"Blessed" vs. Privileged

I want to start out this post by giving you all an update and then I will let you know about what I've been learning here in Uganda.

First of all, I meant to post sooner than this but I found myself with internet and in need of more so I had to wait until the store was open and until I had the courage to go by myself and buy some more. Everything here seems to be a fight for courage for me. No matter what I do, I have to muster up some scap of courage to go out and do it. I suppose that this is true everywhere, but it is especially true here where I don't know the culture and I stick out immensely. Aside from gaining courage, it's also just hard to proccess things when there is constantly so many new experiences going on around you.

This past two weeks were interesting. I got to work with some special needs children which made me incredibly happy! At the beginning of last week I went to a special needs nursery school called Small Steps in Buwenda, a village outside of Jinja. I had met Cat, the woman who runs it, before and she agreed to meet me there. She sent a boda-boda driver to come and pick me up from the apartment in the morning because I didn't know where the school was. When I got out of the gate to the apartment, a boda driver came up on his motorcycle and said "Alison, get on!". I suspiciously asked him if he knew where I was going and he gave me the Ugandan nod and complimentary eyebrow lift to signify that he did. I climbed on his motorcycle and he drove off. We got two blocks away and he stopped at a corner and said "which way?". I was furious. I said " YOU LIED TO ME! TAKE ME BACK TO THE BANK!". He took me back and before I got off, I sternly said " You do not pick up people like that!". Waiting at the bank was my actual boda driver, Charles. Cat's boyfriend was waiting there with him. I hopped on and we rode towards the village where the school is located.

As soon as I got there, I was met by many "you are welcome"s and a small child grabbing to hold my hand. Cat gave me a tour of the facility before leaving me to teach the children in the class. There were four children in the special needs class that day. Cat told me that there are seven all together but some of them can't get transportation and some of them come only a couple of times a term.

Two of the kids in the special needs class were deaf. Their names were Eshraf and Shifrat. They both have very similar features and were wearing the same yellow uniform, so I had some trouble telling them apart. Cat told me that Shifrat is more social than Eshraf. Most of the time, these two were off with another teacher, but I did get a chance to interact with them for a little while. Neither of them vocalize much and they don't know Ugandan Sign-language either, so I tried to get them to speak up more. I took Eshraf's hand and placed in on my throat so that he could feel it vibrate when I talk. I hummed different pitches with his hand on my throat and then moved it onto his throat so that he could try. It got him making lots of new noises which was encouraging to me and made the other instructors in the room giggle.

The other two children were Destiny and Peace (or Mirembe). Peace was very sweet. She was always asking me to sit next to her and attempting to be carried and get hugs. She had an easygoing quality about her as long as she was getting all the attention.

Destiny is an amazing little boy who is on the autism spectrum. As soon as he met me he was grabbing my arm and welcoming me to the school. Cat and I went into the office to discuss some of the childrens' files and Destiny came along. As we talked, he continuously pushed the office chair so that it would spin around in circles. At this point, I still wasn't sure whether Destiny was a boy or a girl because of the red skirt he was sporting. Cat told me that he recently got a circumcision so he had to wear a skirt. She said that it is fairly common in Uganda to do it at that age. Cat told me that her boyfriend remembers the procedure and crying for days. He says that his family decided to either get it done at a younger age or not at all with the rest of their children because of his reaction. Destiny was very rambunctious the whole day andd Cat said that he has been kind of unruly since the procedure... I suppose I can understand why. I tried to teach Destiny to match pictures. I attempted to get him to put the laminated bus picture on the other laminated bus, and to put the laminated boda picture on the other laminated boda. Just when I thought he was understanding he would flop down onto the floor and lie there. I grabbed his arm and he sat up until I let go of him. As soon as my hand would leave his arm, he would flop down again. I told him "you sit up now" and he got up for a couple seconds. At this point I realised that maybe sitting was a better lesson to be learned. In America when children have special needs, many of the parents have access to therapy, books, articles and other information about how to help their children succeed in social settings. Here, I would assume, that if the child lies down, they don't take the second to get him to do things on his own. Instead, what I observed from the other teachers, is that they stand him up by their own strength. I was affirmed, while working with Destiny, in the fact that learning can be a slow proccess that requires a lot of patience. 

