Helpful Harmony

You might remember that, a while ago, I recorded a CD.  My plan was to take any profits that I made off of it and to donate them to one or more charities, development organizations, and other groups focused on helping people in need.  Thanks mostly to the efforts of Mom and Dad (I had been in Uganda for several months at this point), and, of course, to the people who decided to buy one or more CDs, we sold quite a few of the copies that the recording company had sent to us.  Now, it has been a while since all of that happened, and, up until now, nothing has been done with the money.  The main reason for this delay is that I have not been able to make up my mind as to where the money should go.

Living and working on the ground in Uganda, it has become fairly easy to see the darker side of development – corruption, inflated administrative costs, projects that don’t work but continue to be funded, organizations that exist on paper but don’t actually do any real work (so-called “briefcase organizations”), etc.  Lots of organizations do great work, don’t get me wrong, but it is often very hard to be sure that all, or even most, of the money you’re donating is actually going where you expect it to go.  Going hand in hand with that, I have a responsibility to many people in this situation, to make sure that the money they have so graciously given me goes toward a worthwhile, uncorrupted cause.

So, let me say that, now, I have made a decision that will make use of most of the money we have available:

Patrick Muleeto is one of the sons of my Ugandan counterpart, Max.  He is about thirteen years old (though I’m not exactly sure), and the two of us have spent a decent amount of time together.  Pretty soon after I started working in Kalisizo, Max started sending Patrick over to my house to practice on my computer.  Now, Patrick comes over whenever he wants (which isn’t really all that much, considering I’m working most days and he is only home during school breaks), often waking me up on a Saturday or Sunday morning so that he can spend some time practicing typing and then playing around with the games, movies, and music that happen to be on the computer.  At this point, he doesn’t really need me to be watching over his shoulder anymore.  He turns it on, I type in the password, and then he’s free to do as he pleases.  Just last weekend, he spent over five hours doing stuff on the computer – he even found that Angry Birds game, which I didn’t even know was on there – while I sat nearby and read.  He’s a great kid.  He’s smart, quiet, polite, and has a lot of fun playing with his younger brother Emma (short for Emmanuel).

Patrick, taken on Christmas Day, 2011

Anyway, Patrick finished up primary school at the end of last year.  In Uganda, the school year follows the calendar year, and each year consists of three terms, with breaks in between.  Primary school has seven levels (P-1 to P-7), and, at the end of P-7, all of the students take what is called the Primary Leaving Examination (PLE), and your score on this test plays a large part in determining which secondary schools will accept you.  The exam tests four subject areas – math, English, science, and social studies – and you get a numerical score, ranging from 1 to 8, for each subject.  Lower numbers are better.  My guess is that a 1 or a 2 is about the same as an A in the USA.  Patrick’s aggregate score, which adds up the scores from all four subjects, was an 8, so he basically averaged a 2 for each subject.  This is very good.  Aggregate scores from 4 up to 12 are classified as “Division 1”, which is the highest level you can get.

Max and his family are Catholic, and Patrick has already decided that he wants to study to become a priest.  The academic progression to become a priest is also a little different in Uganda.  After primary school, students who want to become priests enter a seminary that corresponds to the first part of secondary school.  Secondary school consists of two levels: ordinary (“O”) level, which includes the first four years in secondary school (S-1 to S-4), and advanced (“A”) level, which consists of the last two years (S-5 and S-6).  So, the first seminary that Patrick will attend matches up with the O-level, and then he would move to another seminary that corresponds to the A-level.  Finally, he would finish up with two or three years at a more advanced seminary, which could be considered equivalent to the university level.

Sending one of your children to seminary is not cheap for the average Ugandan family.  Good secondary schools are not cheap either.  Patrick was accepted into this first seminary, and, last week, Max showed me the list of fees for the first term.  For the entire year, the total cost is probably going to be about $700, which is definitely a significant amount of money, especially for parents who have several children.  In most cases, if the family can find the money to do it, as many children as possible are sent to private boarding schools.  Unfortunately, these schools are far above the level of their public counterparts, which results in an educational system with significant inequalities across the country.  I guess this sounds similar to parts of the United States.

