Africa

I’m back in my hotel room in Kampala with plenty of time to think about my experience here in Uganda: to think about what I’ve learned and seen, to try to figure out what all of this means for me moving forward.  But it’s a difficult thing to mentally condense and explain.  Uganda, and probably most of Africa, is the kind of place that evokes a lot of emotions and thoughts.   It’s rough and raw and yet full of potential.  It’s a place of contrasts- of clashing colors, beauty and dirt, happiness and pain, chaos and calm.  Mobile phones and technologies are juxtaposed on a background of huts and shacks lacking running water or electricity.  And at any point you might see someone who looks like they stepped out of the 80’s, 90’s, or Little House on the Prairie.  It’s like having a snapshot of a developing America, only entirely different because of the influence of countries like the US.  When I see what they’re reaching for, some part of me wants to shout “Don’t follow us Africa!  We’re not that cool!  You don’t want our pollution and dependency on oil and expanding waistlines.  Don’t eat our white bread, eat insects and silver fish and paw-paws. Develop, but find your own path- a better one.”    

Things don’t always, or really ever, go perfectly smoothly in rural Uganda.  It’s a place where you must go with the flow or you’ll drive yourself crazy.  It asks a lot of you, and it consistently tests the limits of your comfort zone and patience.  You make the conscious choice to learn and adapt and laugh when things go wrong or be miserable.  And those things force you to grow, or at least they did for me.  I think it taught me to live with a little more flexibility and calmness, celebrating the everyday simple, happy, funny things that I usually miss in my busy life.  

In a few days I’ll go back to warm showers and consistent electricity, a clean apartment with a closet full of clothes, and a varied diet.  At the very least that contrast makes me feel thankful, and at the most, guilty.  But I think the guilt would only come were I not terms with the privileged nature of my life in comparison with the rest of the world.  Fact- I have many things that billions of people do not.  And that sucks.  But feeling guilty about it and giving away all my clothes to goodwill is not going to change it one bit.  The differences between my life and my friend Martha’s, for example, were at times quite stark, but most of the time it felt like we were just people, and we were mostly the same.  We share the same cares and emotions and stories, just on a different stage with different props, settings, and conflicts.  And there are things that she has that I don’t.  By saying this, I’m not trying to make light of the fact that there is a lot of work to be done in Africa- there are people dying of hunger and AIDS and other illnesses, people who lack basic rights, and a lot of infrastructure and business to be built.  I think I’m just trying to say that they aren’t people to be pitied.  They’re bright people who, like us, work and live in the only way they understand.  They could use our love and knowledge and technology and sometimes our money, but they don’t need our pity.  It helps no one.

    

The Africa I saw is a captivating place, one that I’m sure will be hard to forget.  It gets under your skin, and it draws you in despite the hardships- like a friend that you love but has some big issues to work through.  This friend is also a pretty blunt friend who stares you in the face and says “Yeah?  I’ve got a few problems.  So what are you going to do about it?”  I think the best kinds of experiences (or friends) are the ones that challenge you- they invite you to stretch and learn and give.  And Africa is nothing if not a challenge.