Sadly, the boda driver I took to get to Small Steps did not pick up his phone later so I wasn't able to go back, even though I enjoyed it so thuroughly. No one else knew where the nurery school was and I didn't know directions to get there and didn't want to risk it by telling them to go in the correct direction and getting lost.

Later in the week, I went to Ekisa special needs orphanage. It was very different from my other experiences in Jinja because of the efficiency in the way the orphanage conducts itself. They have a well developed program and a lot of volunteers that come in and work there. 

Very quickly after I arrived at the orphanage, I was handed a sweet boy by the name of Josh. He has hydrocephalus and has trouble supporting his head. At first I cradled him because I didn't know his limits and I tried to get him to play with blocks with me, but he kept looking very uncomfortable and unhappy. A timer went off which signaled that everyone was switching to a new activity. Josh and I went to sensory where we sat down in a small homemade ball pit. I decided to try and see if Josh could stand up if I supported him under his arms. As soon as he stood, a huge smile formed on his face and he was lit up with laughter. It was amazing the difference that it made. I think he was feeling babied by me when I was holding him as such, but when I stood him up, it's like he aged two years right in front of me. I met many adorable children at Ekisa and got to encourage them, teach them, and feed them. When I left Ekisa, I got my boda driver to drop me off at Akola Project where I made necklaces with a beautiful woman names Sensa who told me about her four children.

This last week I committed myself to Jinja Connection, the organization for street kids. As I walked into the class room there were new faces that I had never seen. Little Esa, an eight year old that I have seen every time I have visited, looked up from his picture book and said my name with a big smile on his face. I sat down and read books with the boys. That day, I taught a boy who is about nine years old named Ashraf. We worked on learning capital and lower case (small) letters. Compared to the other two boys that I had taught there, he was very quick. He listened and tried very hard to do his best. I made sure to soak it all in because I knew that once one of the more frustrating kids came back, Rachel was going to give them to me to work with. 

At one point the kids went outside to have an active time. Normally we play a game called "in the pool out of the pool", but Rachel brought out the jump rope, gave an end to Wesswa, and started turning. They started out just jumping, then trying to make it through the alphabet in the middle on one foot, then playing another game that really confused me. After, we all went back inside for more class. At lunch time I talked with one of the teachers named Myko. I asked him what Wesswa's name meant (most of the ugandan names have been chosen for their meaning). He told me that it meant "first twin" and that normally the younger twin is given the name Kato. I asked Myko where his twin was and he said that he was probably dead. "Oh" I thought out loud, "Do you think it would be hard having your name's definition be a reminder that your twin has died?" Myko said, "It's not the same here. People do not take weeks off of work after a loved one has died. It is not a big deal. They wake up the next morning, get dressed, and go to work because they must. People die all the time." I guess I always knew that this was true, but it hit me a lot harder coming out from someone's mouth. I live a very priviledged life.

On Friday, I went to Jinja Connection again. In the morning, after breakfast, all of the boys went out to the nearby field to play soccer. I decided to join in on the fun and play defense. I watched as every single child ran toward the ball. They are all very good despite their age, but there isn't too much formula to go along with what they do. I later asked Myko if he had ever tried to teach them positions and zones. He rolled his eyes as he said "Soooooo many times. It never works". As I was playing, I looked up for a moment and set my eye upon something like 50 birds, most of them marabou storks, floating in majestic circles in the air. The birds here seem to enjoy floating in the distant sky in whirpool fashion. It is one of the most amazing and overlooked parts of nature in Jinja.

After playing soccer for half an hour, I decied that I would stand behind the goal and watch the boys and the birds move around in circles. As I stepped to the side, the birds started settling down from the sky into the tops of the trees surrounding the field. It made me feel like I was one of them.

