Rural Visit: January 23-25, 2009

Hey Everyone!

Four other students and I went to a village called Iyolwa in a city called Tororo in Uganda, five hours from Kampala. This was an amazing and eye-opening experience for me. I didn't want to leave, the land was beautiful, the soil was rich, the crops were plentiful, but most importantly the people were amazing and happy. I, in my American perspective, saw them as “happy” because they were content, smiling, or made me think that all was ok.

As I was walking through the streets, I could not help but think of all the things that they are missing and wonder if they ache for these things or even think about them. Questions just flooded my mind as we were walking through the village. Things like bank or savings, health insurance??? All these questions, just raise issues that I definitely need to think more about and I truly believe this is only the beginning of a wealth of understanding about this culture.

How do these people work? How do they recover when they get sick or when a monsoon hits and the rain destroys their mud houses and their roads are washed away? They work the land and whatever they need for the day, they trade it with something they have. They don't make money, they don't have electricity; they simply get up before the day light and take full advantage of the light; working all day until the moon light shines on them.

I was constantly humbled the whole weekend as I realized how much poverty I had in my own life. How much I realized that I need God's grace to get me through each day. He protects these people, He sees every life in here, He satisfies their needs, but what is it that put me in a healthier, wealthier place in the world than them? Why am I so blessed? Some of these people never left their village, they had never seen a white person, and here I am studying for a semester, in Africa.

There was a world vision center in this village and we met a man that works for them. You would have thought that there would be Americans visiting this center at least frequently; this man was in his late sixties and we were the first white people he has ever met. That is crazy to me! I am still trying to figure things out, but all I know that is that I am very poor, my definition of poverty is different, and quite frankly I really have no idea what it is.

On a lighter note though, I will say that I had a blast there as well. I convinced some of the girls to let me help them wash dishes, after assuring them that I did indeed know how. They said, “But your hands are so soft!” They finally complied with my request.

While we were washing dishes, a few of the guys slaughtered a chicken a few meters away from our station. After they plucked and skinned it, I went over there and said, “Oh, now it looks like a chicken!” The minute it came out of my mouth, I regretted it! What a stupid, American, town girl response. To me, a chicken looks no different than a packaged, boneless, skinless, breast; there is so much preparation that I take for granted every time I buy a chicken. There were little things like that I kept saying all weekend that really made me feel foolish, like mentioning bug spray to one of the girls or when asked if I like pork, telling them the way that I cook it (pulled pork in the crock pot). They just politely left me to figure out for myself that these things sounded crazy to them.

Another quick comment about the visit. Since four of us were in the same bed, I didn't sleep the first night but it was entertaining lying in bed listening to all the animals running around the house. Crashes and scurrying, my imagination was going wild. I wasn't sure what it was but it was close and loud and I was a little concerned. In the morning I found out that they have rats.

The language was Jap, “Yoga” is what I learned to say to everyone passing by. It means, How are you? The animals, the sounds, the smells, all so vivid in my mind; I really hope it always stays with me. On Saturday we had a huge spread for lunch under a tree. So peaceful ,and then we ate Jack fruit which is sweet, sappy and huge. You cut it open and peel out the pits and peel off the skin so you can eat the fleshy part; it was not like anything I've ever tasted.

I'm sorry this one is long, but I hope that I was able to give you a little glimpse from far away.