In December I officially finished my time with Mukuju. I had
been with them for a full two school years and it was time for me to say
goodbye. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I went through a lot of ups and
downs in my community and at my school, but through it all I came out a much
more aware, sensitive, and I would say better human being. It was certainly
rough many, many times. I was more often shaking my head and trying to escape
what I couldn’t understand than I was integrating and appreciating what was
around me, but despite that I managed to learn way more about life and myself
than I ever could have hoped for.
In my two years, I had many failures and accomplishments. I
went from wanting to go home after 3 months, to feeling like Uganda is my home
and fearing what I was moving to in the US. I had numerous project ideas that
were either shot down or just not successful. I had teachers tell me I don’t
understand Africa. Fortunately I never got physically sick (except one bad case
of Amoebas and some worms), but I most definitely got homesick. I witness
caning, hunger, ignorance in abundance, abuse of power in every capacity, and a
ton of avoidance of critical conversations. I also found the true meaning of
success; when it is not something that I did that made an impact on the school,
but something that I and the teachers created together, which impacted the
entire community. I learned so much about patience, understanding that
everything happens for a reason, and that I am capable of anything as long as I
can manage expectations. I saw the most sincere love and generosity between
community members that I have ever seen in my life. I saw the happiest, smiling
faces on children who have so much “less” than American children. I played
football with strangers, sat with friends for hours, and learned to stop saying
no to opportunities just because I am unsure of myself or don’t think I would
get anything out of it. More important that anything else, I exchanged honest
and true culture with my community members. After becoming part of the
community, a “white Ugandan” as I was once called, we were constantly learning
from one another about how they do it in the other world. I was able to give a
more accurate, yet still very personal, perspective of American life to my
friends and family there; in return I received so much perspective on why life
was the way it was in Uganda, really digging below the surface of all the
troubling things that I simply could not wrap my head around on my own.
Ultimately, I learned to give and receive and to understand how important both
of those are for building relationships on this planet.
I also learned a lot about humanity. People around the world
are all different, and all the same. I watched children learning how to swim
and could have easily been in America. I had conversations with elderly
Ugandans and easily could have been speaking with elderly Americans. I also
heard language and expressions that were so bizarre to me that I thought I was
on another planet. Yet, once I dug deeper the conversations these teenagers
were having were the same conversations American teenagers have. I saw a lot of
half-finished buildings, terrible roads, death and garbage right on the street,
broken everything, homes made out of mud bricks with grass-thatched roofs,
children naked and dirty, cars being pushed to start, getting water from rather
questionable sources, carrying everything from food to furniture on top of
heads, middle aged men passed out under a tree, young women passed out under a
tree, children climbing mango trees with the finesse of tiny monkeys, and every
range of emotion known to human beings. At first most of this amazed and
shocked me. But eventually I began to understand something. This is the way
people live here. It is different. It is not bad or wrong or worse than how I
am used to living. It is just different. People still have shelter, they just
choose to use local materials and build it themselves because they don’t have a
lot of income to spend on a house—but it will last a lifetime. People still eat
and cook food, they just grow it in their backyard because that is what people do;
why spend a ton of money on groceries when you can go 10ft and get it for free?
People like to relax and distress, so they do it sitting under a tree with
shade or playing games with friends. People need water, but there is not always
a secure and safe place to get it. So they get what they can and take it home
to boil it and make it potable. Their lives are different, but not wrong. If
anything, the way people live in most of Uganda is just more honest than how we
live in America. Living is hard. It takes a lot of effort and resources for
society to function and it is not always going to be perfect or pretty.
Ugandans accept that and own that. And even despite the conditions they do live
in, I swear to god I never stopped getting comments about how dirty or wrinkled
my clothes were!
I witness and experienced an awful lot of disheartening and
discouraging things while I was in Mukuju as well. Infrastructure is virtually
non-existent and because of rampant corruption, nothing ever improves or gets
done. The school system is a hot mess and no one is even talking about it.
Power is abused left and right and it goes all the way from the top to the
bottom. Someone at the top is getting their power taken away from them, so they
have to do the same to the people below them to feel some level of pride. Right
down to the kids who get beat so they go and beat animals. Sickness is
everywhere and despite the large amounts of food, children are not getting
nutrition. Very little access to safe water and virtually no one has
electricity at home (yet every single person has a cell phone). On the flip
side, I saw some of the most beautiful human moments of my life. There is no
insurance there, so community and family members are that insurance. Someone
needs money for their kids to go to school, everyone comes together to chip in.
Someone dies and the family needs help to have a funeral, the schools and
churches collect the smallest amounts from the children and parishioners to
help make sure there is food at the funeral. Children do not have the option of
asking mommy and daddy for toys, so they make their own from scraps of metal
and tires they find in the trading center and it brings them so much joy and
happiness it made me wonder why I never thought of doing that. You are a
visitor? You are absolutely most welcome. Every house in my area was so happy
and eager to invite me over and talk. Bonus was that I was definitely going to
be served food, and tons of it. Does that happen in small American
neighborhoods, overwhelming acceptance and curiosity of total strangers? If you
live in a place like that please let me know, because I miss it every day. Are
you going on public transport somewhere? Sure the ride is going to take you
hours longer than it should, it will be hot, you will arrive filthy, and the
road will be nauseating. But you will have amazing conversation the entire way,
letting you forget the discomfort, and leave the taxi with 2-3+ new friends.
I will never forget Mukuju. I can hope they won’t forget me
and that my work made some sort of an impact beyond my time there. But I know
for sure they have made one on me. I will never look at the world in the same
way, blindly assuming things or judging what I see based on appearances without
questioning why it is that way. I won’t shrug people off as just another
person, but will try to listen to them and get to know them because they are
another person. I will strive not to take my family, friends, and community for
granted anymore, because they are going to be the people that could really save
my life if I ever get into serious trouble. I will hope to value difference and
embrace it, because that is the beauty of life and that is the one thing that
every single person on earth has in common: uniqueness in our experiences. I am
also going to work, every day, at pushing myself and taking on challenges so
that I can continue to grow and learn. Looking back, I could have left when it
got difficult. The culture shock really did me in and if I had found a job to
go home to I would have left. Then I would have missed everything. I would have
left not knowing Uganda and having a total surface-level, and wrong, impression
of it. I would also have not grown one bit beyond my comfort zone that I left
for Peace Corps with, which would have meant I missed the point of going in the
first place. So thank you to my friends and family back home for supporting me
in my decision to go and encouraging me to stick it out and staying with me for
the entire journey. Thank you to my friends and family in Uganda. You have
taught be so much, experienced so much with me, and shaped my future. Beyond
that, thank you for accepting a total stranger, embracing me, and loving me. Afwoyo
swa swa swa.
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