After soccer, we all went inside and I was allowed to lead the rest of the mornings activities. I decided on two of my favorite games and we all sat in a circle with some desks pushed together between us. The idea of the first game is that one person in the circle starts with a rhythm and then the next person adds onto it until everyone has joined in. I think the boys really enjoyed the fact that they were allowed to be loud and crazy. We played a couple of times until it started to get out of hand. Then we went outside for the next activity. As the boys filed outside, many of them were continuing to make noises; most of them with a loon call as their noise of choice. Outside, I tought them a nonsense game called Togi-Togi that we play at Camp Blessing in the summer. Normally, the game is conflict free. People mess up and they back out of the game, but with the boys it turned into a game of call-outs and tattling. We played three times and then decided to stop because they were getting frustrated. They then asked Rachel if I could give them a dance lesson. One of the boys, Louis, was doing the wave with his arms in the morning and I joined in. I think he thought that meant I was a very experienced  break dancer. Anyway, they kept asking me to teach them dance moves and after I exhauted myself of all my hiphop knowledge, I taught them some ballet. They were really awful at ballet.

My cousin, Erica, came back this weekend which makes me happy because she is good company. I stayed up on Friday night until the early hours of the morning waiting up for her because she didn't have her key. Now I am overcoming jet lag with her (I woke up later than I wanted to this morning). 

I have recently found a boda driver who knows where the special needs nursery is, so I am excited to say that I plan on going back there this week. I think I will start rotating between there and Jinja Connection. I feel like those are the two places in which my help is going the furthest.

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Finally, I want to share something that has become more obvious to me while I have been studying the culture here and learning more about myself. I've started to realize that many of the things that I thought were helping my quality of life in Texas were actually hindering it. 

There is that story in the bible about the rich man asking Jesus how to get into heaven. Jesus tells him that he must give away everything and give it to the poor. I'm starting to realize how hard that is. I have been raised from birth with a certain cultural subconscious. I am white, therefore very rarely have I had to think about my race. I was raised in a family that taught me to manage money, therefore I have rarely had to learn or worry about financial things. I have always had a grocery store, therefore I have never had to worry about finding ingredients from various vendors in order to make things from scratch. Plumbing has always been there, therefore I have never had to walk miles in order to pump water from a well. 

I have heard so many people say "I am so blessed that I live life with such convenience". I am learning that my God is not a God of convenience. Yes, sometimes His way is easy, but most of the time the harder path teaches you so much more and builds character in an unbelievable fashion.

Now, I'm not trying to say that going to the grocery store is wrong, and I'm definitely not trying to glorify anything that I am doing here as if it is so incredibly fantastic, because honestly it's HARD! What I am trying to say is that convenience shuts our souls down. I think that part of the reason I am always so anxious in Houston is the fact that my soul becomes bored. I have this adventurous heart that doesn't ever get stimulated. I don't get to walk down the street in fear and come home feeling like I accomplished something by going to the bank or by getting groceries. It is normally just another exhausting task that I must mindlessly do by the end of the day. But what if we started opening our eyes to the adventure around us no matter where we are. What if we started looking into people's eyes and seeing THEM and not just their shell. 

I'm starting to wonder if Jesus was telling the rich man to give up his money, or if he was telling him to give up everything: his ideas about what life is, his comfort, his friendships, his family, his understanding of the world around him. The rich man was not blessed with wealth. The rich man was priviledged.

As I'm preparing for my last few weeks here in Uganda, this is what I'm preparing to focus on. I have trouble living life here with the Ugandans because I have been educated in a completely different way. I know that if I eat their meals every day I will become incredibly sick. I know that if I walk with them, my feet will blister and I won't be able to walk tomorrow. I am learning that I am in a place where my education holds me back from life. My understanding keeps me from understanding. I have not allowed myself to be blessed by God in many facets of my life. I have only been priviledged, and the world has convinced me that "priveledged" is synonymous to "blessed"... But it isn't. It holds you back immensely.