Anyway, Max and I were talking about these financial issues last Monday.  By the way, I think it’s a testament to our friendship that the two of us could talk openly about what I would consider to be a very private matter.  I am usually not incredibly comfortable talking about these personal issues, unless it is with someone with whom I have developed a strong relationship.  With Patrick entering this higher-level school, Max and Teddy (Max’s wife) are finding it difficult to keep many of their older children in these private secondary schools, and they were thinking about moving one of the girls to a local government (public) school.  As I said, this would be a major step down for her, and they know it.  As the conversation was winding down, I decided to throw out the idea that I might be able to help a little bit, maybe paying part of one of the kid’s school fees, maybe Patrick’s, for example, since we have spent the most time together.  Max was very happy to hear about this possibility, and said, “Oh, yes, it should be Patrick.  He loves you.”  Putting my head down and blinking back a few tears (as I am doing now), I said that I would need to do some checking to figure out how much I could contribute.

I immediately shot off an email to Mom, asking about the total amount of money we had received from the CDs.  Timing was almost perfect, because I had an answer within a few minutes.  It turns out that we should have a little more than enough to cover all of his fees for the next two years.  After running it by Mom to convince myself that it was actually a decent idea, I told Max the story about the CDs and let him know how much we could cover.  For now, we have agreed to only one year, and, as long as everything goes well and nothing crazy happens, we can easily add on the second year.

Of course, this isn’t what I had in mind originally, but I guess that’s how stuff usually works.  You have new experiences, resulting in new perspectives, which allow new opportunities and possibilities to present themselves.  This decision is certainly not a sustainable solution to the countrywide educational issues in Uganda.  A real long-term strategy would involve working to improve the quality of education in government/public schools, so that all of the country’s children have the opportunity for a good education.  But, right now, using what is available, this contribution can help to keep one more child in a better quality school and can help two parents to provide for all of their children.

Let me close with these thoughts: This contribution is not “mine”.  Many people have played a part to make this thing possible, and I want to thank all of those people – you know who you are.  As I said, this was not exactly my original idea, but it seems to fit.  A need is there, the resources to meet that need are also there, and the means to bring those resources here to meet the need are easily available.  Besides all of that, in my own personal journey (in both the physical and spiritual realms), it seems to be the right time for this to happen.  So, once again, thank you all for the important part you have played in making this thing a reality.

Oh, and of course, happy 21st birthday to my brother Luke!

Is my life really all that interesting?

Well, it has been quite a while since I’ve even thought about writing a blog.  Part of the reason is that I’ve been pretty busy with work, and, when I’m not working, I really don’t want to do a whole lot of extra writing.  But that’s not the whole story.  I guess you could say that, over the past few months, I’ve had something of an existential crisis about this whole idea of blogging.  Do I really have something of value to say, or am I just droning on pointlessly about what happens to me from day to day?

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.”

Musical Memory

Near the end of last month, Max and I took a trip to eastern Uganda, to a town called Bugiri.  We went to visit the project site of an Irish NGO called Goal, where the organization builds houses for vulnerable members of the surrounding communities.  When Marc, Positive Planet’s executive director, was in Uganda in March, we had a meeting at Goal’s office in Kampala to talk about this project.  A few years ago, they had done a pilot study using the same kind of interlocking bricks that we use (Interlocking Stabilized Soil Bricks ISSBs) and comparing the costs with those using traditional burned clay bricks.  They found that, in the end, their construction with traditional bricks was significantly less expensive and required much less cement than construction with ISSBs.  So, this result caused some concern for our organization.  Goal agreed to let Max and me visit the site where they’re currently building houses, so we could get a better idea of their process and try to figure out why traditional bricks turned out to be so much cheaper.

