It seems to
me that, for my blog to be justified, it needs to be based on interesting
experiences and thoughtful, relevant ideas about those experiences. When I started this blog last year before
leaving for Uganda, I thought I was getting into some crazy, outrageous thing
that would be drastically different from anything I had ever known before. This expectant fantasy has never really
turned into a present reality. Of
course, some things are different, and I’ve had some new experiences. I can’t drink a glass of water right out of
the tap; I can’t take relaxing, 15-minute hot showers right after I wake up in
the morning; I can’t always just flip on a light (although power has been
getting significantly more consistent in Kalisizo – knock on wood); I go to the
bathroom in a hole in the ground; and I certainly don’t get the leg room I
would like while traveling.
I’ve also
seen some difficult things, especially out in rural parts of the country, where
well over half of the Ugandan population lives.
Kids walk for miles to fill a 20 liter jerry can with not-so-clean water,
which weighs about 45 pounds when full.
Twenty liters is considered to be the minimum amount of water needed to
satisfy the basic needs of a single person, so more than one trip might be
needed in a day. Women dig out in the
garden for hours with babies strapped to their backs, and they also spend a lot
of time cooking over very smoky fires, probably breathing in a bunch of that
smoke. One of the most common forms of
discipline is beating (sometimes with a stick, referred to as “caning”), both at
home and at school (corporal punishment is actually illegal in schools, but
that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen in many places). People need to use dark, smelly, fly-infested
latrines, some of which only have mud floors and a torn up plastic sheet over
the entrance (I’ve used one like this before…and I was definitely visible
through the holes in the sheet).
But,
really, after living here for more than a year, the different experiences don’t
seem different, and while dire poverty truly does exist for many people, there
are also many people who are doing okay, who are getting by, and who are able
to help those people who do find themselves in dire poverty. I see this because Kalisizo is not a rural
village – it’s a town. A small town, but
a town, nonetheless, with some people who are pretty well-off. There are some really nice houses around, and
several people form local organizations of their own to try to help lift up
other members of the community. I am
certainly not living in a little hut in the middle of a jungle, surrounded by
people who have never had any contact with the outside world. Most of the houses in Kalisizo have brick
walls and metal roofs, a lot of people have TVs, and people drive cars on (sometimes)
paved roads. Most importantly, though,
there’s nothing surreal about the place or the people. I’m surrounded by regular people, living
their lives. And that’s how I feel – I’m
just someone living his life. I wake up
in the morning, I go to work, I say hi to some kids on the way, I occasionally
turn the office into a day-care center when Max and Griffin aren’t around (some
of the kids nearby really like to color), I stop at a few shops and the market
on my way home, I cook dinner, I read, I watch a TV show or two on the computer
to relax, and I go to bed. What’s so incredible
about that? What’s so interesting about
that? Why does that need to be written
down and sent to anyone who wants to read it on the internet? I never had a blog about my life before I
came here…My life never warranted a blog before…What’s so different about my
life now?
One answer
to these questions is…nothing (or not much, at any rate). But, actually, that’s something, because it
shows the common humanity that exists among all people in the world. It shows that one group of people is not inherently
superior or inferior to another group, that most people, regardless of their
home, their culture, their religion, or their language, want and hope for similar
things, and that these people are ready to work together to achieve those
goals. These are important things,
things that are valuable for everyone to know, things that can contribute to
creating a more peaceful world of compassion and understanding.
Another
answer to these questions is that I am asking the wrong questions. The subject of the blog isn’t really me and
my life…honestly, that wouldn’t really be so interesting. If you are reading this, you probably already
have a pretty good idea of who I am (although I do feel as if certain parts of
me are changing as a result of this experience). Why would you want to read what you already
know? The real subjects of the blog are
the people and places that surround me. Many
people from my own culture don’t get the opportunity to live where I am living
right now, and I think it is important for others from my culture to understand
something about people from a different culture. Although the common humanity of all people is
certainly apparent, I am also definitely aware of differences between me and
these people who have grown up in a completely different place. Again, there is not a hierarchy here, in
which one group’s ideas are inherently better than another group’s ideas. This cultural diversity is simply a collection
of different lenses through which similar people look at the same world. The various lenses draw attention to
different things, and they help to see the same thing in a variety of
ways. By learning about another culture,
we can get at least a rudimentary idea of the structure of that culture’s
lens(es), which helps us to see things from a broader point of view. Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, “We
can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created
them.” Learning about different people
and places opens our minds to different ways of thinking, and seeing the
relationships between various ways of thinking can suggest pathways towards
completely new ways of thinking. So,
like the commonalities among people, the differences can also contribute to
progress, growth, and a better relationship with the world.
All right,
so it seems that my initial question is actually the wrong question. Whether or not I have the right to maintain a
blog about my life is irrelevant. “Is my
life really all that interesting?” is beside the point. The real question is whether or not I have a
responsibility to maintain a blog about the people and places around me, and I
think I do have that responsibility. I
should try to share with you the interesting lives of the people in Uganda and
the ways in which those lives are similar to and different from the lives of
people within my own culture. It may
still not be all that frequent (I am still kind of busy), but I will try to do
a better job of relating the experiences connected to this place and these
people. Besides the fact that the
stories of this place and these people are interesting, I think that the
importance of learning about a diversity of peoples cannot be overstated. To close with another Einstein quote, “Peace
cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.”
