Update from Joseline

Just got this painful email. Please pray for me as I consider what to do. Here is what Joseline writes:

Yes i also feel good now that you have answered my mail and you are praying for me Mummy how are you well i really dont know what you will tell her about about the money because i have tried to talk to her bout the condition was going from bad to worse i even printed out the mail you sent to us and she just got bitter she shouted at me before all the girls that "so now you have printed out this mail stupidly to show me how right you are" she even told me that my greed and narrow mindedness should not should not ruin her ministry.

Mummy she said alot and i have been in alot am just recovering from the shock so i really dont know how you are going to talk to her because i see my future is at steak and i think you should pray to the holy spirit to give you the right words that may not put my future at steak again because i know you are really hurt by what she did .

of recent when i took my list of requirements she quarreled and said you see how stupid you are now you needed this much it was 200,2000 shillings i was trying to save for your requirements you see how shallow minded you are but Mummy imagine she told me i have sponsors this is a man and woman sometime which are supposed to cater for all my school and am sure these people catered for the requirements and very thing even then, imagine if you had not left that money 760000 wouldn't i have gone to school with the requirements to say all that i now she was guilty and she was trying to make me think that she is right by the way, she even told me that she actually needed my mother to come because she wanted to beat me before my mother because am not great full for all that i get from her meanwhile i haven't yet settled am still so stressed because i have to spend the whole day without lunch and break fast and am scared i may get ulcers well she is saying that she is trying to save for my own good but i don't know whether it will be cheaper to sustain me with ulcers you still have to pray for me alot and by the way she warned me about writing to you which she called going behind her back ans spoiling her name so am really scared .

do you know what there is a time i have not been going to school waiting for my requirements when i went back to school people thought that i was sick because every one was telling me that am so skinny now and there is now life in my smile ok dear bye love you and am praying for you too

Considering...

Since my last entry, I could have noted any number of things, but I felt they would be a rehash of previous entries or else not considered enough to be of use.

I've heard from Joselyn, but not from Sally as the email did not go through. I need to call Sally, but am not looking forward to the prospect.

Meanwhile, the only thing I feel worth noting about the Lambeth Conference as it relates to Africa is a comment from Bishop Trevor Mwamba of Botswana. Many have noted that the Bishops of Uganda and Nigeria have boycotted Lambeth. Bishop Mwamba points out that this is not exactly the case, in an interview reported by "Thinking Anglicans"

Bishop Mwamba described the situation as it had been in Uganda, “where a special Synod is organised and provision passed which would penalise any bishop coming to the Lambeth Conference. That denied freedom of expression in terms of any individual bishop. The invitation to Lambeth is in the gift of the archbishop and it is up to a particular bishop, not a particular province, to say I will come or I won’t come.

“What are we saying about our leadership styles? It was the same in Nigeria- many would have been glad to come. So when they say 200 of our brothers have boycotted the conference – definitely no. Maybe given the freedom, one or two would have stayed behind. It must be clearly understood: the reason why they didn’t come is that they were forced not to come.”

I find this incredibly sad. What might Lambeth have been if all the bishops who wanted to come had come?

An email

This is an email I wrote this morning. I'm posting it here because I think it gives a sense of the complicated nature of the relationships between Africa and the West in a rather personal context.

**
Hello, Sally and Joselyn!

Grace and peace to you both.

I have gotten word from Joselyn that she has been having trouble getting money for transport and lunch for her beauty training school. What Joselyn doesn't know, Sally, is that I gave you 760,000/= before I left so that she wouldn't have to worry about transport money. I didn't want to tell Joselyn because I wanted our friendship to be simply friendship and not based on any kind of patronage. I could understand that you might want to give her word that there was money for a month at a time, but I simply do not understand what is going on that Joselyn is so anxious about getting the money for her transport. Is there really is a problem or is there a misunderstanding? If someone is misrepresenting something, that would break my heart. I cannot believe it, but I cannot understand it any other way at this time.