So, we went and visited a bunch of their housing sites, some of which were still under construction, and some of which had been completed.  The quality of the work seemed to be good, and they really do a good job of getting the cost of each house as low as possible, while maintaining quality.  But, it didn’t take long to figure out why the traditional bricks were so much less expensive.  Normally, when someone lays a brick wall, the standard mortar that would be used is a mixture of cement and sand.  Water is added, which reacts with the cement, and the cement basically glues all of the little particles together.  Goal used to do that, but, because cement is expensive and because their contractors often tried to use less cement than they should have to save money, the organization decided to change to a mortar that is a mixture of sand and clay…basically mud.  Clay also has certain properties that help to hold things together, so it still works…maybe not quite as well as cement, but it serves the purpose here.  Obviously, clay and sand are pretty readily available in the country, so using clay in the mortar reduces costs quite a bit.  One of the big selling points of ISSBs is that the interlocking structure of the bricks creates a more stable connection between bricks, both horizontally and vertically, so you don’t need to use as much mortar to hold everything together.  The production of ISSBs does call for a small percentage (5-10%) of cement in the brick mixture, but this amount of cement would normally be outweighed by the cement savings that you would see when using less mortar during construction.  With no cement in the mortar, the cement in the ISSBs would just be extra, and the overall cost basically has to go up.  The walls have a heck of a lot of mortar, but there’s no cement in there, so it doesn’t really matter when compared to an ISSB wall.

After realizing this, I suggested the idea of trying to find other materials that we could substitute for some or all of the cement in the ISSBs, in an effort to lower the cost of a brick and further reduce our cement usage.  It’s going to take a while to figure out what kind of materials to try, and then to actually test them out…and there’s a reason cement is the material currently recommended (nothing has been found that’s better and cheaper).  So, this might end up being much ado about nothing, but I think it’s at least worth a try.

Now, the reason I started talking about this whole experience was not to drone on about the technical details of brick-making and brick-laying.  I want to go back to when Max and I were in Bugiri.  Goal had these nice Land Cruisers that we got to ride in when we were out visiting all of the sites.  It was quite a change from the cars and minibuses that play the “stuff one more person into the vehicle until it’s almost ready to pop like a balloon” game.  It was certainly nice and comfortable, but I have to admit that it was also a little strange.  Riding through the countryside in this thing, I sort of felt like I was riding in to “save Africa” on some white horse or something.  Maybe I’ve just lost the ability to appreciate a comfortable car ride, but I’m pretty sure I felt a bit of that “savior mentality.”  It kind of made me realize the value of the “Peace Corps experience,” in which we don’t get to ride around in nice, spacious vehicles and work in offices with generators, desktop computers, and break rooms (Goal’s office had all of this stuff…it was kind of nice to just sit in there and marvel).  We actually walk or take public transportation.  When the power goes out in town, the lights go out in our office and at my home.  The only running water is the one tap in my compound, which is on sometimes and is only used to fill up my storage tank.  There’s actually something refreshing about living like this, facing many of the same issues as the people with whom I try to work.  Let’s be honest…I don’t have to deal with everything.  Quite a bit separates me from the average Ugandan (for example, I’m typing on a laptop computer right now), but I’m certainly more aware of certain things than I would be if I got to drive around in a Land Cruiser all the time, and there’s something to be said for that.

My main point here is that I think I’m pretty much completely over this whole idea of coming in to save people.  Don’t get me wrong…I hope the work that I do makes a positive impact on people’s lives, but the whole idea of being some kind of “savior” or “bringer of life and hope” or something sort of leaves a bad taste in my mouth now.  I think at least part of me used to believe that I could be these things to everyone around me, but, now, I think I’m starting to realize that I don’t want to be that, and that I shouldn’t try to be that…

Through some combination of my faith, my perfectionism, and my occasional idealism, I have sometimes fallen into the trap of thinking that I can be everything that everyone needs…essentially, in Christian terms, that I could “be Jesus” – the perpetual suffering servant who never thinks of himself, only of the needs of others – to all those around me.  I can’t…why?  Because I’m not Jesus, or God, or a person with any more potential than anyone else around me.  As much as some people here might think that this white person can solve any problem (I recently got a call from someone who dialed the wrong number…after convincing him that it really was a wrong number and that I didn’t know anyone named “Flo,” he asked me to help him find Flo…how the heck was I supposed to accomplish that?), this white person cannot do everything (even if he does vaguely resemble the long-haired guy in the westernized Jesus pictures that hang in quite a few houses around here).