That being said, don't think that you must give away everything and move away to be blessed. But know that being thrown out of your comfort zone helps you realize what is truly helping you and what is truly hindering you. Let yourself become uncomfortable. Look for adventure and newness. Give yourself away. Be blessed.

All Things Work Together

So the last time I wrote, I was feeling discouraged and fearing my adventure more than embracing it here in Uganda. This weekend I decided to dip my toes into other options and test the waters of Jinja.

     One of my cousin's friends runs a program called Jinja Connection. A large problem here in Jinja is the fact that there are many kids who are living on the street. A great number of the children end up there because of unstable conditions at home, inability to pay school fees, falling in with a bad crowd, or a desire for money and freedom. There are many extenuating circumstances that contribute to the issue, but even more problems arise once the children are out of school and on the street. A fair number of the children begin drinking and sniffing paraffin. They become addicted and this effects them further. Most of the children have also learned to collect scrap and sell it for small change. Allison, the director of Jinja Connection, says that she once watched one of the children sell back plastic bottles. She watched as he put them all onto the scale to be weighed, and once they were all weighed, the boy pulled a rubber boot out of the pile without the buyer noticing and slipped it back onto his foot. The boot added extra weight to the pile so that the boy would get payed more. That being said, these boys have been on the streets long enough to learn the tricks. They know how to get by... but no child at the age of 8 should be "getting by".

     To attend the program at Jinja Connection, the children must arrive in the morning. They are provided with the means to take a shower, wash their clothes, and are given a cup or porridge. Later in the day they will have class, lunch is provided to them, and then they do activities in the afternoon. If they do not come on time in the morning, they are locked out and are unable to attend any of the days activities or receive food. This keeps the children accountable for their actions and encourages them to stay sober and attend class.

     On Monday I had the opprotunity of going to Jinja Connection to experience the program. When I arrived, the boys were washing their clothes. One of the teachers, Myko, gave me a tour of the facility and told me more about the program. Allison, the director, took me to Masese where many of the children in the program come from. Masese, which is considered the slums of Jinja, is where many of the resettled children from the program go to school. We went to pay their school fees. Allison told me that many of their children are top of their class despite their circumstance. 

     When we got back to Jinja Connection, I worked with a boy named Ivan to help him learn the alphabet in English. He is about twelve or thirteen and has been living as a street child since he was six or seven. Allison explained to me that Ivan's mother was a prostitute and there would be many men circulating through their home when he was young. She believes that he endured a large amount of abuse at home which drove him to leave and live on the street. Ivan was one of the first children that they had in the program who had a sniffing problem. He will go on binges where he goes from regularly   attending the program to coming to the facility high at lunch and crying at the gate because he can't come in. When I was working with him, it was really eye opening. There were so many things that I had to explain to him that I initially assumed were second nature. For example, I wrote the numbers from 1 to 30 on a piece of paper. When I wrote the number nine, ten dropped down to the next line where the sequence continued. When I asked him what number came after 9, he couldn't give me an answer because he didn't understand that in order to continue the sequence, he had to look at the begining of the next line. Children in America are taught, through reading stories with their family, that the next line continues what the previous line is stating. He was never read to as a child and has never attended school. There was never any means for him to learn that.

     Yesterday, Tuesday, I went back to Jinja Connection and worked with Ivan again. I was attempting to teach him the english words for numbers but he could not pay attention. It was like he was in a fog and couldn't see or hear anything that I was doing or saying. He had most likely been awake all night. It didn't help that I was speaking English instead of Luganda (his native language).

     There are so many sweet children here that are in poor circumstance. It can be overwhelming to think about, but if you look at the fact that they are striving daily to be successful and to make a life for themselves it is actually amazing. I am not surprised that they are the smartest kids in their classes. These children are more resourceful and motivated than any children I have ever encountered. Of course they make poor decisions- they are children! However, the reasons for their decisions are issues that many adults in America haven't even had to deal with.

     Pray for these children that hold so much potential and brightness. Pray that they would continue to strive for a better and more stable life.