It is really distressing to me because I don't know what's going on. I love you both so much, but there is obviously some difficulty here. I really don't care what's going on; I just want Joselyn to have the resources she needs to get to school and back and to have lunch.

Please make sure that Joselyn has the money that she needs for food and transport. I will expect Joselyn to report that she has what she needs. Also, Sally, please do let me know your perspective on the situation. I honestly have no idea what's really happening there in Kampala and may never know, and that's not important, actually. But I do know that I want Joselyn not to have to worry about food or transport and I think it should be possible for us as sisters in Christ to make that happen without difficulty or constraint.

At 5,000/= per day, which is what Joselyn has told me she needs, 760,000/= should last 152 days. Even with the 7 weeks gone by in the training, that should still leave enough for the rest of the calendar year.

Please know that both of you continue to fill my thoughts and my prayers. I so value and respect both of you. I hope and pray that this will be resolved happily for all of us, and I wish you every blessing in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ.

In His name,
Laura

**

I'll keep you posted.

How most people spend their time

 

This is a picture of the store next to my apartment in Bukoto. I went there all the time to buy vegetables or fresh eggs (one egg cost 200 shillings). My neighbor who worked there would be there in the morning when I left for the office and there when I got back in the late afternoon. Occasionally I would go out at night, and I would see her there in the dark with a kerosene lantern for light. Most of her day seemed to be spent sitting and waiting for customers to come by. She sat on the floor behind the counter where she had half-cakes (a kind of fry bread) in a glassed in case.

If there's one thing I learned in Uganda it's that life is hard there. I got an email from my friend Joseline describing how she is probably going to have to choose between transport to and from the beauty college and lunch (I'm working to make sure she doesn't). This is not an exceptional choice. God only knows how many thousands of people are making choices like this all of the time.

Jesus loves the little children

Yesterday, I had Joseline and a friend of hers over for lunch, the first guests I've had here, and we had a marvelous time, swapping stories, cultural details and songs, among others. I tried out "Jesus loves the little children" on her, and she gave me the Luganda version, sung to the same tune. Here it is.


Yesu ayagula abaana,
abaana beensi zonaa.
Badugavu naberu,
bamyufu nabakyenvu
bonna ba mu wendo nnyo mumasoge.

Another party at Joseline’s, with a familiar refrain

Joseline called me up late last week to ask me over to lunch on Sunday at 1:00, which I happily accepted. I knew enough now to expect this not to be a tete-a-tete but a more raucous affair, which turned out to be the case.

It was a birthday party for three of the young women in Kings Daughters Ministries, and there must have been over 40 people there. We had a big African buffet for lunch and sat out in a circle in the yard as the chickens pecked around our feet for scraps. There were even party games of the most familiar sort: musical chairs, truth or dare (I chose dare and was asked to dance in front of everyone, causing a high degree of hilarity. Other dares included, “Climb that tree!” and “Do a somersault,” all of which people refused to do. I protested, but to no avail). We also had a cake and I got the tiny piece to which I'm growing accustomed.

Joseline sat to my right (I love this picture), and to my left I talked with a young woman named Ritha, a seventeen-year-old secondary school student who wants to study in the U.S. In Ohio, specifically. I warned her it was cold there. She wasn’t sure she would like that, so she asked about Minnesota.

She also talked about church. She’s been an altar girl at the (Anglican) cathedral in Namirembe, but she’s started going to the Pentecostal church because the cathedral is just so boring and dry. She likes the Pentecostal church because there are so many more people her age and because people actually move and dance there. Yeah, I’ve heard that tale before. I can’t say I’ve heard that many teens talking about their father’s multiple wives before, but the whole “Church is boring” thing—that was very familiar.

A superficial understanding

On Monday night, I went over to Joselyn's for dinner. What I didn't know was that there was going to be a Bible study and prayer group. It was a very subdued group, with the exception of their time of praise singing, and I felt considerably out of place. I was aware of the fact that I was breaking rules I didn't know about and couldn't do anything to prevent it. For instance, each time someone would begin to speak, the dialogue with the group was prefaced by the speaker saying, "Praise God," and everyone responding "Amen." Understandably, this did not come naturally to me. But beyond this rather obvious example, I sensed that I was stumbling around in areas I did not understand.