Nope, I’m just John, trying to live my life as best as I can and making mistakes in the process.  But isn’t that what makes our lives and our world so interesting and charming?  The fact that we are not perfect, that we cannot do everything ourselves, that we don’t have all the answers…No one’s pure light or pure darkness.  We’re all some shade of gray, and we don’t really know exactly what shade (as we look “through a mirror darkly”).  The imperfections, the inconsistencies, the mental battles with ourselves, the uncertainties…these are what make us human, and these are what make those brief glimpses of the divine, when the whole universe seems to be working together in harmony, all the more beautiful.

Over the past few months, I’ve realized that these things I sometimes see as weaknesses or imperfections – my mind occasionally placing greater importance on my own personal needs than on the needs of others, my frustrations with certain aspects of Uganda, my (relatively frequent) desire to have some time to myself (I recently referred to my house as the “fortress of solitude” as I was thinking about things in my head…in addition to not being Jesus, maybe I also need to remind myself that I’m not Superman) – these things are really just parts of me…that I shouldn’t necessarily try to deny them whenever they creep up.  The fact that I find certain things about Uganda and the culture of this place a bit frustrating just shows that I have a somewhat different set of cultural values, that I was brought up in a slightly different way, and I can’t deny that this is the case.  I like to talk about how we’re all so similar, how very little separates me from a Ugandan, but there are certain things that do separate, and it’s not right to try to deny that or to refuse to acknowledge that.  While I have to have respect for the culture in which I find myself, I also have to have respect for my own culture and for my own needs.  And that’s why I, personally, can’t be this ideal “suffering servant.”  There’s a reason the “body of Christ” is made up of many parts.  Having the faith to move mountains is a lot easier when lots of people believe that it can happen, and then we all pick up shovels to get things started (I think that might be a slightly altered Indian proverb…).

So, with these thoughts in mind, while I still spend lots of days working crazy hours and not really taking time for myself at all, I have started (or, more appropriately, resumed) doing a few things that help me decompress, de-stress, and relax (if I have the time).  Aside from trying to spend time with friends (which has become easier now that another PC volunteer is living in town J), these things almost all involve music (and now the blog title finally makes sense).  I’ve been listening to music a lot more recently, spending entire evenings working, cooking, or doing whatever to the sounds of the Beatles, Billy Joel, the Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, Queen, the Who, and a whole bunch of others in the classic rock category (including right now…John Lennon – post-Beatles – is currently cued up).  It’s really interesting to me how much some of my memories are tied to music…I’ll hear a certain song, and remember that it was the song playing as I was driving to visit a friend, or that it is another friend’s favorite song, or something like that.  So, I think about people back in the states a lot when listening to music.  I’ve also put a music writing program on my computer a few weeks ago, and apparently I had a lot of pent up musical creativity waiting to find some sort of expression…I’ve already written a fairly big piece for cello and piano.  Now, if I could just play it…  I mean, the computer plays it back for me, but it’s got that mechanical perfection that just so boring.  Here’s another example of how our humanity, our “imperfections” and “inconsistencies” make things more interesting.  The little idiosyncrasies of a real person playing an instrument (sliding from one note to the next when making a big jump, starting out a hair sharp and then relaxing into exactly the pitch, tiny changes to the tempo to make things more intense and then to sit back and take a deep breath) make each performance unique and a personal experience that can connect the people performing and the people listening unlike almost anything else.

