep it clean, she is collecting bricks to build a permenant home, she just bought some new metal sheets to roof her home and keep the rain out, the light shines beautifully through the door of her house, her children now have more than one  outfit to wear and they have clothing to grow into. There are so many beautiful things happening here. I understand how a person can be torn about the poverty in Uganda. When someone in their families gets sick, when something traumatic happens, it is so much harder for the women here to make things come back together; but I cannot deny the fact the the people here embrace life with a stronger grip. They fall to their knees and weep when they worship. They curl over and laugh with no fear or shyness. They rejoice with dance and song. They live in a bright and colorful way.

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     There are a lot of things happening here that I would like to write about but there isn't enough time to touch on everything. I did go to the other organization that I was interested in on Wednesday. They work to educate children around the villages. I went and volunteered with them for a day, but I'm not sure that I will go back. It is not that anything specific happened while I was there; I just don't feel peace about it and I think that I may explore volunteering at other schools and orphanages and see where I feel most needed. 

     

     When I first got to the village to volunteer they gave me a tour of their educational facility. While a man namied Jims was walking me around, I heard a loud scream come from behind me. I turned around and there was a young boy about twenty yards away from us with a big mischeveous grin on his face. It was obvious to me that he had a disability by the way he composed himself. He held his arms up with his wrists close to his shoulders, and he walked slowly toward us in a semi-crouching position. However, I think that the fact that clued me in the most was that he wasn't wearing pants and he was covered in dirt. While he was shuffling towards us, Jims told me the boy's name is John and although he looks like he was 9, he is actually 18. He said that when John was born, his parents were afraid for the people of the village to see their son, so they locked him in the house for much of his life. Then one day, by the grace of God, his parents forgot to lock the door and John escaped smiling and screaming with joy. Because he spent much of his life confined to a room, he was severly crouching as he ran out of his home and he scared all of the village with his scream and his composure. Because of his escape, now the village knows who he is and he is free to roam around as the other children do. By this time, John was standing next to Jims and I. I held out my hand for him to hold and he grabbed onto it. He reached down and grabbed a handful of rocks and gave them to me. I put the rocks back on the ground after I slipped one into my backpack as a keepsake. 

     Although I fell in love with John, the volunteer work I did there did not feel like a good atmosphere for me. I will continue to pray and search for a new special needs ministry to get connected with here in Jinja. My cousin says she knows some people who work with special needs children, so hopefully I will get to talk to them soon about what they do specifically and where I can get involved.

     Thank you to everyone who has been praying for me and sending positive vibes in this direction. The love of my community at home is overwhelming and your support keeps me motivated even though I'm not ever entirely sure what I am doing here. I love you all for reading this as well.

If you have any questions or comments and are having trouble leaving them on this site, please email me at alisoncpatrick@gmail.com

Photo by Bill Patrick