This was only reinforced as I came home via matatu from Wandegeya. Every time I have taken the route from Bukoto to Wandegeya, it has cost 500/=. When I arrived at my stop, I handed the conductor a 500/= coin. "It's 800," he told me. I got a bit shirty about it, saying that every time I had gone that way before it was 500, etc., etc. Eventually, I did get out and give him another 100. He slammed the door and went on.

I called Joselyn to report I was home safely and complained about the matatu conductor trying to rip me off. "Eight hundred is right," she told me, with great cheerfulness and not a spot of blame. "They charge more at night." Making me feel like a big jerk for getting all bent out of shape over 22 cents. On the other hand, how was I to know?

I think the first flush of discovery is waning and I'm now at a point where I have to work harder for every bit I'm going to learn. And there's a lot to learn.

Easter Sunday

“How was church? Was it boring?” Joseline asked me when we met in Wandegeya to go to Sally’s place for lunch. Truth be told, it was. I had gone to the early service—normally an 8:00 affair, but held at 7:30 for Easter Sunday—and it had indeed been dull. The best part was the Bishop’s announcement in response to Gadaffi that I mentioned in the prior post. The sermon was stodgy, the music bland (“Crown him with many crowns” to start), communion an assembly line for the 300 or so people who attended.

I was disappointed, and also in a way relieved. There’s not a miraculous place where worship is always full of life and joy. Or maybe the Anglican Church can simply wring the fun out of everyone. I’m sure it can if it tries.


Lunch, though, was a truly raucous affair. The weather did not cooperate, with the rain starting at 11:00 and lasting all day long. But the food was delicious: matoke (it's a cooked plantain dish, you see it here wrapped in the banana leaves, served with a meat sauce, surprisingly—and very good), rice, chapati, Irish (potatoes, that is), chicken AND pork, sweet plantains, beans with meat (a.k.a. chili, but not known by that here), cooked greens, and vegetables in a soy sauce, all piled on a heap on the plate (as you will see). Then, after digesting for a bit, we had bananas from a banana bouquet (in the picture at bottom). Later in the afternoon, Sally asked if I wanted tea, and so I had some of the amazingly rich milk tea they serve here: half a mug of tea, topped by half a mug of hot whole milk. And then, a cake, shaped like a heart, decorated with the words “Happy Easter,” a small slice for everyone accompanied by fresh pineapple chunks.


There must have been 30 or more people at this party. It was not only me and the residents of the boarding house, but friends, family, visitors, and guests. It was, as I said, a raucous affair. Outside, the chickens sulked out in the rain, occasionally coming on the porch and glaring in the front door. In the back I could hear kids playing at something or other. I stayed in the living room, taking lots of pictures, or letting my camera wander off to take pictures elsewhere, as people laughed and talked and I mostly let the accents and words wash over me.

At one point, though, I said I had a serious question, and everyone immediately settled down and focused to hear it. I said, “For those of you wearing trousers, how is it that you have no mud? I have mud up to my knees!” which was barely an exaggeration. I had felt very self-conscious amongst these beautifully attired people, looking like a grubby nubbin on Easter Sunday. I’m sure they just chalked it up to me being a mazungu and not knowing better, but I at least felt better, having let them know I had noticed.

I thought I should venture back at about 5 so that I could catch a matatu home before it got dark. Before that happened, though, there was singing and there was prayer. The singing came in the call and response form I had anticipated hearing here as opposed to the English hymns of the morning service, accompanied by drums played by one of the girls who lived there. The prayer was informal and probably followed some rules for construction and participation that I didn’t understand, so I just listened and prayed silently.

Overall, I’d have to say Easter was not boring. I was glad of that. But perhaps gladder still to get a ride home through the rain and the gathering dark.