Anyway, that’s probably enough of my “music is amazing” rambling for today.  The important thing is that I’m trying to make sure I give myself what I need, and to be better at accepting it when others give me what I need, while I also try to give others what they need, when I am able.  Sometimes it’s a tough balancing act, but, other times (maybe during those times when everything in the universe is working together in harmony), it all happens at the same time.  I am fulfilled, others are fulfilled, and everybody helps everybody else…no hierarchy, arrogance, or egotism.  Just selfless love that nourishes the self as it nourishes others…

Limiting Assumptions

In science and engineering, we sometimes make assumptions to help simplify problems and make them infinitely easier to actually solve.  This procedure is definitely a good thing.  Let me give you an example.  About a month ago, I traveled to Kayunga, a town east of Kampala, to help another volunteer design a rainwater collection system for the youth center where she works.  To figure out how much water the tanks should be able to hold, I made several assumptions.  First of all, a rainwater collection system is never perfectly efficient, and not all of the water falling on a roof ends up in the tanks.  So, I assumed a collection efficiency of 80%, which was on the low end of the normal range of values, to be on the safe side.  Next, we needed to come up with an estimate of the daily water demand of the people who would be using the tanks.  The amount itself was an assumption, and we also assumed that the demand would be the same every day.  It might be possible to spend several months watching the community’s water use and collecting really exact data, but that’s a little out of the question here.  For one thing, the volunteer I worked with will be finished this October, so there just isn’t enough time to do something like that.  One other set of assumptions involved the actual rainfall patterns in Kayunga.  Obviously, finding rainfall data in Uganda is a bit more difficult than finding it in the USA, and the data that can be found is usually fairly limited.  We couldn’t find anything for Kayunga, but we did get some monthly data sets from Jinja, the town where the Nile River begins, which is not too far away.  We had to assume that these monthly totals of rainfall depths from 2005 to 2007 would be a good representative sample for the area.  Is this true?  I’m not sure, but it allowed us to actually do some analysis and figure things out.  In the end, we decided on two tanks, each of 15,000 liters, and the next week we wrote and submitted a grant proposal for the project to Peace Corps.  Now, we’re just waiting to see if the grant is awarded…

So, in some cases, assumptions are good.  They help us to simplify very complicated problems and actually solve them.  But, when we’re operating in the real world, interacting with real people, assumptions can oversimplify and can cause us to miss important complexities within the situation.  We often make initial assumptions about the people we meet, but these assumptions can limit our appreciation and our understanding of those people.  All of us have very complicated sets of personality traits and background experiences that make us incredibly intricate, complex individuals.  We cannot possibly hope to understand all of the factors that affect another person’s thoughts and actions simply by looking at him or her, or by listening to a few of his or her thoughts.  Then, if we think about the real-life situations in which we find ourselves, we might realize that these are often almost impossibly complicated circumstances created by the interactions between several complex individuals.  Assumptions might help to simplify things, but they can also lead to misunderstandings, lost information, and a limited understanding of one another.  This realization has happened over and over again during my time in Uganda.

Let’s start with something big that’s been in the news recently, and that you may or may not be worried about.  From what I’ve heard, the “Kony 2012” video has made quite an impact back in the states.  First of all, let me just say that you do not need to worry about my safety, or the safety of any other volunteers.  I know that it’s been a long time since I’ve written one of these blog updates, and this has probably also contributed to any worries that might be present.  But the only reason for my lack of blog posting was the large amount of stuff that I’ve been working on over here.  I’ve just been very busy…the rainwater system I talked about at the beginning was just one example of all sorts of things that I’ve been doing over the past several weeks.  Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with the details of all my other work-related activities…

