"Now Close Your Eyes...

...and hold out your hand so I can give you something real."

Being here in Uganda-a-go-go-land, I leave my journal in my backpack and think my funny and hard thoughts to myself instead. I said it once and I'll say it again: I am hilarious in my head. At orientation they told us to reflect, reflect, reflect, and I noted what they said, but I haven't been able to go to a place where I feel I have nothing but time and all the ability to take my journal out and write. In pen.
How novel.
And so ((claps expediently)), it's time for an internal assessment of my thoughts. Please give me grace in my explanations.

1. My eurocentric worldview goes deeper than I thought.
For Post-Colonial Literature, we read an article by Chinua Achebe, and he evaluated the fact that early European literature has set the tone for how people presently conceive Africa. Before the civil rights movement [okay...I take that back. It's prevalence still comes up], Westerners viewed Africans as pagan savages (thanks, Heart of Darkness!), and now it has morphed to seeing Africans as helpless, poor, and ignorant of proper success. In paraphrase, he basically said that books about Africa talked about a reality he didn't live. It wasn't wrong, just different. In America, we call the helplessness "underdeveloped"---but really, as a culture...don't we really mean "uncivilized"? Are these the influences that makes me zero in on street children in ratty clothes and not the businesswoman walking to work? Have I been trained to see slums? And why do I still fail to give credit to the Ugandan's that have fluorished under the free market system?
A Ugandan friend back home excitedly asked me if I'd been to any big Ugandan mansions yet. She spoke with such pride. "There are poor, sure, but they're happy! You see? You see?" I angrily thought of the Shanty-town below those big mansions; and I wondered soberly, after this thought, who, in fact, was blind?

2. I'm still in the US.
My thoughts are incessantly with situations back home that I really want to work out. This little girl just wants to be loved and for people to feel loved. Can't a person get some assurance?! However, for some uncanny reason, tribulations are coming up and things are getting harder. I don't do well with uncontrol. Handle bars are my thing. I'm also focused on the harrowing thought that when I get back, there will be 500 faces I won't recognize and no one to eat with at lunch. Ahahah, grace, grace. I love that I'm here and the frequency of these thoughts are keeping me from being present. I'm trying to use my Jedi powers to keep me from drifting away from people instead of relaxing and allowing myself to truly ask hard questions about God, poverty, my surroundings and myself. It's not working. My team's hearts are breaking for children, people and I haven't even left Indiana. If I don't make a change, I will have wasted this time. Ouch.

3. Applying For Practicum
I'm really excited to go and use my skills here in Uganda! I'm also overwhelmed because these kids* are so talented and qualified. By talented and qualified, I mean intimidating. They've done so many incredible things for social justice and development in High school and college. It's humbling. And annoying*. :laughs:
I was worried there wouldn't be anything I could do, but some opportunities opened up in Child Development-Uganda that fell into my specialization. We'll see. I can't control that either :smiles:.
There were no relevant opportunities in Ethiopia so I won't get to spend my time there but that's okay. Kenya was cut because of travel warnings! KENYAN GOVERNMENT, GET IT TOGETHER! Haha, but I'm pumped for being here for October and getting to know the communities. Two more weeks.

*my term of endearment.
*hm, I hope my humor translates.
----
Reading our weekly devotional, Owning Poverty, the conviction was too much. The issue's topic was embracing the unknowing. "We have to start with what we don't know in order to receive wisdom in the area we lack it. It is as if God is saying, First, open your hand. Yes, drop altogether, what you think you have in your hand already. Look there, see it is nothing, dust, lint, empty. Now close your eyes and hold out your hand so I can give you something real. There is a lot of wisdom God wants to give us on this journey which requires a shift in our worldview. That will be harder to shift if we are clutching to it tightly. They bring comfort, but they are not the 'truth'...It is incredibly uncomfortable to not understand and be O.K. with that, to not race in your mind to solve things or figure it all out. We want to open our eyes and peek. Starting with an empty hand not only makes us learners toward other people, it puts us in the right attitude to receive Divine wisdom. If we trust God enough we will close our eyes."
I'm trying to get them closed. I'm trying to get my fingers open.

The pop music of the bar floats over the fence, meeting the mosque's call to prayer. Prosaism just doesn't seem to catch it.