     If you want to learn more, here is the website for Jinja Connection:  http://ugandastreetkids.org/jinja-connection/

     Today, I was going to go to Home of Hope. It is a home for special needs children that was started by a Ugandan woman. She gave birth to a son who developed menengitis and suffered severe brain damage from the sickness. After meeting many others who had their own children with disabilities, she decided to start a home to help support these children. The plans were set for me to go with some other people, but last night we heard news that the woman's son has passed away. The burial service was today, so we decided to postpone that trip. 

     Today my cousin, Erica, is leaving for two weeks to visit her friends and family in Canada. This means that I have lost my housemate and my tourguide. I feel a lot more comfortable in my environment now and my neighbors all work with Erica at Akola, so that makes me feel more at peace. We went on a grocery run this morning so the fridge is full of food and I won't need to take another trip to the shops for a couple of days.

     I will keep you all updated on other happenings to come. Thanks for all of your prayers and support. Knowing that there are people back home caring for me and my passions makes being at peace here so much easier.

As the rising sun smears itself upon the water's surface,

And the shops crouch on the road like colored clothing on a line to dry,

I think, "O how could I have been so wrong about the world-

All along."

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

Thank You Thank You!

- Alison

What Fear Keeps You From

     If you read my last post, I talked at the end about how my ideas for my trip here didn't work out a planned. I thought I had everything set in stone upon my departure from Houston, but God likes to shift and break the earth sometimes and we can do very little to stop it; however, most times, He makes beautiful landscapes out of what he changes.

     I've spent the last week and a half trying to come up with new plans. It's a difficult proccess to get in touch with organizations with no prior notion about how they conduct themselves, but it's an exercise of trusting that my passions line up with God's passions and that He will work all things out. Speaking of God working things out, I have already heard back from a special needs home and a street kids organization- both welcoming me in and providing me with the opprotunity to volunteer. I will be visiting the street kids project on monday to see how they work. It will be something very new and exciting for me (as most things here in Jinja are). It will also be very scary to jump into things so uncomfortably and blindly.

     Fear is something I have had to fight constantly here in Uganda. The culture moves in such a different way than I am used to. Because I am white, people assume that I can throw around money like it is nothing. They will also take most things that I say as fact regardless of who I am or what credentials I have. There is also a large amount of corruption here. It has been sewn into the society to a point where lying is not bad, it is just a way of testing your luck. I have been raised with a mindset that assumes everyone is telling the truth to me when I ask basic questions. Here, people are skeptical that everyone is trying to trick eachother so they practice this same trickery to get by. To me, it is terrifying- to them, it is normal and no one sees the fault in it. There are lines that society draws when it comes to corruption, but the problem is that I do not know these lines. I have not been trained to understand what is good and what is bad in this society so I am always on my guard. I am constantly aware that my skin color might as well be glow in the dark. There is no mental rest outside of my room.

     I went to the supermarket on my own the other day to pick up some groceries and, sadly, It was probably one of the scariest experiences of my life. No, I was not in any danger whatsoever, but I was on my guard the whole time and well-aware that I stood out. Sometimes we create fear in our minds to keep ourselves out of unknown danger. Sometimes fear is useful, and sometimes it goes too far. 

     In all honesty, I am very tempted to stay home all day so that I don't have to go through that again. I know that I came here to get out of my comfort zone and learn more about what God does, so that is what I need to do. My good friend named Sunset told me to "always choose adventure", so that is what I am trying to do. Even when I fear the worst, even when I wouldn't normally jump onto a motorcycle with a stranger in America, even when I don't know where the child's hands have been, I must always trust the God who made this world and I must always choose to love.

I must do

What I cannot do

with what I do not have.

I must trust

Those I cannot trust

With a trust I do not have

I must love

Those I cannot love

With a love I do not have

I must serve

Those I cannot serve

With a servant's heart I do not have.

I must try

To do with God

What he could do alone.

Thank you all for reading this and supporting me! Please continue to pray for me to feel comfortable. I am going to make a point of writing posts more often (However, I can't promise that they will be well thought out). 

You are all the best.

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

-Alison