The point is that the topic of this video is not a recent development in Uganda.  It’s not even something that’s still going on.  Joseph Kony did do all of those terrible things.  He did kidnap Ugandan children, force them to kill their families, and then force them to join his Lord’s Resistance Army.  But he did these things several years ago, and the facts are being distorted if the video implies that these atrocities are happening right now all over Uganda.  By all accounts, Kony isn’t even in Uganda anymore…they think he’s hiding out in the jungle in some other country.  When Kony was here, he operated in the north, near Sudan.  For me personally, I am about as far away as you can get from that area, but Peace Corps volunteers are now being placed in the north, working to help rebuild after several years of conflict.  Some of my best volunteer friends are working with people in IDP camps (IDP means internally-displaced person…basically a refugee who hasn’t left his or her home country).  If the fighting was still going on, there is no way that Peace Corps volunteers would be up there.  Actually if something really bad were to happen in Uganda, Peace Corps would be one of the first organizations (if not the first) to pull out.  There are elaborate plans for getting all 170-some of us together and out of the country as fast as possible.

From what I’ve heard about this video, and from what I’ve seen (I watched the last ten minutes of it with some friends at a Peace Corps training earlier this week), I (and lots of other people here) have a bunch of issues with it.  I’m not going to go into a rant right now, but there is one idea I’d like to focus on for a bit: the assumption that there is one clear, purely evil antagonist in this situation, and that everyone else trying to “get” him is a perfect personification of goodness, morality, and justice.  It’s incredibly overly simplistic.  The idea that it is completely black and white, that we are seeing the forces of good pitted against the forces of evil, limits our viewpoint and prevents us from seeing the complexities of the situation and of the players within it, from seeing the truth that all of us, whoever we are and whatever we’ve done, have some good and some bad within ourselves.

I recently read the Night Trilogy by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, and this realization of being somewhere in the middle came out of my reflections on those stories.  Just to give you an idea of the themes of the books, here’s an excerpt:

“Suffering pulls us farther away from other human beings.  It builds a wall made of cries and contempt to separate us.  Men cast aside the one who has known pure suffering, if they cannot make a god out of him; the one who tells them: I suffered not because I was God, nor because I was a saint trying to imitate Him, but only because I am a man, a man like you, with your weaknesses, your cowardice, your sins, your rebellions, and your ridiculous ambitions; such a man frightens men, because he makes them feel ashamed.  They pull away from him as if he were guilty.  As if he were usurping God’s place to illuminate the great vacuum that we find at the end of all adventures.”

And here are a few sentences from one of my journal entries, written while I was thinking about these stories:  “If there is a heaven and a hell, we deserve neither.  I see myself reflected in the victim and in the perpetrator, in the sufferer and in the bringer of disaster.  We do not deserve eternal paradise or eternal punishment.  All are somewhere in between.”

A sermon I read by Dietrich Bonhoeffer has similar themes.  The responsibility for suffering and inhuman atrocities lies on all of us: “In view of such terrible human catastrophes the arrogant spectator attitude of a judge or know-it-all is no longer valid for the Christian.  Rather what really counts here is that we realize this one thing: these events took place in my world, the world I live in, the world in which I commit sin, in which I sow hatred and unkindness day by day.  These events are the fruit of what I and my family have sown.”

But, we don’t all deserve eternal damnation.  Each of us has that spark of goodness inside.  We all fall somewhere in between.  Because of that good part within each of us, we all have a right to live, so that we can come to realize the good and to let it grow.  My point with all of this is that we might want to be careful about making any sort of argument for “getting” Kony based on moral superiority or the fact that “he’s wrong” and “we’re right”.  The only argument I see is that his actions disrupted (a great deal) this right to live for many, many people and families.  He has definitely done terrible things, but these “limiting assumptions” that make him into a caricature of evil, and that make those on the other side pure, unblemished heroes and champions, while certainly making for a good story, do not reflect the true human complexities of the situation.  They rarely do, and they can prevent us from seeing the humanity of all viewpoints, from seeing the humanity of the perpetrators, with the past scars, open wounds, and imperfections of us all.  Reality is so much more complicated, and all we can do is to try to limit our assumptions and make the best decision we can using the incomplete information that we have…and having the humility to realize that, given incomplete information and human imperfections, our decisions may not always be the right ones.

Okay, I think I’ve spent more than enough time on that example.  Let’s get into some stuff that’s a little closer to my current reality.  I sometimes make assumptions about the people I work with, and those assumptions often do not hold true.  For example, being on time…I never know which way that one is going to go.  Someone will tell me that they’ll be coming over at 9:00 AM on Saturday.  I do my best to wake up and pull myself out of bed so that I have enough time to be relatively ready for the arrival.  Around 11:00 AM, I finally hear a knock on the door…

Maybe I should start assuming that people will always be significantly later than they say.  In many cases, that might be a good assumption.  But, occasionally, a 7:30 AM knock on the door and a voice calling “Hello, John?” will jolt me out of my deep slumber and force me to get ready in about 60 seconds.  The stereotype is that people are generally late over here, that “I’m on the way coming” could still mean like eight hours away, that “it is just there” could mean that “it” is ten kilometers away.  But, occasionally, the stereotype is broken, and someone who was two hours late yesterday might be one hour early today.  Once again, we are complex individuals.  We don’t always behave as others might expect, based on the way we look or on past experience.

People definitely make assumptions about me.  That might be unavoidable, in my case.  Many Ugandans seem to have grown used to the idea of people who look like me coming with lots of money.  As Peace Corps volunteers, we don’t have “lots of money” (although, let’s be honest, we do get a nice living allowance that lets us enjoy a few comforts every now and then), and we’re not really supposed to give out any of the money or things we do have.  That doesn’t stop people from asking…”Mpa kikumi.” – “Give me 100 (shillings).” Now, 100 shillings is like a nickel in the USA…not exactly going to buy a whole lot with it.  And yet, some never tire of asking, always seeming to think that I’ll change my mind.   I admit, it’s hard to say no sometimes, especially when I know that my material wealth is much larger than that of the person asking.  I admit, I have given some fruit away, but that’s been the extent of it.  Any kind of giving could certainly perpetuate the stereotype that “white people will come and give us stuff,” which definitely isn’t good, but there’s also a certain point where I find myself thinking, “You know what?  I have plenty of food in my house.  I just bought a big bunch of bananas.  Why shouldn’t I let the kids near my house each have one?”  Then, of course, I create expectations for the future…I could keep going round and round in circles on this for a long time.  Moving on…

The language assumption is one of the most obvious.  Of course, as a white man, I don’t know Luganda, so people immediately speak in English.  Honestly, I was annoyed at first, because then I didn’t get to practice my Luganda, but I can’t really fault someone for trying to be accommodating to an outsider.  Now, there are other times when people assume that I don’t know any Luganda and start talking about me, when I’m right there.  I am still nowhere near fluent, and there are many, many times when I have no idea what is being said.  But I do think I’m getting better at picking out words and ideas.  The comments that I can partially decipher are usually just very general assumptions about how a white person would likely react to Ugandan situations.  People sometimes think it’s funny that I’m willing to eat traditional Ugandan food without hesitating (of course, if you know me, you know that I’m willing to eat any food without hesitating).  People almost always think it’s funny when we’re being stuffed into taxis.  Now, some of this is probably due to the fact that I’m several inches taller than the average Ugandan, and I’m not as experienced at folding myself into a game of human Tetris.  Even though I’ve decided that I don’t really fit into the Ugandan public transportation system, I’ve gotten quite used to it and can simply “grin and bear it.”  I’ve had to sit on someone’s lap in the back of a Toyota Corolla with my head and neck almost parallel to the floor (so that I didn’t go through the roof) for fairly long periods of time, and I try to make it a point not to complain, groan, or express any sort of discomfort.

Just this week, I was stuffed in the back seat of a station wagon (3^rd row) with three other adults.  My knees were pressed against the seat in front of me, my butt was as far back as it could go, and the top of my head was pressed against the roof.  A number of Ugandans in the car were laughing, finding it very funny that a muzungu was partaking in the enjoyable experience of Ugandan public transportation.  I was actually somewhat impressed with myself this time.  I still couldn’t follow the conversation exactly, but I was definitely getting the general idea.  Then, there was a little debate as to whether or not I understood what they were saying.  An almost imperceptible smile had formed on my face at this point, and I kept my mouth shut, content to let them think whatever they wanted for a few minutes.  Eventually, we passed another white person walking along the side of the road, which caused quite a stir (because it is assumed that muzungus all know each other, of course).  I decided to feed the fire a little bit.  I turned my head (as much as I could) to watch her pass, shrugged my shoulders, and simply said “Simumanyi.” – “I don’t know her.”  Suddenly, the car was full of life as the discussion regarding my language ability resurfaced.  I could follow it enough to know when to laugh and smile, and that kept it going for a long time.  I even was able to respond when someone actually addressed me: “Muzungu, weebale okuyiga Luganda.” – “Muzungu, thank you for learning Luganda.”  To which I replied: “Kale, ssebo.  Weebale okusiima.” – “You’re welcome, sir.  Thank you for appreciating.”  Assumption disproven.  Score.

I’m going to end with some of the most personal assumptions…assumptions that I have about myself.  I often think about my limitations over here.  I’ve realized time and time again that I am not capable of doing everything, that I am not capable of being everything that everyone needs all of the time.  Some of the work that I need to do is, honestly, work that I don’t feel at all qualified to be doing.  The group of volunteers I came in with consisted of community health volunteers and economic development volunteers (water and sanitation engineering is a special subset of health).  So much of the work I’m doing is business development stuff, accounting, marketing, etc.  I was in the health group…not the economic development group.  Heck, I never even took an Economics course in college.  What in the world do I know about any of this?

The other big one is more personality-focused.  In person, I’m about as introverted as it gets (granted, in writing, the situation may change a bit).  Type B personality all the way.  I often feel like that is not exactly the best quality to have as a Peace Corps volunteer…as someone who is supposed to integrate into the community, who is supposed to be outgoing, to talk to people about their problems and ideas.  Don’t get me wrong, I generally like most people.  But, sometimes I just can’t keep a conversation going to save my life.  It takes me a long time to process stuff.  Someone could be telling me something, and I could be listening very intently, but, at the end, all I might have to say is, “Okay…yeah…that makes sense.”  Two hours later, after the other person has completely moved on, I might have a sudden realization, “Oh, crap, you know what?  I should have asked/said…”  Too late.

The other thing about being an introvert is that I don’t really like being the center of attention.  I remember sometimes wishing I was more “the life of the party” when I was younger, but now, after months of being watched, and being waved at, after months of having my actions scrutinized by all sorts of people, I realize that I am completely content being in the background, taking a supporting, rather than a leading, role.  If you’d like some Biblical references, I see myself as more of a Barnabas (supporter, encourager) than a Paul (out in front, leader), as more of a Luke (detailed, technical writer) than a Peter (spontaneous preacher).

The question I sometimes ask is whether these are truly limitations, or whether they are just limiting assumptions.  In other words, are my personality and my behavior relatively set in a certain group of patterns, or do I just let myself think that they are?  Do these limitations define the imperfect person I am and show me why I need other, different people in my life?  Or, if I could just stop thinking about myself in a certain way, could I transcend these assumptions and become “who I need to be” so that I am more effective?  Do I need to find a niche where my strengths and limitations can have the best possible impact, or can I alter these qualities to fit whatever situation I find myself in at the moment?

I think these questions might take a while to answer, and it will certainly be interesting to see how I feel at the end of this time in Uganda.  I obviously don’t have an answer now, but I would guess that, as with most things, it lies somewhere in between the two extremes.  Certain limitations help to remind me that I am only human and that greater fullness can be found in relationship with other limited human beings (and other forms of life).  Certain limiting assumptions can still be overcome, hopefully making me a better person than I am today.